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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Monday, May 15th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, Ukraine's new moves ahead of an expected counterattack on Russia, one woman's struggle to get compensation she is owed from Alex Jones, and why the era of free returns for online shopping is coming to an end.
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But first, new immigration rules are now in effect at the U.S.-Mexico border. There was initially concern that the end of Title 42 would lead to bigger waves of immigration. But the Biden administration says early numbers show border patrol agents are seeing a 50% drop in crossings. Title 42 was replaced by new rules on asylum meant to discourage illegal crossings and steer people toward legal paths into America.
So that's what's happening with federal policy, but on the ground, local authorities in border states have to deal with these issues. "The Washington Post" takes a closer look at Texas Governor Greg Abbott's controversial initiative called Operation Lone Star. It's a $4 billion-program that directs local law enforcement to arrest suspected migrants and charge them with state crimes. Roughly one in five Texas counties participate.
Reporter Arelis Hernandez covers immigration for the "Post." And she told us about Kinney County.
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Arelis Hernandez: It's kind of this community that's right in the middle of a bunch of human trafficking, a bunch of migration by foot. And there are many in that community that are just tired of it.
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But some people in Kinney County believe local authorities are too aggressive in going after human smugglers. High-speed chases often result in crashes. There's only one local ambulance crew in town, and it's often dealing with these collisions. Resident Gage Brown talked to the "Post."
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Gage Brown: I feel like we've ramped up the intimidation a lot by chasing these people like NASCAR drivers. It's not normal.
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The Kinney County sheriff says that his policies are making the community safer. The "Post's" Hernandez explained some of the concerns that people have about what deputies are doing in the field.
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Arelis Hernandez: With the sort of ramping up of the rhetoric, the dehumanization that takes place with some of the tactics that are being used, there is an assumption that as a deputy working on Operation Lone Star, deputy or state trooper, whomever, that you have the authority to stop people at will on sometimes flimsy and legally dubious grounds.
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Civil rights groups are petitioning the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of discrimination and racial profiling. According to the "Post's" reporting, bills to create a Texas border protection unit with the power to detain and deport migrants are quickly making their way through the state legislature. Some of the language mirrors the declarations used by law enforcement in Kinney County.
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Let's take a quick look now at some major international stories in the news. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to the U.K. this morning. He met with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and thanked him for ongoing support in defending against Russia.
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy: You did a lot, you, your government and His Majesty the King, and, of course, your people, your society. We are thankful from all our hearts, from Ukrainians, from our soldiers, we are thankful.
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This is the latest in a series of diplomatic visits by Zelenskyy, shoring up support ahead of an expected Ukrainian counterattack against Russian forces. He met recently with the leaders of Germany, France and Italy. He also met over the weekend with Pope Francis.
Moving on to Turkey. The presidential election there is headed for a runoff at the end of this month. As we talked about on the show on Friday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces the biggest challenge to his power in decades. He and his top opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, both failed to get a majority to win outright. Election officials say Erdogan captured 49.5% of the vote. Kilicdaroglu was just under 45%.
Voters also went to the polls in Thailand. Opposition parties soundly defeated parties aligned with the military-backed government. That regime has ruled the country for nearly a decade. Many political analysts didn't expect such a decisive loss. The opposition drew strong support from young voters in a campaign that focused on reform.
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Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones owes more than $1.4 billion dollars in damages to the families of Sandy Hook Elementary victims for lying about the mass shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators. But to this day, plaintiffs have not seen a dime. Jones has made legal and financial moves to avoid paying. For some plaintiffs, this is a life or death issue. Erica Lafferty is the daughter of the Sandy Hook principal who died protecting her students. Lafferty was awarded almost $100 million in damages, and needs money for expensive cancer treatment that her insurance isn't covering. "VICE" senior reporter Anna Merlan tells her story.
Anna Merlin: In the middle of these very ongoing contorted contentious bankruptcy proceedings, Erica Lafferty was having to raise money on GoFundMe for her cancer treatment, whereas, you know by all accounts, Alex Jones's kind of pretty comfortable lifestyle has not really been interrupted yet.
Merlan told us how Lafferty, like many other Sandy Hook families, also has to put up with ongoing attacks from Jones's fans.
Merlin: The new kind of narrative from some of these folks is, why is she asking for money? She's a multimillionaire. She must be greedy. She's using her cancer as a money grab, which of course is not true. She's not a multimillionaire. At the time that, you know, she was getting these comments, she and her husband had like $300 in their shared bank account left over after beginning to pay for these cancer treatments.
Jones and his followers use podcasts to spread lies and hate. But they aren't the only voices out there. Fans of a different podcast called Knowledge Fight, which is critical of Jones and other conspiracy theorists, donated most of the money to Lafferty's GoFundMe for her cancer treatment. She's now raised more than $100,000.
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Something's been gradually changing in the world of online shopping. It used to be that pretty much anything you bought could be returned for free. Sometimes even months later. But little by little that's being chipped away. Sometimes now there's a return fee or a tighter deadline or maybe only get store credit, not a full refund.
Amanda Mull looks at what's happening in retail and what it means in The Atlantic, and she lays out some key numbers. In brick-and-mortar stores, return rates are in the single digits but for online sales up to thirty percent of goods are returned, on average. As Mull explains, online retailers made returns easy for such a long time because they wanted shoppers to feel better about buying online versus walking into a store. Another way to put it, they wanted to get us hooked and in recent years they have. Online shopping has exploded all while many brick-and-mortar options have fizzled or gone bankrupt.
Nowadays as Mull puts it, online retailers seem to think that they've killed off enough of the brick-and-mortar competition and that means they don't have to play nice with returns. And here's where Mull makes a surprising argument. Maybe a little bit more friction in the purchase process could be a good thing. If you'll be out a few bucks, if you need to return something, you might think twice about clicking on things you don't really need.
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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 from "Bloomberg Businessweek." It looks at the impact of the sharp fall in the value of cryptocurrency. And you'll meet some interesting characters. So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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