--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Tuesday, June 25th. I'm Gideon Resnick, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Coming up on today's show, Julian Assange is released from prison. How scientists are preparing for a second Trump term and a surprising thrift store find. But first, to some other big stories that are in the news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: All eyes are on the Supreme Court, which has 15 cases left to decide. Among them, and arguably the most consequential, is a ruling on whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts while he was president.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Other notable cases involve the legality of emergency abortions and whether social media platforms can regulate user content. Meanwhile, the court also agreed to take up a case in its next term on gender-affirming care for minors.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This week also marks two years since the court overturned Roe v. Wade, which led to several conservative states passing near-total abortion bans. A new study looks at what happened in Texas.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In 2021, months before the court's ruling, Texas banned abortions after about six weeks. New research appears to show a connection with the rise in infant deaths.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The study found a sharp rise in babies dying before their first birthday, likely due to birth defects or genetic problems. Typically, these types of pregnancies would be aborted, but the Texas law has no exceptions for these conditions, which can be fatal to infants.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In New York, there's a primary today that could be a litmus test of how Democratic voters view the Gaza war. Congressman Jamal Bowman was one of the first lawmakers to call for a ceasefire, and he's called Israel's actions genocide.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Supporters of Israel have poured money into the race to defeat him. A super PAC, aligned with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent $14.5 million attacking him.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's part of what has made the race the most expensive House primary in history. Bowman's primary challenger is George Latimer, who has had a decades-long political career in the area.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In Israel, the Supreme Court ruled that the military must start drafting ultra-Orthodox religious students. They had been exempt from military service since the country's founding after World War II.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The decision could impact Prime Minister Netanyahu's government, which has relied on support from ultra-political parties. And in sports, the NHL championship came down to Game 7.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Three seconds to go! The Florida Panthers have won the Stanley Cup! Their 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers capped a wild series.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Panthers swept the first three games, but then the Oilers won three in a row, forcing last night's matchup. This is the first Stanley Cup for Florida.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is on his way to freedom in Australia after reaching a plea deal with the U.S.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This ends a legal battle stretching more than a decade. Assange leaked nearly half a million secret documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's one of the largest breaches of American classified materials in history. Former director of national intelligence James Clapper told CNN he thought justice was served.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Critical to this was his plea of one count of espionage. I think the law enforcement community and the intelligence community wouldn't have bought into this without that.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department recognizes time Assange spent in a U.K. prison. He's served essentially seven years of incarceration in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Was released from that and then the Brits arrested him and he did 62 months in jail. Hard time in London. So he's sort of paid his dues.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Assange didn't want to set foot in the continental U.S., so he'll enter his plea in the northern Mariana Islands tomorrow.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's a U.S. territory in the Pacific, closer to Australia, where Assange is a citizen. Over the years, he waged a long and complicated set of legal battles.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He faced up to 175 years in prison. And as Clapper mentioned, Assange spent many years hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy, seeking political asylum.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Assange argued the prosecution was politically motivated. Extradition to America was legally complex because of the death penalty.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Assange also faced a sexual assault accusation in Sweden, which he denied and refused to go there for questioning.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: While Assange was in limbo, WikiLeaks kept going. In 2016, it released thousands of emails apparently hacked from the Democratic National Committee and messages stolen from the private email of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Different people have different views on Assange. For some, he was a dangerous threat to military and intelligence personnel. For others, a rebel hero bent on revealing corruption.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The plea deal will not end that debate, but it ensures that he will definitely be a felon and that he will ultimately be free.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Scientists are growing worried about a second Trump term. That's according to reporting from The Washington Post about how federal agencies are putting safeguards in place to protect their research from politicians like Trump who might try to meddle with their work.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Maxine Joselow, a climate reporter with The Post, told us about their concerns. They're worried about Trump and his political appointees reorganizing the agencies in a way that they fear would sideline or undermine or even muzzle career employees who focus on science and specifically on climate science.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Because during his first term, that was, in their view, a top target of his political appointees. Trump's administration forced out thousands of career federal employees by changing their status to at-will workers who could be fired without due process.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: His administration misrepresented research on things like the coronavirus, hurricane forecasts, and reproduction, according to environmental advocates.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As a result, scientists left the federal government in droves. If you look at just the Interior Department, which handles public land, there were close to 5,000 fewer employees by the end of Trump's term compared to the start.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And federal regulators worry that Trump will take aim at regulators again if he's reelected. He complained about them on Fox News recently.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: One of the things that's so bad for us is the environmental agencies. They make it impossible to do anything. Right-wing think tanks have drafted a blueprint Trump could follow.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's called Project 2025. It includes calls for concentrating more power in the president's hands and eliminating part of the EPA. To safeguard federal employees, the Office of Personnel Management has a new rule that allows workers to keep existing job protections and the right to due process.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Over at the EPA, unionized employees recently approved a new contract that allows workers to report political interference without fear of retaliation.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The agreement also guarantees that complaints will be handled by an independent investigator as opposed to someone appointed by a politician.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Josslo told us EPA workers are optimistic about these new protections but they're not bulletproof.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I did have one source tell me that that provision will be helpful, but it won't completely protect those employees or, in their words, fully Trump-proof the agency, especially if Congress changes hand and there's no meaningful oversight.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But just like other attempts to rein in Trump, there's only so much that can be done in court cases and legal documents.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Much of this is in the hands of voters come November.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Finally, the story of a thrift store deal that turned into something much more. DC resident Annalee Dozier paid four dollars for a vase at a local thrift shop a few years back.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As a human rights advocate with experience working with indigenous communities in Mexico, she liked it because it looked like a decent copy of a Mayan vase.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But then she visited Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology, and she had a feeling her thrift store find might actually be a real Mayan artifact.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So Dozier asked someone at the museum about authenticating the vase that she had bought. She contacted the Mexican embassy, and lo and behold, it was indeed a Mayan vase.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And it was really old, dating back to between 200 A.D. and 800 A.D. But she didn't try to cash in on the find. She's giving it back, and it's on the way to a museum in Mexico.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Which Jozier feels good about for a couple of reasons, she told a local CBS station. I would like it to go back to its rightful place and to where it belongs.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I'd also like it out of my house because I have three little boys, and now I'm petrified. Well, it's gone now, but I was petrified that at any moment I could be the after 2,000 years to finally wreck it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now the vase is in safe hands, and that wait is off her chest.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: 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 have a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Rolling Stone spent eight months reporting on allegations that opioid dealers were using Snapchat to sell to kids.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The company says it has a zero-tolerance policy for drug dealing. The reporter for this story spoke with grieving parents, frustrated law enforcement officials, and pressed Snapchat for answers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
