--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, August 12th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the biggest moments from the Paris Olympics, which ended over the weekend. A massive hack of the Trump campaign. And Banksy strikes again, with new art popping up on the streets of London. But first, new polling has Kamala Harris leading Trump by four points in three battleground states.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, have been rallying in crucial swing states and raising tons of money while they're at it. Meanwhile, Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance made his case on three Sunday talk shows.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On CBS, he contrasted his multiple media interviews with Harris's more scripted approach so far. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris has run a campaign where every time she's in front of voters, a teleprompter is in between. She doesn't really talk to the media like at all. She hasn't answered, I think, a single tough question from a reporter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: With me now to help us catch up on where the candidates stand in this fast-changing race is my colleague Gideon Resnick.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hey, Shamita. It's Gideon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okay. So now that there's been some time since Harris entered the race and enough high-quality polling and analysis has come out, what can we say about where this contest now stands?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, I think we can safely say that Harris has radically reshaped the trajectory for Democrats in just the three weeks since Biden dropped out.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So first, as we talked about on the show at the end of last week, and as you mentioned, Harris and Walz barnstormed the country and drew thousands at a number of their stops in their first week as a combined ticket.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In the most recent event they held in Las Vegas this weekend, the AP reported that they spoke to over 12,000 people, while another 4,000 remained outside because authorities had to stop admissions because it was 109 degrees out and people were still lining up to try to go.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In response to that and sort of the images and videos we're seeing of large crowds, Trump has been falsely saying that some of these images of packed crowds at Harris's events are AI-generated. There's no evidence for that claim at all.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But the important takeaway here is that this kind of visibility and persistent campaigning with the energy of those crowds is really not something that Democrats were seeing as possible with a Biden-led ticket.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Okay, so let's talk about where they're campaigning. You mentioned that their most recent event was in Vegas. Before that, Harris and Walz were in Arizona.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So it feels like the Harris campaign is looking beyond just those Midwestern states that we always hear about as a path to victory.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, I think that's 100 percent right. And I think that's the main point I would make here about how things have changed.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So when Biden was the candidate, there was a sense that Democrats were not very competitive in polling in states that they had won in 2020, like Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Instead, they were starting to talk about a very narrow path to victory that was going through, you know, this so-called blue wall that we often hear about Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But now with Harris leading the ticket that seems to have shifted Democrats see a lot more options on their path to 270 electoral votes.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In fact, the Cook Political Report in recent days changed their ratings for Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia from lean Republican to toss-up.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's how Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report summed it up on PBS NewsHour. Four or five-point shifts in those battleground states, which is mirroring what we're seeing in the national poll as well.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It hasn't turned those states, though, from ones that favored Trump to ones that now favor Harris. It just means now that the race is no longer as lopsided in Trump's favor as it was, say, in late July, as it is today, which is why we're calling this race a toss-up.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Also, Shamita, with all the money the Harris campaign is bringing in, it gives it some options to shore up their position in these states in the form of ads and staffing and more events in the future.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I do want to go back to the Midwest for a moment because those states are still incredibly important. And just to remind listeners in 2016, Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And that was a big deal at the time. I mean, it had been decades since a Republican won those states. Then in 2020, Biden flipped them back.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: What do we know now about Harris's position in those states?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, these states are very, very critical, as you say.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There was recent polling this weekend from The New York Times and Siena College that showed Harris had a four-point lead on Trump in those states. That's Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And maybe what's more interesting is to put it in context of their polling. So the Times previously had Trump leading by one to two points average when Biden was in the race.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So they're measuring, you know, a pretty significant shift there. And if you look at some of the cross-tabs and what voters were saying otherwise in these polls, they told pollsters that Harris has the better temperament and is more honest and intelligent.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But they also said that they still trust Trump more when it comes to the economy and immigration.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gideon Resnick, thanks so much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yes, thank you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Paris Olympics came to an end over the weekend after weeks of competition involving 184 countries and more than 10,000 athletes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The United States came out on top in the medal count with 126 total. Among the American stars, Simone Biles, Suni Lee, and the rest of the U.S. women's gymnastics team, who secured the team gold.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Swimming star Katie Ledecky won her ninth gold, making her the most decorated American woman in Olympic history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And here's an interesting fact from NBC. If American women were competing as their own nation, they would have won the third most medals after the U.S. and China.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Observing the Olympics in Paris was really a pretty unmatched experience.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Matthew Futterman, senior writer with The Athletic, who's been in Paris for the Games.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: He told us about some of his favorite moments, including watching American runner Gabby Thomas.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: She beloved not just for her athleticism but for her dedication outside of sports. She studied neurobiology at Harvard. She also volunteered at a health clinic for people without insurance.