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Mark Garrison, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, June 14th. I'm Mark Garrison in for 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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A bear market. You don't have to work on Wall Street to know that's a bad thing to hear. And it's a bad thing to see, if you took a peek at your 401(k) balance yesterday, when the S&P 500 closed more than 20% below its recent high. Some shares recovered this morning, but volatility is sky-high, and more trouble is ahead.
A high-stakes Fed meeting is going on today and tomorrow. The central bank is considering a bigger-than-expected interest rate hike, targeting the inflation that the latest numbers show is still strong, despite everything the Fed has already done. "The Wall Street Journal" reports on what the Biden administration, Trump administration and the Fed got wrong about inflation, and how they turned to the wrong playbook to handle the pandemic.
Back in 2020, when we were in the first lockdowns, the Fed deployed some of the same tactics it used during the previous financial crisis. Cutting the federal funds rate, quantitative easing, all the policies that are basically Fed speak for "whatever it takes to get people spending money."
But the "Journal" points out, in one key way, policymakers went further than they did during the financial crisis. Both parties put lots of money in people's pockets. Remember this moment during the Trump Administration.
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President Donald Trump: I signed the single biggest economic relief package in American history, and I must say, or any other package, by the way. It's twice as large as any relief ever signed. It's 2.2 billion, but it actually goes up to 6.2, potentially, billion dollars. Trillion dollars.
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And one of the first big things Biden did as president was throw more money at the problem, signing a $1.9 trillion aid bill.
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President Joe Biden: This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation, working people, middle class folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance.
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That money helped struggling Americans, but also created a supply and demand mismatch. People had tons of money in their pockets, but the pandemic supply-chain problems meant there wasn't as much to buy. What happens next isn't complicated. It was economics 101. If demand goes up and supply goes down, prices rise. A lot. And even as unemployment fell back to pre-pandemic levels, the Fed and our politicians didn't change course.
As the "Journal" explains, this moment is humbling some of the smartest minds in economics, politics and banking. Many have now admitted mistakes, including Jerome Powell saying last month that the Fed should have begun raising interest rates sooner. This week, we'll see the latest steps the Fed takes to try to chart a course out of this unusual, unprecedented challenge we're in.
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The January 6th commission has an unlikely star witness: former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr. The two public hearings so far have been full of his recorded testimony. He criticizes Trump and repeatedly makes clear that he knew the claims about the 2020 election being stolen were lies. Here is some of what was played in yesterday's hearings.
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Bill Barr: I thought, "Boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has, you know, lost contact with… he's become detached from reality." There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were. And my opinion then and my opinion now is that the election was not stolen by fraud.
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The commission is trying to build a case against Trump, so there's a theme. The Trump insiders we're hearing from are the ones who say they were telling him the truth. They even had a nickname: Team Normal. That was in contrast with Rudy Giuliani and others in Trump's orbit. They were pushing him to declare an early victory on election night. Here's Jason Miller, a Trump aide whose video testimony was played before the committee yesterday.
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Jason Miller: I think, effectively, Mayor Giuliani was saying, "We won it. They're stealing it from us. Where did all the votes come from? We need to go say that we won." And, essentially, that anyone who didn't agree with that position was being weak.
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Writing for "The New Yorker," Susan Glasser notes that so many of the witnesses now speaking out against Trump, for a long time, were his enablers. And they were in positions of power to do something. She points out, words after the event aren't worth as much as actions when they could've made a difference.
Barr's testimony frames his leaving the administration as a principled stand in the face of election lies. But Glasser points out, he didn't say any of that in his letter of resignation. Instead, he wrote about Trump's, quote, "many successes" and "unprecedented achievements." He's even said he would vote for Trump again in 2024. As the country watches these hearings, Glasser is both struck by the power of hearing an attorney general turning so publicly on his boss, but also, in the words of Bill Barr, she's calling BS on some of the hypocrisy of the Trump insiders who did so little for so long.
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Who is responsible for the death of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh? Last month, the "Al Jazeera" correspondent was shot in the head while reporting on an Israeli military operation at the Jenin refugee camp.
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Some Palestinians have said she was targeted by Israeli forces. Israel has disputed that account, but its messages about the incident have shifted over time. And there are a lot of questions. And key evidence hasn't been independently investigated.
Now, "The Washington Post" is out with a detailed forensic investigation that pulled in expert analysis of video, audio and other evidence around her death. The review suggests that an Israeli soldier fired the shot that killed Abu Akleh. The "Post" also looked at Israeli claims that soldiers were firing on a Palestinian gunman who was in the area. The "Post's" review of available evidence doesn't support that claim. The video taken before the killing does not show signs of a firefight.
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Unidentified Speaker: [SPEAKING IN ARABIC]
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You can hear a person saying, "There's the Israeli army." Then there are gunshots.
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[GUNSHOTS, INDISTINCT CHATTER]
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The "Post" commissioned two independent acoustic analyses of the gunshots. Based on the sound and what's known about where Abu Akleh and the Israeli soldiers were standing, it concluded that the shots were fired by Israeli forces.
Lots of Americans who've been watching this story have questioned where the accountability is here for the death of an American who may have been killed at the hands of a foreign government while doing her job. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was questioned about the case.
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Antony Blinken: We're looking for an independent, credible investigation. When that investigation happens, we will follow the facts wherever they lead. It's as straightforward as that. That has not yet happened. But it's something that we very much want to see happen.
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In response to the "Post" analysis, the Israeli military says it will, quote, "continue to responsibly investigate the incident, in order to get to the truth of this tragic event." You can see the whole story, with maps and videos that help sort out what we do know, on the Apple News app.
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Travel is starting to open up again, and in the wake of the pandemic, an unusual new kind of travel package is emerging. "The Wall Street Journal" reports on the rise of "the breakup trip."
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Hotels and resorts are now starting to cater to people who are traveling in the wake of a divorce or separation. A lot of people ended relationships during the pandemic, and the travel industry sees a big opportunity.
These packages are basically the opposite of honeymoon deals. One resort in the Maldives offers solo travelers a photoshoot as part of their package. The idea is you get some nice shots with those turquoise waters and palm trees, and you get perfect new pics to freshen up your dating profile.
Travel advisors say, plan these kinds of trips carefully. It's best not to go to an old favorite spot, since it'll always be the "breakup trip" in your memories. And definitely avoid places that are popular with honeymooners. You just don't need that kind of reminder. But done right, newly single folks tell the "Journal" that a post-breakup trip can do wonders.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app, including coverage of the massive wildfires in Arizona and California, with some pretty striking pictures. 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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