--:-- Mark Garrison: Good morning. It's Wednesday, May 8th. I'm Mark Garrison in for Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Coming up, TikTok sues the U.S. government in a fight to survive. How graduations are playing out at colleges disrupted by protests. And the WNBA rolls out a long-awaited change to how players are treated. But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in Florida on his handling of classified documents after leaving office is now postponed indefinitely. The judge in the case canceled the start date set for this month without setting a new one. She said there are still major issues to resolve around how the trial deals with classified evidence and says that process will take until at least late July.
--:-- Mark Garrison: The latest delay means it's now even more likely that the only Trump verdict before the election will be from the criminal trial in New York. Yesterday, adult film actor Stormy Daniels testified at times in graphic detail about a one-night stand with Trump in 2006, which he denies happened. He's also pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records to cover up payments to Daniels for her silence.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Trump's lawyers asked for a mistrial, saying the explicit detail in her testimony was not appropriate or relevant to the charges in the indictment. Reporter Andrea Bernstein explained the dispute for PBS.
--:-- Andrea Bernstein: His lawyers came back and said to the judge, this is so prejudicial, all of these details. This is a case about business records. And the prosecution said, no, no, no, this is necessary to complete the narrative. This is a story about what happened. The jury needs to hear it. In fact, it's the story that Trump and Michael Cohen tried to keep silent.
--:-- Andrea Bernstein: The judge did not declare a mistrial, but he did say that some of Daniel's statements in court were, quote, better left unsaid. The judge also told Trump's defense that he could hear Trump swearing while Daniels testified and said he would not tolerate that in his court.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Now to the war in Gaza, where there's news that the U.S. recently paused a shipment of thousands of weapons to Israel over concerns it would use them in a full-scale ground offensive in Rafah. That's the first known case of the American government doing this since the conflict began with the Hamas attacks on October 7th.
--:-- Mark Garrison: U officials continue to warn Israel against a major offensive in Rafah unless it has a clear plan for the safety of the many people sheltering there. The Biden administration is not putting a full halt on sending weapons to Israel at this time. It hasn't made a final determination on how to proceed with the shipment of bombs it put on hold.
--:-- Mark Garrison: And this move doesn't affect the tens of billions of dollars in aid to Israel recently passed by Congress, including over $800 million in weapons and equipment. There are still sharp differences between Israel and Hamas on a potential ceasefire, but the White House says it's optimistic those can be closed in talks, which are continuing today.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Israel has continued to move troops toward Rafa while those ceasefire discussions go on. And a major change is coming to an iconic U.S. institution. The Boy Scouts of America will be called Scouting America as of early next year.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Thousands of girls have participated in scouting since the group allowed them in 2017. The inclusive name change comes as the scouting organization deals with a decline in membership and serious legal issues. It only recently came out of bankruptcy, forming a plan to pay roughly $2.4 billion to resolve tens of thousands of sexual abuse claims.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Moving to a different kind of legal news, TikTok is suing the federal government. It's an effort to stop a potential U.S. ban on the social media app. President Biden signed a bill into law last month requiring TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese owner or else get shut down.
--:-- Mark Garrison: The company argues the law violates the First Amendment and says a sale won't be possible in the law's nine-month window. But unless TikTok wins its case or completes a sale, it could disappear from U.S. app stores. All this has Americans who make a living on TikTok nervous. That's tens of thousands of people.
--:-- Mark Garrison: And TikTok says more than 7 million U.S. businesses use the app. Influencer Lauren Ashley Beck, a former Survivor contestant, says she makes a lot of money on the app, talking about reality TV. She spoke to NPR about how a ban would impact creators like her.
--:-- Lauren Ashley Beck: I know people have a negative connotation to influencers, and I totally understand that. But there's some of us that kind of fell into this by mistake, and this is our job now.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Brandon Hurst, or as fans know him, Brandon the Plant Guy, told CBS that TikTok helped him triple his business.
--:-- Brandon Hurst: I have friends and family members that work for me and help package plants and orders. So this goes beyond just me now. This is like you know a team of eight other people that would lose their jobs.
