Apple News Today

The Washington Post goes inside one Texas border county where an initiative to crack down on human smuggling is creating controversy. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones owes Sandy Hook plaintiffs millions of dollars and hasn’t yet paid a dime. Vice spoke to one who has been forced to crowdfund cancer treatment. The Atlantic explains why the era of free returns for online shopping is ending.

Al Jazeera reports on the search for justice for Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces a year ago. Sunday’s presidential election in Turkey marks Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest challenge since coming to power two decades ago. Bloomberg explains why the vote matters globally.  Watch the Wall Street Journal video on how 1-800-Flowers delivers 23 million blooms for Mother’s Day.

Documents marked “top secret” have been turning up in a lot of unexpected places recently. But America has another problem with classified documents: There’s too many of them. By some estimates, it would take 250 years for these documents to be reviewed and released to the public. On the latest episode of Apple News In Conversation, host Shumita Basu spoke with Matthew Connelly, author of The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets, about the government’s culture of secrecy. Below are excerpts from the interview.

Vox explains how George Santos’s federal indictment could shake up Congress. A biographer tells the Washington Post that Martin Luther King Jr.’s harshest and most famous criticism of Malcolm X appears to have been substantially fabricated. The Los Angeles Times has the story of how two friends brought sushi to the U.S. and changed the way Americans eat.

CNN explains what E. Jean Carroll had to prove to win her case against Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal examines the Biden administration’s new border plan, as a controversial pandemic policy ends. Avian flu is killing a massive number of wild birds, including the endangered California condor. Scientists tell Vox they’ve never seen anything like it. USA Today reports on how a petit basset griffon Vendéen named Buddy Holly made history as the first of his breed to win best in show at the Westminster Dog Show.

Donald Trump’s fate in the battery and defamation civil lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll will be in the hands of a jury. ABC covers the closing arguments. The FDA is considering allowing birth-control pills to be sold over the counter in the U.S. for the first time. The Washington Post explains what could happen. Criminal trials have become an endangered species. NPR reports on a new effort to change that. Apple News has curated a special collection of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalism.

The Texas Tribune reports on how local Republicans are focusing on mental health, not guns, after the latest deadly shooting. The Wall Street Journal looks at how Biden and lawmakers are trying to break the impasse on raising the debt ceiling before a potential default. Will Wilkerson blew the whistle on Truth Social. Now he works at Starbucks. The Washington Post tells his story. Forbes looks into why international airfare is so high ahead of summer. The Wall Street Journal explains why you should renew your passport quickly. And the Atlantic reports on how booking a hotel online these days became such an excruciating experience.

Clarence Thomas had a child in private school. GOP donor Harlan Crow paid the tuition. ProPublica investigates. Meanwhile, Washington Post reporting reveals that a conservative judicial activist directed fees toward Thomas’s wife, urging “no mention of Ginni.” Biden secured trillions of dollars in domestic legislation. The Wall Street Journal looks at how the administration is taking on the challenge of spending it. As the NBA playoffs continue, the Ringer looks at the key numbers in the Celtics–Sixers matchup.

Nearly 30 years ago, James Bernard Belcher was sentenced to death for raping, strangling, and drowning 29-year-old Jennifer Embry. Recently, he was given a second chance: a resentencing, this time with new evidence unearthed by a mitigation specialist. These life-history investigators seek to contextualize a defendant’s violent crimes, often by surfacing childhood traumas. On the latest episode of Apple News In Conversation, host Shumita Basu spoke with Maurice Chammah, a reporter for the Marshall Project, about shadowing one specialist as she excavates Belcher’s past in a bid to spare his life. Below are excerpts from the interview.

ProPublica investigates how blocked train crossings are forcing kids to crawl under trains to get to school. A scientist widely viewed as the godfather of AI is quitting Google and warning of the technology’s dangers. He spoke to the BBC. A 40-year hunt for lost ‘Jeopardy’ tapes is over. And the champion on them is finally telling her story to the Ringer.