--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, July 19th. 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: The federal trial of Steve Bannon is underway. The former Trump advisor has pleaded not guilty to two counts of contempt of Congress. He was charged after he refused to comply with the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. The committee subpoenaed Bannon to ask him about the day before the attack.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It says he spoke with former President Trump twice by phone that day. He also made a prediction on his podcast. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Joshua Green is a correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek and author of the book Devil's Bargain. It's about the relationship between Bannon and Trump. Here's what he told NPR.
--:-- Joshua Green: We now know that he was in touch with the president. We know that on some level he was helping to organize and amplify and encourage the rally that turned into a riot. And I think what the committee is hoping to get in his testimony is a fuller sense of exactly what he did and exactly what President Trump did in the days and hours leading up to that riot. And then, of course, what kind of communication they had as the attack on the Capitol was unfolding on January 6th.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Earlier this month, Bannon made a last minute offer and told the committee that he was willing to testify. NPR asked Green about the reversal.
--:-- Joshua Green: One, Bannon really doesn't want to go to jail. And so he's trying to avoid accountability for having spurned the subpoena. And the second thing is, I think he'd like to change the narrative around the January 6th committee.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Each count that Bannon faces is punishable by up to a year in prison. The next January 6th committee hearing will take place on Thursday during primetime.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, long before the committee started its work, Bannon had been trying to change the narrative around the election that Trump lost. His podcast, which is called War Room, is one of the most popular political podcasts in America.
--:-- Shamita Basu: CNN analyzed hundreds of episodes to look at just how frequently lies about the election come up. Mentions peaked around the attack on the Capitol. That January nearly 80 percent of episodes mentioned false claims of a fraudulent or stolen election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you want to learn more about how Steve Bannon has positioned himself politically since the 2020 election, you should really check out this recent piece from Jennifer Sr. in The Atlantic. She spent a lot of time interviewing him, probing him about the messaging on his podcast and the kind of influence that he has. It's long, but it's worth the read. You can find it on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This next story comes to us from the Los Angeles Times. A team of journalists spent the last few years chronicling the life of Mackenzie Trahan. And when they met, Mackenzie was 22 years old, living in a tent on the streets of Hollywood. And she was six and a half months pregnant.
--:-- Gail Holland: I ran away from home at 11 and started to do drugs and was in and out of juvenile hall. I didn't stop shooting up till like 11 months ago. I feel like my whole life has just been written for me. Like I'm just supposed to be stuck here like this. I'm not supposed to get any further.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Homeless young women are nearly five times more likely to become pregnant than young women who are housed. And even though this wasn't Mackenzie's first pregnancy, this one felt different.
--:-- Gail Holland: Gail Holland is one of the journalists from the LA Times team. She felt that somebody would need her forever. And that was something she wanted in her life. And she desperately wanted to change her life.
--:-- Shamita Basu: All throughout her pregnancy and after her daughter was born, Mackenzie tried to access different programs to get stable housing, to find a job, and stop using drugs. At one point, she got into a program that put a roof over her head. But there were a lot of rules. And as a new mom, it was lonely and isolating.
--:-- Gail Holland: She was living alone in a room with a newborn, a one-room apartment. and she had many wonderful moments with her child of bonding. She sang to her, she got her things, toys. At the same time, she was alone there and they weren't allowed to have anyone in their rooms after living basically in these raucous street camps surrounded by friends that she had for 10 years
--:-- Shamita Basu: Mackenzie was struggling in other ways too. She had court dates and appointments that she couldn't miss. She had to find a job. And she didn't have a car, which is a tough thing in L.A.
--:-- Gail Holland: And then one day, an anonymous call to the child protection hotline alleged that Mackenzie was neglecting her daughter. A social worker showed up to Mackenzie's apartment. he said the place was dirty. Soon after, a court took the baby away and placed her in foster care, just before her first birthday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Holland explains just how devastating that was for Mackenzie.
--:-- Gail Holland: Motherhood is a really important role for her. It was a calling for her because it was the love she felt, the bond she felt, the care she provided made her feel, as she said, needed. and she felt really good about it. So I think it's been really hard on her that she was unable to continue doing something that she felt she was good at because living on the street, you're not led to believe that you're very good at very much.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is the kind of storytelling you get when a newsroom decides to invest time and resources in one single person, knowing that their experience speaks to something bigger something systemic that's wrong. You hear from Mackenzie's friends, her mom, and her caseworker, who says that the system is asking the impossible of unhoused new mothers. They're expected to find a home, find a job, raise a baby, and stay sober all in a matter of months.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Mackenzie ends up back in a tent on the street, about two football fields away from where she was just before her baby was born.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If I say prenup, the marriages that come to mind are probably billionaires, celebrities. But these days, more and more younger couples are getting them. Close to 40 percent of married or engaged couples under the age of 34 have prenups. And it's often not about protecting their wealth. It's actually about protecting their debt.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Just listen to some of the advice that's circulating these days on TikTok. And we live in California a community property state So a prenup may help us avoid becoming responsible for each other debts Because of the prenup she didn have to take on half his debt or pay him alimony
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New Yorker reports on how, with so many young people carrying around crushing amounts of medical and student loan debt, they're signing prenups to keep their spouses from getting stuck with the bills.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New Yorker tells us about Sandy and TJ. They were together for years when TJ was diagnosed with brain cancer, and he was getting ready for the end of his life. He asked Sandy to marry him, and she said yes, but Sandy asked for a prenup because she knew that there would be expensive medical treatments that they couldn't afford.
--:-- Shamita Basu: TJ died a few months later with tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. But because they planned ahead, Sandy told all the medical debt collectors, you can speak to his lawyer, but that debt isn't mine to pay.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The World Track and Field Championships are happening right now in Oregon, and a new generation of shoes appears to be helping runners finish in faster and faster times.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Wall Street Journal looks at an analysis of times in middle to longer distance events in recent years. And the real thing that stands out, the biggest change, has been the rollout of what are called super spikes. These track shoes have super light foams and rigid plates inside.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, there may be other factors that are speeding runners up, but the journal reports that many people in the track world think that the shoes are the real explanation. Unlike swimming, which has banned high-tech swimsuits that provide an advantage, the track world is embracing new shoes. So runners could get even faster as shoe designers upgrade their technology.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. We've got extensive coverage of the heat wave that's hitting the U.S. and Europe. Wildfires are raging in Spain and Portugal. the Tour de France is spraying pavement to keep it from melting. And in the UK, schools are closing and some trains are cancelled.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can head to the app to read more about it. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
