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Why the SCOTUS school-prayer case is a big deal · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Monday, April 25th. I’m 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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  Today, the Supreme Court hears a case about school prayer, one that goes all the way back to the beginnings of our nation. It's a First Amendment case involving a high school football coach in Washington state. After games, coach Joseph Kennedy would pray in the middle of the field. The school district took issue with this. After it declined to rehire him for another season, Kennedy sued. He spoke to ABC News recently…
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  Joseph Kennedy: Nobody should be have to be fired or worried about their job if they show any signs of faith.
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  Lower courts have sided with the school, but now the highest court will have its say. To understand what's at stake here, you need to read the Constitution. The First Amendment is only one sentence, but it's a long one, with a lot going on. It starts like this: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" The whole case basically comes back to that language. So, let's break it down.
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  "No law respecting an establishment of religion." The founders didn't want the country to have any official religion. Also, no law "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. They still wanted people to be free to practice whatever faith they chose, or none at all.
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  The school district's argument rests on the first part. As a coach, he's a public school employee. It's like he's an agent of the state, and students might feel pressured to participate in his prayer.
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  The coach's lawyer stresses the second part: Kennedy should be free to pray in line with his faith. And doing it after the end of the game means it's personal, private, not an official act.
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  That's what the court will hear today, and it might rule differently than it has in the past, since the current makeup is more conservative than earlier courts that heard big school prayer cases. A ruling should come by the end of June.
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  You might know Greg Abbott as the Texas governor who's at the center of the national battle over immigration policy and reproductive rights. He's championed state restrictions on abortion, along with Florida's Ron DeSantis, and next, he might have his sights on the White House. "Texas Monthly" recently profiled the governor, and says his upbringing, his backstory, tells you a lot about the kind of leader he's become.
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  Mimi Swartz: When people ask, you know, what's the difference between Greg Abbott the person and Greg Abbott the politician, my answer would be "not a lot."
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  That's Mimi Swartz, executive editor at "Texas Monthly." She told us how Abbott has become more conservative over the years.
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  Swartz: He used to be very much a person who is in favor of open borders, fair immigration policies, treating immigrants well. I think if you look back on his immigration policies, when he was attorney general, he made tremendous efforts to try and help immigrants to get legal representation they needed. There was never any talk of building a wall.
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  But then, around 2012, his political attitudes started to change.
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  Swartz: When Ted Cruz defeated David Dewhurst for the U.S. Senate, that was a sign to Abbot that the Bush-era Republicanism, sort of moderate Republicanism, was coming to an end, and he saw the rise of the tea party. I think he knew what was coming. He could see what was coming. And so Abbot has gone further and further to the right. I think people, myself included, think too far to the right. He didn't need to go as far as he did. But in order to stay in office, he will do whatever he has to do.
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  This profile takes the long view on Abbot's life and tells the story of a man who uses a wheelchair after a falling tree crushed his spine, who steadily rose to the top of law and politics. And it's a story that mirrors national shifts in the Republican Party, as Trump and other loud voices have shifted it to the right. You can read the whole thing on the Apple News app.
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  During the pandemic, the expanded child tax credit gave families up to $300 per child per month. Research shows it helped cut child poverty by roughly 30%. But now, it's gone. A lot of Republicans say it's not needed because the government already has programs in place, but "ProPublica" reporter Eli Hager says that argument misses a big point…
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  Eli Hager: The existing version of welfare, that 25-year-old law, has failed.
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  For months, "ProPublica" has been investigating the state of cash assistance in this country going back to welfare reform in the Clinton years.
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  Hager: That amount of money has been the same since 1996 despite skyrocketing inflation, despite the population of the country going up very dramatically in these past 25 years, which means that the amount of money per poor child has dramatically decreased.
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  Federal law gave a lot of power to states to administer welfare. But for people in need, there's lot of red tape…
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  Hager: There's just generally just an abundance of paperwork in which you have to fill out the value of absolutely everything that you own and absolutely everything in any accounts that you have, and, you know, what kinds of things you have in your refrigerator and in your home, in order to prove that you are needy enough to deserve a very minimal amount of cash assistance. And we're just talking a few hundred dollars a month here.
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  "ProPublica" found that, nationwide, there's $5.2 billion in funding that's sitting in states' bank accounts instead of being used by the people who need it. And sometimes, states use money in ways that don't go directly to families.
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  Hager: Arizona spends a majority of its money not on welfare at all but on investigating mostly poor parents, and Utah spends a lot of the money on programs meant to encourage work, but that can sometimes be religious programs.
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  Since "ProPublica" started reporting on these issues, legislators in several states are now considering changes. They've moved to increase the amount of cash assistance available or make it easier for people to get aid. But some argue that what's also needed is to reinstate the expanded child tax credit.
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  Hager: There's some chance that it could be resuscitated and people who have worried about the decline of welfare as we know it think that it could be something that would work better because it wouldn't shame parents, it would just make sure that they can afford, you know, rent, childcare, food, and diapers. So that remains to be seen, but it's something that it's still being debated in Congress.
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  Nicolas Cage might be the most misunderstood, eccentric, and sincere person in Hollywood. That's what the recent "GQ" cover story says about the actor, after the reporter spent some time with Cage in his home.
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  Now, I realize this might not help make the case, but first let me tell you about his latest movie. It's called "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," and in it, he plays a character named Nick Cage… a Hollywood actor who's down on his luck. It's self-referential, but fictional, and it'll make you wonder where the person ends and the character begins.
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  Cage himself is very aware that he's become sort of meme-ified, mythologized by the internet. There was the string of zany movies, the assumptions that he's a lot like his "National Treasure" character. And Cage will tell you, plenty of the weird stuff people say about him is actually true. He really does live with a talking crow, and he really did pay $80,000 for a two-headed snake. Now, caring for a double-headed pet is pretty tricky, as he recently explained to Jimmy Kimmel…
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  Nicolas Cage: They would fight, and one head was more dominant than the other. Why? It was going to the same stomach! But I would have to put a spatula between the two heads to feed them, and it just got a little too freaky for me.
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  But here's the "GQ" reporter's takeaway: yes, Nicolas Cage is unconventional, but he's also giving it his all. Many people who've worked with him, directors, they say he is one of the most serious, dedicated, hard-working actors they've ever met. And this piece argues, he very well might be one of the greatest actors of our time.
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  You can read that whole story and all the stories we talked about on the Apple News app. 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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