--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, June 22nd. I'm Shamita Basu. 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.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Donald Trump was directly involved in a plot to put forward fake electors in states that Joe Biden won. That's what testimony revealed yesterday in the latest January 6th committee public hearing.
--:-- Rusty Bowers: I'm Rusty Bowers, a Republican and Arizona House speaker. Trump and Rudy Giuliani pressured me to overturn the results in my state. I told them I would not replace the electors without evidence of fraud. You are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath when I swore to the Constitution to uphold it.
--:-- Rusty Bowers: Normally, electors are a formality in giving electoral college votes to the candidate who wins the state. The Trump campaign tried to undermine that process. In Arizona, I also stood up to pressure from Trump's lawyer, John Eastman. And I said, you're asking me to do something that's never been done in history, the history of the United States. And I'm going to put my state through that without sufficient proof? And that's going to be good enough with me? That I would put us through that, my state, that I swore to uphold both in Constitution and in law? No, sir.
--:-- Rusty Bowers: When I pressed Giuliani for that proof, he was told, quote, we've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bowers was asked to read from his own journal. Here's what he wrote around the time that Trump associates were putting forward fake electors in his state.
--:-- Rusty Bowers: It is painful to have friends who have been such a help to me turn on me with such rancor. I may in the eyes of men not hold correct opinions or act according to their vision or convictions. But I do not take this current situation in a light manner, a fearful manner, or a vengeful manner. I do not want to be a winner by cheating.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post has done extensive reporting on Trump fake elector scheme. It has a timeline showing that the idea bubbled up in Trump circles days after the election and went well beyond Arizona Republicans in seven states that Trump lost submitted slates of fake electors.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The idea was to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to cast doubt on the real electors, to then substitute them with the pro-Trump fake electors, who would help overturn Biden's win.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday, the committee shared new details connecting Republican Senator Ron Johnson to this. Text messages sent from one of Johnson's aides to one of Pence's aides ahead of January 6th were trying to arrange for Johnson to personally hand Pence a slate of fake electors.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Pence's aide responded at the time, quote, do not give that to him. A Johnson staffer tweeted after the hearing that the senator had no involvement in creating an alternate slate of electors, and Johnson told reporters who questioned him after that it was a quote, non-story.
--:-- Shea Moss: I haven't been anywhere at all. I've gained about 60 pounds. I just don't do nothing anymore. I don't want to go anywhere. I second guess everything that I do. It's affecting my life in a major way. In every way. All because of lies.
--:-- Ruby Freeman: Do you know how it feels to have the President of the United States to target you? The President of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one, but he targeted me, Lady Ruby, a small business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stood up to help Fulton County run an election in the middle of the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are a lot of news updates from the past 24 hours. So let me just cycle through some of the bigger headlines in politics and beyond.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Overseas, around a thousand people were initially reported dead in Afghanistan after a powerful earthquake hit near the Pakistani border. The death toll is expected to rise as more information comes in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Biden is expected to ask Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for the next three months. If lawmakers agree, this would remove a tax of 18.4 cents a gallon, more for diesel.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to primary results. Trump had a losing night in Georgia, where voters knocked out Trump-backed candidates. And D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser won her party's primary, setting her up for a third term.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In the Senate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is moving a gun safety bill forward. 14 Republicans voted yes, meaning that it's likely to pass and become law. It doesn't go as far as many gun safety advocates wanted, but it will expand background checks, fund red flag laws, and expand limits on gun buying for people who've abused their partners.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And a civil jury says Bill Cosby sexually assaulted a teenager in the 1970s. It awarded Judy Huth $500,000 in damages. Cosby's team says he'll appeal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He was criminally convicted in 2018 of sexually assaulting a different woman, but released from prison last year when his conviction was overturned on appeal. The civil case is the first by a Cosby accuser to go to trial.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find more on all of these stories in the Apple News app. Let's take a closer look now at new concerns about the safety of multiple Americans being held by Russia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They include Alex Drukey and Andy Hwan. They're American military veterans who joined the effort against Russia in Ukraine and were captured. Some captured foreign fighters have recently been sentenced to death.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NBC News got an exclusive interview with the Kremlin spokesperson. In Moscow, first comments on the captive Americans he said they could face the same penalty. No, I cannot guarantee anything. It depends on the investigation.
--:-- Dmitry Peskov: Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson: Dmitry Peskov told NBC that the Americans were involved in illegal activities and should be punished.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last week, NBC's Molly Hunter got in touch with Drew Key's mother. She talked about the last text message that they sent on the 8th.
--:-- Drew Key's Mother: So he wrote and said, I'll be going dark tomorrow, mom, and possibly the next day. And I wrote back, and this is her speaking, stay safe and I love you. And he wrote back, I'm sorry. I love you, too. And that's the last she heard from him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A third American veteran who went to Ukraine to fight, Grady Karpassi, is also believed to be missing. The Kremlin spokesperson told NBC he had no information about that case.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Peskov was also asked about the fate of WNBA star Brittany Greiner. She's been detained by Russian authorities since February, accused of carrying vape cartridges with hashish oil while traveling through a Russian airport.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U.S. government considers her a hostage. I would strongly disagree with that. We cannot call her hostage. Why should we call her hostage? She violated Russian law. And now she's being prosecuted. It's not about being a hostage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Peskov told NBC that he had no information about whether any possible prisoner swaps may be in the works.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Archaeologists in Iraq are racing to excavate the ruins of a 3,400-year-old city before it disappears underwater again.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Weiss explains how extreme drought drained a reservoir on the Tigris River. It revealed what historians believe is a lost city that was once a major hub of a Bronze Age empire.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Water levels have dropped in this area before, giving brief windows to document the site. Recent finds include 100 cuneiform tablets. They were well-preserved by the water.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The team on the dig also says that the city walls are in surprisingly good shape. These researchers say the drought is an archaeological opportunity, but it's also a warning.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The city was once destroyed by a natural disaster, an earthquake. The reason we can see it today is because of a human-made disaster, climate change.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our news plus partners. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
