--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, June 27th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, remembering Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman, what happened when ICE agents targeted Iranian Christian asylum seekers, and Anna Wintour ends her decades-long run as the editor-in-chief of Vogue. But first, the Supreme Court issued a flurry of opinions to end its term this year, leaving many of its most consequential cases to the end.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's start with the birthright citizenship case. In a 6-3 ruling, the conservative majority court found that federal judges likely exceeded the authority that Congress has granted them when they issued temporary nationwide pauses on President Trump's order ending birthright citizenship.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The decision has major implications for the ability of district court judges to pause federal actions for the whole country using nationwide injunctions. Notably, the justices said judges can only grant relief to the parties who brought a particular lawsuit and cannot extend their decision to protect sweeping groups of people unless they convert a suit into a class action.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote, quote, When a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power to.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In a rare move, Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissenting opinion aloud from the bench, taking nearly 20 minutes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Supreme Court did not weigh in on the constitutionality of the executive order calling to end birthright citizenship, a right that's been in the Constitution for more than 150 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This decision means the court will allow President Trump to seek to end birthright citizenship in some parts of the country, while legal challenges continue in a number of states.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Trump posted to social media shortly after, calling it a giant win and claiming incorrectly that the ruling had to do with the issue of birthright citizenship itself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In another 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court sided with a group of parents in Maryland who sought to remove their children from public school lessons that featured LGBTQ plus themed books.
--:-- Shamita Basu: By reversing lower court rulings on the matter, the Supreme Court determined that schools likely cannot require elementary school children to be in lessons involving books that their parents might have a religious objection toward.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The court also decided to uphold part of the Affordable Care Act that requires health plans to cover preventative care, such as cancer screenings, and it rejected a challenge to an FCC program that subsidizes phone and Internet services in underserved parts of the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It was a big day for SCOTUS. You can read more analysis on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Lawmaker Melissa Hortman, along with her husband Mark, and their golden retriever Gilbert, will lie in state today at the Minnesota state capitol.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A private funeral will be held tomorrow that will also be live-streamed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Minnesota House Speaker Emerita and her husband were assassinated earlier this month in their home.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Their dog was severely injured in the attack and later euthanized.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The suspected gunman also attacked Democratic State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, who were both wounded but survived.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hortman was known as a principled legislator and a tough negotiator, an unusually generous and skilled public servant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In her personal time, she led Girl Scout troops and Sunday school classes and volunteered with a group that trained service dogs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In the days and weeks since the attack Minnesota lawmakers have expressed their grief and shared stories about their friend and colleague Senator Amy Klobuchar who represents Minnesota and came up in local politics with Hortman, speaking from the Senate floor.
--:-- Senator Amy Klobuchar: Melissa was one of the most consequential speakers in the history of our state.
--:-- Senator Amy Klobuchar: She knew no limits in terms of trying to get people together, trying to get things done.
--:-- Senator Amy Klobuchar: And while I cannot believe she is gone, Minnesotans will be feeling the impact of her leadership forever.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Representative Athena Hollis, Hortman's colleague in the Minnesota Democratic Former Labor Party, told a local CBS affiliate how Hortman mentored a whole generation of young people and inspired them to become public servants.
--:-- Representative Athena Hollis: I mean, I got the ability to see how the sausage was made, and it gave me a whole new perspective on what legislating and leading was actually about.
--:-- Representative Athena Hollis: And she didn't have to have me in those rooms.
--:-- Representative Athena Hollis: And honestly, I didn't have a lot to contribute, especially when I first started.
--:-- Representative Athena Hollis: But she knew that it was important to bring up new leaders.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As House Speaker at the start of the 2023 legislative session, she pushed through several major pieces of legislation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Patrick Kooligan, editor-in-chief of the Minnesota Reformer, told us just how gifted Hortman was as a politician.
--:-- Patrick Kooligan: They created the biggest child tax credit in the country, free lunch, universal free meals for K-12 students.
--:-- Patrick Kooligan: They restored the vote to felons who are no longer incarcerated.
