Hi there, Gideon here. Before we get into today's episode, we have a question for you. Has a traumatic event impacted your relationship with money? Maybe you lost your job during the 2008 financial crisis or the pandemic in 2020, or maybe you've been evicted or been through a divorce where money was a sticking point. We want to know, how did that experience change the way that you think about and manage your finances?
If you do have a story to share, we want to hear about it for an upcoming episode of Apple News in conversation. You can use your iPhone's voice memos app to record yourself, tell us your name, where you're from, your story, and how it's affected you. And please try to keep it to about a minute or so. You can send it to us at applenewstodayatapple.com. Again, that's applenewstodayatapple.com. And we might include your story on the show. Thanks so much. Good morning, it's Tuesday, March 26th.
I'm Gideon Resnick, in for Shumita Basu, this is Apple News Today. Coming up on today's show, abortion is back in the Supreme Court, updates in Trump legal cases, and sports betting is booming — and so are the calls for more addiction support.
But first, rescue crews are searching for survivors in Baltimore, after a collapse of the iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge. It happened after a ship hit a support column for the bridge overnight with 911 calls came in just after midnight. Car traffic is not normally heavy at that hour, but the collapse sent several vehicles into the river. Baltimore fire chief James Wallace said that searchers were looking for at least seven people. Two were initially pulled from the water. We are still very much in an active search and rescue posture at this point, and we will continue to be for some time. We have a large area that we have to search. This includes on the surface of the water, subsurface, as well as on the deck of the ship itself. Neighbor Venisha Barbie told the local CBS station that the crash was so loud that it jolted her out of bed. The building has shook so severely and it woke me up. I was scared and I didn't know what was going on. This bridge is 1.6 miles long, it is a key part of the interstate. So the collapse is having a major impact on transport in the region. The bridge is also a key gateway to the Port of Baltimore. It’s the busiest American port for car shipments and agricultural products, it is also a destination for cruise ships. Officials say it will be closed until further notice. The ship was a cargo vessel registered in Singapore. Shipping records show that it was involved in a 2016 collision at a port in Europe. Investigators say there’s no sign of any connection to terrorism. U.S. Coast Guard officials have said footage posted online indicates the vessel had some mechanical issues just before hitting the bridge.
Now let's take a quick look at some other stories that are in the news. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating Sean Combs. Agents recently searched his properties in the Los Angeles and Miami areas. Federal officials didn't detail what they were looking for, but in recent lawsuits, people have accused Combs of abuse and sex trafficking. He has broadly denied wrongdoing. In other legal news, former President Donald Trump now has a trial date of April 15th in New York.
He's pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of falsifying business records. This is in connection with hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump's lawyers wanted to delay the trial further to allow more time to review documents. In another case, Trump's team managed a win. A New York appeals court reduced the bond amount that Trump must pay to 175 million from 454 million. He has to put up the bond while he appeals the civil fraud judgment against him.
And a high level Israeli delegation visit to Washington is not happening. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled the trip. It's retaliation for the US refusing to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The US abstained in that vote, which allowed it to pass. The Biden administration said it was disappointed that Israel canceled the visit. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby talked about the decision to abstain in the UN.
Our vote does not, I repeat, does not represent a shift in our policy. We've been very clear, we've been very consistent in our support for a ceasefire as part of a hostage deal.
There's growing friction between the countries, with the Biden administration strongly opposed to Israeli plans for a major ground invasion of Ra'afa, where many civilians are sheltering. Today, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in the first major abortion case since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Justices will consider whether or not to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone. The results will have huge implications for reproductive rights nationwide. Medication abortions account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. Mifepristone was approved for use in the United States more than two decades ago, after a long government review process — and well after it was made available in other countries. Health reporter Shefali Luthra, with the 19th, told us about how the legal case before the Supreme Court today will challenge that approval. This collection of anti abortion doctors is arguing that the FDA did not properly vet the science, did not weigh the evidence, the risks, the safety appropriately, and rushed in their decision making. All the medical experts across political persuasions really say that this is not true, that the FDA spent a long time and reviewed heaps and heaps of data to come to its decision. Studies show that mifepristone is safe and effective. More recent decisions by the FDA expanded access to the drug. The agency began allowing physicians to prescribe it at up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, rather than just the first seven. It also expanded who could prescribe it, and allowed it to be sent by mail, without in-person appointments. Luthra says the anti-abortion movement sees this type of access as a threat to their progress. We know for a fact that people living in states with abortion bans have successfully ordered medication abortion pills from other states. This is really frustrating for abortion opponents who see it as circumventing, skirting state laws they worked really hard to pass and they are hoping that a telemedicine restriction could ultimately put a stop or at least slow this down. It’s not just physicians and reproductive rights advocates concerned over the case. There’s another issue at play: the pharmaceutical industry has warned that interfering with the FDA’s decision-making could cause wider disruptions to the process used to approve other drugs. The FDA is considered a global gold standard. And the industry is deeply concerned that if we do see a ruling that oversteps the FDA's authority, that's kind of destabilizing. It means that there is a lot more risk involved in investing significant amounts of money, of time into developing complex drugs and it discourages industry from making that kind of pursuit in the future.
In a much anticipated address to the media yesterday, MLB star Shohei Otani said he never bet on baseball or placed bets for anyone else. He's been under scrutiny since his long time interpreter was fired. The backstory here is that the interpreter is accused of paying off his own gambling debts by taking millions of Otani's money. There've been a lot of questions about what exactly happened since the interpreter originally said Otani paid the gambling debts for him.
But he later changed his story to say Otani didn't know about it. This scandal has put sports betting back into the spotlight. It is easier than ever to legally place bets ever since the Supreme Court ruling opened the door for broader legalization back in 2018. The gambling industry expects Americans to place more than $2.7 billion in legal bets on March Madness alone this year. People used to have to visit casinos to bet on sports legally.
But now in many states, people can just place bets directly from their couch through a mobile app. With wagers just a few taps away, the number of bets have skyrocketed, along with concerns about gambling addiction. We used to say before this, in order to gamble, you had to put clothes on.
You had to get up, you had to go out, and now you don't.
That's Dianna Good speaking to Marketplace earlier this year. She runs a state-funded hotline to support people struggling with gambling addiction in Connecticut. In the first year that mobile sports betting was allowed in the state, calls for help to her organization nearly doubled. And Keith White, head of the National Council on Problem Gambling, told Marketplace that gambling addiction is a national problem, and prevention and treatment shouldn't just be left up to individual states.
Just as we don't look at cancer or diabetes or substance abuse state by state, we really need to recognize that gambling too is something that you have to look at on a national basis.
To do that, White told Marketplace that more funding is just desperately needed. The gambling industry says Americans bet more than $100 billion on sports last year. But bookmakers paid less than a tenth of 1% of that in state taxes that are earmarked to treat problem gambling. White believes the federal government should fund more treatment nationally, using money from federal taxes on sports bets.
There are also calls for federal regulations on the types of wagers and the number of bets that people can place. The gambling industry rejects the idea of federal regulation. But there have been some steps in Washington to do more, as there's growing concern about the dangerous side of sports gambling. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening to the news app right now, we have a narrated article coming up next from Scientific American.
As more state lawmakers pass bills restricting legal protections for LGBTQ plus people, parents of queer and transgender children are finding it harder to figure out where in the US is safe for their families to live. If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.