Nikki Haley’s campaign exit sets up a Biden-Trump rematch

Good morning. It's Wednesday March 6th. I'm Yasmeen Khan in for Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Coming up, the U.S. airdrops another round of aid into Gaza, a historic first in college sports, and how to cast a ballot from outer space.

But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news. Republican Nikki Haley is now out of the presidential race. She suspended her campaign this morning. That effectively gives former president Trump the G.O.P. nomination and sets up a rematch with President Biden. Last night, Haley won only Vermont. Trump spoke to supporters gathered at Mar-a-Lago after his victories in 14 other states.

Well, thank you very much. They, uh, call it Super Tuesday for a reason. This is a big one.

President Biden said in a statement that voters showed they're ready to fight to keep Trump from getting another term. Biden won big last night, as expected, though he did have a surprise loss in American Samoa to a political novice, entrepreneur Jason Palmer. Also, more democratic voters chose the option "uncommitted" as a protest vote of Biden's backing for Israel in the Gaza War. Further down the ballot, the race to succeed the late California Senator Dianne Feinstein is set.

who felt she was too sympathetic to conservatives. You can get more political analysis, including all the Super Tuesday races, on the Apple News app. The U.S. has airdropped another round of humanitarian aid into Gaza

where at least a quarter of the population is on the brink of famine. The drop was coordinated with Jordan's air force and included close to 40,000 meals, just a sliver of the amount desperately needed for more than two million Palestinians. For the U.S., the airdrops are a new attempt to address the humanitarian crisis, but not for Jordan. Since November, the country's air force has dropped aid into Gaza by air more than a dozen times.

And from the sky, you can see the destruction. You can see what looks like stable, what looks like normal structures, and then around it you just see the kind of fainted gray of rubble, and it's quite massive in scale, even from the sky.

The crates dropped by Jordan typically contain supplies like food, medicine, diapers, and other necessities. Israel approves the airdrops, and the timing. Gazans are not told when they're coming. Dadouch says witnessing the devastation in Gaza has been especially difficult for many Jordanians.

The Palestinian issue is a very emotional, evocative issue for many Arab countries, but specifically Jordan who has a large number of its citizens and residents are of Palestinian origin.

One member of the air force who was on the plane with Dadouch shared that he'd been sleeping at their base for weeks so he could keep working.

He just couldn't imagine going home when they finally had a chance to help what they see as their brothers.

Before the war, the amount of aid entering Gaza did not come close to meeting the humanitarian needs of civilians according to aid agencies. That was when roughly 500 trucks per day entered Gaza. The number has steadily dropped since. By January, it was 170 trucks of aid on average. By February, just 98. With so few aid trucks getting in, countries like France, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates have joined efforts to airdrop aid, but Dadouch says it won't be a long term solution.

The issues with delivering aid via airdrops is that they're exorbitantly expensive. They are best when trying to serve a specific area with specific needs, and there's no alternative route,

but because of the expense, aid is not going to go in as quickly and in as large amounts as it needs to go into Gaza. Trucking is the main solution

Now to a landmark development in the world of college sports and organized labor in America. Yesterday, players on Dartmouth's men's basketball team voted to form a union.

That puts them in position to make history as the first unionized players in American college sports. Forming a union would allow players to collectively bargain with the school over pay and working conditions. This is a big deal that could dramatically change the sports landscape.

They've made so much money recently that in the past year they've been able to pay their head football coaches, on average, $6.2 million a year.

Players have said they should be paid too, and not just money, but also better health care. Blackistone told us about an event he attended at the University of Maryland. A student said she resented athletes already getting a lot of preferential treatment, and an athlete had a strong response.

He said, "Well, I understand your point of view, but I just want you to know that I've been on a gurney four times for playing football. You may have to sacrifice time or you may have to figure out a way to piece together enough money to continue your education here at the University of Maryland." He said, "But I'm giving my body." "I have to persevere in a different sort of way."

As for the Dartmouth players, their battle to unionize isn't over. The school is appealing to federal labor officials. Dartmouth argues that students can't be classified as employees

simply because they play basketball, and the NCAA has opposed union efforts. Let's end the show on one more Super Tuesday related story. For a small group of American voters, their Super Tuesday polling place was 250 miles above Earth,

aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts have been voting from space for almost 20 years now. The Texas state legislature passed a bill allowing it in 1997. "USA Today" explains the voting process for astronauts starts roughly a year before they leave for a mission on the space station. Those missions typically last around six months. The actual voting is not so different from what it's like here on Earth.

And so we fill out, it's called a federal postcard application for voting overseas, and I don't know that I'm technically overseas. We are far away from the United States at times, depending on our orbit. So we fill out this application. We actually get… the ballot is encrypted to us. We send it back down to our county clerk and they record the vote

A few years back, "NPR" spoke with a Texas clerk, Mary Anne Daigle, about receiving ballots from orbit.

It's kind of exciting when you open up your computer in the morning, and you got a message from outer space or something like that.

And there's one extra cool perk of voting this way: the ability to list their home address as "low-Earth orbit." 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, stick around. We've got a Narrated Article coming up next from "The New Yorker." It has an extensive interview with President Biden on his final presidential campaign, and why he and the White House are so confident, even while many democrats worry he could lose.