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The felony charges in the shooting of a Black Missouri teen · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, April 18th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, understanding the "Fox News" defamation case as the trial gets underway, on Tax Day, a tax prep volunteer tells us all the ways the U.S. tax code is broken, and debating whether an AI image can legitimately win a photography prize.
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  But first, an 84-year-old white man now faces felony charges in the shooting of 16-year-old Black student Ralph Yarl, who survived.
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  The shooting happened around 10 o'clock Thursday night in Kansas City. Yarl's family says he was going to pick up his twin brothers but mistakenly went to the wrong door. Family attorney Lee Merritt told "NBC" what happened next.
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  [START NBC NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Lee Merritt: And he was confronted by a man who told him, "Don't come on back around here," and then immediately fired his weapon, striking Mr. Yarl in the head. He went to the ground, and then he was shot a second time.
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  [END NBC NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Missouri prosecutors charged Andrew Lester with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. If he's found guilty, the sentence could be up to life in prison.
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  Lester later told police that he thought someone was trying to break into his home, and he was scared.
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  The Yarl family attorney says Yarl ran for help and knocked on at least three neighbors' doors. At the last home, a person told him to lie on the ground and put his hands in the air. Yarl did that, and then he passed out.
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  This shooting is getting national attention. Before charges were announced, protesters took to the streets.
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  Protesters: Justice for Ralph! Justice for Ralph! [VOICES FADE OUT]
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  Family, classmates and educators say that Yarl is a gifted student and award-winning musician with plans to study chemical engineering in college. One teacher described him as "a gentle soul." He was hospitalized and is now recovering at home.
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  Turning to an entirely separate incident in upstate New York, a woman was shot and killed when she and her friends mistakenly drove their car to the wrong address on Saturday night. Prosecutors say Kaylin Gillis was fatally shot by the homeowner, Kevin Monahan. He's now charged with second-degree murder. The local sheriff says the group was looking for a friend's house in a rural area where it's easy to get lost. He says there was no reason that Monahan should've felt threatened.
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  The defamation trial against "Fox News" is scheduled to start today after a delay. We talked about this trial on Friday's show with Brian Stelter, the former chief media correspondent at "CNN," who has written extensively about "Fox News." On Friday, we focused on the Supreme Court precedent, Times v. Sullivan, that could be upended in this case.
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  Today, we'll focus on the question at the heart of Dominion's lawsuit: Did "Fox" defame the voting technology company by spreading false claims that Dominion rigged the 2020 election by flipping votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden? The judge has already said it's clear the claims that Dominion was involved in election fraud are not true, so they won't be debating that. What Dominion will need to prove is that "Fox" acted with "actual malice" when it aired those lies. That's the legal standard: actual malice. "Fox" will argue that it's protected by the First Amendment.
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  When I spoke to Brian Stelter about this, he said Dominion will try to make its case about "actual malice" by pointing to what "Fox News" hosts and executives were saying in private messages versus what was being said on the air.
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  For example, back in November of 2020, shortly after the election, Tucker Carlson texted his producer, calling claims about manipulated voting machine software "absurd." His producer replied that he didn't think there was evidence that voter fraud impacted the election.
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  But, a few days after this exchange, Carlson went on his show and suggested there could be merit to those claims.
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  [START TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Tucker Carlson: We don't know how many votes were stolen on Tuesday night. We don't know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don't know. We ought to find out. But here's what we do know: On a larger level, at the highest levels, actually, our system isn't what we thought it was. It's not as fair as it should be. Not even close.
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  [END TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Other big-name "Fox" hosts did similar things. And Stelter explained that Dominion will also point to the guests that "Fox" had on its programs.
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  Brian Stelter: And that's part of the dispute here, is in the way that the "Fox" hosts reacted to the guests by seeming to believe it, by going along with it, by encouraging the guests to keep going, by prompting them to repeat more and more lies about Dominion. Essentially, Dominion says, "Well, look, the 'Fox' hosts were in on it. This was the 'Fox' hosts who were the ones endorsing the lies."
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  Stelter brought up one example from November 8th of 2020. "Fox News" anchor Maria Bartiromo had Trump lawyer Sidney Powell on her show.
