--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, November 15th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, protests in Iran take a deadlier turn. What it'll take to get Russia and Ukraine to talk peace. And the story behind some unusual passengers on NASA's next big mission.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But first, we know a lot more about how the next two years of American politics are taking shape as more midterm results come in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Democrat Katie Hobbs won the Arizona governor's race, beating Trump favorite Carrie Lake. It's the latest battleground state where voters said no to a candidate backing lies about the 2020 election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also, several more House races have been called. Republicans are now just one seat short of taking control.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That means Democrats won't have the numbers to pass legislation to expand access to abortion.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But abortion rights advocates are fresh off of big wins in referendums, including in red states.
--:-- Shamita Basu: My colleague Gideon Resnick is here with me now to talk about it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Thanks for having me, Shamita.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gideon, tell us what we can expect now. How a divided national government would increasingly shift the abortion question away from Congress.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Protecting abortion rights is almost certainly going to happen at the state level from here on out.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The idea of codifying Roe v. Wade, which is something that some Democrats have talked about at the federal level, is not extremely likely, given that likely makeup of the next Congress.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And as you mentioned, the fact that all of these kind of direct democracy efforts did so well really shows that we're probably in for quite a few more cycles where abortion could end up on the ballot.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And remind people, for those who don't know, what does it take to get an issue like abortion on the ballot?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, so first and foremost, you're often seeing people do a signature drive, right? So a requisite number of signatures is going to actually get the question or the amendment onto the ballot in front of voters.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And once it gets to that point, they are basically allowed to kind of bypass state legislatures if they vote in favor of that amendment of that proposal on the ballot.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Not every state has this kind of direct democracy quirk. According to the Fairness Project an organization focused on these sorts of ballot measures there are 22 states where citizens can start their own ballot initiatives of this sort.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You know NPR recently reported that the ACLU is considering future ballot campaigns in Florida and Ohio.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Those are two states that reelected Republican governors and by significant margins.
--:-- Shamita Basu: What do you make of how this is playing out in Republican governed states and how this might play out in Republican governed states?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I think it's one of the more interesting questions going forward.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You know, I think for advocates here, if that initial vote on the proposed abortion amendment in Kansas before the midterms seemed like a fluke, I don't think this conversation would be happening, right?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If that was sort of a one-off of Kansans voted in this way, but other states didn't, we might not be talking about this.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But advocates really look at this and see voters in places like Montana and Kentucky, for example, voting in similar fashions when the issue is put to them directly, no matter the leadership in those states.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So they are sensing opportunity here.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The argument you often hear in these redder states, like a Missouri, like an Oklahoma, like an Arkansas, where some people have talked about putting this on the ballot in the future, is that state legislatures don't always fully represent the will of the people.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And these ballot measures in some ways are starting to prove that, advocates say, at least on this issue.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gideon Resnick, thanks for joining me.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, of course. Thank you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Demonstrations in Iran are entering a new and more dangerous phase after a court sentenced a protester to death.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hundreds of demonstrators have died under suspicious circumstances, but this is the first known case of capital punishment linked to the mass protests that began in September.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The 22-year-old protester who got the death penalty was accused of setting fire to a government building.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His mother posted a video online to say that his trial was a sham.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's a translation from Reuters. They are treating my child unfairly. They have interrogated him without an attorney present.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in that very first session of the court, they sentenced him to death. Is this Islamic justice?
--:-- Shamita Basu: An Iranian human rights group estimates more than 15,000 people have been arrested in the past two months.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post looks at how the Iranian legal system is stacked against political prisoners.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They typically wind up in Iran feared revolutionary courts which were created after the revolution to purge enemies of the Islamic government.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Defendants can't see the alleged evidence against them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Human rights groups say it's often fabricated anyway.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They get little or no legal support.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the court often relies on false confessions from tortured prisoners.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The European Union issued new sanctions against Iranian officials who are cracking down on protesters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And human rights experts warn that a wave of executions could be coming, as the regime may take more extreme measures to end months of protests nationwide.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is asking global leaders to support his terms for a peace proposal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He addressed the G20 summit today, saying he will not make any territorial concessions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ukrainian forces have been making advances in recent weeks against Russian troops.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday, Zelensky visited the newly liberated city of Kherson after more than eight months of Russian occupation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He said Russian forces withdrawing from the city signaled the beginning of the end of the war.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At the moment, though, peace talks don't seem likely, according to Politico national security reporter Alex Ward.
--:-- Alex Ward: Everyone agrees it ends with a negotiated settlement.
--:-- Alex Ward: The question is, like, how do you sort of get that ball rolling?
--:-- Alex Ward: And right now, on the U.S. side, they don't feel like now is not the right time to get that ball rolling.
--:-- Alex Ward: For one, you need both sides to agree to sit down at the table.
--:-- Alex Ward: And right now, I think it's very fair to say that the Russians are nowhere near wanting to have like actual conversations.
--:-- Alex Ward: Ukraine was signaling the same for a long time.
--:-- Alex Ward: Zelensky had said he would not negotiate with Russia unless Putin was out of office, though he recently softened that position with some nudging from the Biden administration.
--:-- Alex Ward: But Ward says the recapturing of Kherson likely refueled Ukraine's motivation to keep fighting to regain lost territory.
--:-- Alex Ward: I guess what you're looking for when you're thinking about like a negotiated settlement is like, are both sides sort of at the point that it makes sense for the talk?
--:-- Alex Ward: And from the Russian side, they don't feel like they have lost yet.
--:-- Alex Ward: There's time to regain stuff that they've lost.
--:-- Alex Ward: And on the Ukrainian side, like they're on the offensive, you know, they're looking up or they're winning.
--:-- Alex Ward: So like why would you cut some sort of deal that would concretize some Russian gains It makes sense to them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NASA's Artemis I moon mission is scheduled to launch tomorrow, after previous attempts were postponed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are no people on board, but there are passengers. Several mannequins.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They're high-tech mannequins. They're filled with sensors to collect data and learn how astronauts could handle future missions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sitting in the commander's seat will be Commander Munikin Campos.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Smithsonian Magazine has the story of the NASA electrical engineer that it's named for, the late Arturo Campos.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Campos played a key role in bringing the Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth in 1970.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Even if you've somehow never seen the movie about the mission, you probably know the iconic Tom Hanks line. Houston, we have a problem.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When the oxygen tank ruptured, NASA woke Campos up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He and his team spent 15 hours figuring out how to divert enough power to the spacecraft's emergency batteries to get the crew back home.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Campos and other staffers got the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their work.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Campos was Mexican-American. He worked for NASA at a time when it had few Hispanic employees.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He was a champion for diversity in the space program, establishing a college scholarship program for Hispanic students.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Higher education played a key role in Campos' career path.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Growing up, he planned to be a car mechanic like his dad, but a high school teacher urged him to take college classes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That set him up to become an engineer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And he followed that path all the way to the moon and into history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now the mannequin named for him may provide data that helps land future astronauts on Mars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app, stick around.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We've got a narrated article coming up next about a major milestone the planet is expected to hit.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Demographers estimate that the 8 billionth person will be born today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Vox examines the never-ending debate over global population.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Are there too many people on Earth or not enough?
--:-- Shamita Basu: So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