--:-- Patrick Kooligan: They created driver's licenses for undocumented people.
--:-- Patrick Kooligan: They increased education and human services spending.
--:-- Patrick Kooligan: They raised taxes in the metro area for housing and transportation.
--:-- Patrick Kooligan: They codified abortion rights.
--:-- Patrick Kooligan: They legalized marijuana.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's an incredible record of legislative achievement.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And despite policy disagreements, she earned the respect of her colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's Republican Congressman Tom Emmer speaking on the U.S. House floor.
--:-- Congressman Tom Emmer: While we may have disagreed on policy, Melissa was a great colleague who fearlessly fought for what she believed in, and she devotedly served the people of Minnesota.
--:-- Congressman Tom Emmer: He went on to say, As Speaker of the Minnesota House, she led with integrity and fostered bipartisan collaboration, even during the most challenging times in our state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Beyond her legislative accomplishments, Kulikin said Hortman will also be remembered for how she treated people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When she becomes Speaker of the House, she decides that she's going to take the health and safety of everyone more seriously than it had been.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And specifically, she's going to stop debates at midnight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Everyone knew that this was not just unhealthy, but potentially hazardous, because you have both members and staff out on the roads in the middle of the night after they've had this extraordinarily long day of work.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And someone was going to get hurt in a car wreck or some other way.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so she just said, we're not going to go past midnight anymore.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I think everybody appreciated that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, Hortman becomes the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol, joining a small and distinguished group of fewer than 20 Minnesotans who've been given that honor for their extraordinary public service.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In a statement, her and Mark's children, Sophie and Colin Hortman, called on people to honor their parents' legacy by, quote, doing something, whether big or small, to make our community just a little better for someone else.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And now to immigration policy as some high cases involving Iranians in America have been emerging.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Just a heads up some of the tape that we about to play might be distressing to hear.
--:-- Shamita Basu: First to L where a woman appeared to suffer a panic attack as ICE agents came to their home initially looking for her husband.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The couple are Christian asylum seekers who say they came to the United States to flee religious persecution in Iran.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They entered the country last October using the CBP-1 mobile app launched by the Biden administration to streamline asylum claims.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Trump administration has since scrapped that program, and ICE agents have been pursuing those already in the country and either using or hoping to use the CBP-1 route.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As the ICE agents, most with covered faces, arrested her husband and appeared to restrain her, their pastor was there to film the incident.
--:-- Pastor Ara Torosian: Why are you doing this? It's no longer valid anymore. My phone. Why what? Can I have his stuff? Can I have his stuff? No, no, yeah, phone.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That first voice you hear is Ara Torosian, the couple's pastor and a U.S.-Iranian citizen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As the video continues, you can hear her convulsing as the panic attack sets in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let him go! She's mad! Let him go! Let him go! You don't stay there, you're going to be arrested for inter-creening.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She's sick! She's sick! She's sick! I'm here! She's sick! Okay, stay there. She's back! Come on, mama! Come on, mama! She's back!
--:-- Shamita Basu: The woman was eventually taken to a nearby hospital for treatment where anti-detention protesters had already gathered.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But because she was now under federal custody, she had to be accompanied by ICE agents.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that created a little bit of a kerfluffle on the outside with the protesters, with the activists.
--:-- Shamita Basu: LAPD was called to the scene.
--:-- Alicia Victoria Lozano: Alicia Victoria Lozano from NBC, who's been covering this story from L.A.
--:-- Alicia Victoria Lozano: She says the couple remain in federal custody and their future is now uncertain, with the CBP-1 path no longer an option.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The incident happened in an area with a large Iranian population, so much so that it's been nicknamed Tehrangelis.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A lot of those people are Christians who came to the United States after the Iranian revolution.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So now you have this community who once was coming to Los Angeles to join their cousins and their friends and their relatives, now they are living in fear as well because the freedom that was granted to their relatives is no longer available to them.
--:-- Alicia Victoria Lozano: Lozano has learned about eight other cases similar to this one.