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  Maria Bartiromo: Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software. I know that there were voting irregularities. Tell me about that.
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  [END MORNINGS WITH MARIA ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Brian Stelter: And that's Maria setting up Sidney Powell to go on and on about this bogus information.
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  Sidney Powell: That's to put it mildly. The computer glitches could not and should not have happened at all. That is where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist. We need an audit of all of the computer systems that played any role in this fraud whatsoever.
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  [END MORNINGS WITH MARIA ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Brian Stelter: So what Dominion's arguing is, by Maria Bartiromo saying, "We talked about this. I know there were irregularities," she is endorsing the lie that Powell is going to advance. That's the kind of material that the jurors are gonna have to assess and decide, does that clear the bar for actual malice?
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  You can find coverage of the "Fox News"/Dominion trial on Apple News. And if you want to hear my full interview with Brian Stelter, search for "Apple News In Conversation" in the Podcasts app.
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  Today is Tax Day. And I really hope you're not learning that from me 'cause that would mean that you have some work to do, and fast. Doing your taxes can be stressful, complicated and kinda boring. But for "Vox" Senior Correspondent Dylan Matthews, it's a thrill ride.
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  Dylan Matthews: I really find taxes interesting. I think sort of the question of how to get money for the government is something that I've always been curious about since a young age. And so I really like interacting with it and doing my own taxes and working on other people's taxes, but I'm aware that this is a minority preference.
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  He channels that unusual passion to help other people. He's involved in VITA, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, which gives free tax help to people with limited English, disabilities and/or income below $60,000. Matthews told us his volunteer work has helped convince him that America's tax code is deeply broken.
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  Matthews: I think my basic view on doing taxes is that it feels unnecessary. There was some TikTok a while back where someone was like, "It's like a quiz where there's a right answer, and you have to guess the right answer, and if you get it wrong, you go to prison."
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  Not only are the consequences pretty serious, but our complex tax system often hurts people who have the least resources to navigate it. For example, Matthews sees more and more gig workers take a hit. Because platforms like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash typically don't treat gig workers as normal employees, income taxes aren't withheld through the year. So people often end up with big tax bills and even penalties when they file.
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  Another element that's overly complicated is the definition of a child and the benefits that people get as a result.
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  Matthews: You find yourself in these cases where you have to consult these long sort of charts and diagrams of whether a kid counts for head of household or EITC or child tax credit or two of these or none of these. I couldn't tell you the rationale for why these are subtly different. I think it's just that Congress passed these laws at different points and times and didn't refer back.
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  Matthews says it doesn't have to be this way. In many countries, including in the U.K. and Japan, most taxpayers don't file returns. The full bill is automatically taken out of paychecks. He says he loves helping people do taxes, but he'd also be happy if a simpler system made his volunteer work obsolete.
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  A photographer is rejecting a prestigious prize, saying he won't accept a Sony World Photography Award because he generated the image with AI. German artist Boris Eldagsen says he entered the black-and-white image depicting two women as a way to spark debate and make a statement. His take is that artificial intelligence images and photographs are two different things, and they shouldn't compete for the same awards.
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  The World Photography Organisation says they knew the image was AI generated before they picked him as the winner. Eldagsen told them. It was in a category where experimental approaches are allowed, and what he said about AI didn't disqualify him. But the organization is still honoring his wish and taking him out of the competition.
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  Eldagsen said part of the reason he submitted the generated image was to see if competitions would be prepared for AI images to enter the mix. His conclusion: "They are not."
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. There's also coverage of a possible Hollywood writers' strike, which could delay the movies and shows that you're watching. Writers Guild members voted overwhelmingly yesterday to strike if they don't get a new contract by May 1st.
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  It's just the latest example of unions trying to flex their muscles. So we've cued up a narrated article for you about how unions are trying to grow at very different workplaces, like Starbucks and Amazon. "Bloomberg Businessweek" looks at how unions send undercover activists known as "salts" to get jobs in places, with the goal of convincing other workers there to organize.
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  If you're listening in the News app right now, that story will play for you next. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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