--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Thursday, September 7th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: On today's show, Donald Trump's complicated legal calendar, what to watch as the new NFL season kicks off, and the surprising way a Caribbean destination is cashing in on AI. But first, let's take a quick look at some other stories in the news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he's not going anywhere. I'm going to finish my term as leader, and I'm going to finish my Senate term. The 81-year-old Republican would next be up for election in 2026. McConnell has faced questions about his health, including from other GOP senators, after two recent episodes where he froze in public. Congress's attending physician has cleared McConnell for work.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In legal news, Special Counsel David Weiss says he will seek an indictment of Hunter Biden by the end of this month. That is an indication that the prosecution of the president's son is moving ahead. Hunter Biden was expected to resolve cases involving taxes and gun ownership with a plea deal, but that deal fell apart over the summer.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Moving to Mexico, the Supreme Court is decriminalizing abortion at the federal level. The latest ruling expands a previous order that banned criminal prosecutions over abortion. That follows a trend in Latin America of countries expanding abortion access. Also in Mexico, the country is on track to elect its first woman president. Yesterday, Claudia Scheinbaum secured the nomination of the governing party. The opposition has already nominated Xochitl Galvez, meaning the leading candidates for next year's election are both women.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We're following several legal developments involving former President Donald Trump. First, a federal judge ruling says that Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about writer E Jean Carroll in 2019. That follows a different civil trial involving Carroll where a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing her in the 90s and defaming her years later by calling her claims into question. Given this latest ruling, the next trial in January will focus only on how much additional money in damages Trump should pay Carroll.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Then there is the case in Georgia, where Trump is charged with felony racketeering and conspiracy charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. As we've mentioned before, it's different from Trump's other criminal cases in that there are cameras in court streaming the proceedings. And yesterday, we got our first look. Trump is one of 19 defendants. Yesterday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee moved ahead with a start date of October 23rd for two of the defendants. Prosecutors want to try all 19 defendants at the same time. They estimate it will take four months, with testimony from more than 150 witnesses. McAfee sounded skeptical. It just seems a bit unrealistic to think that we can handle all 19 and 40-something days.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Georgia is one of four criminal trials for Trump. He's denied wrongdoing in all of the cases against him. The federal trial on election interference and the New York trial on business fraud are both set for March. Washington Post justice reporter Devlin Barrett told us how the trials are crashing into each other and into the Republican primaries.
--:-- Devlin Barrett: On paper, those two things overlap and conflict because there's really no conceivable world in which even if you hit those dates, you wouldn't be able to finish the D.C. trial by the time the New York trial is supposed to start. But that doesn't even get into the primary calendar. And the primary calendar is where this gets even crazier because the D.C. trial, in theory, will start March 4th. March 5th is Super Tuesday, which means that more than a dozen states' primaries voters will pick who they want to be the GOP presidential nominee. And there are many more key states voting that month. There are another dozen or so GOP primaries scheduled that same month of March.
--:-- Devlin Barrett: So what you're really talking about is probably in the area of 20 states deciding who they want to be the GOP nominee at the same time that Trump in theory is going to court in two separate jurisdictions on two very different cases. So there is a world where Trump manages to clinch the party's nomination for 2024, all before the GOP and the world knows if he has been convicted of federal charges involving the 2020 election. We are going to see a world where the criminal justice system and the political system are just all up in each other's business all the time.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The new NFL season starts tonight with the defending champs, the Kansas City Chiefs, taking on the Detroit Lions. Apple News Sports editor Shaker Saman told us about the big questions and storylines heading into the new season.
--:-- Shaker Saman: At the very top of that list, can anyone stop Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs from winning another Super Bowl? They're dominant. They look like they could win every Super Bowl from now until Mahomes retires. Assuming he stays healthy and the gears keep turning, that offense is something to behold. But the Chiefs do start this season with a big question mark. How bad is the knee injury for tight end Travis Kelsey?
--:-- Shaker Saman: We also ran through some of the other Super Bowl contenders in the league. You have the Philadelphia Eagles, who very nearly won a Super Bowl last year with Jalen Hurts under center. Just such a dynamic offense. You have the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen, Stephon Diggs. A just terrifying defense. Also, keep an eye on the San Francisco 49ers, as well as a few others. Nobody knows if Brock Purdy or Sam Darnold is any good at quarterback. But what we do know is that between Christian McCaffrey and Devo Samuels and Brandon Ayuk, like that offense is horrifying to try to game plan for.
--:-- Shaker Saman: Joe Burrow and the Bengals should scare a lot of people. Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. Justin Herbert and the Chargers. There are a lot of teams here that can genuinely say to themselves before week one, you know, if the cards fall our way, we could be ending the season with a Lombardi trophy in our hands.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can follow your favorite teams and all the action this season in my sports on the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Finally, a surprising story about Anguilla, a Caribbean destination with stunning beaches and clear blue water. The beautiful scenery means tourists bring money into its economy. But this year, it's also set to make tens of millions of dollars because of artificial intelligence. Call it hitting the alphabetic jackpot. Anguilla is in charge of internet addresses that end in .ai. So you might see where this is going.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Bloomberg reports that artificial intelligence companies are grabbing up these domain names. The person who manages registrations for Anguilla says the number of sites ending in .ai doubled in the past year. And he estimates that .ai registration fees will bring in as much as $30 million this year. To put that into perspective, that would be around 10% of Anguilla's GDP. It's a welcome boost for a place that saw tourism revenue dip during the pandemic. An economy that once relied on natural beauty is now getting a hand from the AI bots.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: After all, if you can't get to the semi-remote island territory, maybe asking an AI site to make you an image of it is the next best thing. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app, stick around for a narrated article. As the U.S. Open plays out in real life, Elle profiles Zendaya. She stars as a tennis player turned coach in a movie coming next year called Challengers. Zendaya spent months training like the pros to prepare for this. She talks to Elle about the film, fashion, and fame.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
