--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Wednesday, April 24th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Coming up on today's show, the Supreme Court hears cases about emergency abortions, revisiting the 1968 protests at Columbia University, and an unusual set of matchmakers. But first, let's take a brief look at some other stories where there is a lot going on in Washington.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill providing nearly $100 billion in foreign aid. The bulk of that is going to go to Ukraine and Israel. Taiwan is also getting aid. And the bill includes some humanitarian funding for Gaza, Sudan, and Haiti.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There is also the TikTok measure we talked about on the show yesterday. It'll ban the social media app if its Chinese owner doesn't sell it. President Biden promises to sign the bill into law as soon as it reaches his desk.
--:-- Eamon Javers: The Justice Department will pay nearly $140 million to settle claims related to sexual abuse by the former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. Elite gymnasts, including Simone Biles and Michaela Maroney had fought for years to hold the FBI accountable.
--:-- Eamon Javers: They say the agency failed to adequately investigate Nassar's conduct. An internal DOJ investigation in 2021 was also critical of the FBI's response to the allegations against Nassar. He was eventually sentenced to decades in prison.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And let's spend a little more time here on a government policy decision that could affect tens of millions of Americans. The Federal Trade Commission is moving to ban nearly all non-compete agreements for employees.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It estimates that 30 million Americans, about one in five workers, are subject to them. That means they can't switch jobs to work for competitors of their employers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Critics say the agreements are being used too broadly, locking down everyone from hairdressers to ballroom dance teachers. They say that banning most non-compete agreements will make it easier for people to switch jobs, which can lead to better pay.
--:-- Eamon Javers: In the future, under this rule, non-compete clauses will be allowed for senior executives, but below that level, and they're saying 99 percent of Americans will not be allowed to have non clauses.
--:-- Eamon Javers: That is, businesses cannot impose non clauses in contracts with new hires and for those people who have non clauses right now in their contracts and it probably a lot of people who are watching this on television those non-compete clauses that exist now will be unenforceable once this measure finally does take place.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Business groups like the Chamber of Commerce say the FTC's move is a problem, that non-compete agreements are important to protect trade secrets. And the expected legal challenges may delay implementation.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Today, the Supreme Court hears a pair of cases that fundamentally are about how under threat a pregnant patient's health needs to be in order for a doctor to perform an emergency abortion without risking legal consequences.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: These cases come from Idaho, which has some of the most restrictive abortion policies in the country. That includes only allowing for an abortion in cases where it is clear that without it, the patient would die.
--:-- Maureen Grappi: The Biden administration says that state law is in violation of a federal law that requires hospitals to provide abortions in cases where there are serious threats to health, even if patients are not on the brink of death.
--:-- Maureen Grappi: Many conditions a pregnant person might experience are very dangerous, even if they're not always deadly. Women risk having permanent damage to their reproductive system. They can risk organ failure. And they also can risk hemorrhaging if they miscarry and they're doing it away from the hospital because the hospital said they weren't able to help them.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's USA Today's Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Grappi. She says Idaho will argue that it's up to them, not the federal government, to decide what cases warrant an abortion.
--:-- Maureen Grappi: Idaho officials say that the Supreme Court turned the abortion issue over to states that decide, and this is where Idaho wanted to draw the line. They say they're trying to protect the unborn child as well as the mother, and they say the Biden administration is using this law to override the will of Idaho's residents.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In Idaho, some doctors are now declining to offer abortions in situations where one would be typically recommended. One report released in February found Idaho has lost over 20% of its practicing OBGYNs over just the last two years.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's since the state law took effect. And at least three hospitals have closed down their labor and delivery services.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Lower court rulings have been split on these issues. And a final decision is expected this summer. It will be the court's first time ruling on a state law restricting abortion that took effect after they overturned Roe v Wade
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The arrests and academic suspensions of 100 student protesters at Columbia University has set off a wave of demonstrations nationwide.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Students on campus across the country are setting up encampments to protest the war in Gaza. And they're calling on their school's endowment funds to divest from companies that may profit from the war, like military weapons manufacturers and defense contractors with ties to Israel.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, at Columbia, this is not the first time student protests have become a flashpoint for national political unrest.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And there are concerns that the school's response so far has repeated mistakes that they made in the past.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Washington Post reports on demonstrations in 1968. At the time, students there were protesting the Vietnam War, specifically Columbia's ties to military research, and the construction of a gymnasium in Harlem that would have displaced many residents and required Black people to use a separate entrance in the basement.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This was also just weeks after the assassination of MLK. The protests grew more tense as time went on. Students occupied five buildings, including the president's office, barricading themselves for a week.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They cut off water, electricity, and phone lines. They even briefly took a dean hostage.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's CBS News coverage from the time. The student strike appears to have stopped most regular, most conventional instruction at Columbia.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Replacing it are a variety of what the strikers call liberation classes. Some of these classes on campus lawns, some in private homes, some of them ad hoc gatherings to discuss politics, some rigidly following the college curriculum, but all outside university classroom buildings.
--:-- Juan Gonzalez: When Columbia's president called the police, they arrested more than 700 people and badly beat some of them.
--:-- Juan Gonzalez: I was arrested. They would not allow me to see a doctor. I had broken ribs. My face was cut. I got hit with a pistol under the eye. And I was bleeding there, and I wasn't allowed to see a doctor until I got out of court, which was approximately 10 hours later.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Juan Gonzalez, a co-host of Democracy Now!, was a student at Columbia in 1968. He's been reflecting on the school's response to protests today.
--:-- Juan Gonzalez: When we were suspended and there were many of us suspended that we were allowed to appear before a tribunal to plead our cause There was at least the rudiments of due process
--:-- Juan Gonzalez: Here there is no due process This response is the total flouting of any kind of democratic process by the current administration compared to what happened in 1968
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In 1968, Colombia's president resigned a few months after the protests. The current president has called pro-Palestinian demonstrators a danger to the school.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Police disagree with that assessment and say protesters have acted peacefully. As soon as today, Columbia Senate is expected to vote on a resolution that could censure the president.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And students have the option of attending classes remotely for the final days of the school year.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And finally, a story about what happens when you mix Buddhist monks, reality television, and a quest to save a country's future.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The LA Times went to an unusual gathering in South Korea. Dozens of young singles headed into a temple with Buddhist monks serving as matchmakers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The monks were inspired by a popular reality TV show. All this sounds like a bit of fun, but it's an attempt to solve a major problem vexing South Korea.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The population is rapidly aging, straining the country's social services. The country needs more young people to get together and start families.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Celibate monks may not be the most obvious choice to help in that regard, but tricky problems do require some creative solutions.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For the singles, there's no requirement they be Buddhist. As one monk puts it, they screened for one thing overall, yearning.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: People who wanted true love, serious relationships, they made the cut. Single people play games, they make some small talk, fairly standard speed dating stuff, but instead of over drinks at a bar, they're sitting on mats in a temple.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There's even an MC running the entire affair. The monks say that they've made a few solid matches so far, and the unusual concept is getting the matchmaker monks a viral following.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now they've got grand plans to expand the program to every Buddhist temple in South Korea.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the Apple News app right now, that story is queued up to play for you next. And if you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
