--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Monday, March 18th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, an investigation into sexual abuse by police. The SAT enters the digital age. And remembering the creator of karaoke. But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news.
--:-- Russian President Vladimir Putin is claiming victory in the country's election. There was never doubt about the vote's outcome, since he made sure no serious challengers could run against him.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If Putin finishes the upcoming six-year term, he'll have held power longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.
--:-- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hitting back at criticism from the U.S., especially Senator Chuck Schumer's call for Israelis to hold elections and pick a new prime minister.
--:-- Netanyahu: I think Schumer's statements are wholly inappropriate. I think we're not a banana republic. The people of Israel will choose when they'll have elections, who they'll elect, And it's not something that will be foisted upon us.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In legal news, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing another major case involving social media today. Justices face the question of whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by telling platforms to take down content it found false or misleading.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And in college basketball, the brackets are now set for the NCAA tournament. The number one seeds in the women's tournament are South Carolina, Iowa, USC and Texas. On the men's side, the number one seeds went to defending champions UConn, Houston, Purdue, and my team, North Carolina.
--:-- You can get full coverage of March Madness in the Apple News app.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: A warning that this next segment deals with sexual abuse of a child.
--:-- Jessica Contrera: A few years ago, I was assigned to report about child sex trafficking. I had Google News alerts turned on for keywords that might be important to my beat. But what ended up in my inbox shocked me.
--:-- One headline read, Former Louisville police officer sentenced for sexually assaulting a child. Another, Ex-Chicago cop sentenced to 25 years in sex trafficking of young girls.
--:-- Jessica Contrera: So I started investigating, and what we found was staggering. Our investigation found more than 1,800 law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022.
--:-- Rain: That's what happened to one young girl identified by her middle name, Nicole. She was sexually assaulted by a New Orleans police officer, Rodney Vignair, who was dispatched to her home when she was 14 years old.
--:-- Rain: Nicole said she had been raped by a friend, and Vignair was there to take her to the hospital to gather evidence. For months after their initial encounter, Vignair groomed her.
--:-- Rain: Nicole's mother, her name is Rain. Rain talks a lot about how when Rodney Vickner offered to be a mentor to her daughter, she thought, oh, that's wonderful. Like somebody who is this role model is going to look out for my kid. And so it was a little bit harder for her to spot those red flags with Rodney Vickner because she trusted him as a law enforcement officer.
--:-- Rain: Vickner visited Nicole's home multiple times. He sent inappropriate texts, made comments on her body, and then he assaulted her in his locked truck.
--:-- Rain: In 2022, Vickner pleaded guilty to charges related to abusing Nicole. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but died after serving less than six months.
--:-- Jessica Contrera: I think it really important to remember that even in cases like Nicole where this law enforcement officer was prosecuted he was sentenced to a significant amount of time the effects of being sexually abused by a law enforcement officer are something that are likely to last her entire life.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Post investigation found that these cases are happening more often than we realize and that police departments aren't doing enough to stop it. It's also extremely difficult for any victim or their loved one to report a crime committed by police.
--:-- Rain: As Nicole's mother wondered, how do you report the police to the police? I think that there is probably no greater power imbalance than a police officer who has a gun and the power to arrest and a child who is very vulnerable.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Nicole and her mother have filed a civil case against the city and the superintendent of police. That case is ongoing.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The SATs have officially entered a new era. It is now completely digital. That's right, no number two pencils or scan sheets, no more packing up test booklets and shipping them all over the country.
--:-- Priscilla Rodriguez: Students now take the test through an app that's downloaded onto a tablet or laptop. The College Board, the organization that develops the SAT, anticipates that more than a million students will take the digital exam this spring.
--:-- Priscilla Rodriguez: We're rooted in what we were hearing increasingly from students and schools. We were quickly becoming one of the last major tests that they were taking on paper. It's also a business decision for the College Board and a way to keep the SATs relevant.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The shift to digital comes after many colleges made SAT scores optional for admissions. That change started during the pandemic. Just recently, some schools like Yale, Dartmouth, and MIT decided to once again require these scores from applicants.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: For students taking the new SAT, there are some other changes to celebrate. The digital test is an hour shorter, down to about two hours from three. And students can use calculators for the entire math section. There's even a built-in graphing calculator on the test app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Another important change the test is adaptive meaning if students get more answers correct on the first part of the SATs the test will automatically give students more difficult questions in the second half
--:-- Raina Robinson: Similar to putting a pencil down, we were all closing our laptops. We were so glad that it was finally over. But I think it was a lot less stressful because we were taking it on a computer because all the assessments we take in school are usually on our computers anyway.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The man behind some of your most memorable nights out has died at 100 years old. The Wall Street Journal has an appreciation of Shigechi Nagishi, inventor of the karaoke machine.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In 1967 in Tokyo, he invented what would first be called the Sparko Box. It enabled anyone to sing along to their favorite songs over a backing track. Karaoke became a global phenomenon that let amateurs dazzle their friends with hidden talent and also tipsy warblers murder great songs.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Nagishi was inspired to create the karaoke machine because he was like a lot of us, not the greatest singer. One day, one of the engineers at his electronics company was making fun of his acapella voice. Nagishi thought it would be pretty great if people could hear how he sounded singing along with the real music.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That little brainstorm launched a worldwide sensation. Nagishi and other inventors of early karaoke technology did not patent their creations. His daughter says that never bothered him, that he felt a lot of pride in seeing how the idea spread through Japan and around the world.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: 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 from New York Magazine. It looks at how a group of squatters managed to gain control of a mansion in Beverly Hills.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
