--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, April 18th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, understanding the Fox News defamation case as the trial gets underway. On tax day, a tax prep volunteer tells us all the ways the U.S. tax code is broken. And debating whether an AI image can legitimately win a photography prize. But first, an 84-year-old white man now faces felony charges in the shooting of 16-year-old Black student Ralph Yarrell, who survived.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The shooting happened around 10 o'clock Thursday night in Kansas City. Yarrell's family says he was going to pick up his twin brothers, but mistakenly went to the wrong door.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Family attorney Lee Merritt told NBC what happened next. And he was confronted by a man who told him, don't come back around here. And then he immediately fired his weapon, striking Mr. Yarrell in the head.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He went to the ground and then he was shot a second time. Missouri prosecutors charged Andrew Lester with first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If he's found guilty, the sentence could be up to life in prison. Lester later told police that he thought someone was trying to break into his home and he was scared.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Jarl family attorney says Jarl ran for help and knocked on at least three neighbors' doors. At the last home, a person told him to lie on the ground and put his hands in the air. Jarl did that, and then he passed out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This shooting is getting national attention. Before charges were announced, protesters took to the streets. Family, classmates, and educators say that Jarl is a gifted student and award-winning musician. With plans to study chemical engineering in college.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One teacher described him as a gentle soul. He was hospitalized and is now recovering at home.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Turning to an entirely separate incident in upstate New York, a woman was shot and killed when she and her friends mistakenly drove their car to the wrong address on Saturday night.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Prosecutors say Kaylin Gillis was fatally shot by the homeowner, Kevin Monahan. He's now charged with second-degree murder.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The local sheriff says the group was looking for a friend's house in a rural area where it's easy to get lost. He says there was no reason that Monaghan should have felt threatened.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The defamation trial against Fox News is scheduled to start today after a delay. We talked about this trial on Friday's show with Brian Stelter, the former chief media correspondent at CNN, who has written extensively about Fox News.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On Friday, we focused on the Supreme Court precedent, Times v. Sullivan, that could be upended in this case. Today, we'll focus on the question at the heart of Dominion's lawsuit.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Did Fox defame the voting technology company by spreading false claims that Dominion rigged the 2020 election by flipping votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden?
--:-- Shamita Basu: The judge has already said it's clear the claims that Dominion was involved in election fraud are not true, so they won't be debating that. What Dominion will need to prove is that Fox acted with actual malice when it aired those lies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's the legal standard. Actual malice. Fox will argue that it's protected by the First Amendment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When I spoke to Brian Stelter about this, he said Dominion will try to make its case about actual malice by pointing to what Fox News hosts and executives were saying in private messages versus what was being said on the air.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For example, back in November of 2020, shortly after the election, Tucker Carlson texted his producer calling claims about manipulated voting machine software absurd.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His producer replied that he didn't think there was evidence that voter fraud impacted the election. But a few days after this exchange, Carlson went on his show and suggested there could be merit to those claims.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We don't know how many votes were stolen on Tuesday night. We don't know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don't know. We ought to find out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But here's what we do know. On a larger level, at the highest levels, actually, our system isn't what we thought it was. It's not as fair as it should be. Not even close.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Other big name Fox hosts did similar things. And Stelter explained that Dominion will also point to the guests that Fox had on its programs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that's part of the dispute here, is that in the way that the Fox hosts reacted to the guests by seeming to believe it, by going along with it, by encouraging the guests to keep going, by prompting them to repeat more and more lies about Dominion, essentially Dominion says, well, look, the Fox hosts were in on it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This was the Fox hosts who were the ones endorsing the lies. Stelter brought up one example from November 8th of 2020. Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo had Trump lawyer Sidney Powell on her show.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software I know that there were voting irregularities. Tell me about that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that Maria setting up Sidney Powell to go on and on about this bogus information. That's to put it mildly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The computer glitches could not and should not have happened at all. That is where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We need an audit of all of the computer systems that played any role in this fraud whatsoever.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So what Dominion's arguing is, by Maria Bartiromo saying, we talked about this, I know there were irregularities, she is endorsing the lie that Powell is going to advance.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's the kind of material that the jurors are going to have to assess and decide, does that clear the bar for actual malice?
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find coverage of the Fox News Dominion trial on Apple News. And if you want to hear my full interview with Brian Stelter, search for Apple News in conversation in the Podcasts app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today is tax day, and I really hope you're not learning that from me because that would mean that you have some work to do and fast.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Doing your taxes can be stressful, complicated, and kind of boring. But for Vox senior correspondent Dylan Matthews, It's a thrill ride.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I really find taxes interesting. I think sort of the question of how to get money for the government is something that I've always been curious about since a young age.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so I really like interacting with it and doing my own taxes and working on other people's taxes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But I'm aware that this is a minority preference. He channels that unusual passion to help other people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He's involved in VITA, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program, which gives free tax help to people with limited English, disabilities, and or income below $60,000.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Matthews told us his volunteer work has helped convince him that America's tax code is deeply broken.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I think my basic view on doing taxes is that it feels unnecessary. There was some TikTok a while back where someone was like, it's like a quiz where there's a right answer and you have to guess the right answer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you get it wrong, you go to prison. Not only are the consequences pretty serious, but our complex tax system often hurts people who have the least resources to navigate it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For example, Matthews sees more and more gig workers take a head. Because platforms like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash typically don't treat gig workers as normal employees, income taxes aren't withheld through the year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So people often end up with big tax bills and even penalties when they file.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another element that overly complicated is the definition of a child and the benefits that people get as a result.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You find yourself in these cases where you have to consult these long sort of charts and diagrams of whether a kid counts for head of household or EITC or child tax credit or two of these or none of these.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I couldn't tell you the rationale for why these are subtly different. I think it's just that Congress passed these laws at different points in times and didn't refer back.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Matthews says it doesn't have to be this way. In many countries, including in the UK and Japan, most taxpayers don't file returns. The full bill is automatically taken out of paychecks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He says he loves helping people do taxes, but he'd also be happy if a simpler system made his volunteer work obsolete.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A photographer is rejecting a prestigious prize, saying he won't accept a Sony World Photography Award because he generated the image with AI.
--:-- Shamita Basu: German artist Boris L. Doxson says he entered the black and white image depicting two women as a way to spark debate and make a statement.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His take is that artificial intelligence images and photographs are two different things, and they shouldn't compete for the same awards.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The World Photography Organization says they knew the image was AI-generated before they picked him as the winner.
--:-- Shamita Basu: L. Doxon told them. It was in a category where experimental approaches are allowed, and what he said about AI didn't disqualify him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the organization is still honoring his wish and taking him out of the competition.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Al Doxon said part of the reason he submitted the generated image was to see if competitions would be prepared for AI images to enter the mix.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His conclusion? They are not.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's also coverage of a possible Hollywood writer's strike, which could delay the movies and shows that you're watching.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Writers Guild members voted overwhelmingly yesterday to strike if they don't get a new contract by May 1st.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's just the latest example of unions trying to flex their muscles.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So we've queued up a narrated article for you about how unions are trying to grow at very different workplaces, like Starbucks and Amazon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloomberg Businessweek looks at how unions send undercover activists, known as SALTS, to get jobs in places, with the goal of convincing other workers there to organize.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the News app right now, that story will play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
