--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 1st. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, tens of millions of Americans brace for grocery shock as pandemic-era food aid ends. An alarming mystery of how hundreds of young girls were poisoned in Iran. And what NASA astronauts and Girl Scouts have in common. But first, new court documents reveal that some of the most powerful executives and hosts at Fox News knew that Donald Trump was lying about claims of a stolen election, but they still amplified the lies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This week, a deposition by Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the media empire that owns Fox News, was released in a court filing by Dominion Voting Systems. It is suing Fox for defamation, saying it was damaged by claims that its machines were rigged. Murdoch said under oath that he and others at the network knew that claims by Trump and his associates were false. But Fox News gave them continued coverage because network leaders worried about losing pro-Trump viewers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Murdoch said he had the power to stop the on-air lies, but didn't. Pro-Trump guests made frequent appearances. And Trump's lies got ample coverage from hosts, too, including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We don't know how many votes were stolen on Tuesday night. We don't know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don't know. Democrats, they just want to try and block any and all audit of what are now growing examples and, frankly, affidavits of ballot irregularities and outright illegality. That's what was happening on air.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the court filings show a very different tone off air. Carlson called election fraud claims shockingly reckless. Host Laura Ingram called a Trump lawyer a complete nut. Hannity said he didn't believe the attorney's story for one second.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages. It needs to prove that Fox was reckless in knowingly spreading false information defamation cases against media organizations are notoriously hard to win but legal experts tell the LA Times that Dominion case is one of the strongest they've seen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Fox filed its own brief, saying Rupert Murdoch is not directly involved in editorial decisions, and it argues just because some executives and anchors didn't personally believe Trump's false claims, it doesn't mean reporting on those claims was defamatory. Fox argues that coverage and commentary of Trump's lies were newsworthy and therefore protected under the First Amendment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A hearing is scheduled for later this month, and if the case goes to trial, it would begin in mid-April. A quick update on a story that we talked about yesterday, the Chicago mayor's race. Incumbent Lori Lightfoot has lost. She failed to get enough votes to advance to the runoff in April.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Facing off then will be two candidates with very different messages on crime and policing. Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallis wants to build up the police force. Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson talks about cutting some police funding and giving more money to social services.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can read more about this race on the Apple News app. A pandemic-era policy that's helped tens of millions of Americans keep food on the table is ending today. For almost three years, the federal government has temporarily boosted monthly aid for low-income families and individuals in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now that it's ending, it's estimated that the average household will lose around $100 a month for groceries. Some much more than that. Deanna Hardy's monthly SNAP payment will drop by more than $700.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She and her husband are both on disability, and they rely on a fixed income for their family of four. She talked to ABC about how it's already been hard with inflation driving grocery bills higher.
--:-- Deanna Hardy: If prices keep going the way they're going and we can even make it work now, what is it going to be like six months from now?
--:-- Shamita Basu: The pandemic boost in benefits has been credited with keeping more than 4 million people out of poverty. Some states ended their pandemic-era benefits earlier. There were reports of increased demand at food banks. Now, food banks across the country are bracing for a big new spike in need.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dozens of young girls are hospitalized in an Iranian city east of Tehran after a mysterious poisoning this week. It's the latest in a series of suspected attacks on girls' schools. Hundreds of girls across the country have reported respiratory sickness.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The BBC reports on the investigation into whether someone released toxic gas to force schools that teach girls to shut down. Iran Wire, a citizen journalism network, shared video of the aftermath of one attack.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can see students, some of them on the ground in distress, parents, and first responders in a chaotic scene. At one point, there's a frantic witness. She's saying there was gas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, it's not clear who might be responsible for these incidents, so far affecting at least 10 schools going back to late November. The government has opened a criminal investigation. Parents are upset, and there have been protests calling for answers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some Iranians have questioned if schoolgirls are being targeted because of these past few months of anti-government, pro-women protests that came after Masa Amini's death in police custody. Some students took off their headscarves in solidarity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There have been no reported deaths in these mysterious poisonings, but some of the girls have gotten very sick, with nausea, dizziness, fatigue, and breathing problems. The poisoned girls report strange smells before feeling ill.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The government initially didn't connect these cases. There was speculation that it could have been a problem with gas heating systems But nearly all of the poisonings were reported in schools that teach only girls And many were around the city of Qom the center of a lot of religious activity in the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So many Iranians, including some government officials, say there is a pattern that points to an intentional attack. There is speculation that it could be an independent group that's sympathetic to militants who have fought against young women getting educated in Nigeria and Afghanistan.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A former Iranian vice president called the poisonings criminal, the work of, quote, misogynistic fanatics.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Just after midnight, NASA and SpaceX will send a new crew to the International Space Station. There's a little detail in this story that's easy to miss, but it's kind of fun to talk about. When astronauts blast off, they will be wearing a custom patch on their suits, a NASA tradition that's been going on for decades.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It turns out astronauts are really into these patches. They get involved in the design. They try to make it meaningful for their specific mission. It's sort of like a grown-up version of Girl Scout and Boy Scout patches.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In fact, the company that makes a lot of Scouts patches makes them for NASA, too. NPR member station WMFE looks at the family-owned company in North Carolina that's been making these patches for half a century.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It spoke to co-CEO Andrew Nagel. We don't always have a NASA patch running, but we got one running right now. So Expedition 67, which, as you would know, that is my current favorite patch.
--:-- Andrew Nagel: This mission's patch features a dragon's head, referencing the SpaceX Dragon capsule on the mission.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you want to nerd out on astronaut patches, you can see all the pictures in the full story on the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, keep listening. We've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: New York Magazine profiles the crisis communications professional that powerful people hire when they're in trouble. Kind of like a real-life version of Kerry Washington's character in Scandal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow. It's a proud empire.
