--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, September 12th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Alexander Ospovich: On today's show, Ukraine pushes to use American missiles to strike deep inside Russia. New research on shaken baby syndrome has major legal implications. And the grieving family that wants Trump and Vance to stop using their son's name. But first, to a new possible frontier in the world of American gambling, bets on U.S. politics.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Often, it's a yes or no question. Will Donald Trump win the presidential election or not? And you put your money down. If at the end of the day, you had the right answer, you get, let's say, $1. If you were wrong, you get zero.
--:-- Alexander Ospovich: That's Wall Street Journal reporter Alexander Ospovich. He's covering a pretty radical shift that could be coming. The ability for people to make bets on the outcomes of political events. That's currently banned in many states. The effort is being pushed in part by an online trading startup called Kalshi.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last year, it sued the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or the CFTC for short, when it blocked Kalshi from allowing people to bet on the outcome of congressional elections. A judge then sided with the startup. But the CFTC got the judge to postpone implementation. So bets are on hold ahead of another hearing today.
--:-- Alexander Ospovich: Ospovich told us why the CFTC is fighting back so hard. The CFTC argues that at a time when public trust in elections is low, you don't want to aggravate that by allowing election betting. If you allow election betting, according to CFTC, then voters could be skewed by their financial incentives.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You could have new avenues for manipulation of elections. Kalshi says allowing bets on politics would give businesses a way to hedge political risk, and it could be a valuable tool for understanding political sentiment. For example, political scientists would be able to use trading data to get a real-time window into how opinions are shifting.
--:-- Alexander Ospovich: I'll cite the example of Polymarket, which is a popular crypto-based prediction market that is off limits to Americans. And you could see during Tuesday's debate, for example, Polymarket reacting in real time to the market's perception of how Trump was doing. His ranking dropped by a few points just after the debate started.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If the judge rules today that Kalshi can move forward, Ospovich says we could see it offering political bets very soon. as the company is eager to capitalize on the interest in the 2024 race.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Europe today on a trip that included a rare visit to Ukraine. It comes at a critical time in the war. The country is bracing for a bleak winter. Much of Ukraine's energy infrastructure is destroyed after being relentlessly bombarded by Russia in recent months.
--:-- Alexander Ospovich: The Washington Post says lengthy blackouts have become a daily occurrence in Kiev. Now, Ukraine is pleading with the U.S. for more help, specifically for permission to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia. That's something President Biden has so far resisted, fearing it could draw the U.S. further into the conflict.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Lincoln didn't make any promises on his trip, but seemed to hint that further discussions inside the administration could lead to a shift. I think that you've seen, again from day one, that we have continuously adjusted and adapted based on battlefield conditions, based on what Russia was doing in a given place and by given means. And that's been a through line in everything that we've done.
--:-- Shamita Basu: CNN reports that pressure is mounting on Biden, including from within his own party, to loosen the restrictions on long-range weapons. Multiple Senate Democrats put out statements asking for change as Blinken visited Kyiv. But the move is risky. Lifting this restriction could provoke Russia and escalate the conflict.
--:-- Alexander Ospovich: The Kremlin has already said it would consider the U.S. party to the war if it does so. The timing is tricky, too, with the U.S. election just weeks away. Ukrainian leaders worry that if Trump wins in November, they won't get the same level of support.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In fact, in Tuesday's debate, Trump refused to support a Ukrainian victory. And I want to ask you a very simple question tonight. Do you want Ukraine to win this war?
--:-- David Muir: I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being uselessly, people being killed by the millions. It's the millions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ABC News moderator David Muir pushed Trump again on this point. Just to clarify on the question, do you believe it's in the U.S. best interest for Ukraine to win this war?
--:-- Donald Trump: Yes or no?
--:-- David Muir: I think it's the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. Negotiate a deal because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.
--:-- Kamala Harris: Because of our support, because of the air defense, the ammunition, the artillery, the javelins, the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine stands as an independent and free country. If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kiev right now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tomorrow, there's another meeting, this time in Washington, between Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Blinken says there the two leaders will discuss the Ukrainian request to use the weapons to hit Russia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to a criminal case involving shaken baby syndrome. It's a serious type of brain injury that can happen when a baby is shaken too aggressively. It can even be fatal.
