--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, September 17th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, reporting that challenges Israel's claims about the killing of a Turkish-American activist in the West Bank, TikTok fights for survival in federal court, and the case that could determine control of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. But first, to some critical developments in the apparent second attempt on former President Trump's life over the weekend.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The suspect is Ryan Wesley Ruth. His cell phone records indicate that he camped out near Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach for nearly 12 hours on Sunday, seemingly waiting for the former president to show up.
--:-- [Audio clip of Trump's social media post]
--:-- Shamita Basu: On the social media platform X, Trump talked about the moment that his security detail spotted a gun barrel poking out of some bushes. A Secret Service agent had seen a barrel of an AK-47, which is a very powerful gun, rifle. And he started shooting at the barrel, started shooting in the bushes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump has publicly praised agents, as he did after the shooting in Pennsylvania. But the agency is facing more questions as to how someone with a rifle got very close to the former president again.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe said yesterday that Trump did not have a golf game on his official schedule and agents did not sweep the perimeter of the course before Trump golfed Sunday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The agency also says the suspect did not fire any shots and did not have Trump in his line of sight. He now faces multiple firearms charges, including possession of a firearm with an unreadable serial number, which will make it hard for authorities to trace.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The incident has renewed questions around security, not just for Trump, but everyone under Secret Service protection.
--:-- [Audio clip of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Just days before the shooting, the Secret Service told Congress that it needs more resources. Staffing has dropped in recent years, but the number of people the Secret Service needs to protect has gone up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he supports more funding. Congress has a responsibility to ensure the Secret Service and all law enforcement have the resources they need to do their jobs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So as we continue the appropriations process, if the Secret Service is in need of more resources, we are prepared to providing it for them, possibly in the upcoming funding agreement.
--:-- Shamita Basu: House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox and Friends on Monday that he wants Trump to get every available security asset.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post points out House Republicans have stood in the way of extra funding for the Secret Service in budget fights with Democrats.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the weekend hundreds of people gathered in Turkey for the funeral of 26-year-old Ayshanur Ege. The Turkish-American activist was volunteering in the occupied West Bank when she was killed by the Israeli military, which has said she was likely shot by mistake in what it described as a violent riot.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But new reporting from the Washington Post is challenging that narrative. The Post spoke to over a dozen eyewitnesses and reviewed more than 50 videos and photos provided by the organization IG volunteered with.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Reporters found she was shot over 20 minutes after the height of the dispute between Israeli security forces and protesters, and after protesters had dispersed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Israeli military declined to answer the Post's questions about details of the shooting.
--:-- Miriam Berger: I went to attend what's become a weekly symbolic protest prayer in the West Bank village of Beta, who has been battling for decades to sort of hold off the steady advance of Israeli settlers nearby.
--:-- Miriam Berger: And so she was nervous. These events very quickly escalate.
--:-- Miriam Berger: Violence has surged in the West Bank since October 7th. According to the United Nations, more than 630 Palestinians have been killed, including civilians and combatants.
--:-- Miriam Berger: The majority were killed in military raids on Palestinian refugee camps. Extremist settlers who are seizing Palestinian land have also killed people.
--:-- Miriam Berger: Aege had told other activists that she hoped her presence and her status as a foreign national might be, quote, protective for Palestinians protesting.
--:-- Miriam Berger: The idea being that if these internationals are there, then violence may not escalate as much. But it did escalate.
--:-- Miriam Berger: Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowd, according to activists at the park that day. And she was more than 200 yards away from Israeli forces, you know, basically just hiding out in this olive grove, sort of at the tail end of the area.
--:-- Miriam Berger: Aege was shot in the head, and a Palestinian teenager standing nearby was wounded, according to witnesses.
--:-- Miriam Berger: Israel's military said soldiers were targeting someone it called a key instigator of violence.
--:-- Miriam Berger: President Biden has called Aegee's death unacceptable. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Israel should change the way it operates in the West Bank.
--:-- Miriam Berger: Aegee's family wants more, including an independent investigation outside of the Israeli military, citing systemic failures to prosecute military cases.
