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GOP sets sights on ballot measures as abortion fight spreads · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, May 19th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, the Republican-led efforts to make it harder for voters to change their state constitution, a terrible truth about recycling and the effort to make it more transparent, plus Brittney Griner's big return to the WNBA.
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  But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news.
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  Ukraine's military and Russia's mercenary army, the Wagner Group, both say that Russian troops are retreating from areas around Bakhmut. Some of the toughest recent fighting has been in that area. This appears to be Ukraine's biggest advance in six months.
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  Also, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will now appear in person at the G7 summit in Japan on Sunday. He'll continue to press for more military support from allies. The event takes place in Hiroshima, so he'll be in a symbolic location to warn the world of the importance of preventing nuclear-armed Russia from escalating the war.
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  Here in the U.S., the Supreme Court made two decisions seen as a victory for big tech platforms. Justices unanimously ruled that families of terrorism victims did not prove that Twitter, Google and Facebook helped attacks on their loved ones by hosting content posted by terrorist groups on their platforms.
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  The court also dismissed a case involving Google and social media content moderation. It declined to weigh in on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That law, for the most part, protects internet platforms from being liable for what third parties' post. Critics say the law gives too much power to internet companies.
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  Supporters say it's a building block of the open web and weakening it would degrade the online experience for everyone.
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  Tech policy and legal reporter Emily Birnbaum reported on "Bloomberg" about how this battle isn't over.
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  Emily Birnbaum: The debate is ongoing, and more and more federal judges are saying, "Hey, we need some guidance from SCOTUS on how broad this shield is, what it protects companies from." So, SCOTUS is definitely going to eventually take up a case related to 230. It's probably just going to be a very different case in character and probably have better claims under the law at the center of it.
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  And in Massachusetts, the Air National Guardsman accused of sharing classified Pentagon documents online is set to appear in federal court today. Jack Teixeira has been in custody since April, and a judge will hear arguments today on whether he should be released on bail. Teixeira has not entered a plea. The leak contained extensive information about the war in Ukraine, and there were concerns it could help Russia.
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  Republicans in several state legislatures, including in Ohio and Missouri, have been trying to make it more difficult for voters to change their state constitutions through ballot measures. "Wall Street Journal" reporter Shannon Najmabadi explains how one major issue looms large in this debate.
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  Shannon Najmabadi: The bills that have been introduced to make it hard to amend state constitutions, at least in this last cycle, have been more explicitly tied to abortion access than they have been in years past.
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  More than 160 proposals to change ballot initiative processes were introduced across 35 states this year. That's according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which supports progressive ballot measures. Najmabadi explains some of the proposed restrictions.
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  Najmabadi: For example, instead of a simple majority of voters needing to pass a proposed change to a state constitution, the state legislatures might be requesting that 57% or 60%, or sometimes even more, 66% of voters, be required to approve any proposed change. So, in effect, this makes it harder for amendments to state constitutions that are proposed by voters.
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  The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center tells "The Journal," Republican lawmakers started targeting ballot initiatives when more progressive policies started to pass through that process. Since Roe v. Wade fell, voters in at least six states bypassed lawmakers to add abortion rights to state constitutions or to reject abortion restrictions. And that's not the only issue they've had success with.
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  Najmabadi: People in some Republican-led states have found ways to circumvent their legislatures on issues like increasing the minimum wage, paid sick leave, expanding Medicaid. Those have been passed through the ballot initiative process.
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  Republican lawmakers and supporters say changing ballot initiative rules will keep special interest groups from using money to make changes that should be handled by lawmakers. Democrats say they're undermining the will of voters.
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  Najmabadi: They would say that as lawmakers become less responsive to the wants of their voters, whether it's at the congressional level where there's constantly gridlock or at the state level where you have people that want bills or other initiatives to be passed that are not coming through their legislature, ballot initiatives become a lot more important than they have in years past.
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  It's an ugly truth about recycling. A lot of the stuff that we put in a recycling bin ends up in a landfill. The EPA and environmental groups support a move that may make things a little bit more transparent. It involves making a change to that recycling symbol that you see on plastics. You know the one I'm talking about, the three arrows chasing each other in a triangle, usually with a number in the middle.
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  "The Washington Post" explains how environmentalists say companies are "misleading" customers by putting this label on products that aren't going to be recycled. The United States has a poor recycling rate. According to a Greenpeace estimate, in 2021, just 5% of the plastic produced here was recycled.
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  It all comes down to that number inside the triangle symbol, which indicates the type of plastic that something's made of. Plastics labeled one or two, for example, are pretty consistently recyclable. But types three through seven are very unlikely to be recycled. And putting them in the recycling bin hurts the whole process, since they have to be picked out. If all of this sounds kind of confusing to hear, that's the point these environmental groups are making, and that's exactly why they want the labeling policy to change.
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  While regulators consider what to do about labels, there are some things that you can do. Next time you're at the store, pay attention to that little number in the recycling triangle. If you have a choice, try to buy products labeled one or two. At least they're more likely to be recycled. The bottom-line advice is always to reduce your plastic consumption as much you can.
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  The 2023 WNBA season tips off today with a notable match-up right out of the gate. The Los Angeles Sparks take on the Phoenix Mercury tonight. And it's Mercury star Brittney Griner's big return to the WNBA. She missed the last season while she was detained in Russia.
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  In a pre-season game earlier this month, Griner got back into the groove, scoring 10 points in only 17 minutes on the court. She said certain pregame rituals, like hearing the national anthem, have new meaning.
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  Brittney Griner: It's like when we go for the Olympics, you know, and you're sitting there, you're about to get gold put on your neck, and flags going up and the anthem's going, it just hits different.
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  You can get WNBA coverage and more in the Apple News app.
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  And check out our weekly interview show, "In Conversation." In our latest episode, I talk to University of Texas law professor and long-time Supreme Court watcher Stephen Vladeck about ethics on the court. We talked about recent headlines about Justice Clarence Thomas accepting big gifts from a big GOP donor and what it means to have a court that's in charge of its own code of ethics.
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  Stephen Vladeck: If members of Congress misbehave, if the president doesn't do what we want him to do, we have remedies at the ballot box. The whole deal with the Supreme Court is that they're not politically accountable. And if they're not gonna be directly politically accountable, the question is, how do you create other mechanisms of accountability?
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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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