--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, September 27th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, how Trump and Harris are both trying to appear tough on the border, why sparing the life of the Parkland school shooter will lead to more people getting the death penalty in Florida, and a second moon will soon join Earth's orbit.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But first, to the criminal case against the mayor of America's largest city. In a 57-page indictment, federal prosecutors say New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, was involved in bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal campaign donations.
--:-- Gwen Hogan: These alleged acts were going on for a long time. And federal prosecutors allege there was a decade-long scheme in which Adams, when he was borough president and then mayor, accepted lavish gifts, including flight upgrades and hotel rooms in exchange for favors from Turkish nationals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When prosecutors unsealed the indictment yesterday, they gave one example. They said in 2017, Adams took business class flights on a Turkish airline. Those flights were worth a lot of money. Just one ticket alone cost more than $10,000.
--:-- Gwen Hogan: And they claim months later, Adams tried to cover it up by creating a fake paper trail. Adams with an email to a staff member and told the staff member that he had left cash in her desk drawer and that she should send the money to the Turkish airline to pay for a trip he had already taken.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As the indictment makes clear, that's just a clumsy cover up. As we allege, a particular Turkish government official behind many of the benefits Adams sought and accepted gave Adams all these things to gain influence over him. We allege that Adams knew that and took the benefits anyway.
--:-- Gwen Hogan: Prosecutors allege that in return for the gifts, Adams used his roles to help Turkish officials, including getting safety clearances from the fire department for a new consulate building. Other allegations in the indictment include efforts to change his phone password, to block law enforcement from accessing it, deleting communications, and relying on free or discounted flights on Turkish airlines to fly all over the world.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many of his associates in city government are also facing investigations, and several high-profile city officials have recently resigned or said they'll step down. Eric Adams came into office in 2022, promising to be unlike any mayor New York City has ever seen before, the mayor of swagger, as he put it.
--:-- Gwen Hogan: As a Democrat and former city police officer, he often blurred the lines between parties, sometimes drawing criticism from all sides. And now he truly has become something the city has never seen, a sitting mayor facing federal charges.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He denies wrongdoing and has said he will not step down despite growing calls for his resignation. We asked Hogan, so what could happen next? There are legal experts that are like digging into the city charter right now to really get to the bottom of this Governor Kathy Hochul does have some power to oust the mayor if it gets to that
--:-- Gwen Hogan: But Hogan says don't expect Adams to go quietly even if more pressure mounts. We've already seen him sort of elevate some of the talking points that we see right-wing figures throw out about this situation over many months, which is that he is facing extreme scrutiny because he was critical of the Biden administration over his handling of the migrant crisis, which has impacted New York City significantly over the past two years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he seems to be sort of aligning himself with critics of Biden over the migrant crisis in that regard. Adams will face arraignment in court as soon as today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, Vice President Kamala Harris heads to the southern border for the first time as a presidential nominee. At a stop in Douglas, Arizona, she's expected to discuss border security, her plans to send more agents to the border, and new technology designed to track the flow of fentanyl.
--:-- Paula Ramos: Harris, as she has previously, will also likely discuss the role that former President Trump played in convincing congressional Republicans to not back a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year that would have addressed many of the issues he criticizes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Harris has said that if she is elected, she would resurface that bill and sign it. Her trip comes as she has been labeled weak on the border by Donald Trump and other Republicans. They blame her for the influx of migrants and call her the, quote, border czar, though her supporters say she was never tasked with border security as VP and was instead asked to look at the root causes of migrations from Central America.
--:-- Paula Ramos: Meanwhile, Trump often demonizes migrants and tells voters that if he's elected, he'll implement the largest mass deportation in American history, relying on local sheriffs and police, even invoking the military if necessary.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They're both leaning on this idea of border security, but the heart of why they're promising that is very different. That's Paula Ramos, a freelance journalist who covers issues affecting Latinos in America.
--:-- Paula Ramos: One of them, Donald Trump, is based on this idea that there's an invasion at the southern border, that migrants are criminals and that they threaten Americans. Ramos says even though the facts don't back this up, cities with migrants have not seen a rise in crime.
--:-- Shamita Basu: These ideas have really taken hold. Trumpism has done a really good job at injecting so much fear mongering in the national discourse that Americans, no matter how far away you are from the border, are fundamentally scared of the idea of migrants. and they're scared of the border.
