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Inside the GOP’s struggle to move past Trump · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Thursday, February 2nd. I'm Shumita Basu, this is "Apple News Today." On today's show, a rare inside look at Putin's secretive mercenary group, WNBA players fight for equity with men in the sky, and how you might be wasting money, energy, and time because of how you use your home appliances.
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  But before we get to those stories, the first official Republican challenger to former President Donald Trump is set to enter the 2024 race. Nikki Haley, who was governor of South Carolina and Trump's UN ambassador, is reportedly announcing her campaign on February 15th. This news comes just days after Trump hit the campaign trail. The latest fundraising numbers show that he's off to a modest start with donors. The Atlantic's McKay Coppins checked with more than a dozen high-profile Republicans about how they're feeling about Trump. Privately, many say he's a problem and would like for the party to move on. But Coppins told us, nobody has much of a plan B for a post-Trump GOP.
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  McKay Coppins: The conversation quickly veered into kind of hypotheticals. "Well, maybe he'll drop out" or "Maybe he'll get bored and kind of wander away from politics" or "Maybe he'll get indicted and his legal problems will overwhelm him."
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  Some of the hypotheticals are grim.
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  Coppins: Some Republicans even suggested to me unironically that perhaps he would pass away before the 2024 election. Not to make light of that, but, you know, I heard it enough times that I realized this wasn't just kind of some dark joke. A lot of Republicans are genuinely waiting for him to just die.
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  Coppins has been covering Trump for years. All this talk of hoping he'll just go away somehow, reminds Coppins of the run-up to 2016. Lots of Republicans dismissed Trump, but he won the nomination.
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  Coppins: That was the most striking thing, that in seven years there's been basically no change in how Republicans talk and think about Trump behind closed doors. They all are still embarrassed by him. They all recognize his weaknesses, but they're all terrified of incurring a backlash from his supporters.
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  A lot of the people Coppins spoke to for this piece requested anonymity. But if the GOP really wants to move past Trump, he says, people will have to speak out and step up.
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  Coppins: Trump is not gonna just go away unless a Republican beats him. Right? That's the only way for this to happen. Like, that he is an enormously influential figure in his party. He's not just going to drift into obscurity. Somebody is going to have to come forward, take him on directly and beat him thoroughly to really bring an end to the Trump era.
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  Nikki Haley appears to be the first who's willing to take on the challenge.
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  A quick update on the winter storm that's bringing dangerous weather to a stretch of the South from Texas to Tennessee. At least eight people have died. In Texas, close to 400,000 electricity customers were without power as of this morning. And there were also outages in other states. You can get updates on the storm on the Apple News app.
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  We're going to take a rare look inside one of the most brutal and controversial forces fighting in Ukraine, the Russian mercenary army called the Wagner Group. Often called Putin's private army, it's been accused of war crimes in Ukraine and around the world. It recruits heavily from Russian prisons, and it's known for vicious tactics on the battlefield. A Ukrainian soldier says fighting Wagner troops is like being in a zombie movie, where masses of attackers just keep coming. "CNN" got an interview with Andrei Medvedev, a former Wagner commander who defected and is seeking asylum in Norway. It's one of the most detailed accounts of the mercenary army's role in Ukraine yet. Medvedev told "CNN" through an interpreter that he saw Wagner troops publicly executed for disobeying orders.
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  Andrei Medvedev: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN]
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  Translator: Such cases happen very often there. There was a question of how to persuade new recruits who arrived at the front lines and saw what is going on there and decided they don't want to fight to still go ahead and fight. They would round up those who did not want to fight and shoot them in front of the newcomers to develop their self-preservation instinct.
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  The Wagner Group claims Medvedev tried to mistreat prisoners. He refused to comment to CNN about this. Medvedev took a big risk in running. Another Wagner defector was murdered on camera. But he said staying would've gotten him killed.
