--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, December 18th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, why Trump wants to move 100,000 federal jobs out of D.C., how climate change is affecting home insurance across the country, and how scientists successfully transplanted a kidney from a pig to a human. But first, to a trial in France the world has been following in horror for months.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And a warning, this segment has descriptions of sexual abuse. Any day now, judges will hand down verdicts for dozens of men accused of raping Giselle Pellico. She stunned the world by rejecting her right to anonymity and demanding a public trial for her now ex-husband, Dominique, and at least 50 other people allegedly involved.
--:-- Shumita Basu: She said she wants to show the world that survivors shouldn't be ashamed of abuse. Police say Pelico's ex-husband, over the course of about a decade, repeatedly invited men to their home to rape her after he drugged her with sleeping pills, leaving her unconscious.
--:-- Shumita Basu: He arranged the abuse in chat rooms with men between the ages of 26 and 74 from all walks of life. Police identified dozens of suspects from footage of the abuse her husband collected, But authorities believe more than 70 men were involved.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Authorities started looking into the husband after he was caught filming up women's skirts in public. It was only until that incident was investigated that Pelico came to learn what happened to her. For years, she had been confused about strange symptoms.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Losing her hair, losing weight, losing her memories. She says entire days would just disappear. She thought she might have Alzheimer's.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Here is some of her testimony, translated by the BBC, about the day police notified her. It was hard to recognize myself. Then the officer showed me a second photo and a third. My world fell apart.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I'm speaking now not for myself, but for all the women who are drugged and abused. Pelico has received apologies from some of the defendants, including her ex-husband, who confessed to everything. Others say they're innocent.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If convicted, these men face sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison. To understand where the case could go next, it's important to know how France defines consent.
--:-- Alexandra English: Consent is really a contested gray area in France. The French law defines rape as an act of sexual penetration committed by violence, coercion, threat, or surprise. And so Giselle's case falls into that surprise category.
--:-- Alexandra English: That's Alex English with Marie Claire. She told us during the trial, some of the defendants made the argument that they were told she had consented. Because they weren't a stranger in a dark car park, because they didn't have a knife, because they didn't hold her down.
--:-- Alexandra English: They made the argument that they didn't fit the typical Hollywood movie idea of rape. So all these men could get up there and go, "I didn't mean to do that. That wasn't my intention. I thought she was part of this."
--:-- Alexandra English: The trial has sparked debate in France over whether the country's legal definition of rape does enough to recognize the role of consent. Last year, French Parliament considered adopting an EU resolution which would create a standard definition and punishment for rape across all member states.
--:-- Alexandra English: That failed. But more recently, French officials, including the president and the justice minister, have said they support amending the legal language. Women's rights activists and lawmakers have been trying to amend that wording to say that sex without consent is rape and also that consent can be withdrawn at any time.
--:-- Alexandra English: And then on top of that, there are certain mental and physical states that a person can be in where they cannot be considered to be giving consent. So, having drunk too much, being in a poor mental state, things like that.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Whether that legal wording changes or not, the trial has shaken France. This is a country where the Me Too movement struggled to find footing, but in recent years, that's started to shift.
--:-- Shumita Basu: A number of French women actors have filed lawsuits against male directors, alleging abuse. And Pelico's case seemingly lit a fuse, drawing supporters, mostly women, to the court to cheer her on as she entered and left each day.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I have read reports that more women have already started to come forward, which I think is a huge positive sign that things will change. I think what then matters is how they're treated once they come forward.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Let's turn now to Washington and one of President-elect Trump's many promises to shake up D.C. He says he'll move 100,000 federal jobs out of the city, which would impact roughly one in three federal workers in the area.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now, it's not a new thing for incoming presidents to target what they see as government bloat. And Washington Post-Enterprise reporter Todd Frankel told us this figure, 100,000 jobs, has been popular.
--:-- Todd Frankel: When Reagan came in back in the 80s, he talked about cutting 100,000 federal jobs. And actually, even when Clinton came in in the 90s, he talked about the same number, cutting 100,000.
--:-- Todd Frankel: But what sets Trump apart is his focus on D.C. jobs. He really wants to sort of target this deep state that he's talked plenty about on the campaign trail and during his previous administration.
--:-- Todd Frankel: Trump tried this on a smaller scale in 2019, moving a number of agencies out of D.C., about 1,300 jobs in all. Frankel says it didn't play out exactly as he imagined, like at the Bureau of Land Management.
--:-- Todd Frankel: So they opened up this new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado, which is a small city about three hours west of Denver. And like three or four employees showed up, right? So everyone else left.
