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What counts as a machine gun? Supreme Court hears case. · Apple News Today

• 0:00
  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 0:04
  Mark Garrison, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Wednesday, February 28th.
• 0:07
  I’m Mark Garrison in for Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
• 0:12
  On the show, The Supreme Court hears a major gun case,
• 0:15
  Why Egypt isn’t taking in Palestinians from neighboring Gaza,
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  and how Leap Day keeps chaos away.
• 0:26
  [MUSIC FADES]
• 0:27
  But first, let’s take a quick look at some other major stories in the news.
• 0:31
  In Michigan, President Biden won the Democratic primary, as expected.
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  But the protest campaign we talked about yesterday racked up a lot of votes
• 0:39
  against him.
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  Around 100,000 voters selected “uncommitted.”
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  Local Arab and Muslim activists encouraged people to vote this way as a protest
• 0:49
  of Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
• 0:51
  They ended up with a lot more votes than their stated goal of 10,000.
• 0:56
  Michigan activist Layla Elabed spoke to "MSNBC" about the protest vote.
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  [START MSNBC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 1:01
  Layla Elabed: We focused on the primary to send this message to Joe Biden
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  that he needed to listen to Michiganders.
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  When we said we need a permanent ceasefire now. And come November,
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  it's going to be Joe Biden and the Democratic Party that are going to be
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  held accountable for handing the White House to someone like Trump.
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  [END MSNBC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 1:17
  Garrison, Narrating: In the Republican primary, Trump defeated Nikki Haley by a wide margin.
• 1:22
  In Alabama, legislators are making moves to protect IVF clinics,
• 1:26
  following the state Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children.
• 1:31
  Several fertility clinics paused treatments as a result.
• 1:34
  New legislation introduced yesterday by Republican lawmakers would give
• 1:37
  would give fertility doctors legal immunity.
• 1:40
  The state’s republican Governor Kay Ivey said she’s ready to sign a bill
• 1:44
  that would allow IVF clinics to resume services.
• 1:48
  In Texas, multiple wildfires are burning through hundreds of thousands of acres
• 1:52
  in the north of the state.
• 1:53
  Warm temperatures and strong winds are rapidly spreading the flames
• 1:57
  through dry grass.
• 1:58
  Conditions forced a nuclear weapons facility
• 2:01
  to shut down.
• 2:02
  [GENTLE MUSIC]
• 2:02
  Forecasters say, things could get worse, with hot, dry conditions set to continue.
• 2:15
  The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a gun case
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  that centers on devices that speed up semiautomatic rifles.
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  They’re called bump stocks. When they’re added to a weapon,
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  they allow it to fire much faster, like an automatic rifle.
• 2:29
  [MUSIC FADES]
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  Machine guns are illegal for civilians. The case is basically about whether
• 2:34
  adding a bump stock to a legal weapon turns it into an illegal machine gun.
• 2:40
  The gunman in the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas had multiple rifles
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  with bump stocks. He fired over 1,000 rounds in 11 minutes.
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  Sixty people ultimately died. It was the deadliest mass shooting
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  in American history.
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  The next year, the Trump administration banned bump stocks,
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  saying they fell within the definition of machine guns.
• 3:01
  Marcia Coyle, legal analyst for "PBS Newshour,"
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  told us how the challenge to the ban on bump stocks is a technical one,
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  different than the typical Second Amendment arguments
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  over gun rights.
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  Marcia Coyle: There's not going to be any discussion, probably, of what the framers
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  of the Constitution thought
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  back in the 1700s and 1800s about guns.
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  What they're asked to do here is to determine
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  whether a bump stock itself fits the definition of machine gun
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  in federal law. And if it does, then it is prohibited.
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  Garrison, Narrating: Coyle says, the arguments may go into great detail on how rifles,
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  machine guns, and bump stocks actually function.
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  Coyle: I can tell you now that there is a fundamental disagreement
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  in the Supreme Court, in the parties.
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  We don't know what the justices think yet, but a fundamental disagreement
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  between the government and the man who was actually challenging this rule
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  over how bump stocks operate.
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  So, it's going to be, I think, pretty fascinating to see
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  how the justices sort through the mechanics of bump stocks.
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  Garrison, Narrating: The case is the latest one on guns the Supreme Court is taking up.
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  Last fall, it heard a case challenging a federal law that bars anyone
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  [SINISTER MUSIC]
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  subject to a domestic-violence restraining order from possessing a gun.
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  The Court has not yet ruled on that case.
• 4:35
  The U.N. says a quarter of Gaza’s population is now one step away
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  from famine.
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  The war is making it difficult to get enough food in.