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  [START CNN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Medvedev: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN]
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  Translator: I'd planned to leave Wagner for a while, but I didn't have the opportunity. I was afraid I will be captured and shot as a traitor. I am ready for serious action, but I also want to live. By the end, I knew they won't let me go. I will return as part of the dead or the wounded. It was time to make a radical decision.
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  Medvedev says he's speaking out so that Putin and Wagner's leadership face justice. He says at some point, Kremlin propaganda will stop working, and a new leader will emerge.
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  This week, some WNBA players could change teams as free agents. One of the biggest stars to move is Breanna Stewart. She's leaving the Seattle Storm to play for the New York Liberty. Stewart has been calling attention to an equity issue, saying that women in pro basketball should get private flights, like pro men get. She offered to help raise money.
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  Lindsay Schnell: Stewie is one of the highest paid players in the WNBA. She also has a lot of endorsement deals.
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  Lindsay Schnell covers sports for USA TODAY.
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  Schnell: So, she was volunteering to say like, "I'll help pay for it." And almost every other high-profile player chimed in and said the same thing, that they would chip in.
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  The athletes say, it's not just about having the same level of comfort as the men, it's also about privacy and safety. And Schnell told us, sometimes relying on commercial flights has wrecked WNBA games.
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  Schnell: And we've seen some horror stories. Last year the LA Sparks had to sleep in the DC airport, I believe it was, because their flight got canceled. A couple years ago, there was a travel issue with the Las Vegas Aces. Their game wound up getting canceled because they couldn't make their flight.
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  Another reason this air travel conversation is gaining a lot of steam in the league right now is because of Brittney Griner, who was wrongfully detained in Russia for nearly ten months and released in December. Now she's back, and the league has acknowledged that she has unique safety concerns.
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  Schnell: Agents and players argue that it's not just Griner who needs a charter. Of course, she's in a different situation than everyone and all the players support her, but other players want charters too. You know, this is a league that's really active when it comes to activism, the very outspoken advocates of the LGBTQ Community, of Black Lives Matter, and that has angered people. Any of them could be harassed in an airport. Anyone could walk up to a WNBA player and make them uncomfortable.
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  WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said private flights can't happen unless a sponsor or someone steps up to pay for them. She estimates it would cost $20 million for private jets for the season. And she points out that in the last round of contract negotiations with players, they asked for more pay, not chartered flights. Current and former NBA players are backing the women on this issue, from Ja Morant to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The question now is whether there's enough pressure to change things in time for when the WNBA season starts in May.
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  Did your parents used to follow you around the house, shutting off the lights, telling you that you're wasting money and energy? Yeah, mine did too. Now I'm the person who reminds everyone to switch off the lights. We are living in a different era now, thanks to advancements in technology, stricter federal regulation, and more climate-friendly appliances. And sometimes, the ways to save energy now are different than they were in our parents' time. "The Washington Post" asked engineers, energy efficiency experts, and appliance makers about some common ways that we misuse our appliances. And how to save money and help the planet by making some small changes.
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  First, you can tell your parents turning off the lights doesn't save as much as you might think. Sure, back in the '80s, up to 10 percent of home electricity bills went toward lighting. But these days, about half of US homes have energy-efficient LED bulbs, which use a fraction of the energy of old incandescent bulbs. In fact, those old bulbs are being phased out of stores in the US this year. Another place to watch? Your dishwasher. Now this might be a hard habit to shake, but you don't have to scrub before loading. Modern dishwashers are designed to get dried food off of your plates, so pre-rinsing is just a waste of water. And if you've ever felt guilty about running a half empty dishwasher, don't! Research shows that it takes more water to wash by hand. So just sit back and let the machine take the lead.
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  You can read more tips on how to let go of your appliance misconceptions along with all the stories that we talked about today 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 coming up next. "Sports Illustrated" spent time with the Howard University swim team. It's the nation's only all-Black team in a sport that hasn't been very welcoming to Black athletes. You'll hear how Howard built one of the most exciting programs in college swimming. So, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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