--:-- Alicia Victoria Lozano: And in Arizona, an Iranian asylum seeker who was living in the U.S. on a work permit is on a hunger strike after being detained.
--:-- Alicia Victoria Lozano: A federal judge just granted permission to allow officials to begin force-feeding.
--:-- Alicia Victoria Lozano: And federal agents revealed they recently arrested 11 Iranian individuals with either criminal records or alleged terrorist links.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So that is the other complicated side of this coin.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And anybody would have said, OK, that's exactly who we are. OK, getting behind bars, going back to whatever country they came from.
--:-- Shamita Basu: However, the ones here in Los Angeles, none of them do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Those were all asylum seekers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's unclear whether deportation arrests of Iranians have actually gone up since the recent conflict broke out, or if we're just seeing more of these cases in the news now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But certainly for these communities, the stakes of having to return to Iran will feel a lot higher.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A new study released from the Pew Research Center found that even if everyone had come out to vote in 2024, President Trump still would have won the election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The study, based on a survey with 9 adult U citizens and official voting records dispels the idea that Democrats and Kamala Harris lost because of low turnout
--:-- Shamita Basu: Instead the data shows that Trump was able to build a diverse coalition with major gains among Hispanic, Asian, Black, and young voters, groups that are key for Democratic victories.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In fact, nearly half of Hispanic voters supported Trump, 48% in 2024.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Asian support also grew, with 40% voting for Trump in 2024 compared to 30% in 2020.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And 15 percent of Black voters supported Trump compared to 8 percent in 2020, giving Trump the largest share of Black voters for a Republican candidate in decades.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In other news, Anna Wintour is stepping down as the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She's been in charge of the iconic fashion bible for 37 years, shaping the monthly newsstand staple into the cultural touchstone it is today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's widely believed that Wintour and her sharp personality inspired The Devil Wears Prada, a book written by one of her former assistants that was later made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Wintour has never confirmed the movie is about her, but when it came out in 2006, she showed up to the premiere wearing Prada.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Wintour will stay on as the magazine's global editorial director and the global chief content officer of Condé Nast, the media company that owns Vogue, and more than a dozen other lifestyle magazines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Her replacement has not yet been named.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And last thing, let me tell you what's been going on on Apple News in Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I sat down with the creators of the new Apple original film F1 The Movie out today, starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton served as a producer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Relapse. Relapse is a lifetime.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I recently spoke with director Joseph Kaczynski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The two previously teamed up for Top Gun Maverick.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And like that movie, F1 the movie is all about bringing the speed and intensity of the real life experience to the big screen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Kaczynski told me the actors spent months training to handle the extreme G-forces drivers feel on the track.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Top Gun, we talked about Gs, which are kind of vertical, pushing you down into your seat, you know, and pulling the blood out of your brain and making you unconscious.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Formula One, the Gs are side to side, left to right, and forward when you break.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And when you're pulling 5Gs in a left to right hand turn, the strain on your body and your neck to hold your head upright is enormous.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And most people after two laps in a Formula One car, they would be exhausted, not be able to hold their head upright anymore.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that's something that's very hard to train for.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So Brad and Damson just had to do hundreds and hundreds of laps to physically train themselves to actually be able to sustain driving these cars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The filmmakers also embedded in a real F1 season.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They built garages alongside the actual teams and filmed at live races.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bruckheimer described how some of those shots were captured.
--:-- Jerry Bruckheimer: What Joe asked Apple to do, he said, I want to take your camera from your phone. I want you to enhance it for me.
--:-- Jerry Bruckheimer: And I want you to be able to put it on our cars.
--:-- Jerry Bruckheimer: But what happened is he was able to take two of those cameras, which they developed, and put them on two of the actual F1 cars during every race.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So some of the footage that you're seeing is actually in a race.
--:-- Shamita Basu: F1, the movie, is out in theaters today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the news app right now, my conversation with Joseph Kaczynski and Jerry Bruckheimer is queued up to play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
