--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Tuesday, June 11th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, what polls say about how voters are reacting after Trump was found guilty, fears that history is repeating itself in Darfur, and how you could get a payout if it rains on your next beach trip. But first, let's look at some other big stories in the news.
--:-- Hunter Biden has been found guilty by a jury in Delaware on three felony counts for lying on a federal firearms application. The jury sided with the prosecution, which said Hunter Biden made false statements when he filled out paperwork to buy a gun in 2018, claiming he was not addicted to or using illegal drugs at the time. He was also found guilty of unlawfully possessing that gun for 11 days as a drug user.
--:-- Dan Abrams: The moment that this case was going to trial, it was immediately clear that the defense was going to be in trouble based on the technical crime that we're talking about here. It's still very unlikely that he would serve any prison time. Now, remember, there was initially a plea deal, but once that plea deal fell through, the prosecutors threw the book at Hunter Biden.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The jury deliberated for just over three hours before reaching a verdict. The Washington Post reports that Hunter Biden showed no emotion as the verdict was read and left the courthouse holding his wife's hand. He could face up to 25 years in prison, though first-time offenders rarely face the maximum sentence. President Biden said last week he would not pardon his son if convicted. Hunter Biden also faces another federal trial on tax charges set to begin in September.
--:-- Dan Abrams: In major tech news, Apple revealed Apple Intelligence, a new suite of artificial intelligence features coming to the iPhone, iPad and Mac. It's part of a long anticipated announcement of its AI strategy and involves a deal with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Apple says new AI-powered features will allow users to manage their notifications, write emails, reports, and personal text messages. It will also allow one app to interact with another.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Washington Post reports how the announcement underscores just how much Silicon Valley is betting its future on AI. And finally, a senior Hamas official outside of Gaza says the group accepts the ceasefire deal endorsed by President Biden and that it's ready to negotiate details. U Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that a hopeful sign but there still needs to be word from Hamas leaders inside Gaza. Yesterday the U Security Council voted to endorse the ceasefire deal. If implemented, the plan would start with a six-week pause in fighting. Hamas would release hostages, and Israel would release Palestinian prisoners.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's been nearly two weeks since a jury in New York found former President Trump guilty on 34 criminal charges. The verdict marks the first time that any former president has been convicted of a felony, let alone a person who stands a good chance of becoming the next president. We have at least five national polls that have been conducted since Trump's verdict so far.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So I asked Apple News editor Gideon Resnick to break down what these polls are telling us, beginning with how Republican voters are responding. Many Republicans are sticking with Donald Trump, the vast majority. But about 10 percent of registered Republican voters in a Reuters-Ipsos poll said they are now less likely to vote for Trump. That same poll did find that a little more than half of Republicans said the case would really just have no impact on their vote. And about a little over a third said they were more likely to support Trump.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We also have some polling from the New York Times-Siena College that really tried to do something interesting where they talked to the same people after the verdict. About 2,000 people they'd previously surveyed called them again to see what they had to say. What'd they find? Basically, about 7% of people that they talked to who told them they had previously supported Trump at this point were now either backing Biden or were undecided.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Okay, so we talked about Republicans. How about independents? And also, did these polls capture what people think of the verdict? They did, in fact, capture what people think of the verdict. So let's talk about a few numbers here. Independents are a group, as you say, that we do want to pay attention to. In an ABC News Ipsos poll, about 52 percent of independent voters said that Trump should end his candidacy as a result of the verdict.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So what is the bottom line then here? What does this all mean for November? That is the chase that we are trying to cut to. So let's just be clear about all of this from the jump. Whenever we talk about polls, they need to be taken with a little bit of a grain of salt. They capture attitudes at a very particular moment in time, that particular moment that you might be called by said pollster.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We're still quite a few months away. A lot can change. We don't have a ton of polling from a number of swing states that we know are going to be determinative. And we also know that voters said in that CBS poll that we talked about that other issues are still really important for them. One that consistently comes up, of course, is the economy. Then there's the kind of candidate side of this, right? How do the candidates respond to this news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There's the upcoming sentencing for Trump in July that could kind of keep the story alive. He himself is also keeping the verdict in the news. He's done at least a handful of interviews where he brings it up and he talks about how he is going to seek revenge if he is elected for another term in office. And then there's the Biden side of this too, right? What does the Biden campaign say? How does Biden talk about it in this upcoming debate that the two of are going to have in just a few weeks now.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So a lot can happen, Yasmeen. That's the big takeaway. But I do think that it's worth paying attention to what we're seeing in these polls right now. There's a small movement, but it's striking people as significant. Gideon Resnick, Apple News editor. Thank you so much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, thank you, Yasmeen.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This week, the United Nations says more than a year of fighting in Sudan has now displaced 10 million people within the country. Two million more have fled the country entirely. Since April of last year, thousands of people, including children, have been killed in fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: The magnitude of the crisis has drawn comparisons to the early 2000s in Sudan. That's when an estimated 300,000 people were killed, and what the U.S. refers to as the first genocide of this century. As Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., puts it, history is repeating itself.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Nicholas Barrio covers East Africa for the Wall Street Journal. He tells the story of a woman named Hanna Adin, a mom of three who's been living in a refugee camp since childhood. She asked the journal not to use her last name. Recently, the camp has come under attack. An artillery shell tore through the roof of her home killing her 14-year-old son.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: She a representative of this generation of people who have grown up into the camp got their own children but then the camp all of a sudden came under attack. Hana Adin didn't have time to mourn her son's death. She grabbed her youngest two children and ran.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Experts believe the RSF paramilitary is responsible for the attack at her camp, though the group has denied involvement. And there are growing concerns that the violence we're seeing is happening along racial and ethnic lines. The RSF is dominated by Arab fighters and Arab militias, and then the armed groups are perceived to be defending the black communities.
--:-- Nicholas Barrio: And once you bring in that kind of ethnicity, then the attacks become so vicious and so brutal. People fear the conflict will get worse unless the international community pays more attention. As for Hana Adin, she hopes to one day make it back to the camp to find her son's grave. She says the camp is the only place she's ever known as home.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Finally, you can plan your summer vacation down to the minute if you want to. Where you'll stay, when you go to the beach, all the places you want to eat. But what you can't control is the weather. And climate change means there's a greater chance that extreme weather could disrupt your next trip. The Washington Post looks at the growing business of weather guarantees, which can give you money if bad weather messes up your trip.
--:-- [Music starts playing]
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's a different thing than travel insurance. That typically pays out if your vacation is canceled or cut short by illness or flight mishaps. But weather guarantees are more about trips that happen but aren't as fun because of bad weather. So you might get a credit or payment if rain ruins your beach vacation or camping trip, or if there's not enough snow when you're skiing.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Washington Post spoke to a cruise line based in Norway that has started a Northern Lights Promise. Basically, if you go on one of their tours during certain parts of the year and see no aurora, you can get another cruise free. You'll have to read the fine print and decide if weather guarantees are worth spending money on. Experts The Post spoke with said you're more likely to see more of these offers as more people worry about weather affecting their trips.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. The New Yorker looks at the kids' cartoon Cocomelon, which is now streamed for billions of hours each year. If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
