--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, June 21st. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, understanding Hunter Biden's plea deal, how the legacy of slavery continues to shape the U.S. legal system, and no, society's not getting more mean and selfish. It's memory bias at play. But first, updates on two stories we've covered recently. Very different stories about distress at sea.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One is at the top of global headlines right now. The search for the underwater tourist vessel near the Titanic wreckage. And another is a story that's by now slipped down the headlines, but is worth following as new developments come up. The deadly wreck of a ship off the coast of Greece that was carrying hundreds of migrants.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There is what could be a major update in the sub story. Search teams say they have heard underwater sounds in the North Atlantic, a crucial piece of hopeful news when the submersible may have just about a day of oxygen left. Searchers sent underwater robots to the area where the sounds came from, but there was no early sign of the missing vessel.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's a growing focus on safety procedures by Ocean Gate Expeditions, the tour company that charges a quarter million dollars per person to visit the Titanic site. The CEO is one of five people on board the lost vessel. Critics have questioned the company's procedures and equipment before.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last year, CBS News took a trip to the Titanic in this very same sub. The details of that report are telling in this new context, like the terms of the waiver passengers signed, read here by correspondent David Pogue.
--:-- David Pogue: An experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death.
--:-- David Pogue: Pogue's expedition, in fact, ended up getting lost for several hours. He spoke to CBS this week. This thing has seven different ways of returning to the surface. It has different kinds of ballast it can let go. It has an inflatable air bladder. It has propellers. So why isn't it at the surface?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let turn now to the less covered disaster the shipwreck near Greece. A little over a week ago a fishing boat capsized and sunk thought to be carrying around 700 migrants from Pakistan, Syria, and Egypt. More than 100 people were rescued, but hundreds more are confirmed dead or feared to have drowned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The boat left from Libya, where many human traffickers operate. So far, nine men from Egypt have been charged related to human trafficking. They denied wrongdoing in a Greek court yesterday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are also questions about the Greek response. Authorities say the ship refused offers of help. There are accounts that the boat flipped after the Coast Guard attempted to tow it, which Greek authorities deny.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Families of the missing have rushed to Greece, searching for news about their loved ones. Some carry pictures of the missing. The Guardian provided a translation of one family member's plea.
--:-- Family Member: My only request is that officials can come up with a way of recognizing these people as soon as possible. If the state helps us, we can identify many people and we can solve the problem of many people like me who are waiting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to the plea deal President Biden's son Hunter has with federal prosecutors. They spent nearly five years looking into Hunter Biden. There were questions raised about his dealings with foreign businesses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The plea deal involves pleading guilty to two minor tax crimes. Prosecutors say Biden did not pay his federal income tax on time in two previous years. There's also an agreement on a gun charge, which is a bit more complicated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Washington Post's justice reporter Devlin Barrett broke down the details for us. He is essentially admitting to the facts of illegally possessing a gun. because he did not tell the truth on a form when he bought the gun.
--:-- Devlin Barrett: Hunter Biden bought the gun in 2018 when he was struggling with substance abuse. But he wrote that he wasn't using drugs on the gun paperwork. Lying about that is a violation of federal law.
--:-- Devlin Barrett: But that case will not be a guilty plea. That will essentially be an admission as part of a diversion program. And diversion is a type of court process in which a person often with a substance abuse problem basically promises to get clean and not get into trouble for a period of time and then the charge will be dropped.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Barrett told us the deal will likely keep Hunter Biden out of prison if it finalized. Biden's attorney says this deal marks the end of the federal criminal probe, but the lead prosecutor says the investigation is ongoing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So it may not be over for Hunter Biden, and it's certainly not over for Republicans eager to use the Sun's legal troubles to attack President Biden. The prosecutor in the case was appointed by Donald Trump and started investigating Hunter Biden when Trump was still in office.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, said the Trump appointee had full authority over the Hunter Biden investigation. But none of that is stopping some congressional Republicans from criticizing the plea deal and promising to keep investigating the Biden family.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to a very different kind of legal story, one about how cases from the slavery era are still influencing American law. NPR looks at how often cases involving enslaved people are cited as precedent in modern legal arguments and an effort to change things.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Michigan state law professor Justin Simard and his colleagues have done research to track this. He told NPR that around one million cases use slavery cases in their arguments. 18% of all published American cases are within two steps of a slave case.
--:-- Justin Simard: Many of the cases he found involve things like contracts, commercial transactions, and property disputes. They're a product of a deeply problematic time, casually referring to people as property.
--:-- Justin Simard: Simard says the link to slavery often goes unmentioned by judges and lawyers because they're either uncomfortable acknowledging it or unaware of the connection.
--:-- Justin Simard: He hopes his project will get them to act differently. Lawyers and judges have so much power in our society. I think it makes sense for concerned citizens to think about how that authority is constituted and also how this reflects on their judgment and their ability to support justice.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He and his colleagues are calling for changes that they believe could make a big difference. They want a rule that requires cases involving enslaved people to be clearly labeled when cited Slavery is all over the place. Part of the goal of our project is to make sure that influence is accounted for.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Finally, a look at some new research that challenges golden age thinking. You've probably heard someone of a certain age talk about how people were nicer and more honest back in their day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And surveys across dozens of countries over decades show that people generally say morality is declining. Vox looks at psychological research that challenges this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The study's authors argue that the data tells a very different story. Researchers have asked people questions for years. Questions like, were you treated with respect yesterday? Or are people generally helpful?
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the answers have stayed constant. Other research shows that in lab experiments where people are given the opportunity to cheat each other, they haven't gotten greedier. In fact, people have gotten more cooperative over the last few decades.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They suspect that two complementary psychological factors may be driving a misperception that society is becoming immoral. First, humans tend to pay more attention to negative information than positive information.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The second factor has to do with memory. People are more likely to forget negative events of the past. So those memories fade over time. It's why people tend to have a rosy view of history. They're remembering the good times more than the bad.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's easy to say that people were moral in the good old days. Every generation does it eventually, and politicians love to take advantage of this. But the data seems to tell a different story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Our mental bias could be getting in the way, especially as we get older, of realizing that people around us are more or less as decent as they've always been.
--:-- 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, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next. The Wall Street Journal spoke to people who have connected with biological parents and half-siblings they discovered through DNA testing. It's redefining the idea of family. So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and we'll be back with the news tomorrow.
