--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Tuesday, March 19th, the first day of spring. I'm Yasmin Khan in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, how third-party candidates could agitate things in the 2024 election. The L.A. Dodgers spent over $1 billion recruiting new players. And why chocolate is in trouble. But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In northern Gaza, the U.N.'s World Food Program says famine is imminent, possibly weeks or even days away. A new report shows that more than a million people in Gaza, roughly half the population, face catastrophic hunger levels.
--:-- Abir Atufa: It means that people are already dying. It means that we have a very, very small window, if it is still there, to save lives, if we get humanitarian assistance in large quantities in fast and as soon as possible.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Meanwhile, hunger in Cuba is also sparking rare public protests against the government. People are frustrated about shortages and rising costs of food, energy, and other basic goods.
--:-- Carlos Alzugare: I think there are three crises going on at the same time, an economic crisis, a social crisis, and now a political crisis. Of course, the most important and the most difficult to solve is the economic one.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Cuban government accuses the U.S. of inciting the protests, which the U.S. denies.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In legal news, attorneys for Donald Trump say the former president has not been able to get a bond to cover a nearly half-billion-dollar civil fraud judgment in New York.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Trump and his company will need to post a bond or come up with the money by next week. If not, New York Attorney General Letitia James could seize assets while he appeals.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the case, Trump and his company were found to have repeatedly made fraudulent claims about financials.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And a former White House aide to Trump is reporting to a federal prison today. Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months for contempt of Congress.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He refused to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6th attack.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Navarro will be the first former White House official ever jailed for contempt of Congress. His lawyers argued that he should not have been prosecuted because of executive privilege, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that argument.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Five states hold presidential nominating contests today. There's not much suspense since Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both clinched their party nominations.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Some of the most compelling drama in the days ahead may come from what happens with potential third-party candidates.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: There's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running as an independent. Also, a centrist group called No Labels that's trying to decide if they want to propose a third-party candidate.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And the Democratic Party is staffing up to basically try and make sure that no third-party candidate can spoil Biden's re-election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hi, Yasmeen.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hi, Gideon. So, Gideon, how much should we be paying attention to these third-party candidates? Do they pose a serious threat either to Biden or Trump's ability to win?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, it's a great question that we won't have an answer to just yet. You know, the electoral college system to elect presidents in the United States, at least recently, has not been designed to allow a third-party candidate to win.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In basically every single state, a presidential candidate has to win outright in the popular vote to get any electoral votes. So if we look at 1992, when Ross Perot earned about 19% of the popular vote overall, he didn't win any electoral votes at all.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And that was considered kind of a high watermark for third-party candidates, at least in recent history.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So often when we think about this, it's not about whether a third-party presidential candidate can actually win overall, but as you say, how much impact they could have on the other candidates running.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And you're right, Democrats are concerned that even a small amount of voters siphoned away from Biden could be impactful, particularly if those voters are in swing states.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The party is kind of haunted by some of the results they saw in 2016, where Hillary Clinton won the popular vote overall, but then lost the election to Trump.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Remind us what happened back in 2016.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Yeah. So at the time going into the election, voters were saying they didn't really love the main two candidates that they had on the ballot.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And at least some of them thought that Clinton was on track to win the election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So So candidates like Gary Johnson, a libertarian, and Jill Stein from the Green Party did earn a considerable amount of votes in certain places.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: According to an analysis from Roll Call, about 6% of the electorate cast their ballots for a third party.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And that did make a difference.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That's a lot. It is. And Clinton and Trump did get the overwhelming share of the vote. We're talking about 94% or more of all people who participated.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But when you look at other recent presidential elections before that, the candidates of the two major parties were getting something like closer to 98 to 99 percent of the vote.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Let's talk about this year's contest. The biggest name out there is RFK Jr. He's not the only one, but he's gotten the most attention so far, most recently for considering Aaron Rodgers to be his running mate, who's been accused of supporting conspiracy theories.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: What are the polls telling us about how RFK Jr. is faring at the moment?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: A recent Quinnipiac poll showed Kennedy earning 15 percent of the vote. Another saw around 15 percent of voters saying they would consider a third-party option in general.