--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, June 30th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the verdict in a landmark school shooting case, why millions of Americans can't rely on ambulances in emergencies, and the incarcerated people who just earned college degrees. But first, the Supreme Court has struck down President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's said that he could not use a 9-11-era emergency law to justify forgiving student loans. The Biden administration argued that it should be able to forgive around $400 billion in federal loans because the COVID pandemic was an emergency.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The ruling throws into question the program to allow about 43 million eligible borrowers to cancel up to $20,000 in debt, unless the administration can find another way to forgive debt that'll stand up in court.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also, the court ruled in favor of a Christian website designer who argued that being forced to create content for same-sex couples would violate her free speech rights.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In a 6-3 decision, the conservative justices said that a Colorado law requiring businesses to treat same-sex couples equally violates the First Amendment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In a pretty strange twist to this case, the New Republic reported this week that the supposed customer cited in the filings says it never happened, that he never reached out to the web designer, that he's been happily married to a woman for nearly a decade, and that he wasn't aware he was cited in the Supreme Court case at all.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We'll be following any potential fallout from that reporting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, apart from today's rulings, there are still a lot of questions as to how yesterday's ruling against race-based affirmative action could affect higher ed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So let's take a deeper look at the possible ripple effects.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Educators aren't the only ones paying close attention. I think that the people that are really focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion were really watching this decision already in corporate America.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloomberg reporter Kelsey Butler covers how corporate leaders are dealing with these issues.
--:-- Kelsey Butler: And I think that many of them are worried, and rightfully so, about the potential ramifications it could have and the chilling effect it really could have on DEI.
--:-- Kelsey Butler: As Butler explains it, the latest decisions apply to education legally, but they could have broader impact.
--:-- Kelsey Butler: Advocates for diversity equity and inclusion programs in workplaces worry that the court is giving their critics a new weapon.
--:-- Kelsey Butler: If someone reads a headline that says affirmative action is dead that may give them a door to basically say, well, you know, why was I discriminated against? Why didn't I get this promotion? Why am I forced to go to this DEI seminar that I don't necessarily want to go to?
--:-- Kelsey Butler: There's already an organized movement against corporate DEI programs.
--:-- Kelsey Butler: Former Trump aide Stephen When Miller founded a group that's been filing legal complaints against many major companies, it says that their diversity programs are discriminatory and illegal.
--:-- Kelsey Butler: Butler says the ruling comes as these kinds of programs are already in the crosshairs because so many Republican politicians are campaigning against them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So I think every few years a new acronym becomes the most hated acronym out there.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And right now maybe DEI is one of them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We're already seeing that come up with Ron DeSantis in Florida.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We are seeing Texas lawmakers move forward with bans essentially on DEI programs and initiatives at public universities.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so even though decisions might not have immediate legal ramifications, they do have ripple effects.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Advocates for DEI programs argue that they're good for business, pointing to data showing companies with diverse workforces outperform their peers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dozens of major corporations, including Apple, Procter & Gamble, and American Express, signed a brief urging the court to uphold affirmative action.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, those companies have to adjust to a new reality.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are so many varying perspectives about affirmative action.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I think one thing that we cannot deny is that it has had an absolute huge impact on what corporate America, what really big industries like medicine, teaching, law look like.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's going to be an absolute shock to the system to see what it looks like now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We've been living in one world and now we're going to be completely living in a different one.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's take a quick look at some other major stories in the news.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The former school resource officer accused of failing to confront the Parkland shooter is not guilty of child neglect and negligence.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Prosecutors tried to make the case that Scott Peterson, who was armed, should have done more to try to stop the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This was the first known American trial that prosecuted a law enforcement officer for failing to act during a school shooting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In France President Emmanuel Macron is holding another emergency cabinet meeting after the most destructive night of clashes between police and protesters this week
--:-- Shamita Basu: There have been days of protests in cities across France following the fatal police shooting of a teenager in a suburb of Paris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The officer is in custody and under investigation for voluntary homicide.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many marches have been peaceful, but in some places cars have been burned and stores damaged and looted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There have been hundreds of civilian and police injuries and hundreds of arrests.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The government deployed 40,000 officers last night.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Ukraine, prosecutors have now charged a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with war crimes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today's charges are the first by Ukraine related to the alleged deportation of dozens of orphans into Russian hands.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This follows a wider investigation by the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and a government official.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Earlier this week, the Kremlin denied that it violated children's rights in Ukraine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ukrainian prosecutors say the current location of these children is unknown.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And back in the States, three more NFL players are suspended for at least a full season for breaking the league's gambling policy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another will miss six games.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The strongest punishment was for those who the league said bet on NFL games last season.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some players have said in the past that the league needs to do a better job of explaining its policy now that there's so much more legalized sports gambling than in the past.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Imagine having a medical emergency, calling 911, but no one showing up for almost half an hour.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's the reality for about 4.5 million Americans who live in a so-called ambulance desert.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's an area 25 minutes or more from an ambulance station.
--:-- Shamita Basu: USA Today reporter Netta Hassanin talked to paramedics who work in these mostly rural places.
--:-- Netta Hassanin: In one part of North Florida, there are only two full-time paramedics, covering more than 1,000 square miles.
--:-- Netta Hassanin: Hassanine talked to one about how she deals with limited resources.
--:-- Netta Hassanin: Because there's only one ambulance truck for the entire county.
--:-- Netta Hassanin: And sometimes she and her husband will have to hop in their own car and go and stabilize a patient and then wait for a truck to come for transport.
--:-- Netta Hassanin: On the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe Reservation in Nevada, the nearest ambulance is an hour away.
--:-- Netta Hassanin: So one family has basically stepped in to do the job
--:-- Netta Hassanin: This entire family all became volunteers of some sort whether it was a volunteer firefighter or volunteer EMS professional simply to fill this really really critical need in their community.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hassanine explains how low-income communities get left behind because of how emergency services are paid for.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There is no standard funding model for EMS here in the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's kind of left up to local governments, you know, counties to determine how they want to fund an EMS station.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so for a lot of these poor, you know, rural counties, oftentimes that money comes out of general revenue or sometimes even, you know, charity and donations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Advocates say without a systematized way of funding emergency services, rural areas especially will be left underserved.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One North Dakota paramedic told me that the EMS profession needs a home.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the way she put it was, when you don't have a home, you kind of get left behind.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's close with one of the most unusual graduations of the season, one that didn't take place on a college campus.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The ceremony happened at a maximum security prison in Connecticut.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There were seven graduates, part of a program where Yale and the University of New Haven educate incarcerated people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Alpha Jallo got the highest GPA in the class, and he spoke at the event, which the local Fox station covered.
--:-- Alpha Jallo: Use learning to empower yourselves, my beautiful brothers, because the world needs each and every one of your voices.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It was an emotional day for many of the graduates, who talked about the challenges of keeping up with a college curriculum while dealing with all the distractions and stress of being in prison.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They said they wanted to set an example for future students.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We work tirelessly to prove not only our worth, but to demonstrate the potential that's encased in concrete nationwide.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They are the first set of graduates from the program.
--:-- Shamita Basu: By the end of next summer, it'll have worked with close to 100 students at two prisons.
--:-- 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 right now, stick around for more Supreme Court-related coverage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We've got a narrated article coming up next from New York Magazine that examines the relationship between Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginny Thomas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's queued up to play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Our show will be off through July 4th.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So enjoy the holiday weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Wednesday.