--:-- Paula Ramos: And so I believe that, you know, Democrats are kind of falling into that political trap where they think that the way to win is to go to the center on this issue. The Biden administration has also taken action to dramatically restrict asylum at the southern border and is on pace to deport more people than Trump did.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Still, an NBC News poll from earlier this month found that 54% of registered voters believe Trump would better handle securing the border. Just 33% said the same of Harris.
--:-- Paula Ramos: At the same time a majority of voters believe Harris will treat immigrants more humanely She is promising a pathway to citizenship for the over 11 million undocumented folks that are in this country She is promising still more protections for DREAMers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And nowhere in her plans do you see, obviously, any mentions to mass deportations. Still, both campaigns seem to believe they'll gain an edge by appearing tough on border security.
--:-- Paula Ramos: And Ramos says Harris's ramped up message and attention on this issue seems to be working, at least in some states. I think in a place like Florida, it's doing really well. I think in a place like Texas, it plays really well. And in a place like Nevada that has one of the highest rates of mixed status families, I believe that they're sort of yearning for a more compassionate, more humane message.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so we'll see. But I think at the end of the day, like the threat, I believe, of Donald Trump's deportations, once people visualize that, what does it mean for policemen to knock on your door again and to ask you to leave? What does it mean to be stopped in a traffic light because of the color of your skin like they did in Arizona for so many years and ask you to leave?
--:-- Paula Ramos: What do all of these ICE raids that we saw during the Trump administration mean again? And I feel like it's been so long since we had to sort of see those images. And just based on my last trips in Arizona, people are once again starting to come to terms with that reality.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to Florida and part two of the Marshall Project's reporting we featured in yesterday's show.
--:-- Joe Sexton: Reporter Joe Sexton told us about the remarkable defense for Nicholas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to carrying out one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Cruz's legal team only needed to convince one member of the jury to spare his life. It would have to be a unanimous decision to hand down the death penalty. And they did it. They got him a life sentence by convincingly arguing that Cruz's brain was damaged in utero by alcohol abuse.
--:-- Joe Sexton: That decision was met with public backlash, and it led to a big change in state law. DeSantis and Florida legislators worked to rewrite Florida's death penalty statutes. And so today in Florida, only eight of the 12 jurors are required to sentence someone to death, which makes Florida the state with the lowest bar for execution of any state in the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The majority of Americans support life sentences over the death penalty. That's true in Florida, too. A recent poll found support for executions dropped when Floridians learned about the process of killing someone and how executions are actually more expensive than lifelong incarceration.
--:-- Joe Sexton: For Cruz's defense team, this wasn't about trying to appeal to national trends and public opinion. They were just trying to paint a full picture of what drove Cruz to kill, really trying to live up to what it means to carry out justice.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Their successful efforts had actually now made it more likely that others facing serious criminal charges in Florida could be sentenced to death It a hard thing for them to sort of come to peace with In Cruz's case, nine out of 12 people on the jury initially sought the death penalty. Today, under Florida's new law... He would have been sentenced to death.
--:-- Joe Sexton: There are questions around whether Florida's law will stand. But if it does, we're likely to see many more people executed in Florida. In fact, since 1976, Florida has executed more people than every other U.S. state except for three.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At the same time, the state has the highest number of people wrongfully convicted and later exonerated from death row than any other in the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hurricane Helene made landfall as a major Category 4 storm late last night, hitting the Big Bend region of Florida. Millions of people in Florida and Georgia were without power as of this morning.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And while the storm has weakened, rain and flash flooding are expected in the region. While many people were encouraged to and did evacuate ahead of the storm, NPR reports that evacuation for some might not be as easy as it seems. There are language barriers at play. It can be costly, and those with disabilities might find it hard or even impossible to leave.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A new study finds anti-transgender policies enacted at the state level have caused a sharp rise in suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary youth, from 7% to 72%. The data came from a national survey on mental health of more than 61,000 people who identify as LGBTQ plus over the course of five years. It's the first study to establish what researchers say is a causal relationship between these policies like bathroom bans and suicide attempt rates.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, on Sunday, Earth will get a second moon. Well, it's technically a small asteroid set to orbit our planet for just about the next two months.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Scientists have called it 2024 PT5, and Earth's gravitational pull is drawing this asteroid into our orbit for a short time. Other objects like this have entered Earth's orbit before, and they become these kinds of mini-moons when they make full revolutions around the planet.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This one is only about 33 feet across, so you're not really going to be able to see it unless you've got super professional gear. But check on your horoscope-obsessed friends. You might feel something change out there in our skies.
--:-- 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.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New Yorker profiled a Catholic priest in Italy who helps women leave the mob and start new lives through a secretive underground network. If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy your weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday. Thank you.
