--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, February 28th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, a lawsuit that could sink Greenpeace, this year's Oscars wild cards, and Katy Perry is going to space. But first, to Washington, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to meet with President Trump to discuss and potentially sign an agreement for Ukraine to share rare minerals with the United States, which are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars.
--:-- Ian Lovett: This was an idea proposed by Zelensky last fall, though at the time he suggested Kiev would, in return, want assurance that the U.S. would provide ongoing support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia. Trump has criticized U.S. aid for Kiev as a drain on resources. And disagreements over the terms of this mineral deal are a big reason why the relationship between the United States and Ukraine has soured in recent weeks.
--:-- Ian Lovett: Zelensky rejected an earlier version of the agreement because it didn't include security guarantees for Ukraine. And the United States initially asked for the rights to up to $500 billion in revenue from mineral development, which is roughly five times more money than the U.S. has contributed to Ukraine during the war so far.
--:-- Ian Lovett: Zelensky spoke at a news conference about why he rejected the initial offer. I'm not signing something that will have to be repaid by generations and generations of the Ukrainians.
--:-- Ian Lovett: The new version of the deal that could be signed today does not include that revenue stipulation, and it also still does not include security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump has said that it would include a form of peacekeeping that's acceptable to everybody, but did not specify what that meant.
--:-- Ian Lovett: However, the Wall Street Journal's Ian Lovett told us Ukraine ultimately agreed to this version of the deal in the hopes that it could reset their relationship with Trump. They really want to keep the U.S. on the Ukrainian side, which seems much less clear since Trump took office.
--:-- Ian Lovett: They want the U.S. to be invested in Ukraine economically and ideally also militarily. So far, the Trump administration has seemed to reverse the U.S.'s position as a strong ally of Ukraine. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that Ukraine will have to accept that it will not get back the land that Russia has seized, That's roughly 20 percent of the country.
--:-- Ian Lovett: Last week, Trump falsely suggested that Ukraine, not Russia, was the aggressor. And in his first cabinet meeting this week, Trump said that Russia will have to make concessions to end the war, but did not specify what that meant.
--:-- Ian Lovett: Trump has maintained that his objective is to establish peace in the region. But Lovett told us it's not entirely clear what that means. There have been a lot of questions about what Trump's goal is exactly, whether it's just to end the conflict as fast as possible, even if that means Ukraine giving up not only territory, but perhaps other concessions to Russia.
--:-- Ian Lovett: And Ukraine has been working with European allies to try to come up with a contingency plan basically to continue to be able to fight if the U pulls its backing Trump has also been meeting with European allies Yesterday he met with U Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House who urged the president to stand by Ukraine Because it can't be peace that rewards the aggressor.
--:-- Ian Lovett: We agree history must be on the side of the peacemaker, not the invader. In that same speech, Starmer said the U.K. is ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air to support a peace deal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to a trial that started this week involving Greenpeace, which environmentalists have warned could bankrupt the group and threaten the future of advocacy work.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: This is a civil case related to the Dakota Access Pipeline that was brought by the company Energy Transfer, which sued Greenpeace for $300 million, alleging the environmental advocacy group disrupted construction of the pipeline, which was completed in 2017.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: That dollar amount, according to The New York Times, is more than 10 times the group's annual budget. Protests against the pipeline project started the year prior, when the Standing Rock Sioux tribe said a portion of the pipeline would endanger their water supply and sacred sites in the area.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: The demonstrations gained international attention, especially after clashes between police and protesters. Police used water cannons on protesters in freezing temperatures, deployed tear gas, and shot them with rubber bullets. Medical professionals supporting the protesters say dozens of people were hospitalized and more than 300 people were injured.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: Police at the time said that protesters set fires in the area and threw rocks at officers. In their lawsuit against Greenpeace, energy transfer claims the group supported protesters and encouraged violence.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: Everything from paying people, training them to cause mayhem and destruction during the protests, like property damage, trespassing and harassing workers in order to stop the pipeline. Greenpeace denies those claims and says it played a very small role in the protests.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: And the group says energy transfer is unfairly targeting them in an effort to intimidate environmental activists. They also say that they've always adhered to a philosophy of nonviolence and so that they never supported or endorsed or financed any sort of destructive behavior by protesters.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: An associate law professor at Pace University told NPR this case appears to be an example of a strategic lawsuit against public participation otherwise known as SLAP Those are anti speech cases that are typically designed to cost the defendants both time and money in court.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: More than 30 states have protections against these types of lawsuits, but The Washington Post reports that North Dakota is not one of them. And that's kind of an issue that they've raised, that a ruling against Greenpeace could set precedent that could shrink free speech rights and First Amendment rights in the United States more broadly.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: So something that could affect any protest group, journalists, etc. A spokesperson for Energy Transfer told The Post they do not believe this case is about free speech, but about Greenpeace, quote, not following the law.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to a trial that started this week involving Greenpeace, which environmentalists have warned could bankrupt the group and threaten the future of advocacy work.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One of the concerns not only voiced by Greenpeace but other climate activists is that like a negative ruling against Greenpeace would be really serious for the fate of the climate movement going forward.
