--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Friday, March 15th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, Chuck Schumer makes a stunning speech on the Senate floor, a week of mounting bad news for Boeing, and how to spot disinformation this election cycle. But first, a quick look at a few stories in the news.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the election interference case against Donald Trump in Georgia, Judge Scott McAfee has determined that District Attorney Fannie Willis should not be disqualified from prosecuting the case, but with a caveat. Special Counsel Nathan Wade, her former romantic partner, must withdraw from the case if she stays on it.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Trump and other defendants sought to disqualify Willis, accusing her of financially benefiting from her romantic relationship with Wade, something Willis denies. In his ruling today, McAfee said the personal relationship between the two prosecutors brought an appearance of impropriety to the case, but that there was no actual conflict of interest.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Meanwhile, in New York, another criminal case against Trump, which was scheduled to go to trial in 10 days, may be postponed. This was a surprising development from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. It said yesterday it would accept a 30-day delay to review new records.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In this case, Trump has been accused of making hush money payments during the 2016 campaign to silence women who claimed to have a sexual relationship with him.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Now to Michigan and the case against James Crumbly, the father of a convicted school shooter there. A jury found Crumbly guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to secure a gun at home and address the signs of mental health distress with his son.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Crumbly did not testify in his own defense, unlike his wife, who was convicted on the same charges last month. He will be sentenced in April.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In Russia, elections will be held this weekend, though we should add quotes around the word elections, because as many have called out, what's happening in Russia will not really be a democratic election.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Vladimir Putin is poised to win his fifth term on Sunday, allowing him to stay in power until at least 2030. Back in 2020, he engineered changes to the Constitution to allow him to hold at least two more six-year terms.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Since taking power 24 years ago, Putin has steadily chipped away at Russia's democratic institutions, and most of the prominent opposition leaders have been silenced, jailed, or killed.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And in Gaza, a ship carrying half a million meals arrived from Cyprus early this morning. This is the first time maritime aid has been sent since the war started.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The non-profit World Central Kitchen led the mission. The shipment could mark the first of several rounds of aid delivered by sea.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And it comes as the U.S. Army works to build a floating dock off the coast of Gaza to get more aid to Palestinians in desperate need.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat and the highest-ranking Jewish official in U.S. history, stood before his colleagues on the Senate floor yesterday, declared his lifelong love for Israel, and then called for new elections there, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was an obstacle to peace.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Five months into this conflict, it is clear that Israelis need to take stock of the situation and ask, must we change course? At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The remarks come as the White House has sharpened its public criticism of its longtime ally and after the vice president recently met with Netanyahu's biggest political rival.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's no secret that many Democrats aren't aligned with Netanyahu's right-wing government, a position they've held long before this war.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But it was still striking to hear a high-ranking official like Schumer condemn Netanyahu in this way and call for new leadership.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He has put himself in coalition with far-right extremists like Minister Smotrick and Ben Gavir. And as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah. Politico referred to Schumer's speech as a moment where it felt like America's gloves were coming off.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As they describe it, for a long time, it was once only acceptable to criticize Israel in private. Now, perhaps, that's no longer true.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Another example. Earlier this week, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders and seven Democratic senators sent President Biden a letter urging him to stop providing offensive weapons to Israel until Israel lifts restrictions on USAID getting into Gaza.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The senators argue that continuing to arm Israel is a violation of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits military support going to a country that blocks the delivery of humanitarian aid.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Many Republicans, meanwhile, have been quick to double down on their support for Netanyahu. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell basically said Schumer's statements were out of line.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of a democratically elected leader of Israel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This is unprecedented. We should not treat fellow democracies this way at all.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The White House has made it clear that Schumer does not speak for the Biden administration.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But just hours after Schumer's remarks, the State Department announced new sanctions against two outposts in the West Bank and three extremist Israeli settlers who committed acts of violence against Palestinian civilians.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Here's State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. It is critical that Israel take additional action to stop settler violence and hold accountable those responsible for it, not just for the sake of the victims of this violence, but for Israel's own security and standing in the world.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: More than 400 Palestinians, including over 100 children, have been killed in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the United Nations.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As one senior administration official told Politico, the change in tone from the United States is intentional, but America's core positions have not changed.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The top priorities remain defeating Hamas and getting the hostages home safely.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Let's turn now to Boeing. It's been another tumultuous week for the planemaker.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Last weekend, a Boeing whistleblower was found dead. A local county coroner says the former employee, John Barnett, appears to have died by suicide.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He worked at Boeing for more than 30 years and was in the middle of a legal dispute with his former employer.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And his death puts renewed focus on safety concerns at the company, sometimes raised by employees themselves.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Ian Duncan is a transportation reporter at Washington Post. He told us about the quality issues that Barnett brought to the company while working on the 787 Dreamliner.
