--:-- Shamitha Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, July 20th. I'm Shamitha Basu. Duarte Geraldino is off. 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.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Spyware is a lucrative business. Governments pay big money for technology that lets them track people. And one company in particular is cashing in with a powerful hacking tool. Pegasus is a kind of spyware that an Israeli company called the NSO Group sells to governments around the world. They tell us that they have 60 government clients in 40 different countries. They won't tell us who they are.
--:-- Craig Timberg: That's right. I'm Craig Timberg, a technology reporter with The Washington Post. I'm part of a global team of journalists from a range of news outlets, out with a major investigation that points to widespread misuse of Pegasus.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The purpose, at least supposedly, is to track criminals and terrorists, pedophiles and such. But for years now, there's been evidence that it also has been used against human rights workers and politicians and journalists.
--:-- Craig Timberg: That's right. And I guess the most important thing to know is that once it gets into your smartphone, it can do anything on it that you can. It can listen to your calls. It can get your communications. It can pull your photos and videos and recordings. And it also could turn on your microphone and your camera and spy on you in real time.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: You mentioned that there has been growing evidence now for years that this type of spyware was being used to target people like journalists and politicians and activists. Tell us a little bit about what has developed in the story, what new information has come to light, and how it's come to light.
--:-- Craig Timberg: The consortium working on this project, which is 17 news organizations with more than 80 journalists in 10 different countries, was able to gain access to 50,000 phone numbers that really pointed us towards surveillance targets. And so we all spent months trying to figure out who was affiliated with these phone numbers. And so in the course of that, there were some obvious criminals and people who looked like spies, the sort of classic surveillance targets. But we kept coming across other people, business executives. There were academics. There were diplomats. There were some presidents as well. And there also were just a whole mess of journalists.
--:-- Craig Timberg: And in fact, some of the journalists working on the project found that their own phone numbers were on this list.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: What has NSO said in response to this reporting?
--:-- Craig Timberg: Before we published our stories, and we had, as a group, had sent them a very long letter detailing the various things we had found as a consortium. And in that pre-publication phase, NSO, in an incredibly sweeping way, denied essentially every major claim we had made based on our reporting. And they were pretty aggressive about it. But once the stories started running and the more detail sort of reached the world, they were conciliatory, is too strong, right? I mean, they still say that a lot of the things we found are not true in their eyes.
--:-- Craig Timberg: But the chief executive, Charlotte Julio, called me yesterday and he expressed concern about some of the issues we had raised. Now, again, he wasn't saying that we were right or all of it was right. What he was saying is that the company was going to investigate every single allegation that appeared in anyone's stories. And we've also learned through our sources that NSO has actually canceled some contracts in the past few years because of exactly these kinds of issues, human rights abuses and such.
--:-- Craig Timberg: So the company, you know, they make a software that is used by their clients. And they made this point to us again and again, that once it's in the hands of a particular country's secret service or police department or spy agency, they don't have real-time visibility into what's happening.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: What kind of oversight is in place for governments that may be using the spyware to target people like journalists?
--:-- Craig Timberg: You know, because it's a global project, I guess the more worrying thing is that once it's in the hands of other governments that might have, you know, less robust rule of law, less of a free press, etc. There doesn't seem to be much of any kind of gateway to prevent abuses. You know, there's just, aside from a handful of researchers and news organizations that have been trying to keep their eye on this stuff, it just looks like there's just all sorts of abuses in all sorts of places. And nobody's really in a position to monitor in a consistent way.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Craig Timberg is a national technology reporter for The Washington Post. Craig, thank you for your time. It's been my pleasure.
--:-- Craig Timberg: Thank you for having me on.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Large parts of the West are on fire right now. Oregon is fighting the country's largest wildfire, which keeps growing, forcing people to run as it spreads. It's the latest problem in a brutal summer of raging wildfires and extreme heat. And as climate change raises temperatures, forecasters are bracing for things to get worse in years ahead.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The standard advice is for people to stay indoors as much as possible, avoid strenuous activity. But that's just not an option for farm workers, for the people who harvest the food that ends up on tables across America.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: USA Today reports on how extreme heat can be a serious health hazard for people who work outdoors. In some cases, farm workers have died of heat stroke. Only three states have permanent regulations protecting workers from extreme heat. Now others are scrambling to catch up.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: After a worker in Oregon died last month, the state put in temporary emergency rules requiring access to shade, cold water, and breaks.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Aside from the extreme temperatures the West is experiencing, even above-average heat can do real damage to the body. It's especially hard on people's kidneys. In hot agricultural regions like Central America, kidney disease has spiked.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Another danger to people who work outside is smoke from wildfires. It stings your eyes. It makes it hard to see. Some workers get nauseated. California has some rules on providing respirators to workers when air quality drops. There's national legislation proposed, too. But labor advocates worry that lawmakers haven't caught up with the realities on the ground and in the air.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The world is getting hotter, and farm workers are risking their health to pick the fruits and vegetables we eat.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Are you in the market for a car? Then I don't need to tell you, this is a truly awful time to be looking for one. New or used, prices are sky high.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Slate explains how a lot of this comes down to the global microchip shortage. These days, cars are pretty smart. They need thousands of chips.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Now, the real snag happened when the pandemic hit and auto manufacturers were forced to shut down factories and cancel orders of parts, including chips.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: In the meantime, the makers of those chips found other customers to sell them to. Now car manufacturers are finding there aren't enough chips to make all the new cars they want.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Short supply means dealers don't have as many cars to sell as they would like, but they're making a killing on the ones that they have in stock. They're hardly even having to mark down prices.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Used cars are also in high demand, with prices up a record-breaking 10.5% last month. Some used cars are now going for higher prices than they sold for brand new.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: But OK, you said you need a car. What does this all mean for you, the buyer? For now, you're in a tough spot. But if you can wait, analysts tell Slate prices will probably settle down sometime next year.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Olympians Christy and Samantha Mewis are the first sisters to play together for the U.S. women's soccer team in a world championship.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The Wall Street Journal recently spoke with their parents, Bob and Melissa Mewis, about what it was like to raise two soccer stars under one roof.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Both parents played sports in college, so it was natural to encourage their daughters to embrace team sports.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: They said they made sure to keep checking with their kids about the level of responsibility and commitment that came with rigorous training.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: There's also a serious financial commitment, extensive travel, tournament fees. The couple says they spent $10,000 to $12,000 a year on the girls' soccer activities, starting when they were teens.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: They picked up part-time jobs to supplement their incomes.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: When asked if there was ever any sibling rivalry, their father says, sure, the girls butted heads a bit when they were younger, but that wore off with time.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: They played different positions and had different skills, which made it easier. And now the two are super close and a force to be reckoned with on the field.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: In a match against Colombia earlier this year, the U.S. women won 4-0. The Mewis sisters scored all four goals.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Christy and Sam will be in action tomorrow when the U.S. women take on Sweden ahead of the opening ceremonies.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
