--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Friday, June 7th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shemita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, Steve Bannon is ordered to prison. The fall of Sean Diddy Combs. And Wheel of Fortune says goodbye to Pat Sajak. But first, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the U.S. Congress next month. Congressional leaders confirmed the date late yesterday.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The appearance is certain to be controversial, given deep divisions among American politicians about Israel's conduct in the Gaza War. That announcement comes as there's continued fallout from Israel's recent strike on a school complex run by the U.N., which killed dozens of people.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Israel says it was targeting Hamas fighters there, but Palestinian officials say a large number of civilians were killed. An eyewitness described the attack to Reuters, saying it came out of nowhere.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We were sleeping when we suddenly saw a rocket falling on us. On the second floor, there were martyrs. And on the first, there were those injured. That's all we saw.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The European Union's top diplomat is calling for an investigation into the strike on the school. Many incidents involving Israeli forces are never investigated independently. If there's any probe, it may be done by the Israeli military itself.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: NPR dug into questions about the effectiveness of these internal investigations. Ziv Stahl is the executive director of an organization that provides legal protection to Palestinians.
--:-- Ziv Stahl: When Israeli troops are accused of wrongdoing, they're allowed to speak freely about what happened to internal lawyers. And they can talk with each other. That's problematic. It allows testimonies to be coordinated because soldiers are exposed to what others said.
--:-- Ziv Stahl: The other thing is that there is no evidence collection at that point in regards to the criminal offense, if there was one. So the orientation is more operational sometimes than criminal.
--:-- Ziv Stahl: The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem used to work with Israeli military officials to collect evidence during investigations. But it found many cases never moved past the first stage.
--:-- Sarit Micheli: Continuing to refer cases to the Israeli investigative bodies is not only counterproductive because it does not obtain any real accountability but it actually gives the veneer of a functioning system.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Now, when the group collects evidence, it publicizes it on social media and through the press. Israel's military told NPR it follows the law and examines claims of violations against its forces, sometimes doing criminal investigations.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: NPR examined hundreds of complaints between 2017 and 2021 involving allegations that Israeli soldiers harmed Palestinians or their property, and it found fewer than one percent led to indictments.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hip-hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs is facing growing legal scrutiny over allegations of sexual and physical abuse. His former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, filed a lawsuit in November 2023, alleging rape, battery, and sex trafficking.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Since then, seven other people have filed lawsuits against Combs. There's also an ongoing federal investigation, the exact scope and focus of which remains unknown.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Combs has denied the allegations. Rolling Stones, Cheyenne Roundtree, and Nancy Dillon recently came out with some of the most extensive reporting yet on Combs.
--:-- Cheyenne Roundtree: We contacted more than 300 people from his past and talked to more than 50 of them. And the reporters spoke about their investigation with Apple News & Conversation guest host Sam Sanders.
--:-- Sam Sanders: The reporters found that Combs' history of volatile, explosive, and sometimes violent behavior goes back decades. Some of it played out very publicly, like on his reality show from two decades ago called Making the Band.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Start over! Start over! Start over! Y'all gonna keep on f***ing up these words. Matter of fact, take this s*** down and stay and stay outside. It's your lack of appreciation. This s*** is disgusting. Y'all love hip-hop.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Combs was previously known as Puff Daddy, which Dylan points out was directly inspired by his temperament. He got that nickname from a friend when he was a child because he says, quote, I had a temper and I would huff and puff.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And that temper allegedly stayed with him as he grew up, including in college. Dylan and Roundtree talked to Combs' Howard University classmates. Several said they saw him attack his then-girlfriend outside of a dorm.
--:-- Cheyenne Roundtree: When we heard the first account of the alleged beating outside the dorm it was so vivid. And just the amount of detail was like OK, this is something this person's been holding onto for a long time.
--:-- Cheyenne Roundtree: People who worked with Combs at his label Bad Boy Records told Dylan and Roundtree that he would often yell to get his point across and fire employees seemingly at random.
--:-- Cheyenne Roundtree: One person said Combs was, quote, always on the edge of snapping. Here's Roundtree. A lot of sources would speak to this unbridled rage that could pop out. And we have a source that said, and I thought this was a really clear view into his personality, is like, he does not believe in being told no.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Combs previously denied the allegations in Cassie Ventura's lawsuit, which they agreed to settle. Only after CNN published a surveillance video last month showing Combs physically assaulting her, did Combs say that he took, quote, full responsibility for his actions, but he did not directly apologize to or even mention Ventura.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Dylan and Roundtree have more on Ventura's lawsuit and how it led to others coming forward in this week's episode of In Conversation. If you're listening in the news app, we'll have that queued up to play after today's show.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Now, let's take a quick look at some other stories in the news. A federal judge has ordered Steve Bannon to prison by July 1st to serve a four-month sentence.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The former Trump advisor was found guilty of contempt of Congress back in 2022. He refused to give testimony and documents to the committee investigating the January 6th attack and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Bannon was allowed to remain free while he appealed. A court panel rejected his arguments last month, and at a hearing yesterday, the judge, a Trump appointee, said it's now time for Bannon to serve his sentence.
--:-- Jim Trustee: You have to basically convince the sentencing judge that there's a serious error that they're likely to win on appeal. The D.C. Court of Appeals just shut that down. The history of these contempt cases with the Supreme Court is not particularly favorable for Bannon either.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So that all kind of conspires to make it a pretty easy legal ruling that he's not going to be able to stay out anymore. After the hearing, Bannon vowed to fight his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Now to business news, where new data out this morning shows the U.S. economy added 272,000 jobs last month. That number is higher than the previous month gains and well above what economists expected.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In sports, hockey Stanley Cup finals begin tomorrow night with the Florida Panthers against the Edmonton Oilers. The series will be broadcast in American Sign Language for the first time. The NHL calls it the first fully immersive viewing experience for the deaf community put on by any professional sports league.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And in a stunning upset, Team USA has beaten Pakistan in cricket. It might be hard to know what a big deal this is if you don't follow the sport, but it's kind of like a college football team beating the Kansas City Chiefs.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Pakistan is one of the world's best, and the U.S. has never even played in the T20 Cricket World Cup before. The match with Pakistan took place in Texas. Holding it there was intentional, meant to win more American fans.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And finally, a TV legend is stepping down. Here's how it all began more than four decades ago... on Wheel of Fortune. And now, here's your new host, Pat Sajak. Thank you. Thank you, Jack Clark. Morning, everyone. Welcome to Wheel of Fortune. Please do not adjust your sets at home.
--:-- Pat Sajak: Chuck Willery has not shrunk. A lot of people are playing with a vertical hold right now. As Jack mentioned, my name is Pat Sajak. When Sajak takes his final spin as the host of Wheel of Fortune today, he goes into the record books as the longest-running host of a single game show in modern TV history.
--:-- Pat Sajak: In a video looking back at his time, Sajak said he was proud of how it brought families closer. People come up to us almost every day, sometimes in tears, saying, I used to watch the show with my grandmother, now I'm watching it with my kids, or my kids learned the alphabet from your show or my mom came from the Philippines and learned to speak English.
--:-- Pat Sajak: We didn't intend any of that. Wheel of Fortune will keep on spinning. Vanna White isn't going anywhere. She'll return next season when Ryan Seacrest takes over as host.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Seacrest says he's truly humbled to continue a beloved tradition in American television and is studying the very intricate Wheel of Fortune rulebook to get ready.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. As we mentioned, if you're already listening in the app, stick around for In Conversation about the allegations against Sean Combs, or you can find it by searching for Apple News In Conversation in the Podcasts app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
