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Gideon Resnick, Narrating: Good morning! It's Wednesday, April 12th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, a gun that allegedly goes off even when no one pulls the trigger. Why so many of the people on the "Forbes" "30 Under 30 List" now face jail time. Plus, how climate change is changing baseball.
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But first, the Justice Department, FBI and Pentagon are all investigating how highly classified U.S. documents were leaked and by whom. The documents detail plans for the war in Ukraine and include intercepted communications between the U.S. and our allies.
"The Wall Street Journal" has done a good job answering some of the biggest questions you might have about this breach, which is why we called up their White House and national security reporter, Gordon Lubold. He and his colleagues report that many of the documents appear to be highly classified intelligence slides that were prepared for senior military leaders.
They reveal that the situation for Ukraine may be growing dire. Ukraine is purportedly rapidly running out of antiaircraft missiles. By as early as May, many keys cities and critical sites won't have airspace protection, according to the documents. They also show what the U.S. knows about what's going on inside Russia.
Gordon Lubold: I think that one of the most prominent concerns is that a lot of these documents show the kind of intelligence the U.S. has been able to gain from inside the Russian government, the Russian military. And so for Moscow, this is obviously very concerning about the depth of the American penetration of their operations.
Which brings us to the timing of this. The leak comes ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive planned for later this year. What some are calling a make or break moment in the war.
Lubold: This intelligence is very relevant and timely. And it's so relevant to the conflict inside Ukraine that, you know, you're looking to see if it could have an impact to mute the Ukrainian's ability or blunt their ability to execute the conflict.
Then of course there's the big question of who did this. Lubold and his colleagues at the "Journal" report that sometime in January an anonymous user started posting the files to a small channel on Discord, an online messaging platform that is popular among gamers.
Lubold: I think it's clear now that it's not a hacking job. This is somebody who was privy to this intelligence, who then decided for whatever reason to leak it, to expose it.
Though just 50 or so of the documents were marked as "Secret" or "Top Secret," many national security experts are calling this one of the most significant intelligence breaches in history. Lubold says many are worried it could take months to repair the political damage with America's allies, who are concerned the U.S. can't be trusted with their secrets.
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One of America's most popular handguns may come with a potentially deadly defect. The SIG Sauer P320 is modeled after the standard issue sidearm used by nearly every branch of the military. It hit the commercial market in 2014, and today it's used by hundreds of thousands of civilians and by countless law enforcement officers.
But according to a months-long investigation from "The Trace" and "The Washington Post," there's a huge problem with the weapon. They found this gun fired unexpectedly in people's homes or offices, in crowded places like a casino, and even twice on school grounds. More than a hundred people in all told journalists their SIG Sauer went off despite never pulling the trigger.
At least 80 people were wounded including dozens of law enforcement officers like Ashley Catatao, a detective with the Somerville Police Department in Massachusetts.
Ashley Catatao: On the day of the incident I came into work, we did roll call. I grabbed my duty bag, my lunch bag and started walking down the back lot towards the cruiser that I was gonna take. And as I'm walking to the cruiser, I heard a loud bang and I felt a searing hot pain in my right thigh. I was scared. I was very scared 'cause I thought someone had shot at me.
The reporters here reviewed troves of records and video recordings. They found that in a lot of cases, people's hands were nowhere near the gun when it went off. Instead, they were climbing out of a car or in George Abrahams' case, just walking down the stairs.
George Abrahams: I placed the firearm inside my pocket, then I proceeded down the steps. There's a loud explosion and then there's an excruciating pain that's going through my thigh.
Victims say they've lost work, live in pain and suffer serious injuries and trauma in the aftermath. Detective Catatao told the reporters she has nightmares of it happening again. She still carries the gun daily, but no longer keeps a bullet in the chamber. She and Abrahams are among the 70 people suing SIG Sauer Incorporated, the manufacturer of the pistol. They allege the company is selling a defective product.
In a written response to this reporting, SIG Sauer denied that its pistol is capable of firing without a human pulling the trigger. The company said incidents like this have been reported for other weapons, that these types of complaints aren't unique, and they don't suggest a defect with the gun.
If you wonder why doesn't the government just step in and recall the product? Well, something I learned from reading this story, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has virtually no authority here. They have the power to recall pajamas that accidentally catch on fire, but when it comes to guns, there is nothing they can do. That's thanks to a 1972 law passed by Congress that makes gun manufacturers exempt from their authority.
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<v People who make the "Forbes" "30 Under 30 List" tend to be pretty impressive. They're billed as big thinkers, people who are going to change the world and make it a better place. But there's another thing several of them have in common>a handful have been arrested for frauds and scams and now face jail time.
"Guardian" columnist Arwa Mahdawi has been looking into this. Her column opens with the story of Charlie Javice, the founder of Frank. It's a startup that helps students and parents navigate the financial aid process. In 2021, JP Morgan Chase acquired the company for 175 million dollars. Here's how one reporter described it on "CNBC."
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CNBC Reporter: So basically what they've got is this tool that has grown a pretty good user base. It's got five million users.
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Except it turns out that wasn't true. Frank never had five million users. Just last week, Javice was charged by the Department of Justice with "falsely and dramatically inflating the number of customers of her company" along with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. She's denied all the allegations against her.
And she's not alone. Yesterday, "ABC News" released an investigation on "30 Under 30" alum Safi Rauf and his nonprofit, the Human First Coalition. The nonprofit has been accused of misappropriating funds and mistreating refugees they promised to help. The United States Institute of Peace is suing them for fraud. Rauf has denied the allegations.
Sam Bankman-Fried, also made the Forbes list a few years ago. As we all know, he's facing a ton of charges ranging from money laundering to making illegal political contributions. Caroline Ellison, a "30 Under 30" alum and the former co-CEO of Alameda Research pleaded guilty in December to several criminal charges. Then there's Martin Shrekli, though you might know him as "Pharma Bro." He spent time in prison for securities fraud.
In her column, Mahdawi argues this trend is the product our society's "fake it till you make it" attitude. And how that attitude has manifested in arrogance and hubris among so many young people who've come to believe it's ok to tell white lies or in some cases much bigger ones.
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A warming planet is affecting all aspects of our lives, even America's favorite pastime. According to "The Washington Post," climate change is sending more baseballs soaring higher and longer in the sky.
Anecdotally, players, coaches and fans have all noticed this trend for a while. That you get more homers when it's warm out. And a new study backs it up.
According to the study released in the "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society," since 2010, more than 500 home runs can be attributed to warmer-than-average temperatures fueled by climate change. Now that's only one percent of home runs over that time period, but researchers say that temperature will continue to play a big role.
The reason comes down to physics. Air molecules are pushed further apart, meaning the ball encounters less resistance and can traverse a longer distance more easily.
Which means if average global temperatures increase by one degree Celsius, we could see 95 more home runs over the course of a season. Should the increase be four degrees Celsius, we might be talking about an even bigger jump, though the planet would have much more significant problems to deal with than tracking home runs.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. Including reporting on the federal government's plan to prevent reservoirs for the Colorado River from falling to critically low levels. Two options for water cuts were proposed yesterday.
If you're already listening in the News app, coming up next is a narrated article from "Vox" that looks at another serious risk related to the drought. As the river dries up, so do the surrounding regions that it snakes through. And where there's more dust, there's a higher risk of coming across a deadly fungus that causes Valley fever.
So sit back, take a listen to that and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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