--:-- Todd Frankel: They lost lots of experienced workers, lots of folks who knew how the agency run. It was seen as a bit of a disaster. Frankel reports that short of moving the Pentagon the National Institutes of Health or another very large agency it's not clear how Trump would move 100,000 jobs out of Washington.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Local economists and leaders told him it would be a huge blow to their economy. 100,000 jobs, if somehow he were to get to that number, would be devastating even to a region that has 6 million people in it.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Trump's transition team did not respond to a request for comment from the Post. The America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned group, has argued that moving these jobs would save over $1 billion in payroll costs by going to places they claim are less expensive.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Critics of the plan say Trump's past attempts prove that cost savings are questionable. And they say these plans interrupt government work and put experienced talent at risk.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So far, Trump's team has named two small agencies they want to move. Together, they have about 1,000 people on staff.
--:-- Shumita Basu: From hurricanes to wildfires, we are increasingly seeing how climate change can affect the cost of home insurance. Many big names in the insurance game, like Allstate and Liberty Mutual, have decided to pull out of some areas.
--:-- Shumita Basu: They say it's just not worth the cost as the price tag of extreme weather gets higher. And as these conventional, highly regulated insurers pull away, smaller, less regulated insurers are popping up to fill the void.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: They come in, they say, no one else wants you, we'll sell you an insurance policy at a price. But it's important for consumers to know these are not backed by a guarantee fund.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: That's Leslie Kaufman, who reports on climate change for Bloomberg News. It essentially means that if your insurance company for some reason fails, you as the person who bought the policy still have a way to get paid out your claim.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: So that's a very important backup. These smaller businesses, known as non-admitted insurers, don't have that protection, which means you run the risk of not getting a payout.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: Kauffman found some of these companies are not as financially sound as more established insurers. They might be structured in a way that makes price hikes or sneaky hidden fees for consumers more likely.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: Some experts who have looked at their balance sheets are deeply concerned. They do not feel that if they were in a regulated environment, they would be allowed to keep going.
--:-- Shumita Basu: These companies represent a small portion of the overall insurance market, but they're growing in high-risk markets where homeowners have few other options, like in California, Florida, and Louisiana.
--:-- Shumita Basu: These states and others offer state-sponsored insurance, too, as a sort of last resort option. However, in Florida, officials have said so many people use it because so many big insurance companies left that they're just one disaster away from serious trouble.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And in California, many residents say the payout isn't enough to cover the full price of their properties. Kauffman says it really calls into question how long these sort of startup insurers will be around and what that means for the people buying into them.
--:-- Shumita Basu: We don't know what really will happen when they get hit by the next big storm whether they will have enough reinsurance to cover all their claims or whether they go bankrupt and whether it affect people. It's a big gamble that's playing out right now.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost her bid to be the top Democrat on the House's powerful oversight committee.
--:-- Shumita Basu: We talked about this on the show recently. Ocasio-Cortez and a number of other younger Democrats sought to replace aging members of the party who've held on to powerful positions, sometimes for decades, as they prepare for the second Trump administration.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Yesterday, Democrats passed over Ocasio-Cortez to elect 74-year-old Jerry Connolly to that committee seat. NBC reports the votes were a litmus test of the future of the Democratic Party to get that younger, bolder leadership.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But ultimately, Connolly had strong support from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other centrist Democrats. Connolly, who announced last month he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, said he is ready to lead the committee in overseeing the incoming Trump administration.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has made it clear that he's willing to go after the media even before stepping into office. He's suing the Des Moines Register over a poll released before Election Day that said Vice President Kamala Harris led the state by a significant margin.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Trump ended up winning the state handily. The Hale reports Trump accused the paper and its pollster of violating the state's consumer fraud laws, calling it election interference.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The pollster, Jan Selzer, announced she was ending her polling work after the election. In a separate media-related case just a few days ago, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million in a defamation suit brought by Trump over inaccurate on-air statements by the anchor George Stephanopoulos.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And finally, for the first time in eight years, Tawana Looney, a woman from Alabama, is off of dialysis after receiving a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's according to the health publication STAT. She herself donated a kidney to her mother in the late 90s, but after a complicated pregnancy, her other kidney started to fail.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's the third time doctors have transplanted a pig kidney to a living recipient. And STAT reports the latest procedure inches us closer to a world where xenotransplantation is more common.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Looney says she feels blessed, full of energy, and can't wait to travel again. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next all about risotto. No one knows for sure when this highly finicky but tasty rice dish first appeared or where exactly it came from.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But the New Yorker tries to follow the trail while sampling a lot of varieties along the way. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
