A landmark conviction for a school shooter’s mother

Good morning! It's Wednesday, February 7th. I'm Yasmeen Khan in for Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Coming up, the conviction of a school shooter's parent could influence future prosecutions, the unusual and high-stakes election in Pakistan and why it matters that the moon is shrinking.

But first, let's take a quick look at some other big stories in the news. In Congress, Republicans failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over immigration policy. House Speaker Mike Johnson presided over the surprise loss for his party.

The yeas are 214 and the nays are 216. The resolution is not adopted.

A few Republicans crossed over to vote with Democrats. With the numbers so tight, sick lawmakers were dragged in to vote. Republican Hal Rogers appeared with a giant neck brace, after a car accident. And at the last minute, Democratic Congressman Al Green arrived straight from the hospital. He wasn't expected on the floor because he was recovering from surgery. Shoeless and using a wheelchair, Green's vote was the nail in the coffin.

There's still a lot of work to be done but we continue to believe that an agreement is possible, and indeed essential.

This comes as Israel says it's moving ground troops to Rafah, the city in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border. It's been one of the last places civilians could escape Israeli attacks, with more than a million people sheltering there. Now to the U.S. presidential race, where President Biden won the Nevada primary, as expected. Nikki Haley lost in a race where former president Donald Trump was not on the ballot. Twice as many voters chose the option "none of these candidates" over Haley.

The question over immunity could wind up in the Supreme Court. After eleven hours of deliberation, a Michigan jury found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter for a mass shooting committed by her teenage son.

It's a landmark case, the first where a school shooter's parent has been found guilty of charges this serious. Her son Ethan killed four classmates at Oxford High School in Michigan in 2021. He is serving a life sentence. Jennifer Crumbley faces up to 60 years in prison. The prosecution argued that Crumbley knew about her son's declining mental health and should've gotten him support.

If you think about the standard, the criminal negligence standard, it is whether a reasonable person under these circumstances could have foreseen the harm. And when you take the totality of the circumstances here, purchasing the gun for the shooter, the drawings, and the history of mental health, this kid was a guided missile. And that guided missile was aimed at this school.

Parents of the victims were in the courtroom throughout the trial, including Craig Shilling, whose son Justin was killed. He said things might have been different if the Crumbley parents had taken action.

Accountability on this level years ago could have stopped it. Y'know, it could have stopped what happened in Oxford, that's for sure.

Campaigners against gun violence say the verdict sets an important precedent about how parents are responsible for keeping guns out of children's hands. And legal experts say it could lead to more prosecutors going after parents of school shooters. Jennifer Crumbley's defense tried to argue that she didn't realize how bad her son's mental health was. And they tried to shift blame to the father, James Crumbley. He now faces the same charges, in a trial starting next month.

Pakistan is holding nationwide elections tomorrow, at a time when voters are concerned about a longstanding economic crisis and the influence of the military.

"Wall Street Journal" reporter Saeed Shah has called this moment leading up to the election: a "roller coaster ride."

I think it is extreme, even by Pakistani standards. People are saying that this is the most controversial election since the 1970s.

To understand why it's so controversial, you have to look at some of the key players. There's the recently ousted, but still popular, former Prime Minister Imran Khan. He is in prison, convicted of corruption and leaking state secrets. He says the charges are political. Khan, who was once the country's most famous cricket player, is not on the ballot, but many still support his party.

Politics here deeply polarized between essentially those who favor Imran Khan and those who are against him. And it's hard to see that people will accept the result broadly speaking, so it is not at all clear that this election is going to lead to some kind of stability following it.

Shah, who's based in Pakistan, says even campaigning has been different this time around. It's been more muted, with fewer rallies. There are also fears of violence on election day. Today there were two separate bomb blasts at local election offices. At least 22 people were killed. And in the background of all this, is a dire economic situation. Shah says while ordinary voters may not trust the process, they still have a hankering for progress.

Pakistan has never really found its feet economically. It's a country of 240 million people, so it's a big country. It has nuclear weapons. It has a huge army. But what has been missing really is any sort of economic development. And parallel with that is that its political system has not matured.

In fact, Shah points out that in the country's 76 year history, no prime minister has ever served a full term.

Finally, the moon is shrinking. Albeit, very slowly.

New research shows that as the core of the moon cools, it is ever so gradually shriveling up like a raisin. Not by a lot, around 150 feet over a few hundred million years. So it's not expected to have a substantial impact on tidal cycles on Earth. But for astronauts exploring the moon, there are some risks. A shrinking moon means more fault lines on the surface, which could increase the risk of "moonquakes." Overall, scientists say the risk to astronauts and robotic landers is relatively low.

So, as lunar exploration continues, NASA and private companies will have to consider the possibility of moonquakes more seriously as they pick future landing sites, and as they build the next generation of lunar technology. 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 "Sports Illustrated." It's about Ukrainian tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky.