--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, April 5th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, people in Tennessee demand action on guns from their lawmakers. New developments for the Wall Street Journal reporter held by Russia. And in extremely relatable news, your plants scream when they're stressed. But first, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a Manhattan criminal court yesterday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The charges are connected to three hush money payments made ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors say money went to adult film actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump has denied affairs with them. Prosecutors also cite a payment to a doorman who once worked in Trump Tower. He claimed to know about a child that Trump allegedly fathered out of wedlock.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg spoke about the case. As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law. No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring American principle.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump also spoke after going back to his Florida home. And I never thought anything like this could happen in America. Never thought it could happen. It is unprecedented for a former U.S. president to face criminal charges.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But globally, Trump is not the first leader of a democracy to face prosecution. Two former French presidents have been convicted of corruption after leaving office. South Korea has prosecuted several former leaders. Italy's former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was found guilty of tax fraud in 2012. And current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing three corruption cases while in office.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Political science professor James Long talked to NPR about why this didn't happen in America for so long. Well I think the case for looking the other way has always been that at any one moment looking at what a president done pursuing a prosecution could be more traumatic than trying to hold the person to account.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Certainly that was sort of the thinking of Gerald Ford when he pardoned Richard Nixon. So then the question is well if you keep looking the other way over a long period of time, do you eventually develop sort of a moral hazard where any president can reasonably think that they could get away with something if they look at what their predecessors may have gotten away with?
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's some data on the impact of prosecuting leaders. A LaGrange College political science professor and his students reviewed hundreds of cases over decades where current or former top leaders were arrested, indicted or imprisoned. They compared that with data from Freedom House, which ranks countries' political and civil rights records, and they wrote up their results in Politico.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They found that prosecutions of presidents and prime ministers were just as likely to happen in healthy democracies as in less free countries. And generally, places that prosecuted their leaders didn't go backwards in freedoms. Most stayed the same, and a few even moved up in the Freedom House rankings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We are only scratching the surface of the Trump case. You can read much more on all of the angles in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's check in on a few updates in local politics across the country. First, in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court election, Judge Janet Protosiewicz has won. That's a big victory for Democrats in the race we talked about on the show yesterday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It tilts control of the state court to the left for the first time in 15 years. Activists hope that will help their cause in future rulings about abortion, elections, labor, guns, and many other issues.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Chicago, Democrat Brandon Johnson will be the city's next mayor. The former educator had the backing of the city's teachers union in the runoff. He beat Paul Vallis, seen as a more moderate Democrat who had police union support.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot had already been knocked out in the previous vote. Finally, let's turn to Tennessee, where people are demanding action from lawmakers after last week's deadly school shooting in Nashville.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tennessee has one of the country's highest rates of gun deaths. In the last few days protesters including lots of students have demonstrated at the state capitol. But state lawmakers don seem to be listening.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They considered legislation that would expand access to guns. Yesterday, they decided to delay decisions on several gun bills to next year. The Tennessean is covering how some state Republicans spent legislative time policing Democratic colleagues.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There were moves to expel three Democratic lawmakers who led gun reform chants on the House floor. Republicans filed resolutions accusing them of disorderly behavior. The three Democrats have defended their actions and promised to keep protesting, even if there's a vote to expel them tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Russia is still holding Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. The U.S. government and the Journal have demanded his release, saying the spying charges against him are false.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker talked to CBS about Gershkovich's actual work. Evan is a very talented, experienced reporter. He's accredited to report from Russia. And he was on an assignment doing what he always does.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He was gathering information. He was reporting from the ground to provide our readers with eyewitness accounts of what it's like to be in Russia at the moment. It's a complete outrage that he was arrested like this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His colleagues at The Wall Street Journal have also been advocating for his release. Several spoke about his professionalism in a new video from the journal, including Moscow bureau chief Ann Simmons.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Evan always spoke about his love for Russian culture, tradition, literature, and thought that, you know, as a person who is from a Russian background, he could actually be more effective in telling the Russia story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gershkovich met with his lawyers in prison yesterday. They say he's in good health and grateful for the support from around the world.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A key next step would be for the U.S. government to declare Gershkovich wrongfully detained. That could happen soon, and that classification would unlock new government resources to work toward his release.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's Tucker, his editor, again, talking to CBS about the importance of that. When that happens it an official recognition that the charges against Evan are entirely bogus.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And once that official recognition comes things can then move a bit more rapidly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another person speaking up for Gershkovic release is Brittany Greiner the WNBA star who was held in Russia last year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gershkovic covered her detention in Russia, her arrest, trial and the long negotiations that led to her release just a few months ago.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Greiner posted on Instagram about Gershkovic, saying, Every American who is taken is ours to fight for, and every American returned is a win for us all.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Finally, let's end on a story that's a reminder of all the stuff we miss in the natural world as mere humans. New research shows that plants make noise when they're stressed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's at a frequency that we can't hear, but researchers recorded it and manipulated it so we can get a sense of it. Let's listen to a tomato plant screaming into the void.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So it turns out these plants are very quiet when they don't need anything. But if they're stressed, damaged, or thirsty, they'll make these popping sounds more frequently.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We may not be able to hear or speak to plants, but researcher Yossi Yovel told CNN that other creatures are in on this conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can imagine a moth eavesdropping on the plant when it is making a decision such as where to eat or what plant to eat or something like that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's exactly the directions that we're interested in right now. This new line of research upends longstanding ideas that plants are silent. We just weren't listening closely enough.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can read more about this and other stories in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We've got a narrated article coming up next. On a day when we're talking about Wisconsin election results that could impact abortion rights, we think it's a good time to listen to this New York Magazine article by Rebecca Traister.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It takes a closer look at how Democrats are trying to put reproductive rights at the center of the national agenda, because I think it's a winning issue for 2024.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's queued up to play for you next, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