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: Futterman told us what a joy it was seeing her win one of her three gold medals.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And when she ran the 200 and crossed the finish line and was a gold medalist, she just sort of crumbled over and was just so overcome with emotion and had this just beaming smile across her face.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And a sense of amazement. When you've gotten to know somebody a little bit and you see them go through a moment like that, it really sort of stood out to me in a lot of moments that were pretty special in this games.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And so I'd have to say that that's a story that I'm going to enjoy telling to people for a while.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Other notable American moments, our women's soccer team returning to gold medal form and both basketball teams defeating France for the golds.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And across other nations, Futterman shouted out Dutch runner Sifan Hassan, who did something that you just don't see at the Olympics.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: She participated in the 5,000 meter, got bronze. Then she did the 10,000 meter, bronze again. And then she also ran in the marathon and got gold.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And on top of all that, she broke an Olympic record. That's almost 40 miles worth of racing.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And, you know, it's so rare that you see a marathon come down to a final sprint like that.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And to see it happen just, you know, right in the heart of Paris in one of the most famous plazas on the earth with thousands and thousands of screaming fans and the bleachers above, it sort of encapsulated everything that I'd experienced for two and a half weeks.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: This was just incredible sports in front of incredible fans in incredible settings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another standout moment for Futterman was in tennis, seeing Novak Djokovic winning the gold.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: I've seen him win just about everything on lots of different continents. And yet he never won this gold medal.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And he desperately, desperately wanted it. And he won it at 37 years old, two months removed from knee surgery, playing the best player in the world in Carlos Alcaraz.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And he played just the most remarkable two sets in order to do that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And there you are, and you're in a sports stadium with 20,000 people, and Léon Marchand wins a gold medal.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And spontaneously, everybody breaks into La Marseillaise like they're in the bar in Casablanca in that great moment.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: And it happens over and over and over again. And it happened over and over again at these Olympics when France won a lot of medals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One controversy lingers involving American gymnast Jordan Childs.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: Originally, she placed fifth in the floor exercise, but her coach challenged the score.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: Judges agreed, giving her the bronze medal ahead of a Romanian gymnast.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: Romania protested and over the weekend officials ruled that the American coach inquiry came four seconds after the one-minute deadline to appeal.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: That meant Romania should have gotten the bronze.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: But now USA Gymnastics is protesting that ruling.
--:-- Matthew Futterman: It says it has video evidence that the U.S. coach submitted the inquiry in time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Up next is this year's Paralympics, which start later this month. And then, looking ahead to 2028, the Summer Olympics return to Los Angeles.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hamas is signaling that it may not take part in new Gaza ceasefire talks on Thursday, saying any plans should match up with President Biden's vision from May.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's reportedly angry about new Israeli conditions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is all in the wake of an Israeli airstrike on a school where displaced people were sheltering Saturday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Officials in Gaza said at least 90 people were killed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The attack has been criticized by the UN and EU.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Israel says it was targeting militants who were operating at the school.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In U.S. politics, Politico is reporting on a major hack of the Trump campaign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The news outlet started getting emails from an anonymous account sharing internal documents from the campaign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They included hundreds of pages of research about J.D. Vance with details of his vulnerabilities.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Politico confirmed the files were authentic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Trump campaign blames Iran.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That tracks with an earlier Microsoft report that Iranian hackers were targeting a high-level campaign official, though it didn't specify which campaign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Politico asked the leaker how they got the documents.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They replied, quote, I suggest you don't be curious because answering will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, the mysterious graffiti artist Banksy has added several new works to London streets recently, all with an animal theme.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Like many previous Banksy appearances, many of the works have quickly been shared on social media, preserved, defaced, or outright stolen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Banksy has confirmed the works are real.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Guardian looks into how the lack of captions is fueling debate over what they all mean.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is a fraught political moment in Britain.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some argue it might be some kind of commentary on the recent anti-immigrant rioters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Or maybe Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Or, as the artist's work has nodded to before, climate change.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If nothing else, they are amusing to look at.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Like one where two hungry pelicans have been made to look like they're swiping a meal from a fish and chip shop.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can see for yourself on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the news app, we've got a narrated article coming up next from The Atlantic, also about art that's sparking wildly different interpretations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In this case, it's a 500-year-old manuscript full of strange symbols and illustrations that has baffled scholars for generations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But now, one expert has a new approach to solving the mystery.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
