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New twists in the unusual fight between DeSantis and Disney · Apple News Today

• 0:00
  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Hey there. It's Shumita. Before we get to the news, we want to hear from you for an upcoming episode of our weekly interview show, "In Conversation." We're gonna be talking about couples therapy.
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  So, if you've ever been to a couples therapist, or even just solo therapy, what's something you learned that's made you think differently about relationships?
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  We want to hear about it! Just use your iPhone's Voice Memo app to record yourself. Tell us your name, where you're from and a relationship lesson you learned from therapy. And please, try to keep it to about a minute. You can send it to us at applenewstoday@apple.com, and we might include your story on the show. Thanks!
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  Good morning! It's Friday, April 21st. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today."
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  On today's show, alarming new reporting about underfunded schools putting students in danger, the bizarre story of how the "Fox News" settlement talks involved a cruise on the Danube river, and ahead of Earth Day, some thought-provoking stories about climate change.
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  But first, there's been a lot of attention on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the laws that he's passing in his state, on issues seen as central to his expected presidential campaign. We've talked a lot about this on this show. But what we haven't talked much about is why the Florida governor is feuding with Disney. So let's catch up on what's happening there and some movement this week.
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  This one's got some history, so it's worth recapping the background. Last year, Florida's legislature was working to limit teachers' ability to talk about sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms. And, like other corporations, Disney spoke out against what critics were calling the "Don't Say Gay" bill.
• 0:09
  DeSantis fought back, aiming for the company's Florida theme parks. They are a big part of the state's economy, and Disney had a longstanding special tax district arrangement that gave it a lot of autonomy. It's complicated, but ultimately DeSantis was able to appoint his own board members to oversee the special tax district. Some saw that as a win for him.
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  But Disney is a massive company. They lawyered up. And they made moves to strip the DeSantis board members of some of their powers. DeSantis is now fighting those legal maneuvers. And this week, he talked about the possibility of doing some kind of development in Disney's backyard.
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  [START THE RECOUNT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Ron DeSantis: Maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks. Someone even said maybe you need another state prison. Who knows?
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  [END THE RECOUNT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  His allies on the oversight board are also threatening tax and utility hikes.
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  Now despite all this tough talk, many political and business analysts see Disney as the winner in this fight so far. Opponents say that DeSantis' Disney dealings are evidence that he is not White House material. That includes former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who went after DeSantis in an interview with "Semafor" earlier this week.
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  [START SEMAFOR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Chris Christie: I don't think Ron DeSantis is a conservative based on his actions towards Disney. I mean, where are we headed here now, that if you express disagreement in this country, the government is allowed to punish you? To me, that's what I always thought liberals did.
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  [END SEMAFOR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Former President Trump says that DeSantis is getting, quote, "absolutely destroyed by Disney."
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  Typically, Republicans are seen as friendly to big business. But here we have one would-be GOP presidential contender doubling down on a fight against one of the biggest corporations in the world. And that battle is already having an impact on the 2024 race.
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  It's one thing to hear about underfunded schools in general. But it's something very different to get on-the-ground reporting on how bad conditions are for so many American children. That's what struck us about this collaboration between the "Idaho Statesman" and "ProPublica." Idaho spends less on schools per student than any other state in the country. Many schools there don't have adequate heat to keep students warm during brutal winters.
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  Becca Savransky: Students are having to wear their winter coats and their snow pants in the classroom. Those aren't ideal conditions for them to learn.
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  "Statesman" Education Reporter Becca Savransky tells us about conversations with one elementary-school maintenance chief about all the ongoing damage.
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  Savransky: He pointed out leaks in the ceiling, and you could see the water that had seeped through. He showed cracks in the wall, bathrooms that were regularly not working.
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  This reporting shows the consequences of underinvestment in schools: broken toilets, collapsing roofs and dangerous playgrounds.
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  Part of the problem is Idaho's unusually high bar for approving funding for schools. Local taxpayers have to vote to approve bond proposals. Communities around the country often use bonds to get money to fix schools and build new ones.
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  Savransky: So in a majority of states, a bond only needs 50% to pass. But in Idaho, it requires two-thirds of voters to support the bond for it to pass.
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  The need for a supermajority means most bond measures in Idaho fail. Not being able to raise money using bonds is especially damaging to low-income, rural communities, where they don't have wealthy tax bases.
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  There have been legislative efforts to lower the voting threshold. But Savransky tells us, they've basically gone nowhere. One school board official desperately wants to replace a damaged elementary school. It dates back to almost World War II. She says, if bond votes worked in Idaho like they do in many other states, they'd be building a new school by now.
