--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 13th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, the House votes on a bill today that could spell the end of TikTok as we know it. What might happen after the Prime Minister of Haiti resigns? And what Kate Middleton's photo scandal says about the royal family and about ourselves. But first, a quick look at a few other stories in the news, starting with U.S. politics, where voters have made their choice.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The 2024 presidential election will be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. They effectively secured the nominations for their parties after results came in from yesterday's primaries in Georgia, Mississippi, in Washington state.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The candidates will be formally nominated when the parties hold conventions this summer. In the House of Representatives, the Judiciary Committee heard testimony yesterday from former special counsel Robert Herr, who led the investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents.
--:-- [Music transitions to a news clip]
--:-- Announcer (Voiceover): The Washington Post notes, the grilling by lawmakers was fiery at times, but Herr's testimony ultimately revealed little new information, and the questions he faced fell largely along political lines.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Republicans pressed Hur about why he didn't pursue criminal charges against Biden, even though President Trump faces charges for mishandling classified documents.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hur has said in the past that there are key differences. For example, Trump did not cooperate with efforts to recover classified documents from his Florida home.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Democrats, meanwhile, pressed Hur about the assessments the lawyer made of Biden's health and mental state in the report.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hurd described the president as, quote, a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The White House has strongly rejected those claims, but Hurd told the committee that he felt justified to include them.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: My assessment in the report about the relevance of the president's memory was necessary and accurate and fair.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I did not sanitize my explanation, nor did I disparage the president unfairly.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I explained to the attorney general my decision and the reasons for it. That's what I was required to do.
--:-- [Music transitions to a news clip]
--:-- Announcer (Voiceover): The New York Times has new reporting on Boeing, Alaska Airlines and the 737 jet that had a panel blowout en route to Portland earlier this year.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One day before that incident, engineers and technicians for Alaska told the Times they were so concerned about the safety of the plane that they recommended pulling it out of service for maintenance immediately.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The airline says the concerns raised did not meet their internal standards for pulling a plane out of service, so the flight departed as scheduled.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But the Times report has raised questions about why Alaska Airlines did not choose to act with an abundance of caution and send an empty jet to Portland where it has a maintenance facility
--:-- [Music transitions to a news clip]
--:-- Announcer (Voiceover): Today the House will vote on a bill that could spell the end of TikTok as we know it.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The bill, which is expected to pass, is not an outright ban on the popular social media app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Instead, it would require TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, based in China, to sell the app within 180 days or have it taken down from the Apple and Google app stores.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The bill has bipartisan support, and advocates have long warned that because TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, American user data could be at risk.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Here's one of the bill's sponsors, Republican Mike Gallagher, on PBS NewsHour.
--:-- [Music transitions to a clip of Mike Gallagher speaking]
--:-- Mike Gallagher: The fundamental danger is that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, and ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.
--:-- Mike Gallagher: So from this flow, two concerns, one being the security of Americans' data on the platform, but the other, and I think broader concern, is the potential for this platform to be used for the propaganda purposes of the Chinese Communist Party.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The bill has the backing of President Biden and national security officials who also warn of Chinese interference.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: TikTok has repeatedly denied the accusations and said the company is not owned, controlled, or influenced by the Chinese government.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And back in 2020, when President Trump tried to do away with the app, he was blocked. The court said the government hadn't sufficiently demonstrated that the app presented a national security threat.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Though the bill is expected to easily pass the House, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where it's opposed by a mix of progressive Democrats and hardline Republicans, who argue that the bill limits the right to free speech.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Senator Rand Paul has long been a critic, and his opposition could hold up the bill.
--:-- [Music transitions to a clip of Rand Paul speaking]
--:-- Rand Paul: I think we should beware of those who peddle fear.
--:-- Rand Paul: I think we should beware of those who use fear to coax Americans to relinquish our liberties, to regulate and limit our First Amendment rights.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We should note, Rand Paul has received millions in campaign donations from one of TikTok's largest U.S. investors, according to Bloomberg.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Paul has denied the money has anything to do with his position.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Meanwhile, The Washington Post notes how phones were ringing off the hook on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, with users of the beloved app trying to save it.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Some 170 million Americans use TikTok, and the perception that it's being banned could quickly become an election issue.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Turning now to an ongoing story we've been covering out of Haiti.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Earlier this week, Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his plans to resign amid a stunning crisis in the country.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In recent days, there have been reports of armed groups attacking the airport, freeing prisoners and leaving dead bodies to decompose in the street.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: People are trapped, I mean, you basically a prisoner in your home, a prisoner in your environment.
