--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, January 17th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, how the L.A. fires threatened to wipe out California's home insurance industry. The biggest stars in women's basketball are launching a new league. And a behind-the-scenes conversation with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott about Severance Season 2. But first, a quick check-in on the state of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a deal has been struck to return hostages held in Gaza and move forward with a negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The deal was on shaky ground as of yesterday, when Israel claimed Hamas had reneged on details of the ceasefire. Hamas' leadership disputed that and said they were still committed to it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday projected confidence that the agreement will go into effect starting as planned on Sunday. Look, it's not exactly surprising that in a process, in a negotiation that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end. Both sides have so far agreed to an initial six-week ceasefire, with later phases of the deal not yet fleshed out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This story is sure to keep moving quickly today and through the weekend. You can find the latest in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Biden is leaving the Oval Office the same way he entered, in a blaze of executive actions. The outgoing president is putting his pen to a whole slate of orders, from clemency to conservation to canceling student loans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post reports that even as many White House staffers are packing up their offices and getting ready to leave, many are still working on last-minute executive actions. Officials say this will likely continue up until the final hours of his presidency.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This morning, Biden announced he was commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent offenses, setting the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some of his other last actions as president include blocking oil drilling in more than 625 million acres of U.S. ocean, designating new national monuments in California, removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and just last night signing a new order on cybersecurity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Anne Newberg, deputy national security advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, told NPR about the purpose of that order.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The goal is to make it costlier and harder for China, Russia, Iran, and ransomware criminals to hack and to also signal that America means business when it comes to protecting our businesses and our citizens.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A few more items in the flurry of headlines you might have missed in recent weeks. The Biden administration is proposing a dramatic reduction in nicotine levels in cigarettes. The FDA will now require labels on the front of food and drink packages and another 150,000 student loan borrowers had their debt canceled.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Post points out another story that might have gone under the radar. The incoming Trump administration will find on Tuesday a new rule goes into effect, giving a 12 percent pay raise to about 14 blue employees at Army depots and Veterans Affairs facilities.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's not uncommon for presidents to leave office with a flurry of action like this, but the Post describes Biden's actions as, quote, unusually wide-ranging, and a sign that Biden sees the man who both preceded him and will succeed him, Donald Trump, as a unique threat to the Biden legacy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There is a certain advantage that an outgoing president has in moments like this, according to Andrew Rudalevich, a professor of government who studies the power of the presidency.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He described it this way to the Post, Biden can take this last opportunity to set the status quo with all these orders. And in Washington, the status quo often wins.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump, meanwhile, has already vowed to overturn what he can. In regards to Biden's offshore drilling order, Trump said he will reverse it immediately, adding, quote, drill baby drill.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to Los Angeles, where it's been more than a week since devastating wildfires forced as many as 200,000 Angelenos to evacuate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Experts say the fires could be one of the most expensive disasters in U.S. history, with possibly more than $250 billion in damages and economic loss.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Leslie Kaufman, who covers climate for Bloomberg, told us the fires will likely accelerate California's insurance crisis.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: Yes, even before the recent fires, insurance in California, home insurance in California, was very messy.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: To understand how we got here, Kaufman says, you have to look at a state law passed in 1988, which put limits on how much insurance companies could raise premiums for property coverage.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: That move, combined with the growing threat of climate change, has made offering policies in California less attractive to private insurers over the years.
--:-- Leslie Kaufman: So many left, like State Farm, one of the biggest providers, which decided in March of last year to stop renewing policies and stop offering new ones.
--:-- Shamita Basu: California just instituted a moratorium on insurance providers canceling policies for one year as a result of these fires, but other big names had already stopped offering new policies in the state, which means many homeowners are stuck with difficult choices.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some had to forego new insurance because they couldn't afford it. Others opted into California's FAIR plan, which provides less extensive coverage and generally costs more than private insurance.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's exploded in size as insurance companies left the state. Between September of 2020 and September 2024, the number of policyholders more than doubled, from 200,000 to over 400,000.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And many homes that rely on the fair plan are in some of L.A.'s hardest-hit neighborhoods.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So there are concerns about how claims will be handled in the wake of these fires.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As of last September, the fair plan said it had nearly half a trillion dollars of exposure on its books, meaning that if everything they insured burned down, they would own half a trillion dollars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If the fair plan can't cover the cost of all the claims, private insurers may have to pitch in, even if they've technically dropped California customers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's raised concerns among consumer protection experts that companies could try to pass the costs on to customers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And this is not out of the realm of possibility. The president of the Fair Plan said in a hearing last fall that the program was just one disaster away from needing help covering claims
--:-- Shamita Basu: For most people who lost their homes in the L fires, the ability to rebuild hinges on what insurance covers, which might not be enough.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Kauffman points out if someone bought a home a decade ago and it went way up in value, their policy simply might not be big enough.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the fair plan caps out at $3 million.
