--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Monday, May 13th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shimidabasu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, why most of Trump's criminal trials are on hold, money's running out for American veterans exposed to dangerous radiation, and introducing the most boring man on the planet. But first, let's take a look at some other stories in the news, starting with developments in Gaza.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The U.N. agency operating there says 300,000 people have fled Rafah. They ran after Israel issued a partial evacuation order. It's not clear where civilians who've been sheltering in the area can go, especially if Israel moves ahead with a full ground assault on the city.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Humanitarian aid has been scarce since Israel moved troops there. Israel says it's opening a crossing to allow more supplies in.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS Israel hasn't shown a clear plan to protect civilians in Rafa, and he's critical of doing a large-scale invasion.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As we look at Rafa, they may go in and have some initial success, but potentially at an incredibly high cost to civilians, but one that is not durable, one that's not sustainable. And they will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency because a lot of armed Hamas will be left no matter what they do in Rafe.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Israel marked its Memorial Day over the weekend, mourning fallen soldiers and those killed in the attack on October 7th. There were also widespread protests with calls for early elections and a ceasefire deal to bring home hostages held by Hamas.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Protesters also spoke out at various American graduation ceremonies over the weekend. At Duke University yesterday, a sizable group of students walked out on Speaker Jerry Seinfeld, who's been supportive of Israel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Social media video picked up a lot of boos and chants of Free Palestine, mixed with cheers for the comedian. At Virginia Commonwealth University, dozens of students walked out of commencement over the weekend, where Governor Glenn Youngkin was the speaker.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And smoke from raging wildfires in Canada is blowing across the border into the U.S. Air quality alerts have been triggered in Minnesota.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Last year Canadian wildfires got so bad that 11 U states had days with unhealthy and hazardous air quality.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Donald Trump's criminal case in Manhattan continues this week with Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, expected to testify.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Cohen is a central witness for prosecutors who accused the former president of falsifying business records around hush money payments to an adult film actor, all part of an effort, prosecutors say, to help Trump win the 2016 election.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He's pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony charges against him. Remember that this case in Manhattan is just one of four criminal cases against the former president and is considered by many legal experts to be the least significant.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But it is the only one that has made it to trial and could very well be the only one that does before November.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: I'm Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico. I spoke to you from outside the Manhattan Criminal Court building where Trump is on trial.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: Trump's lawyers have substantive legal arguments that they're making in all four of these cases. But it's pretty clear that the overarching strategy in each of them can be summed up as delay, delay, delay.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: And that strategy seems to be working. The judge overseeing Trump's classified documents case in Florida postponed the trial indefinitely.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: In Georgia, the state court of appeals agreed to take up Trump's bid to disqualify the prosecutor, Fannie Willis. She's charging the former president with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: And then there's arguably the most serious case against Trump. Federal charges in Washington of conspiring to derail the transfer of power to Joe Biden.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: The case had been scheduled to go to trial two months ago, but it's also on hold, with the U.S. Supreme Court yet to rule on Trump's appeal claiming presidential immunity.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: These court delays are quite a shift from last year, when it seemed like Trump's legal obstacles posed more of a threat to his presidential campaign.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: And it also means that there's more focus on the case in New York unfolding now.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: Trump critics, especially his liberal legal critics, have been increasingly putting more of their chips maybe in some cases almost all of their chips on this hush money trial up in New York even though many people thought it was sort of the least serious of the four criminal cases that have been filed against him
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Each count in Trump hush money case carries a maximum prison sentence of four years. But if he's convicted, he may only get probation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And appeals could go on for months after. So it looks unlikely that the criminal justice system alone could prevent Trump's return to the White House.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: American veterans and others who are exposed to radiation and nuclear tests now face a difficult situation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A federal program that pays them for long-term health damage expires in a few weeks.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Lincoln Gralfs is one of the vets exposed at an atomic bomb test in the 1940s. He told NPR there have been all kinds of health issues ever since.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I am affected by this thing, as far as I'm concerned, lifetime, because it's in my blood.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: At 101 years old, Graufs is America's oldest known atomic veteran and just one of an estimated 200,000 service members who were part of nuclear testing and cleanup efforts.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: For more than three decades, they've been supported by the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RICA, It's given out nearly $3 billion to help them deal with the long-term health effects of their work.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Keith Kiefer leads the National Association of Atomic Veterans. He talked to NPR about the consequences if Congress doesn't renew support.
--:-- Keith Kiefer: Often, RICA is the difference for these veterans between becoming bankrupt or becoming homeless.
--:-- Keith Kiefer: So it's, you know, it's a godsend.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: There's been more discussion recently about the devastating power of nuclear testing in the wake of the Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And bipartisan bills to keep the federal program going have passed the Senate. But the House hasn't taken up RICA.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Some GOP members say they worry about the cost. But Republican Senator Josh Hawley is urging his House colleagues to pass the bill, and quickly.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He's from Missouri, where generations of people have been exposed to radioactive waste tied to the Manhattan Project.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hawley has said point-blank, The government poisoned these people, and it's now our duty to take care of them.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Democratic Senator Ben Ray Lujan is from New Mexico, one of the sites of the Manhattan Project, and he told NPR he agrees.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We need to pass this. This injustice is far too long. It's decades and decades old.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This is not a blue state or red state issue This is an American issue
--:-- Yasmin Khan: NPR reports that this week atomic veterans are in Washington to pressure lawmakers to approve the plan
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And finally, there's this wonderful video that's made its way online from a VHS recording from 1989.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's got kind of a cult following. Welcome to the Mac Academy tutorial system presented by Florida Marketing International Incorporated.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's posted to YouTube as the most boring video ever made, and it's been played more than 3 million times.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: People listen to it to help them fall asleep.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: My name is Randy Smith, and over the next couple of hours, we'll be discussing Microsoft Word.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We'll be going over the basics of that program. To be fair, the Wall Street Journal says Smith has a voice that isn't so much boring as it is comforting.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: His smooth delivery and the completely ignorable subject matter make it perfect for nodding off.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: His tutorial and some other old school favorites, like the gentle painting lessons from Bob Ross, are now part of a whole genre of content that people use to de-stress and sleep.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Audio ambient, as it were. Some are unintentionally effective, like the training video, but insomniacs these days can turn to any number of podcasts made expressly for the purpose of boring people to sleep.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: There's one called I Can't Sleep, a boring podcast that's been downloaded 10 million times.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's a ponderous reading of Wikipedia entries. Another option is Northwood's Baseball Sleep Radio, where a narrator slowly drones through a play-by-play of a fake baseball game.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can get more sleepy audio recommendations from the full story in the Apple News app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And you can also read about reasons why tonight it might be worth staying up.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Over the weekend, the northern lights were visible much farther south than usual.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Forecasters say that might continue.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And if you're already listening in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Today is the start of the corruption trial of New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Vanity Fair does a deep dive into a story that spans the globe, which includes gold bars found stashed in his closet.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
