--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, December 7th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, two of Donald Trump's companies are found guilty in a tax fraud trial. World leaders are meeting for a different kind of climate conference to talk about protecting biodiversity, and why you might want to reconsider food expiration dates. But first, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock has defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in Georgia's runoff Senate election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This win cements a 51 to 49 Democratic majority in the Senate. Warnock addressed supporters last night. It is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy. The people have spoken.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As we've mentioned before, these margins in the Senate might actually mean something. Democrats may not need Vice President Kamala Harris for tie-breaking votes. It creates some wiggle room when more centrist senators like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema seek to block or soften legislation. And it could make work like confirming judges easier.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Walker conceded last night as the results came in. So I want to thank all of you as well because there's no excuses in life. And I'm not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Turnout in the runoff was high. After the polls closed, the Secretary of State's office reported that about 1.4 million Georgians voted on Tuesday, matching or possibly surpassing general Election Day turnout in November. With the early vote included, over 3 million Georgians voted in the runoff.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are bigger implications for this race. Mornoch's victory will help retain Georgia's status as a battleground, a state where in 2020, President Biden won, and Democrats earned the majority in the Senate with two runoff elections.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For Republicans, it raises more questions and possible headaches about former President Trump and the candidates he backed, who went on to lose key races.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We see you soon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Two of former President Donald Trump businesses were found guilty yesterday of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. This is not the first time his company has been under criminal investigation, but it is the first conviction.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump himself was not charged in this case. Neither was his family. But a jury in Manhattan found two entities, controlled by Trump, guilty on all charges. The maximum penalty is $1.6 million.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Prosecutors proved that executives received some of their compensation from the company in the form of fringe benefits, like apartments and luxury cars. But that income was not properly reported to New York State or the IRS.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The fraud scheme spanned more than a decade and lasted into Trump's presidency. The prosecution's star witness in this trial was Allen Weisselberg, Trump's former chief financial officer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He pleaded guilty to 15 felony tax charges last summer and agreed to testify. He admitted that he did not declare certain benefits as income, including a private school tuition check for one of his grandchildren signed by Donald Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Weisselberg will serve five months in jail. As Vox points out, this verdict is maybe embarrassing for Trump, but it's nowhere near as serious as the other legal threats he's still facing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some movement on those yesterday, the newly appointed Justice Department Special Counsel, who's investigating Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified information, issued subpoenas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Local election officials in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin have been ordered to share all communications involving Trump. And the January 6th committee signaled that it's planning to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This means the committee is strongly considering calling for prosecutions of those involved in the January 6th riot. You can read more details on Trump's various legal dangers in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Starting today delegates from countries all over the world are gathering in Montreal for a big climate conference called COP15. This one is different from the COP27 conference that just happened in Egypt and is hosted by the UN.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's a lot of acronyms, but these events are actually very important. That's Vox reporter Benji Jones. He says these conferences and the multilateral agreements that come out of them are our best way to meaningfully address climate issues.
--:-- Benji Jones: The goal of this conference is to come up with a plan to stop the decline of ecosystems and wildlife. Ecosystems around the world are collapsing.
--:-- Benji Jones: We've seen in the last half century, the average estimated population size of major vertebrate groups, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, fish, have declined by almost 70 percent.
--:-- Benji Jones: Birds are disappearing, the forests are quieter. So there really is kind of an apocalypse of biodiversity loss happening right now.
--:-- Benji Jones: One of the most ambitious and controversial proposals is a commitment to conserve at minimum 30% of Earth's land and water by 2030.
--:-- Benji Jones: Jones says in the past, proposals like this have had negative consequences for Indigenous people. In the past, putting land into protected areas has come at the expense of Indigenous people and their rights.
--:-- Benji Jones: So we've actually seen Indigenous people get kicked off their land for the sake of protecting area for wildlife, which is rooted in this kind of old school idea of pristine nature as nature without people.
--:-- Benji Jones: And so there's going to be some tension about, OK, what actually qualifies as conserved land? What land will actually help contribute to this 30 percent target? And will it include lands that are occupied by Indigenous folks who, of course, have been some of the best stewards of biodiversity of anyone?
--:-- Benji Jones: There's also the question of who's on the hook for the bill, particularly since much of the biodiversity that remains is in countries that have fewer resources to protect it versus wealthier nations where development has contributed to nature's decline.
--:-- Benji Jones: The stakes for getting this framework signed are huge. Failing to take conservation seriously now could be disastrous down the line.
--:-- Benji Jones: Human life, not to sound dramatic, like really depends on these systems. So we depend on clean water, which comes from plants that purify streams. We depend on animals, wild animals that we eat.
--:-- Benji Jones: We depend on pollinators to make sure that we have enough crops to sustain us. So biodiversity is incredibly important to human wellbeing.
--:-- Benji Jones: That what this kind of conference is trying to address. And so yes while it might be less flashy than COP27 the big climate conference it is super important.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Delegates have about two weeks to agree on a list of goals that they want to achieve by 2030.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are two types of people in this world. Those who laugh in the face of expiration dates, and those who worship them like an unimpeachable code.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And, of course, those two types of people are usually married to each other. At least, that's the battle in my house.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'm the one who is very lax about it. So you better believe that I sent this article to my partner. It's from The Atlantic, and they spoke to a bunch of food scientists who say expiration dates are pretty meaningless when it comes to food safety.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In fact, a huge amount of food that's past its date is actually perfectly fine to eat. Take milk, for example. The Atlantic says it's one of the most wasted foods in the world.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the truth is, milk that's soured or even curdled can still be perfectly safe to consume, because it's already been through a pasteurization process that killed all the germs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You could use it for extra fluffy pancakes or biscuits or even a skincare mask. Now, there are some exceptions, like baby formula.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But for most foods, expiration dates have very little to do with safety. They instead tell us about quality, how fresh and tasty something is.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And food experts say plenty of products are both fresh enough and tasty enough to eat well after they technically expire.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Several experts said for most foods, the sniff test is real and reliable. So the next time you come across an old cup of yogurt that's been sitting in your fridge beyond the expiration date, maybe open it up, take a whiff and trust your nose.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are more food safety tips in The Atlantic Story than we could cover here today. You can find them all in the Apple News app, along with all the stories that we talked about today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're listening to us right now in the News app, stick around. We've got a narrated article from Wired queued up for you next. It's about bug-eating plants and the people who collect them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
