--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Wednesday, April 28th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- [Shamita Basu chimes in]
--:-- Shamita Basu: You probably said things as a teenager that, looking back, might have seemed like a little bit much, but nothing that's likely to have the impact of what one teen said back in 2017. Today, her words are at the center of Supreme Court arguments. In this case, could transform the free speech rights of students for generations.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Washington Post spoke with Brandi Levy. A few years back, when she was 14 years old, she didn't make the varsity cheer squad. And she was upset about it, so she worked out her anger on Snapchat. She posted something with multiple F-bombs in it. Students complained about her snap, and coaches suspended her from the squad for a year. Her parents appealed to the school, which didn't budge, and then they decided to sue with the help of the ACLU. And that's how Levy entered legal history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, the foundational decision on student speech happened in 1969. In that case, a student was fighting to wear a black armband to protest the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court ruled in her favor, but also said schools have brought authority to punish students for speech that's disruptive to school functions. What that 1969 ruling did was put a big asterisk on the First Amendment for students.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Over the years, the court has rarely taken student free speech cases and has mostly sided with schools. But today's court is different. The Post points to cases where this court has supported unpopular speech. And this case is a little different, too. It presents a very particular question. To what extent can districts punish students for what they say off campus, including what they say online, where any comment has the potential to reach the entire school?
--:-- Shamita Basu: In this case, the speech was on an app, which is increasingly relevant because so many students are using smartphones and studying from home during the pandemic. Now, the argument the school makes is, if speech disrupts the learning environment, it doesn't matter where or how the speech happens. The school district cites the possibility that students may share test answers on the Internet or engage in cyberbullying.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But the ACLU is arguing schools are attempting a power grab. Levy case has gotten support from across the political spectrum including nine Republican state attorneys general. Brandi Levy is now in college, but her quick reaction to not making the cheer squad will be immortalized in the Supreme Court and potentially affect students' First Amendment rights for decades.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Body camera footage has become the defining way the public comes to understand police encounters, and it has the power to hold law enforcement accountable. Body cam video was part of the evidence in the Derek Chauvin trial for George Floyd's murder. Video of police shooting and killing 13-year-old Adam Toledo with his hands raised in Chicago sparked outrage and demands for reform.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: A recent study from the University of Chicago's Crime Lab looks into the impact of body cameras on policing. So the idea behind body cameras is that by monitoring officers in the field, this technology will document and reduce police misconduct. The use of body cameras is on the rise. In 2013, about a third of local law enforcement agencies used the technology in some form. By 2016, nearly half did.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR has the details of this study, which found that when body camera policies were implemented in police departments, complaints against police went down, and use of force dropped by nearly 10%. But body cam systems, they're not cheap. When you add the cost of the equipment, maintenance, and video storage, you're looking at thousands of dollars per officer. And because of that cost, some departments have held back.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Still, researchers argue, the benefits to society and police departments outweigh the costs. They claim the technology essentially ends up paying for itself. Still, police violence does not have a singular solution. NPR spoke to a professor behind this study who said that even with more body cameras, there is still the problem of police being more likely to use force against Black Americans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We be right back.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And most don't even know they're being shortchanged. Yeah, that according to a recent investigation by the Marshall Project and NPR. They found foster agencies were doing this in a deliberate targeted way in dozens of states.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In 2018 alone, the agencies collected more than $165 million that belonged to these children. This story explains how this happened. Foster kids who have lost a parent or have a disability qualify for Social Security benefits, typically more than $700 a month. After identifying kids who qualify for these benefits, foster care agencies can legally apply to become the child's financial representative.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Once they get approved, agencies can take that money, often without notifying the children or their families. Now, state agencies say that they use that money to pay for daily expenses, the same way that a parent might. But advocates say spending children's money on services effectively means that kids are being made to pay for their own foster care, which is a public service that the government is supposed to cover.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Alaska, hundreds of people are part of a class action lawsuit. The Marshall Project and NPR spoke with six current and former foster kids about how they would have used their benefits if they'd gotten them. Tristan Hunter is 21 years old. His mother died when he was young and his father later went to prison, which meant Tristan went to live in a foster home.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He found out years later he was owed nearly $700 a month in federal survivor benefits. He doesn't remember anyone telling him the money was going to the state. He says he's now struggling to afford college, rent, and car payments.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And when she was a minor, Mallory Shockley was moved more than 20 times between foster homes and facilities. She says she was abused and developed debilitating PTSD. That made her eligible for disability benefits, which the state took.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: She says she would have used that money to pay for safer housing. When she left foster care, she was pregnant and couldn't afford a place to live. She stayed with an abusive boyfriend in a motel. And at one point, she lived in a tent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are now efforts in Washington to ban states from reimbursing themselves with foster children's money and to require that every foster child and their lawyer be notified about their benefits. Congress could take up this issue as soon as this summer.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Jeopardy recently came out with its final round of guest hosts for this season. The iconic game show says it's going to announce its new permanent host before the 38th season later this year. The Ringer recently looked at what it's like to fill in for the beloved former host Alex Trebek, who died of pancreatic cancer in November.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Mike Richards is Jeopardy!'s executive producer. He tells The Ringer, Jeopardy! is like an endurance contest. It's uniquely difficult to host. Once the cameras roll, there's no stopping. The crew tapes multiple episodes a day, and the host has to be prepared to deliver and pronounce each answer flawlessly.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Producers quickly learned, not everyone is as smooth as Trebek was. Tapings have sometimes lasted hours longer because fill-in hosts had to redo answers that they'd flubbed. Now, it's no secret that some of these guest hosts are hoping that they're going to be picked for the permanent position.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers quarterback who's been filling in, has been really direct about wanting to balance his NFL duties with being long-term Jeopardy host. And there was a big public pressure campaign to get LeVar Burton on the list of guest hosts. You know him from Star Trek or Reading Rainbow.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He has been openly talking about how he would love to take the baton from Trebek for years. A fan-based petition got hundreds of thousands of signatures, and now he's on the schedule for July. Here he is on The View.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The important thing for me is that I have an opportunity to compete for the job, and that's all I ever really wanted. This is one of the most high-profile TV positions in the world, and it's a pretty nice gig. According to Quartz, Trebek reportedly earned $10 million a year, which includes just 46 days of episode tapings. It is a really sweet gig.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, the guest hosts have all said out loud at some point what an honor it is to fill in for Trebek and to pay tribute to him in this way. It's clear that no matter who ultimately gets this gig, giving a respectful nod to the longtime host will go a long way in winning over the game show's loyal audience.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our narrated articles, including the NPR Marshall Project report about foster children. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
