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Calls for more oversight over U.S. aid to Ukraine · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, February 21st. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, another powerful earthquake hits near the Turkey-Syria border, Supreme Court cases this week that could transform the Internet, and the fight over rewriting Roald Dahl's children's books.
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  But first, President Biden and President Putin are giving dueling speeches today in the run-up to the one-year mark of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Putin spoke earlier today, doubling down on support for the war. He also said Russia will suspend observing a key nuclear treaty with the U.S. Biden's speech in Poland is expected to repeat his firm stance against Putin's war.
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  Yesterday, Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv where he underscored U.S. support for Ukraine. The U.S. has sent tens of billions of dollars in military and financial aid to Ukraine in less than a year, with more on the way. "USA Today" looks into how difficult it is to track that aid. Ukraine's leaders and international observers acknowledge the country has dealt with corruption. So, there are growing questions as to where the money and weapons could end up. "USA Today" Pentagon reporter Tom Vanden Brook explains.
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  Tom Vanden Brook: There have already been some signs of corruption. There's been folks in the defense ministry fired for inflating the price of food that they bought to skim profits from that. So, that's the concern that all of this money's coming in so fast that there are going to be profiteers.
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  The Pentagon's inspector general says that monitoring in Ukraine isn't being done to Defense Department standards. Weapons can at least be theoretically tracked using serial numbers. Money, Vanden Brook explains, is harder to get a handle on.
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  Vanden Brook: John Sopko who's the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, who's a critic of how the money's being spent, has said that that's the sort of money that can be easily lost or misused or misspent because you're paying people at border crossings to get stuff in, and that money can be easily skimmed. So, that kind of money, that kind of aid is much more difficult to track.
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  A federal report last month said some U.S. agencies had trouble accounting for billions of dollars in Ukraine aid spending. This was also a challenge in Afghanistan, but when the U.S. had troops on the ground, they could help monitor aid distribution. That's not possible in Ukraine because Biden has promised to keep U.S. combat forces out of the country.
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  Corruption prevents aid from reaching the Ukrainians who need it, and it could undermine U.S. support for helping the country.
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  Vanden Brook: We've already seen some softening in support for aid to Ukraine, wondering why this $113 billion in the last year is being spent there when there are problems here. And when you see corruption and the money misused, those concerns only get amplified, and support softens for it.
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  The special inspector who oversaw aid to Afghanistan says there should be a similar person overseeing aid to Ukraine.
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  Turkey and Syria are recovering from a powerful new series of earthquakes. One yesterday was magnitude 6.4, killing at least 8 people and injuring hundreds more. "The Guardian" shared a video of people taking cover at a Turkish airport as the ground shook.
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  This comes two weeks after more powerful earthquakes and aftershocks killed more than 47,000 people. The latest quake is making a strained recovery even harder. Patients had to be evacuated from some health facilities when new cracks were seen in the buildings.
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  "The Wall Street Journal"'s Chao Deng reports from Turkey on what it's been like for people who are already dealing with very recent trauma.
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  Chao Deng: People are understandably worried here. Some people had to evacuate their homes two weeks ago. I talked to some ladies who said that they would rather sleep outside instead of going back home and also other people who, you know, sleep basically in warm clothing in case they have to rush outside again.
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  And those are people whose homes were not ruined in the quakes. Turkey's disaster management agency estimates that close to 400,000 apartments have been destroyed or seriously damaged, and many people are still missing.
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  Today and tomorrow, the Supreme Court hears two cases that might reshape the internet as we know it. Both focus on a part of the nearly 30-year-old Communications Decency Act called Section 230. It gives tech platforms broad discretion over content moderation, legal immunity for almost all third-party content hosted on their sites, and protection from lawsuits over taking down objectionable content.
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  Now, this policy has critics on the left and the right, who say it gives tech platforms too much power and not enough accountability. The tech platforms say that this law is vital to their businesses. A group funded by tech companies including Google and Apple has called on the Biden administration to protect Section 230, and some civil-liberties advocates say the law is important for protecting online speech.
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  Today's case is brought by a family whose daughter was killed in the terror attacks in Paris in 2015. They argue that Google's platform YouTube is liable for damages because it failed to take down ISIS videos and recommended some to users. The family says Section 230 does not protect the tech company here.
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  Now, Google says that interpretation of the law would increase the legal risk for it and other tech companies that curate, rank, and sort online content. It says companies like it could be driven to two extremes: either being very strict and removing a lot of content, which could limit online speech, or giving up on moderation completely, which could mean more problematic content online.
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  In tomorrow's case, another family of a terror attack victim says Twitter and other social media companies helped ISIS by hosting user content that expressed support for the group. Twitter argues that just because ISIS uses its platform, that's not the same as Twitter providing "knowing" assistance to it. And it argues that Section 230 gives it immunity.
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  The Court's rulings won't be known for another few months, and it's possible it could resolve these cases without sweeping changes to Section 230. But there are signs that some Supreme Court justices are eager to take a close look at the law. We'll get an early sense of how this court feels about it today when justices put questions to lawyers on both sides.
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  I read a lot of Roald Dahl books as a kid. I'm pretty sure I broke the spine on my copy of "Matilda." I read it so many times. It's one of the reasons that this conversation in the publishing world caught my attention.
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  See, changes are coming to some of Dahl's classics, decades after they first hit the shelves. His publisher and the Roald Dahl Story Company, which manages the rights, are working with a group called Inclusive Minds to change "hundreds of words" in Dahl's books. They say this will make the books more accessible. These changes to Dahl's work have sparked a heated debate that the "Washington Post" has been following about whether it's okay to change a book ever, but especially after an author's death.
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  Some words have been removed altogether, like the word "fat." Augustus Gloop from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is now described as "enormous." Gender neutral language is being used for some characters, like the Oompa Loompas. In some cases, new sentences have been added. In the book "The Witches," the characters are bald and wear wigs. A new line explains that women wear wigs for other reasons, too, and there's nothing wrong with that.
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  Now, Dahl's books are globally famous, but he left behind a complicated legacy. Critics have said that his books are at times bigoted, racist, and sexist. He called himself antisemitic.
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  The Roald Dahl Story Company says these changes were "small and carefully considered," a way to make sure the stories can be "enjoyed by all children today." PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for literary freedom, says the changes are the wrong approach. Instead, publishers should consider an introductory note that prepares the reader and gives context. Salman Rushdie weighed in on Twitter, and he was blunt, writing, "Roald Dahl was no angel, but this is absurd censorship."
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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, keep listening.
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  We've got a narrated article coming up next from "Scientific American" about Long COVID. It looks at cutting-edge brain research that's providing new insight into this painful, lasting condition.
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  That's up next, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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