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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Monday, May 23. I'm Shumita Basu, this is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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President Biden is launching a new trade deal with 12 Indo-Pacific countries, including Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia. The countries say this pact will help prepare their economies for the future after disruptions caused by the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
That's an expected part of Biden's trip to Asia, but the headlines this morning focus on what he said about Taiwan and China. He got a question that a lot of presidents get, but he gave an unexpected answer.
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Reporter: Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?
President Joe Biden: Yes.
You are?
Biden: That's the commitment we made.
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In just a few seconds of Q&A, experts from Washington to Beijing were checking their ears and wondering, wait, did decades of American policy just change? "Reuters" explains how, for a long time, the U.S. stance was called "strategic ambiguity." Washington didn't say whether the American military would defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. That was seen as the best way to make China think twice about going after the island without directly threatening it. It has stepped up activity around Taiwan in recent years. China's foreign ministry quickly responded to Biden's comments, expressing "strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition." Biden's answer on Taiwan may not have been planned as the White House moved quickly to clarify there's been no change in policy toward Taiwan.
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A new report reveals major failures to protect children from abuse at one of America's most powerful and influential religious organizations. A third-party investigation involving hundreds of interviews found that, for decades, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention silenced sexual abuse survivors and dismissed reforms that could have kept predators away from children. SBC officials did not immediately comment on the report.
The investigation comes in the wake of extensive reporting in 2019 from the "Houston Chronicle" and "San Antonio Express-News." Those outlets found that hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers had been criminally charged with sex crimes since 2000. You can read more about the latest report on the Southern Baptists on the Apple News app.
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Now to Ukraine, where this morning, 21-year-old Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin has been convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison. He shot an unarmed, 62-year-old civilian. It's the first war-crimes trial in the violent conflict that's still unfolding. We reached out to "NPR" national security correspondent Greg Myre, who's been in Kyiv covering this case. Last week in court, the widow of the man killed confronted the man who shot her husband.
Greg Myre: She said, "What were you feeling when you shot my husband? Tell me, please." And Shishimarin, who's been very contrite throughout this trial, said, "I felt very stressed, very fearful. And I know you probably can't forgive me, but I ask for your forgiveness."
Myre has covered wars for decades. This one has had many reports of atrocities.
Myre: We've just seen the Russians carry out case after case where they've attacked civilians. Either shot at civilians, as we've seen in this case, attacked civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, there've been accusations of rape and looting, big missile strikes on apartment buildings, on schools. So Ukraine has made a very concerted effort from the very beginning to document these cases.
It's pretty unusual to see war crimes be prosecuted while the war is still happening. Ukraine is insisting on moving forward with these trials while the evidence is fresh. But it won't be easy.
Myre: If you're an investigator, you can't just walk into the middle of a hot war zone. It's very dangerous. Getting any sort of cooperation, again, because of the danger and the risk involved. The fighting hasn't been resolved. So that's gonna be a big challenge, catching, capturing Russian soldiers who may be accused of a war crime. That will probably be the biggest challenge while the fighting is going on. And then nobody really expects Russia to cooperate in any way.
Myre says new technology may give prosecutors evidence that they wouldn't have had in the past.
Myre: This war quite likely will be the most documented war in history. Just all the video, the social media we're seeing, security cameras are in many places in Ukraine. The Ukrainians said they're going to use things like facial recognition software that may allow them to figure out who was at the scene if there's video that's strong enough. So there are a number of ways that the Ukrainians could be able to gather strong evidence almost in real time while this war is still playing out.
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The French Open is underway with Rafael Nadal in action today. "Sports Illustrated" has a profile of the Spanish tennis star. If you don't follow tennis and you only know his name but not his story, this piece is a good read. There's a lot of focus on his intensity. It's brought him many Grand Slam wins, but also, it seems, a string of injuries. There have been questions as to how much the 36-year-old has left in him. Ahead of the tournament, he got a lot of questions about how he's working through his injuries.
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Rafael Nadal: In my case, it's something that I live every day with that, so it's nothing new for me, and it's not a big surprise. So I am here just to play tennis and try to make the best result possible.
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"SI" picked out a telling statistic that says a lot about Nadal. There's an official "under pressure" ranking. It measures how often a player converts break points, you know, preventing the loss of a game. Nadal is number one in that category, hands down. He pulls through nearly half of the time. More than any other player. Now, at the French Open, he is under pressure to recover from recent injuries, to face down younger players, to pull off a win that could put him in the record books. This "SI" piece makes the case that he's more than up to the challenge.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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