--:-- Pamela Koloff: Over the years shaken baby syndrome has been used in courtrooms to defend decisions to separate babies from their parents and to send parents and caretakers to prison. But a growing body of research is calling into question the way doctors have traditionally diagnosed the syndrome, and more and more cases are being overturned on the grounds that shaken baby syndrome, and therefore the abuse associated with it, was misdiagnosed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today we're going to zoom in on one family story in Tennessee. Russell Mays is many years into serving a life sentence. He was convicted of murdering his infant son, Alex, who died in 2000.
--:-- Pamela Koloff: But this week, a medical examiner whose testimony helped convict Mays recanted his testimony. He says if he testified today, he would classify the manner of death as natural. The baby had multiple health issues.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Pamela Koloff, who's following the Mays family case for ProPublica and the New York Times magazine. In this example, you have a man who lost his child and was immediately turned into the suspect of a crime.
--:-- Pamela Koloff: At the time, the symptoms of shaken baby syndrome were considered irrefutable. But since Alex's death, researchers have learned symptoms once used to diagnose it can have many other causes. Dozens of convictions related to shaken baby syndrome have been overturned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in Nashville, Mays' case caught the attention of the DA's office, which surfaced new scientific evidence and now says a crime never occurred. It's asking the court to vacate the convictions.
--:-- Pamela Koloff: But Koloff says that doesn't mean Mays will walk free. The original trial judge is the person who this evidence goes before has so far not allowed Russell's case to be dismissed. It is currently before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it really is very uncertain what will happen because in our criminal justice system, unfortunately, it is built to double down on error more than it is to correct error.
--:-- Pamela Koloff: Still, since the medical examiner was so critical to Mays' conviction, Koloff says his reversal will be hard for the courts to ignore.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the years, Alex's mom Kay has firmly stood behind her husband. They're still married. Russell Mays was behind bars on the day of Alex's death. Kay wrote in her journal about the agony of him not being allowed to say goodbye to their baby.
--:-- Pamela Koloff: She said, quote, What the state of Tennessee has taken from us can never be replaced or forgiven. So you just think about all the different things that these parents had to suffer through. They were victims themselves.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You have Russell Mays, who lost his child, then became the suspect in this crime and has spent the past 25 years behind bars, apart from his wife and not able to properly grieve.
--:-- Pamela Koloff: And the system can seem to give him the justice that he needs. And I think what it calls for is not just action in his case but broad reform in the system that allows us to correct error more easily.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app. Louisiana is dealing with flooding, strong winds, and power outages in the aftermath of Hurricane Francine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It hit as a Category 2 storm with winds around 100 miles per hour. The New Orleans area was under a flash flood emergency for part of last night.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Moving to U.S. politics, where new ratings data show a blockbuster audience for the presidential debate, around 67 million viewers watched Trump and Harris on TV.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's more than 30 percent higher than the numbers for the Biden-Trump debate. In other campaign news, the father of an 11-year-old boy who was killed is telling the Trump campaign to stop using his son as a, quote, political tool.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The child, Aidan Clark, died last year when a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant hit his school bus in Ohio. Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, said the death was an argument against Haitian immigration.
--:-- Nathan Clark: I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would ever say something so blunt. But if that guy killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Clark called for an apology. Vance's spokesperson told NBC that Kamala Harris should apologize for her administration's border policies, and he said the Clark family is in his prayers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, The Tennessean has the story of how Jon Bon Jovi and his team talked to a woman who was in crisis off a ledge of a bridge in downtown Nashville.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Earlier this week, Bon Jovi was filming a music video on the bridge when he and his team spotted a woman who seemed to be in trouble. In video footage, you can see Bon Jovi and a production assistant walk over to her and begin talking to her. Then they help her back over the railing to safety.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bon Jovi has declined to comment to the media out of respect for the woman who was in crisis. The Tennessean notes that the bridge they were on is Siegenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, named after journalist and advocate John Siegenthaler, who stopped a man from jumping off the bridge in the 50s.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. The New Yorker sat down with the barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, for a deep conversation about her life, career, and the real story about the romance with her hungry husband, Jeffrey, beyond what comes through on TV.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