--:-- Mark Garrison: James Nord runs a company that does marketing for TikTok creators. He told NPR a ban would be a quote extinction event. This will shut tens of thousands of small businesses down. They won't get unemployment.
--:-- Mark Garrison: The lawsuit filed by TikTok sets up a long legal battle. The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment on the suit. And what happens next will be closely watched by TikTok supporters and challengers.
--:-- Mark Garrison: A bipartisan coalition of U.S. lawmakers argues that TikTok's current ownership presents national security risks because TikTok could share U.S. user data with the Chinese government. TikTok says it hasn't done this and wouldn't do so, but it is subject to Chinese laws that could give the government there access to data.
--:-- Mark Garrison: College graduations will look very different on many campuses this year because of the ongoing protests against the war in Gaza, many of which were met with a strong police response. Columbia University, where a lot of this began, canceled its main commencement ceremony.
--:-- Mark Garrison: So did the University of Southern California. It's so disappointing because we've been working towards this moment. That's USC student Logan Barth speaking with a local NBC affiliate.
--:-- Logan Barth: It's been a tough time, honestly. It's been really, I think, I think it's been demoralizing.
--:-- Mark Garrison: NBC heard a similar sentiment from a Columbia student. It's been a tough time, honestly. It's been really, I think, I think it's been demoralizing.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Columbia will hold smaller graduation ceremonies for individual schools. Across the country, many universities worry about how protests could heighten an already tense situation.
--:-- Mark Garrison: There were demonstrations during graduations at Michigan and Northeastern. There, a number of students held up signs on their phones, calling on the school to divest from Israel as they walked off the graduation stage.
--:-- Mark Garrison: One Columbia student told NBC that the school's administration wasn't consistent. He argues that it used graduation as a way to justify clearing the protest encampment, only to then turn around and cancel graduation.
--:-- Mark Garrison: I think it's horrific because that was something that was used by administration to leverage against the students that were protesting, you know. And a lot of communication from the university, they were saying, you know, Think of our seniors, you know, like they started college virtually, they didn't have a high school graduation, you know, we want to make sure we can celebrate them.
--:-- Mark Garrison: And then to use that as a bargaining chip and then not even provide that for the seniors is really horrible. Parents and families of graduates are upset, too. Many paid for plane tickets and hotels to attend commencements.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Shagun Popley, mother of a USC student, told the local ABC station how this all feels familiar. 2020 being the COVID year, she didn't get a high school graduation. So the first thought was, oh my God, you know, not again.
--:-- Mark Garrison: That's the situation for this group of students. Many missed traditional high school graduations because of COVID-19 lockdowns. Now another global event is affecting their college graduations.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Finally, players and coaches in the WNBA are celebrating a win in an important battle. The league is committing $50 million to provide charter flights for players, potentially in time for this season, which starts Tuesday.
--:-- Mark Garrison: NBA players have had private planes for years, and WNBA players have been pushing hard for parity. It's not about luxury. Problems with commercial flights have made it hard for WNBA players to do their jobs.
--:-- Mark Garrison: As any frequent flyer knows, commercial air travel can be difficult, with long lines at security, delays, and cancellations. One team had to forfeit a game because of flight issues. Players have had to sleep at the airport and deal with harassment there.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Also, tall players can't fit comfortably in typical commercial seats. Last year, New York Liberty player Brianna Stewart explained to AP why players need charter flights.
--:-- Brianna Stewart: We want to continue to be our best and realizing that all the prehab and rehab and lifting and stuff that we do for our bodies is just as equally as important as the way that we travel. Anytime you have more space and the ability to kind of move or stretch your legs, I think is the most important thing, you know, because we all want to be our best.
--:-- Mark Garrison: The Players Association president calls the move to fund charter flights transformational, a great thing for the WNBA as a whole.
--:-- Mark Garrison: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next from Town and Country. It's a look behind the curtain at a back door into elite colleges athletics. The story looks at how parents and admissions advisors gunning to get kids into fancy schools pressure them to take up sports in order to get an edge on applications.
--:-- Mark Garrison: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
