--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Wednesday, April 17th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, the crew on the cargo ship that crashed in Baltimore is still on board. WNBA salaries may shock but not surprise you. And the black market for children's toys. But first, jury selection for Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York will take a pause today. But some progress was made yesterday. A total of seven people were placed on the 12-person jury, four men and three women.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: A man originally from Ireland who works in sales in New York City was appointed fourth on the jury. During jury questioning, CNN reports that Judge Mershon had to warn Trump about his conduct toward candidates, telling Trump that he would not tolerate attempts to intimidate jurors. Jury selection resumes on Thursday.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson faces growing pressure from fellow Republicans to resign. Johnson proposed a complex plan to fund foreign allies during wartime, separating out the aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan into individual proposals. Now, two members of his party, unhappy with that plan, are threatening to oust him from his seat.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican from Kentucky, said yesterday that he's joining Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia, who's filed a motion to vacate Johnson. Johnson says he will not step down. It is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: If Democrats do not intervene to help Johnson, Republicans would need just a simple majority to oust their second speaker in six months. And today on Capitol Hill, there are a few high-profile testimonies we'll be following. Congress will examine allegations of major safety failures at Boeing.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Senators will hear from members of an expert panel who say they found serious flaws in the company's safety culture. And senators will hear testimony from a whistleblower, an engineer at Boeing who claims the company's 787 Dreamliner has safety issues.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: In a different congressional committee Columbia University President Minouche Shafiq will testify before the same group that grilled the presidents of Harvard UPenn and MIT last year leading to two of those presidents resigning.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Since Hamas October 7th attack on Israel colleges have been criticized for not doing enough to prevent or address anti-Semitism on campus. Meanwhile, the University of Southern California is facing backlash after canceling its valedictorian's address, which has raised questions about free speech.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: The valedictorian is Asna Tabasim, a South Asian American Muslim who's minoring in resistance to genocide at USC. Her appointment drew criticism from a pro-Israel student group. The group claimed that Tabasim's social media activity called for the complete abolishment of Israel and said she was a troubling selection for valedictorian.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: The university says they are canceling her speech to, quote, maintain the safety of our campus and students. But Tabassam told CBS the university hasn't explained the specific concerns they have. I was never given the evidence that any safety concerns and that any security concerns were founded.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: What do you think it is? I think anyone who's watching this can draw their own conclusion. I look what I look like. I am who I am.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's been three weeks since the Dali cargo ship collided with Baltimore's key bridge, causing a large portion of the bridge to collapse. And members of the crew have been stuck on board, floating in limbo in Baltimore Harbor.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: According to the Baltimore Sun, most of the 21-person crew are from India. One is Sri Lankan. And Popular Mechanics reports they will likely be there for a while longer.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Crew members are still on the clock, performing duties on board and actively aiding recovery efforts. At the least, the ship is well-stocked with supplies and food.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Here's Maryland's Governor Wes Moore at a press conference in the days after the crash. Fortunately, the part of the ship that was most deeply impacted by the wreckage is not the part of the ship where either their living quarters or the kitchen and the cooking conditions are in, nor the fuel.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: So they're still able to move a maneuver in that area. The ship is stuck as a massive effort is underway to clear the channel. There are a dozen cranes working to remove approximately 140 shipping containers from the Dali.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: But according to one local reporter, so far, they haven't even removed half of them. Plus morale and mental health are real concerns NPR spoke with Reverend Joshua Messick.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: He works for a religious nonprofit that works to protect the rights of seafarers. My job is to make sure that that continues, that none of their rights as human beings or as seafarers are violated, that they continue to get all of the support they need.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: For example, he told NPR that his organization helped get Wi-Fi hotspots on board so the crew can contact their loved ones.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: As for disembarking, Popular Mechanics explains that it's complicated. International crews on these kinds of vessels often do not have visas to go ashore in all of the countries where they dock.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: And the crew of the Dali will be required to stay on board until the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board wrap up their investigations into the crash.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: An NTSB spokesperson said they expect to put out a preliminary report in early May.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: We have talked a lot about the star power of basketball phenom Caitlin Clark. She was the number one pick in the WNBA draft this week.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: She's expected to draw huge audiences, just as she did playing for the University of Iowa. And much of that audience is now shocked by WNBA salaries.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Clark will make $76,000 in her rookie season with the Indiana Fever and closer to $100,000 per year by the end of her four-year contract.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: By comparison, the first draft pick in the NBA is expected to make roughly $10.5 million in base salary in his first year.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: I mean, for somebody who is now the face of women's basketball, it seemed kind of ridiculous. That is Hoda Kotb on the Today Show, one of many people weighing in this week on the staggering pay gap.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: One explanation for the disparity, the NBA brings in a lot more revenue, but that could finally be changing with this new generation of talent, like Kaitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, and Camila Cardoso, all now joining the WNBA.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Clark's jersey with the Indiana Fever sold out within hours of her being drafted. Tickets for games are going for hundreds of dollars, and for the first time ever, viewership for the women's NCAA final surpassed the viewership of the men's.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Brands see her value too. According to the LA Times, she reportedly makes $3 million in endorsements.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Fox explains part of the inequity between pay in the NBA and the WNBA has to do with how contracts are structured for players involved with the players unions.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the NBA unionized players can earn more money as the league grows receiving a cut of everything from ticket sales to broadcasting rights.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: But in the WNBA, contracts are not structured with those same guarantees.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: On a recent episode of Apple News and Conversation, we spoke to documentary filmmaker Andrea Busilla about the fight for better wages in the WNBA and what athletes say they still need from the leagues.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: We're not saying, oh, pay them the same as the men just because equality. We're saying invest in them the same way that you're willing to invest in men.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: And we promise you the product is good enough to give you an ROI.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: There is a black market for everything, even Legos. Last week, the California Highway Patrol said they had arrested four suspects who had stolen $300,000 worth of Legos.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: They took box sets from places like Home Depot, Target, and Lowe's and allegedly hid them in stash houses across Southern California.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Why go through all this effort for children's toys? The LA Times did some digging and quickly learned that these little plastic bricks can be extremely lucrative.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Rare and limited edition Lego sets, like the one that allows you to create a Star Wars spaceship, are more valuable than some precious metals.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: For example, one that turns into the Millennium Falcon can sell for as much as $4,000 online.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: And last week's arrest was not an isolated incident. Lego thefts have been going on for years.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: One store in Vegas that specializes in Legos was robbed four times in just a few months. And a few years ago, French police said they were investigating an international Lego crime ring.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: This all reminds me of a crucial piece of advice I once heard. Never let your parents give away your old Legos.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: The New Yorker looks at how our obsession with longevity has changed the way Americans think about aging.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
