--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, December 9th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, Donald Trump considers a controversial pardon, how discriminatory policies expose Black people to higher rates of gun violence, and the college football playoffs are set with one big surprise. But first, a major turn of events in the Middle East, where rebels captured Syria's capital, Damascus, over the weekend, forcing President Bashar al-Assad to flee the country and bringing an abrupt end to more than a decade of civil war.
--:-- Alistair Bunkle: It is a new dawn for the country, but there are dark clouds on the horizon. When that celebration calms down, the hatred and anger after decades of repression and harsh rule could spill out, and it'll be hard to contain it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And who is going to govern Syria? It is divided many ways, and many rebel factions will want to vie for their own slice of power. The main rebel group that toppled al-Assad is called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. It was once an al-Qaeda affiliate, and even though it has since denounced terrorism, the U.S. still designates it as a terrorist group.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For President Biden, this presents a late in his presidency foreign policy challenge. He spoke on Sunday, seeming to recognize the optimism of many Syrians. It's a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country. It's also a moment of risk and uncertainty.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As we all turn to the question of what comes next, the United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria, to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risks. Biden also said it the U mission to prevent ISIS from taking hold of the country and he promised U troops in the country would be protected Within 24 hours of the Al regime downfall U forces carried out dozens of airstrikes targeting ISIS camps in Syria
--:-- Michael Scheer: Snowden, as you might remember, was an intelligence contractor with the National Security Agency, the NSA. Back in 2013, he released a stack of documents, more than three miles high, according to a House report, with the goal of, in his words, exposing government abuses, including data collection on U.S. citizens. He and his supporters call him a whistleblower. His critics say he put Americans at risk.
--:-- Michael Scheer: He's been living in Russia for years to avoid prosecution. Trump came close to pardoning Snowden at the end of his first term, pushed then by Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. At the time, he decided he wasn't going to go forward with a pardon of Snowden, but he said it was a very close call, and he said it could have gone the other way.
--:-- Michael Scheer: Today, even more people in his circle are advocating for a pardon. That includes his son, Donald Trump Jr. It includes Gaetz, who's still close with him. It includes Tucker Carlson, who has been down at Mar-a-Lago, Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee to be Director of National Intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his nominee to be Health and Human Services Secretary.
--:-- Sue Gordon: He had no authority and he had different paths and he harmed America. He not only harmed intelligence, he harmed our allies and partners. And so if they vacate it what they basically saying is all those rules you follow in order to be able to serve America they don matter anymore
--:-- Michael Scheer: A 2016 House report concluded the Snowden leak cost the federal government billions of dollars and did, quote, tremendous damage to national security. Scheer says the damage part is disputable. That's a debated point. The actual damage that the Snowden disclosures did do have not been detailed by the intelligence community. That remains classified.
--:-- Mensa Dean: Philadelphia's status as the poorest big city in the country is a major cause of its gun violence. Racism hemmed in the Black population and it stifled their ability to move upward, even those who had the aptitude to do so. Where you have the lower income populations, that's where you have more crime.
--:-- Mensa Dean: Gun violence in Philly disproportionately affects Black people. Since 2015, more than 80 percent of gun violence victims and 79 percent of people arrested for gun violence in the city have been Black. And this pattern continues even as gun violence rates started to drop citywide.
--:-- Mensa Dean: When people can't meet basic needs, they sometimes take drastic action. Hunger does drive people and deprivation. And so when you live in a community where there's so much poverty and despair and dysfunction and aberrant behavior, children are exposed to that from the time they can walk until the time they're taking the subway.
--:-- Mensa Dean: He told us about 90-year-old Walter Palmer, who grew up in West Philadelphia. His family of 14 shared a two-room apartment. When he was 12 years old, he was arrested for the first of many times. He was shot in gang warfare. He did his share of violence. He was arrested many times before he was able to catch a break.
--:-- Mensa Dean: Palmer says he believes the combination of poverty, crime, and despair in his racially segregated neighborhood pushed him into these circumstances. But he managed to get out and go to law school in D.C. at Howard. Dean told us Palmer later became an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses on institutional racism and social change.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app President-elect Trump gave his first televised interview on Sunday since winning the election. In a wide-ranging sit-down on NBC's Meet the Press, Trump talked about how he'll prioritize deporting migrants with criminal records.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He also discussed what he thinks should happen to some of his political opponents, in particular members of the committee that investigated the January 6th attack on the Capitol. And Cheney was behind it. And so was Benny Thompson and everybody on that committee. For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail? for what everyone on the committee. I think everybody, anybody that voted in favor, you're going to direct your FBI director and your attorney general to send them to jail. Not at all. I think that they'll have to look at that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Various news outlets are reporting the Biden administration is considering blanket pardons for people they believe could be targets for retribution under Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In sports news, the first ever 12 team college football playoff is set with a big surprise on the bracket, SMU was awarded the final spot over Alabama, a perennial powerhouse.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It was quite the debate, according to the selection committee chair. Alabama was ranked higher than Arizona State, which earned a top four seed by way of winning its conference championship. Georgia, Boise State, and Oregon, the number one overall seed, rounded out the rest of the top four.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They'll get a buy in the first round, which starts on December 20th with Notre Dame versus Indiana.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in New York, authorities continue their search for the man they believe shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week. He was captured on thousands of surveillance cameras across the city, and investigators believe he left the city by bus on Friday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Police released two additional photos of the suspect over the weekend. There has been a strange sense of glee on the internet around this story. Photos from a shooter lookalike contest over the weekend in New York are getting shared. a jacket similar to the one that the shooter was photographed wearing is getting lots of clicks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: New Yorker writer Gia Tolentino has a piece out about the Internet's reaction to Thompson's murder and why so many people are being so flip about it. She writes that while the details of the crime itself are remarkable, the Internet's reaction has been, quote, even wilder, even more lawless.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can read Tolentino's full commentary on what this response means about our society in our show notes page. along with all the stories we talked about today in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Popular Mechanics spoke to experts who are preparing the northwestern U.S. for a natural disaster that we rarely discuss, volcanic mud flows that could inundate communities surrounding Mount Rainier.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