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  Aid workers say a ceasefire is urgently needed to allow
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  more humanitarian supplies in.
• 4:48
  [MUSIC FADES]
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  Over a million people are taking shelter in Rafah, by the Egyptian border.
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  They went there to escape fighting in other parts of Gaza.
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  But there have been Israeli airstrikes in Rafah.
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  And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a major ground invasion
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  could follow if hostages held by Hamas aren’t released.
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  Egypt is not allowing Palestinians to cross its borders
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  in any significant numbers.
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  Officials say they’re concerned Israel wouldn’t let Palestinians
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  come back to Gaza later.
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  Correspondent Aya Batrawy talked about this
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  in a recent report for "NPR."
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  [START NPR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Aya Batrawy: You know, time and again, since Israel's founding in 1948,
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  Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes.
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  And Egyptians, they don't want to be a part of facilitating
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  that happening again now in Gaza.
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  [END NPR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 5:33
  Garrison, Narrating: Most Palestinians in Gaza are descendants of people displaced decades ago
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  in that first major Israeli-Palestinian war.
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  Karin Huster, a medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders,
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  talked to "NPR" about the fear and uncertainty Palestinians in Rafah
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  are dealing with right now.
• 5:48
  [START NPR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Karin Huster: I've never heard anybody say, "We want to go to Egypt."
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  They just want to be in a place where they don't get bombarded
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  and where they can sleep and where they can wake up the next day alive.
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  Some people have even told me, you know, I want to go back to my home.
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  And even if it's destroyed, I'll put my tent there and it'll be safer.
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  You know, at least I will die on my home.
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  [END NPR ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Garrison, Narrating: Egypt is also keeping tight control of the border in order to avoid
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  being dragged into the conflict.
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  There are concerns that militants could cross and then launch attacks
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  against Israel from Egypt.
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  Egyptian officials told "NPR" they’re building an enclosed area
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  with cement walls that can hold over 100,000 people,
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  in case there’s a breach of the border during an Israeli assault
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  on neighboring Rafah.
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  Egyptian officials have warned that displacing Palestinians by force
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  would be crossing a "red line."
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  And diplomats have signaled that if Israel invades Rafah,
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  [GENTLE MUSIC]
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  Egypt could suspend its decades-old peace treaty with Israel.
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  We’ll finish today with a story about tomorrow.
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  It’s the kind of tomorrow that only comes around every four years…
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  February 29, Leap Day.
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  [MUSIC FADES]
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  Leap Day solves for a problem. Our human calendars don’t quite match up
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  with what’s actually going on in the solar system.
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  A while back, "National Geographic" got astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
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  to break it down.
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  [START NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Neil deGrasse Tyson: It takes, like, 365 and a quarter days to go around the sun.
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  So, we just ignore that quarter day. Just sweep it under the rug
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  for three years.
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  [END NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Garrison, Narrating: That quarter-day difference may sound small, but over time,
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  it’s a big deal.
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  Without adding a Leap Day, our calendars would gradually
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  get out sync.
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  Everything from farming schedules to holidays would fall outside the months
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  we expect them.
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  Before the Romans figured all this out, at one point their calendar
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  was some three months off.
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  It was Julius Caesar, or more likely someone on his staff
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  who was good at astronomy and math, who worked in a leap day.
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  But even that wasn’t quite perfect.
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  Centuries later, people realized we needed another tweak.
• 7:53
  This one’s a little complicated, but it might come in handy
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  at a trivia night.
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  Some years that you’d expect to be leap years aren’t.
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  You may not have known this because you weren’t around
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  when it happened in 1900.
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  If you’re curious, you can read the article for the whole formula.
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  And even that change won’t work long term.
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  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 8:10
  Astronomers say our current calendar system
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  is going to fall out of whack again.
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  But no need to stress anytime soon, since it’ll take more than 3,000 years
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  before it makes much of a difference.
• 8:24
  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
• 8:26
  And if you’re already listening in the News app right now,
• 8:29
  we've got a Narrated Article coming up next from "The Atlantic."
• 8:32
  It’s a profile of Jodie Foster, and how two of her most recent roles
• 8:36
  are very different from what she’s known for.
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  She talks about how she’s often played solitary women, like the FBI agent
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  in "The Silence of the Lambs."
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  But in "True Detective", and her Oscar nominated role in "Nyad,"
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  she’s part of a duo. Foster explains how she previously
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  avoided roles that had a lot of interaction with other actors,
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  and why she took on these very different projects.
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  If you’re listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News+ Narrated
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  to find the story, and I’ll be back with the news tomorrow.
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  [MUSIC FADES]