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But as the UVA Center for Politics points out, historically speaking, third-party candidates are often going to poll way higher than the vote they end up getting.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Most people do not think that RFK Jr. would get numbers like that in the election in November.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But again, when polls show that the two major party candidates are unpopular, even a little bit of a third-party gain here and there can really make a big difference.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So how are the parties preparing for this? For Democrats, are there any lessons learned from 2016?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It seems like they're taking it pretty seriously. The Democratic National Committee hired this team that they want to use to help remind voters of various controversial statements that people like RFK Jr. have made in the past.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There's also the super PAC from Biden allies that is meant to get ahead of all of this.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And the RNC, meanwhile, at one point tried to slam RFK Jr. as a Democrat hiding in independence clothing.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: All of this is also happening while there are still some questions about whether or not Kennedy is even going to be able to get on the ballot everywhere.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We'll be tracking all of this as it develops, Gideon. Thanks so much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, thank you.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Tomorrow, a new season for Major League Baseball begins with the L.A. Dodgers versus the San Diego Padres.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And for the first time ever, they'll take the field in Seoul, South Korea. It's an effort to grow the sport's fan base.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But the most interesting thing about the start of this season comes down to money.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One big question facing the Dodgers this year is whether their major off-season spending spree can take them to another World Series title.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The team has committed more than a billion dollars to signing new players to their roster.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That's more than the spending of all other 29 major league teams combined.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One of those players is arguably the best in the world, Shohei Otani, a pitcher and designated hitter and two-time league MVP.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Back in December, he signed a 10-year, $700 million contract, one of the largest ever in pro sports.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And shortly after, the Dodgers picked up Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a pitcher from Japan.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: His contract, worth over $300 million, is the highest amount ever offered to a player who's never thrown a pitch in the MLB.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: By now, you might be wondering, how can the Dodgers afford to pay for all of this?
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Part of the reason has to do with Otani's contract. He agreed to take a lot of his salary and deferrals, which means for 10 years, he will make just $2 million annually and receive the rest later.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The remaining million on the contract kicks in in 2034. Ohtani will be turning 40 by then, pretty ancient for a baseball player.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But the Dodgers will owe him a million a year for 10 years after that.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And reportedly, that big deferral was Ohtani's idea, so the Dodgers would have enough money to spend on other players to stay competitive.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Which shouldn't be too much of a problem because they've already got a few future Hall of Famers on the team.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The L.A. Times says this was a $700 million bargain for the Dodgers.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And starting tomorrow, we'll see if the deal pays off.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: First Valentine's Day and next Easter. Chocolate-centric holidays are in trouble.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Global prices of cocoa are sky high, more than doubling in a year.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hershey and Cadbury executives are warning this could drive new price hikes for the chocolate we buy.
--:-- Javier Blas: There is a mix of factors. I mean, certainly the weather has been very unfavorable. It has been dry recently. It was too wet a few months ago.
--:-- Javier Blas: We have new regulation from the European Union, deforestation, which means that beans that have been produced in new planted areas can now go into the European Union.
--:-- Javier Blas: That's not going to help. And he says there isn't enough new production.
--:-- Javier Blas: The world relies on one group of West African countries to provide some 60 percent of cocoa.
--:-- Javier Blas: That's Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Cameroon. There has been very little planting in those countries for the last few years.
--:-- Javier Blas: The trees are all, they're producing less and less. And those trees are also more sensitive to bad weather and to disease.
--:-- Javier Blas: And we have had a lot of that in recent months.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As someone who's also generally a fan of chocolate, this all hits home.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But take heart. Prices for the raw materials may be doubling.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But so far, chocolate makers aren't jacking up prices that high.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But they are looking to cut costs in other ways, including ones you can taste.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So be on the lookout for slight changes in recipes or smaller portions at the same old price.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next from the Players' Tribune.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: With the National Women's Soccer League season underway, it's a good time to hear American soccer legend Brandi Chastain read a letter to her younger self.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This was when she was a 19-year-old college player on the verge of a career that would put her among the all-time greats, winning a place in history by making that iconic penalty kick that gave the U.S. Women the World Cup.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And we'll be back with the news tomorrow.