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  Let's turn now to some new behind-the-scenes reporting on the $787.5 million settlement between "Fox News" and Dominion Voting Systems. Often, in the days after a big settlement like this, reporting comes out with juicy details about the talks. But we weren't quite expecting to learn this from "The Wall Street Journal": the path to the deal began on a cruise ship in Romania.
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  That's where Jerry Roscoe, an experienced mediator, was on vacation when he got an email. Just hours before the trial was set to begin, attorneys for Dominion and "Fox" asked if Roscoe would mediate. He told the "Journal" he had followed the case, but not closely. So he had to take a crash course, and fast.
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  In the 24 hours after he signed on, Roscoe dove into the documents and spoke to both sides. He says he did some of the phone calls on a cruise ship and on a tour bus. He sat in the back and covered his phone with his coat for privacy. He said other passengers were probably wondering why this obnoxious guy was on the phone the whole time.
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  "Fox News" and Dominion had attacked each other in public over this case. But Roscoe says in his talks, there wasn't that kind of anger. He was able to do what mediators do, and the opposing sides made a deal.
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  As for his blown European vacation, Roscoe says he chose the region because he'd been a mediator for the U.S. during the war in Bosnia. He wanted to see what the area was like without the stress and chaos of wartime. And yet, somehow, the veteran mediator found himself in the crossfire of one of the biggest defamation cases in history.
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• 0:41
  We do climate stories all the time on this show. But with Earth Day coming up tomorrow, we thought we would do something a little bit different: a round-up of some of the most memorable, most thought-provoking, most forward-looking climate stories that we've read lately.
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  Let's start with this "Rolling Stone" article about Ithaca, New York, which is trying to become the first all-electric city in America. It wants to be carbon neutral by 2030. And that means big changes: induction stoves, e-bikes and electric cars, heat pumps and solar panels. The city partnered with a clean-tech startup that specializes in retrofitting and electrifying buildings. Doing this at scale is helping cut down costs. Reading this article, you get the sense that this is an experiment in going big and ambitious with climate goals. And even if the city doesn't meet its target by the end of the decade, it's clearly a big step.
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  Next, a topic I haven't seen discussed very much in all this talk about artificial intelligence and chatbots: the amount of water it takes to run technology like ChatGPT. "Gizmodo" has a write-up on this that might surprise you. You know that computing systems need to be kept cool; it's why your laptop maybe has a fan in it. Now imagine the challenge for a company like Google, which has huge data centers to power Google Search and other things. Often, these kinds of facilities with big server rooms use water cooling towers to regulate the temperature. Research shows that ChatGPT uses roughly half a liter of water for a basic exchange with one user. "Gizmodo" gets into how this raises all kinds of ethical considerations over AI's water price tag, in a world where clean fresh water is a precious resource.
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  And lastly, on to a climate theme that I personally find to be one of the more urgent questions of our time: climate reparations and what big polluting countries owe to small less-polluting ones. There was this moment from the U.N.'s climate conference back in 2021 that I still think about, when Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley gave a speech that will go down in history.
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  [START U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Mia Mottley: Two degrees, yes, S-G, is a death sentence for the people of Antigua and Barbuda, for the people of the Maldives, for the people of Dominica and Fiji, for the people of Kenya and Mozambique, and yes, for the people of Samoa and Barbados. We do not want that dreaded death sentence. We have come here today to say, "Try harder. Try harder." Because our people, the climate army, the world, the planet, needs our actions now, not next year, not in the next decade.
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  [END U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:48
  "Axios" profiles Mottley, calling her "the woman who may revamp climate finance." It talks about how, ever since that 2021 speech, she has continued to call for serious commitment from wealthy nations, both to slow the warming of the planet and to help developing countries deal with the expensive side effects.
• 0:49
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  You can find a curated collection with more Earth Day reads in the Apple News app.
• 0:51
  And check out our interview show, "In Conversation." This week’s episode follows a climate theme. I spoke with Sienna Miller and Scott Z. Burns about their new show for Apple TV+, "Extrapolations." It imagines a future where we fail to address climate change, a world with hotter temperatures, rising oceans and polluted air.
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  Sienna Miller: And the idea of creating a narrative piece that really doesn't focus on data as much as the effect on human lives felt like a really interesting and important and novel way of relating to the ways in which our world is shifting.
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  [END APPLE NEWS IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
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  If you’re listening in the Apple News app right now, that episode is queued up to play for you next. Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll be back with the news on Monday.
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