--:-- Mary Stoyer: This is a civil case related to the Dakota Access Pipeline that was brought by the company Energy Transfer, which sued Greenpeace for $300 million, alleging the environmental advocacy group disrupted construction of the pipeline, which was completed in 2017.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sunday is the movie industry's biggest night, the Oscars. The ceremony caps what's been an interesting awards season. A number of controversies have dominated the conversation, including the use of AI in The Brutalist, backlash over the absence of intimacy coordinators on the film Anora, and the past use of blackface by one of this year's Best Actress nominees.
--:-- Glenn Whipp: It has been a strange Oscar season. Glenn Whipp covers film and television for the LA Times.
--:-- Glenn Whipp: We're heading into a ceremony where, because of just these wild momentum shifts that we've seen in some of the races, there's just a lot of categories sort of up for grabs.
--:-- Glenn Whipp: One of the most talked about storylines heading into the awards is the star of Emilia Perez, Carla Sofia Gascon, who, after old racist and Islamophobic tweets of hers resurfaced, deleted her social media accounts and was scrubbed from Netflix's awards campaign.
--:-- Glenn Whipp: Gascon is the first openly transgender woman ever to be nominated for an Oscar. I don't think there has been a time when something of the scale of what happened with Carla Sofia Gascon has happened.
--:-- Glenn Whipp: I mean, just in the sense that this was a movie that led the field with 13 Oscar nominations and had a chance to win Best Picture. And when it was discovered that Gascon had a history of making offensive social media posts, denigrating Muslims, Black Lives Matter, even the Oscars themselves, it kind of really scuttled the movie's chances to win Best Picture.
--:-- Glenn Whipp: Aside from the controversies, the absence of a big-budget frontrunner also makes this year's ceremony unique. Last year, we had Barbenheimer at the Oscars, and we had Oppenheimer winning Best Picture. Barbie was really prominent in the ceremony, and this year's Best Picture lined up very much more on the indie side although you still have blockbusters like Wicked and Dune Part 2 in there
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories were following. Academy Award-winning actor Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were all found dead Thursday at their home in New Mexico.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Authorities have opened an investigation after the bodies were found, quote, in a state of decomposition. Initially, a gas leak was suspected, but the Associated Press reports no signs of a gas or carbon monoxide leak were detected.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hackman had a decorated acting career. From his Oscar-winning roles in The French Connection and Unforgiven, to the title character in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In space news, the planets are aligning, sort of, in a phenomenon known as a planet parade. All seven of the other planets in our solar system, sorry Pluto, will be visible in a line in the night sky.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Astronomers say to look for the planets about a half hour after sunset. And hey, it's Friday, so let's do some more space news. Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin announced it's sending its first all-female flight crew into space.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That crew will include singer Katy Perry, and getting extraterrestrial with her will be Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sanchez and CBS anchor Gayle King. The flight will take the crew to the Carmen Line, which is the boundary line between Earth's upper atmosphere and space.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Reuters reports when they reach the line, the crew will experience a few minutes of microgravity before returning to Earth in a parachute-assisted landing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And last thing, here's what's coming up on this week's episode of Apple News in Conversation. A look at how Donald Trump and Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the UFC, go way, way back and how they've helped each other rise.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For a story in Rolling Stone, Jack Crosby tells me when Dana White was building up the UFC and struggling to find venues for it, Trump welcomed him at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And then many years later, Trump called in a favor to White that would end up taking their friendship to the next level. I'm running for president and I would be honored if you would introduce me at the Republican National Convention.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Dana White thinks it over. And as he told me, look, this guy was here for me when I had nothing. I have to be there for him. And so he does it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the Apple News app right now. That episode is queued up to play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