--:-- Miriam Berger: Historically, these investigations, according to rights groups, for soldiers, about 99 percent of these cases are closed. There's no indictments issued or follow through.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find the full investigation from The Post and see the images it used to piece together the complicated incident in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let turn now to TikTok which is fighting in court to keep going in the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It argued in court yesterday against a move that would ban it in January. Lawyers for TikTok want the court to overturn a law that would force its Chinese owner to sell the app to a non-Chinese buyer or else be banned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: U.S. government and intelligence agencies have argued the app poses a national security threat because of its ownership.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They've raised concerns that the Chinese government could spy on Americans, influence them, and misuse their data.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Researchers recently found evidence of a Chinese influence campaign that included an account on TikTok pushing divisive political messages, but it didn't get much traction.
--:-- Shamita Basu: TikTok argues shutting it down would violate First Amendment rights of people in the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The law before this court is unprecedented and its effect would be staggering. For the first time in history, Congress has expressly targeted a specific U.S. speaker banning its speech and the speech of 170 million Americans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The law is subject to strict scrutiny and the government bears the burden of proving its constitutionality.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR took a closer look at that term, strict scrutiny. It's legal lingo that essentially means lawyers for TikTok want the U.S. government to provide a compelling reason for banning the app and for the government to prove it exhausted all of their options for dealing with its national security concerns before moving to ban the app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: TikTok's lawyers argued yesterday that the government failed both of those tests.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, the lawyer representing the Department of Justice reiterated the government's concerns about national security risks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Data is extremely valuable to a foreign adversary trying to compromise the security of the United States, knowing what Americans' patterns are, who their contacts are, where they go, who they interact with, what sorts of content interests them, what sort of content turns them off.
--:-- Shamita Basu: would be quite valuable to a foreign adversary if it were trying to approach an American to try to have them be an intelligence asset, or if it was trying to figure out how to cater its messages to get messages supportive of Chinese national security rather than American.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR reports there were significant portions of the Justice Department's case either redacted or blacked out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So it's unclear if the government's case included evidence to back those concerns.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Officials from the Biden administration claimed the information was too sensitive to national security to release, even to TikTok's lawyers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After hours of questions, NPR reports that it was tough to read the three federal judges.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They seemed skeptical of TikTok's argument that the free speech rights of Americans supersede the national security risks raised by Washington.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But they also seem to recognize a ban might violate the First Amendment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Justice Department has asked for a decision by December. It possible the case could be appealed to the Supreme Court.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Diddy Combs faces new legal trouble. He was arrested by federal agents yesterday based on a sealed indictment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His attorney calls it an unjust prosecution. Combs has faced multiple allegations of abuse and sexual assault, which he has denied.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In other legal news, a private trial is now underway that could determine the future of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's a case that split his children. Murdoch is reportedly looking to change the terms of the family trust to give more control to his eldest son, Lachlan.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That would give him power over Fox News and other media outlets when Rupert dies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But Rupert's other children have expressed concerns over Laughlin's right-wing views, and they're fighting in court to keep their voting rights in the trust.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Instagram is announcing new restrictions for youth accounts and new security measures to help prevent teens from trying to get around them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The parent company Meta has faced long-standing criticism that it doesn't do enough to keep young users safe on social media platforms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The company says it's in the process of shifting 100 million teenagers in the U.S. and worldwide, to the accounts with new guardrails.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's new testimony today in the Coast Guard investigation of the Titan submersible, which imploded on the way to the Titanic wreckage last year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: All five people on board died. Today, one of the most important witnesses, a former operations director for the company that owned the vessel, is expected to testify.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He'd expressed concerns it was unsafe. The hearings are expected to last two weeks as investigators probe what happened, look for evidence of misconduct, and prepare safety recommendations to prevent future deadly incidents.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, it's worth taking a look up at the sky tonight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You'll be able to see a special combination of a harvest moon, partial lunar eclipse, and a supermoon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That means it'll be full at a time when it's close to Earth on its elliptical orbit, making it look larger and brighter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And unlike a solar eclipse, no special glasses are required.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can get the full details on how to watch in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Los Angeles Times reports on rising interactions between humans and black bears.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the euthanization of a bear that authorities said was too aggressive to humans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's added to an intense debate among the public and experts over how to manage wildlife.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