--:-- Ian Duncan: He raised concerns about metal shavings, so stuff that's left over after work is done, being left on the planes. This is a well-known problem in aviation called foreign object debris.
--:-- Ian Duncan: Barnett warned that these shavings could have catastrophic results if they penetrated wiring.
--:-- Ian Duncan: He also uncovered problems with emergency oxygen systems, among other things.
--:-- Ian Duncan: Boeing denied these claims, But in 2017, the FAA reviewed and upheld some of Barnett's concerns and required Boeing to make changes.
--:-- Ian Duncan: That same year, Barnett retired, citing health concerns and concerns that the company might fire him if he didn't leave voluntarily.
--:-- Ian Duncan: At the time of his death, he was set to give final depositions in a case against Boeing, where he accused the company of retaliating against him for raising issues about production.
--:-- Ian Duncan: Boeing denies this.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Duncan says the timing of Barnett's death is bringing to the fore all of the issues Boeing has faced in recent months.
--:-- Ian Duncan: It just seems like there is this kind of constant drumbeat of bad news for Boeing.
--:-- Ian Duncan: There are ongoing investigations from multiple branches of government into the Alaska Airlines flight from January That when a panel of a Boeing plane blew out mid ripping a hole in the cabin and leaving passengers exposed
--:-- Ian Duncan: The FAA gave Boeing 90 days to fix quality control issues
--:-- Ian Duncan: The Justice Department is investigating.
--:-- Ian Duncan: And this week, the chief investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board said the agency still does not know who worked on that panel.
--:-- Ian Duncan: Boeing has no records.
--:-- Ian Duncan: The company claims employees did not document their work, but says it's doing what it can to help with the probe.
--:-- Ian Duncan: While the investigations proceed, Duncan says past issues at Boeing will be put under a microscope, including those brought up by whistleblowers like Barnett.
--:-- Ian Duncan: The company doesn't really have the benefit of the doubt from anybody at the moment.
--:-- Ian Duncan: And so something goes wrong on a Boeing plane and it is attracting much more attention than it otherwise might.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You may be familiar with the political propaganda idea that the bigger the lie, the more likely people will believe it.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This idea was first articulated by Adolf Hitler in 1925.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He actually coined the term big lie in his autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And he said, everybody tells white lies from time to time.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Barbara McQuaid, a former U.S. attorney and a legal analyst for NBC and MSNBC, joins us to talk about this concept.
--:-- Barbara McQuaid: What Hitler wrote is it would never occur to most people to have the audacity to lie about something of great significance.
--:-- Barbara McQuaid: And so they project onto others that same moral limit that, you know, who would do that? Nobody would lie about that.
--:-- Barbara McQuaid: And so for the person who is willing to cross that moral line and lie about things that are very significant, it has the unlikely result of being more believable than a little white lie.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: McQuaid is also the author of the new book, Attack from Within, How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And she's our guest this week on Apple News and Conversation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Guest host Brian Stelter, who's filling in for Shemitah while she's on maternity leave, talked with McQuaid about the big lie.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And McQuaid explained, it's just one key tactic that we're seeing used today to spread false information, like the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And now, as AI gets more sophisticated and the safeguards on our social media get weaker, disinformation is becoming an increasingly urgent issue, especially with an election coming up.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In this episode, McQuaid offers some solutions on how to address the problem and advice on how to distinguish between real and false information.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find Apple News in Conversation in the Apple Podcasts app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And if you're listening in the News app right now, that episode is coming up for you next.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Have a great weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