--:-- [Music transitions to a clip of Jacqueline Charles speaking]
--:-- Jacqueline Charles: Imagine that you are in a city, a capital, where all of the main arteries, the main roads, are controlled, the access in and out, they're controlled by gangs.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In some areas, people have been killed either by these groups.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Bodies are not getting picked up because even the funeral homes are afraid to go out.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: There's also been a lack of fuel, so people have to preserve whatever little that they have.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: To back up a bit, this all started a few years ago when the previous president was assassinated.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: There was a power grab, and Henri came out on top, backed by the United States.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But his power was seen as illegitimate by many, including the gangs who have long controlled some of the poorest neighborhoods.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So they rose up, and in recent months, there's been chaos and a surge in kidnappings and murders.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And the police haven't been equipped to manage it.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: After resisting calls to resign, Henri finally agreed this week to step down.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: At an emergency meeting, leaders in Haiti agreed to form a new transition government led by a seven-member presidential council, which will be responsible for selecting an interim prime minister.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Charles says the question now is how armed gangs might respond.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Everybody's waiting to see what the reaction of these armed groups and or other individuals are going to be as a result of this proposal.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I mean, because one of the things that's clear and what Caribbean leaders made clear is that there is no seat at the table for any of the gangs or for any of the armed groups who were demanding the resignation of the prime minister and who were carrying out these violent coordinated attacks that include two mass prison breaks.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And in a startling turn from what we shared with you yesterday, Kenya announced that it will not send security forces to Haiti until the new government is in place.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The country was planning to send about 1,000 police officers to help tackle violence.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the meantime, Charles says the people of Haiti are terrified.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You have this unease because you're in your house, you're sleeping at night, and you don't know, are you going to be next? Is your neighborhood also going to be targeted?
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Finally, at this point, whether you want to or not, you've probably heard about the doctored photo debacle involving Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Kensington Palace posted the image on Sunday, Mother's Day in the UK, a smiling photo of her and her three children.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Except almost immediately people started to say, I think that photo is doctored.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And then the AP issued a kill notification because they also agreed that the photo had been manipulated.
--:-- [Music transitions to a clip of Catherine Van Arendonk speaking]
--:-- Catherine Van Arendonk: And part of the reason this was such a big deal, aside from AP's decision, is that Middleton has been out of the public eye for months.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The palace announced a planned abdominal surgery in January and said Middleton would not resume public duties until after Easter.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But as Queen Elizabeth would say, being visible is a royal necessity.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Royal watchers along with the internet, meaning all of us, accept the Princess of Wales being absent for so long.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And by February, rumors were circulating that the royal family was, perhaps, hiding something.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And so what was sort of a burbling fascination with what is happening with Kate Middleton just accelerated into this insane meme storm of speculation about what is actually going on with her.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And when the palace released the Mother's Day photo and the public started to notice discrepancies in the image, the internet went crazy.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: People love to become detectives about like, I see this photo. Is it doctored? Where is it doctored? Is that sleeve match this other sleeve? Is that shirt the same shirt that they were wearing in November? Are those the same shoes?
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Does that photo look like this other photo? Does that mean that this? What's the timeline?
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And so it becomes this self-perpetuating feedback loop of conspiracies that just grow and grow and grow.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The rumor mill got so hot that Middleton later apologized, saying, yes, she edited the photo, but it was a hobby, not something meant to deceive.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Still, several photo agencies took down the image, saying that the level of digital editing did not meet their standards for publication.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Now, there's no evidence that the royals are hiding something.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Van Arendonk says, presumably, Middleton was doing what a lot of parents do, trying to get a photo where all the kids are looking and smiling.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But there's been heightened scrutiny on the royal family, because several members have recently had to take a break from duties, for one reason or another.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And the family is not blameless either.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Van Arendonk says the palace PR machine has let this moment get out of control, which says a lot about a PR machine that is known for churning out images and coordinating events that depict a perfect royal family.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Which means, at some level, the truth is always being repressed.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The version that they play of themselves in public, we all understand is this performance, and yet they are performing themselves.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And there is always going to be some slippage between the public and the private.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And the question is not like, whether it's false, but where are the places where it's probably real?
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And if you're already listening in the news app right now, a narrated article is coming up next from The Atlantic featuring NPR host Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you listen to Morning Edition or Up First regularly, then you definitely know his voice.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He shares his quest to learn the truth about his secret adoption and looks into how it became such a common practice in the United States.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