--:-- Shamita Basu: What happens is the people in the neighborhood may not have enough money to build back.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So there are huge costs coming ahead, and then you will have to insure these places.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So really, this is going to be something that richer people are going to have a huge advantage on, and that's why we see gentrification after these kinds of fires.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to sports, where the WNBA's top stars will participate in a brand new league in Miami tonight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's called Unrivaled. It's three-on-three basketball, six teams, 36 players, eight weeks of competition.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The tempo is fast. The court is short.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Alexa Philippou, who covers women's basketball for ESPN, told us this league will also be an exciting new way for players to earn extra money in the offseason.
--:-- Alexa Philippou: They've actually gone out and gotten really some of the top WNBA players to be able to not go overseas to supplement their salaries and to actually stay domestically and be able to actually make, in some cases, more than their WNBA salary.
--:-- Alexa Philippou: WNBA players get a fraction of what NBA players are paid.
--:-- Alexa Philippou: In 2023, the average WNBA player earned around $113,000, while the average NBA player had a base salary of $9.7 million.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's why so many WNBA players also play in leagues abroad, as Philippou mentioned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You might remember that's what brought Brittany Griner to Russia in 2022, where she was wrongfully detained for almost a year before U.S. authorities negotiated her release.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She vowed to never play overseas again for her safety.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She will play in this league alongside WNBA superstars Brianna Stewart and Nafisa Collier, who co-founded Unrivaled.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are seven number one picks from the WNBA in the mix, a league MVP and 17 former Olympians.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They hope to draw the same growing audience that tunes into the WNBA.
--:-- Shamita Basu: 2024 was a blockbuster year for the WNBA, and it's poised to have an even bigger one in 2025.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There will be a new expansion team in the Bay Area called the Golden State Valkyries.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A number of new coaches are taking the helm of several teams.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And perhaps most importantly, a new collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA and players will be negotiated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Players have said they want the new contract to be transformational as they ride the recent wave of excitement around women's basketball.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That means they'll be asking for bigger salaries and other benefits like pensions, better health care and even better facilities.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They don't want it to just be another step in the right direction.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They want it to be something that addresses the moment of growth that the league is in, because this is only beginning, really the beginning of this moment of growth, they feel like for women's basketball.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Phillip, who says all of this makes for some pretty thrilling things to watch out for.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'm kind of looking forward to the unexpected because there's always new wrinkles.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But I do feel like with all the tension that's on the sport, that it's a really exciting time and that it hopefully all going to be positive things or interesting things or things that just keep people talking about women basketball.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rudy Giuliani reached a settlement with two Georgia election workers he was convicted of defaming.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The settlement will allow him to keep his homes in Manhattan and Florida.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and Donald Trump's personal lawyer, was convicted for falsely accusing two election workers of trying to steal the 2020 election for President Joe Biden.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He was held in contempt twice in two different courts for being uncooperative in the handing over of his assets to pay for the $148 million judgment against him and for continuing to make defamatory comments about these workers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A judge said if Giuliani defames them again, it would land him in jail.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A big-time loss in the film world, director David Lynch died yesterday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Described as a visionary director and surrealist artist, he was known for his films Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, and his groundbreaking television show Twin Peaks, which Variety says revolutionized American episodic TV.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His longtime collaborator, the actor Kyle MacLachlan, posted a tribute to him on Instagram, calling him an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He added, he was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Lynch was 78 years old.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And one very last thing, let me mention what's on this week's episode of Apple News in Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We're talking about the highly anticipated season two of Severance, which is out today on Apple TV Plus with the show's stars, director Ben Stiller and actor Adam Scott.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you haven't watched it, Severance is a dystopian take on work-life balance, where people agree to have their consciousness split so that when they're in the office, their inny self doesn't know anything about their personal life, and when they leave the office, their outy self doesn't know anything about their work life.
--:-- Ben Stiller: It's been awesome to see fans get into the show.
--:-- Ben Stiller: The craziest thing for me was seeing these terms that we had been throwing around for a couple of years, like Innie and Audi and the break room and all of these things that no one cared about for the longest time.
--:-- Ben Stiller: We were just making this weird little show off in the corner, but we suddenly were having to worry about security and use code words for the show and a particular season or a particular thing and needed these kind of encrypted emails.
--:-- Adam Scott: So that's, to me, you know, the question is, like, how are these people, the human aspect of, you know, who they are, how is that going to eventually, it has to come out, this need for connection, this need for love, regardless of even the Audi and any sharing that feeling.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can hear my full conversation with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott in this week's episode.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the news app right now, that's queued up to play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
