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What Biden and Democrats can do about abortion · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, July 1st. I'm Shumita Basu, this is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  President Biden says he supports changing Senate filibuster rules to pass abortion rights into law. That would mean making an exception to the Senate's 60-vote threshold for passing legislation and instead needing at least 50 votes. It's the first time Biden publicly backed a filibuster change to protect abortion access.
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  Marianne LeVine: This is a proposal that does not have a pathway in the Senate right now.
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  That's Marianne LeVine, who's covering this for "POLITICO."
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  LeVine: The Senate's evenly split 50-50, and two Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, do not support changing Senate rules along party lines. So, while he called for changes to Senate rules, it's unlikely that we're gonna see that happen in the next six months or so.
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  In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, several states have made the procedure inaccessible. But LeVine explains, there are limits to what Congress can do about it.
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  LeVine: We're likely to see actions that are largely symbolic in Democrats' efforts to respond to the Supreme Court decision. So, there's not a lot legislatively that voters should expect between now and the midterm election.
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  Some Democrats in Congress question whether the House should pass an abortion bill right now that's doomed to fail in the Senate. Still, some voters want to see action. People are calling on the Biden administration to use executive powers to increase access to abortion medication, cover costs for federal employees traveling out of state to get an abortion, and open federal property for abortion services. But, the White House has expressed concerns about some of these moves.
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  Senator Elizabeth Warren says, people who want abortion rights protected need to vote for more Democratic senators who support ending the filibuster.
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  LeVine: Most of her message has been, going into the election is, to elect Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, who she's already endorsed, and John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, who are the two Democratic candidates in those races who've already said that they would scrap Senate rules to basically codify abortion rights.
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  But even that may not be enough.
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  LeVine: The challenges with that theory is that Democrats would also need to keep the House, and they're facing a lot of headwinds. Most political projections suggest that the House will flip to the Republicans. And Biden has a lot of other issues going on outside of abortion.
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  LeVine says, Biden's low approval ratings and inflation may make it harder for Democrats to win the seats they need.
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  American WNBA star Brittney Griner is in a Russian court today. She was arrested at a Moscow airport in February. Russian authorities say she had vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage. Ann Simmons is the Moscow bureau chief for "The Wall Street Journal."
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  Ann Simmons: As far as we know, there will be no jury in this particular case. It will just be a judge. And the case, the trial, the proceedings could last for a very long time. Court proceedings for Russian criminal cases are notoriously long.
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  If she's convicted, Griner faces up to 10 years in prison, and the sentence could include hard labor. The State Department says Griner is being wrongfully detained and that the U.S. government is actively working to secure her release. But for Griner's family and fans, they're not seeing enough progress. Griner's wife Cherelle hasn't spoken to her in four months. She told the "AP" that they were supposed to have a phone call, but it never happened because the State Department dropped the ball and had no one answering the phone that day. Yesterday, Cherelle told "CNN" that she wants the U.S. government to do a lot more.
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  Cherelle Griner: I do have to, unfortunately, also push people to make sure that things that they're telling me is also matching their actions. And so it has been the hardest thing to balance because I can't let up. Because it's over 130 days, and BG's still not back.
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  The administration says Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Cherelle this week, and bringing Brittney home is a top priority. But Simmons says it's more complicated because of everything else happening around it.
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  Simmons: This case is happening at a time when relations between the U.S. and Russia are basically at an all-time low. As we know, there is a conflict in Ukraine. The Kremlin calls it a special military operation, everyone else calls it a war. Ms. Griner basically was detained a few days before President Putin ordered troops to intervene into Ukraine. So it's really difficult to say how this plays out, but Ms. Griner is a high-profile case.
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  99% of criminal cases in Russia end with a conviction.
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  Today marks 25 years since Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule by Britain. It's sometimes referred to as "the handover." It's important because even though it isn't a big piece of land, Hong Kong is densely packed with people and political activism. It's been the center of so many high-stakes international storylines: China's rise, threats to democracy, the COVID pandemic. For China's government, today is a celebration, including a big flag-raising ceremony.
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  But for many people in Hong Kong, these are uncertain times. "The Wall Street Journal's" Neil Western has been in Hong Kong since before the handover.
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  Neil Western: 25 years ago, it was, I would say, a mixture of hope and fear in the city. There were hopes among some people that at the time, China was rising and that Hong Kong would become more democratic and sort of a tail that wagged the dog with China becoming more democratic. Over the years, China's obviously become a lot more powerful, and has, if anything, kind of taken a more authoritarian turn over the past decade under the current leader, Xi Jinping.
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  President Xi was there to mark the milestone today. That should show you just how big a deal control over Hong Kong is that he chose this for his first trip outside the mainland since the pandemic. The U.S. says China has not kept its handover promises to protect Hong Kong's rights. Beijing has cracked down hard on pro-democracy protesters in recent years. Western says the biggest change in the last quarter century was the strict national-security law imposed in 2020. It outlawed street protests and cracked down on media criticism.
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  Western: There's been a wider chill throughout society. People are very wary of speaking out now, even on social media. There have been arrests for people's online posts as well as for people demonstrating in the streets. So I'd say that there's definitely changed the whole climate of the city in terms of civil society and free speech.
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  He says Hong Kong is now unrecognizable to many people. Tens of thousands of people have given up and left in recent years. For younger people, Chinese control is all that they've ever known. We picked out a few articles where you can hear from people who were born around the time of the handover, and they talk about their struggles with identity in relation to mainland China and their hopes for the future. You can read their stories on the Apple News app.
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  For the first time ever in my life, I almost missed a flight the other day. I still can't believe this happened. I'd heard all the horror stories about long security lines at airports, and I thought I left myself plenty of time, but it was so much worse than I anticipated. It was my first real taste of the travel hellscape we're all hearing about. And if this holiday weekend is your first big trip in a while, you might get a taste of it, too.
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  "The Washington Post" looks into why we've been seeing all of these air-travel meltdowns lately, and it has some tips on how you can be prepared. Now, a big part of this is demand. Last Sunday, the TSA screened nearly 2.5 million people, the most at airports since early 2020. And this weekend could top that.
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  Now, many airlines ramped down during the pandemic and laid off workers. And now that people are ready to fly again, the airlines aren't ready for us. They've canceled thousands of flights some weekends, and are scrambling to hire and train people fast enough to meet demand. Delta just announced it's sending corporate employees to two airports to help check-in travelers and bags.
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  If you decide to stay below 30,000 feet and drive, unfortunately, it might not be much better. Triple A says this upcoming weekend is on track to be one of the busiest and one of the most expensive. And it's not just gas prices. Hotels, food, everything is so much more expensive than they were this time last year.
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  So, here's a few tips from a travel expert in "The Post" so you don't almost or actually miss a flight like I did. Arrive early. It's always a smart move. Avoid checking bags if you can. Also, choose the earliest flight that can work for you. That way you've got more options for rebooking if it gets canceled.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And check out our weekend interview show, "In Conversation." On this July 4th weekend, we're bringing you a relevant episode from our archives: my interview with the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. She's the founder of the "1619 Project." We talked about how the beginning of American slavery is a foundational moment in our history that's often left out of U.S. textbooks.
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  Nikole Hannah-Jones: We have to understand that history as a field and our understanding of history is about interpretation, and it's about power. It's about who gets to choose what we remember and who gets to decide what we forget.
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  Enjoy the long weekend. I'll be back with the news on Tuesday.
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