--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Monday, February 15th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U.S. Senate acquitted Donald Trump for a second time this weekend, but Trump's legal troubles are not over yet. Mitch McConnell made a speech on the Senate floor Saturday saying Trump was responsible for provoking the Capitol insurrection and could face future legal action.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen. Unless the statute of limitations is run, still liable for everything he did while he was in office. Didn't get away with anything yet. Yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For all the force behind that language, this was the same day that McConnell voted to acquit the former president. And now that Trump is a private citizen, he's facing a number of criminal investigations and even defamation lawsuits. CNN looks at the scope of the legal threats.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: First, there is efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia. Remember his now infamous phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger? And the people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Fulton County District Attorney's Office is investigating Trump for that call, and they've expanded their investigation to look into another phone call. According to Raffensperger, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham called him a few weeks before Trump did to ask about throwing out some mail-in ballots. Spokespeople for Trump and Graham have denied wrongdoing.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Those legal challenges are related to Trump the politician, but Trump the businessman is also on the defense. The Manhattan District Attorney is reviewing whether the Trump organization violated New York state laws like insurance or tax fraud. And now the Wall Street Journal is reporting the investigation into his businesses expanded to include loans associated with four Trump buildings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also in New York, the state's attorney general has a civil investigation open into whether the Trump organization inflated the value of its assets to get better loans and insurance coverage. Eric Trump, one of Trump's children, has already been deposed in this case.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But getting back to the insurrection, it seems Trump's final week as president could still come back to haunt him in court. There an ongoing investigation into the events of January 6th Some lawmakers are considering launching a 9 investigation into the riots And federal prosecutors are suggesting nothing and no one is off the table when it comes to prosecuting people involved in the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
--:-- Shamita Basu: D.C.'s attorney general says Trump could face criminal charges, and that his office is collaborating with federal prosecutors on the case.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Today, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala becomes the first African and first woman to lead the World Trade Organization. She's stepping into a key leadership role at a time when the power of the WTO has been severely weakened and as the world is confronting multiple trade issues.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Politico has a profile on her and her leadership style. First, a little bit about Okonjo-Iweala. She's both a U.S. and Nigerian citizen. She earned a bachelor's degree at Harvard, a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, and spent 25 years working at the World Bank, where she rose to the number two position.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And for all of her U.S. economics training, she served as Nigeria's finance minister twice. It was in the West African country that she earned a reputation as a savvy deal broker and a tough fighter of corruption.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last fall, the Trump administration blocked her nomination to lead the WTO, saying, they were more qualified people for the role. But Okunjo Iwela pushed back on that and continued to press her case.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: I have strong political skills to be able to bring members together. I have managerial experience from the World Bank. I've been a minister for seven years, the longest serving finance minister in my country. And I'm also working right now at the intersection of public health and trade.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So if you put all this together, I think I'm the candidate for the time. Now under Biden, the U.S. is backing her.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Like I mentioned earlier, Okonjo-Iweala is taking over at the WTO at a pretty challenging time. It's not only dealing with economic shocks caused by the pandemic, but as Politico reports, many countries are also rethinking their reliance on global supply chains and considering making more products domestically.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And of course, there's also a lot of mistrust right now when it comes to global trade, not just between the U.S. and China, but also between the U.S. and some of its usual allies. Under Trump, the U.S. turned away from global trade and embraced an America first approach.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That switch underscored just how much weaker the WTO had become in recent years. Now, getting the U.S. back on board is going to be key to strengthening the WTO.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okunjo Iwela spoke to Time magazine and she said some of her biggest priorities will be climate change and of course the pandemic She wants to use the WTO to push back against trade restrictions that allow wealthier developed nations to hoard vaccines and instead to make sure developing countries get the access they need.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Asian American groups are documenting a sharp rise in the number of attacks against people of Asian descent. And a lot of these violent incidents are happening in the Bay Area.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last week, a 64-year-old woman in San Jose had just left the bank with $1,000 in cash. She was planning to give it away as gifts for the Lunar New Year. But as she left the bank, she was assaulted and robbed.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: At the end of January, an 84-year-old man was pushed to the ground while he was walking in San Francisco. That attack killed him. Days later, a 91-year-old man was shoved to the ground in Oakland's Chinatown.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And just a few weeks ago, a 52-year-old woman was shot in the head with a flare gun. And she's very badly injured.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Here's Vice Writer Bettina McElintal describing this trend while speaking to NPR.
--:-- Bettina McElintal: So the fear is that in our community is that we are a threat as a whole, but it is especially scary to be concerned that the most vulnerable members of our community, senior citizens, our families and our elders, are at risk of these violent threats out of nowhere.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR spoke with the Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. This is a community group based in California. Since the pandemic started last March, the group has documented nearly 3,000 anti-Asian attacks across the country. About 7 to 8 percent of the incidents specifically targeted seniors of Asian descent.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And the executive director attributes part of this increase to anti-Asian rhetoric that came from U.S. lawmakers referring to COVID as, quote, the China virus.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR reports some people are now taking things into their own hands. Volunteers are offering to organize to protect businesses and older residents. They're escorting seniors to and from stores while they run errands.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Several hundred people have also volunteered to be community strollers, basically a foot patrol operation in the Bay Area's Chinatowns.
--:-- Shamita Basu: While many of the most recent publicized incidents were in California, anti-Asian American discrimination is happening all over the U.S. NBC News reports this summer, members of Congress called on the Department of Justice to condemn attacks against Asian Americans and also to take steps to combat these assaults.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Soon after he was sworn in President Biden signed an executive order to not only collect data on these crimes but also to make sure any racist rhetoric from the previous administration is removed from official policy documents
--:-- Shamita Basu: Taylor Swift is re-recording her vast catalog of hit songs, and she's likely going to make millions of dollars doing this. If you're not a Swifty, which is what her fans are called, let me quickly catch you up here.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Most major artists do not own the master recordings of their own music. The record labels do. So the tracks from Taylor Swift's first six albums, the versions that you've probably heard streamed or on the radio, those originally belonged to her old record label, Big Machine Records, which then sold the rights to talent manager Scooter Braun, who then sold the rights to a private equity firm.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This all means whenever you hear one of her songs, when Taylor Swift's songs get played on Apple Music or get used in movies, not all the proceeds go to her. But even though she does not own the recordings, she does own the publishing rights to her song.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So in 2019, Swift announced she was just going to re-record her back catalog. I mean, that is a huge undertaking, re-recording your back catalog. And on Friday, Swift released her first re-recorded track. It's a new version of her 2008 hit song, Love Story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So first, listen to the original. And now, here's what her current recording sounds like. You hear the difference?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: As the Atlantic's culture writer, Shirley Lee, comments. Swift's voice is a little bit different. She's older. She sounds richer, more controlled.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, and Lee writes, if it doesn't sound exactly the same as the original, that's kind of the point. It's not supposed to be. And honestly, a lot of it is in the subtext. You know, the first time she recorded this song, she was 19 years old. It was a love song. This time, she's 31 years old, and it sounds like a love letter to her fans.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There's almost a sense of nostalgia in her voice. And while these newly re-recorded songs might sound a little bit different, that doesn't mean they'll be any less popular. Taylor's version of Love Story is already on the U.S. Apple Music chart. And her first fully re-recorded album, Fearless, is set to come out in April.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our audio stories. We'll talk with you again tomorrow. Thank you.
