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Biden warns of “Armageddon” amid Putin nuclear threats · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, October 7th. 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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  We have our 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners. The prize is going to multiple civil rights activists focusing on Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Two winners are human rights organizations: the Center for Civil Liberties, which is Ukrainian, and a Russian group called Memorial, which compiles information on human rights abuses and political prisoners in Russia. The Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski also won the prize. He's spent decades pushing back against the country's authoritarian leadership and supporting anti-government protestors. He has been detained without trial since 2020. The Nobel Committee says it selected these winners for their work protecting citizens' fundamental rights, including the right to criticize power.
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  Let's move now to the White House, where there are three big stories unfolding this morning. First, President Biden says the world is as close as it's been to, quote, "Armageddon" since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. These are the president's most blunt comments yet on the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin may use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war that he's losing.
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  In other news, Biden is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of marijuana possession. He cited racial disparities in conviction rates. It's the president's first major step toward potential decriminalization of the drug. He's also launching a review of how pot is classified under federal law.
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  President Joe Biden: The federal government currently classifies marijuana as a Schedule One substance, the same as heroin and LSD, and more serious than Fentanyl. Makes no sense.
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  And finally, there's also news affecting Biden's family. "The Washington Post" reports that federal agents believe they have enough evidence to charge the president's son Hunter Biden with failing to report all of his income and lying on paperwork to buy a gun. A lawyer for Hunter Biden said he's had no contact with any federal agent, so any possible leak about the investigation is illegal, inaccurate, and biased. If there is enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden, it's a prosecutor's call whether to do so. It'll be up to the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, a Trump appointee.
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  Did you know, back in the '60s it was pretty common for airplanes to get hijacked? I'm talking, on average, about once a month.
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  Darryl Campbell: Hijackings were really not that threatening. They weren't there to crash airplanes into buildings, they weren't even there to inflict casualties.
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  Darryl Campbell, a journalist with "The Verge," reminds us before 9/11 you could kinda just walk right onto a plane. And those hijackings were mostly activists looking to make a statement.
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  Campbell: So, functionally speaking for the airlines, what would happen is, you know, a hijacker would get in there, tell the cockpit "Fly this plane to Havana," and the passengers would get, you know, a tropical weekend and then they'd get picked up on Monday. The airplane would be fine. The pilots would be fine.
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  We live in a totally different world now, when it comes to airport security. The Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, says its job is to prevent another 9/11 from happening. But after more than 20 years of pat-downs, scans, and barefoot screenings, Campbell says the TSA has basically had no impact on stopping terrorist attacks.
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  Campbell: The things that keep us safe in the air today are the locks and reinforced cockpit doors.
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  And really, Campbell says, it's agencies like the CIA and the FBI that do a lot of the work of disrupting terrorist plots early. Most never make it to the airport in the first place.
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  Campbell: We've spent $140 billion since 9/11 budgeting for the TSA. In fact, the TSA's budget is twice what the FBI spends on counter-terrorism and count-intelligence, but what do we have to show for it?
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  In this weekend's episode of "In Conversation," Darryl Campbell tells us the story of how the TSA managed to make flying more of a hassle, and somehow not much safer. You can listen by searching for "In Conversation" in the Apple News app or in the Podcasts app.
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  It seems like every few months a new show or movie comes out that dissects the life, motivation and demise of a well-known murderer.
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  Richard Lawson: I think if we're honest, people are interested in these grizzly stories of serial killers. You know, it's a dark fascination that many of us have.
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  "Vanity Fair" reporter Richard Lawson recently wrote about the number-one show on Netflix at the moment about the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. After watching this ten-hour-long series, Lawson was left with a question: do we really need more stories about killers?
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  Lawson: I wish, in some ways, that these shows or movies would just own up to the fact that it's just a prurient interest in something terrible that happened to several people.
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  Jeffrey Dahmer targeted queer men in Milwaukee for more than a decade. Most victims were Black. He was convicted of murdering 15 men and boys. Lawson says the Netflix series tries to elevate some of the stories of victims, but some of the victims' families say they were blindsided by the series when it came out. They didn't know about it, and they found it re-traumatizing. We asked Lawson about the responsibility that creators of these shows have to real-life victims.
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  Lawson: I mean, technically they don't owe them anything, but I think the question is a moral one. So, they're trying to add that sort of humanist element to it, and I don't really know how you do that without checking with each and every family member you could find, and it really doesn't seem like they did that.
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  Lawson says, ultimately, uncomfortably, Dahmer is the star of the story.
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  Lawson: The message I think we were supposed to take from it felt really misguided. And there's always talk about how to sensitively depict these real-life horrible things. Some would argue you just can't do it, it's impossible. Others would say there's a path through, and I think that "Dahmer," to its credit, is trying to find that path, but ultimately it just feels like another wallow in, like, the horror of a serial murderer.
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  Basu: After an eventful baseball season, with Aaron Judge and Albert Pujols securing their spots as home-run royalty, Major League Baseball heads into the post-season today. And this year, a new format and some new faces means that the playoffs are gonna look pretty different from years past. Apple News sports editor Shaker Samman is here to tell us more. Hey, Shaker.
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  Shaker Samman: Hey, how's it going?
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  Basu: Good, good. So, the match-ups are set, we've got the twelve teams in the playoffs. For anyone who's just tuning in now, who are the favorites to make it to the World Series this year?
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  Samman: So, any conversation about who has a real shot of winning the World Series has to start with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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  Basu: Mm.
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  Samman: They won two years ago, and in the off seasons just keep adding the best players in baseball, right? And they won 111 games, something only three other teams in baseball history have won more than. So, they're at the forefront. You have the Houston Astros, another team over the last decade that's been really successful and beat the Dodgers in 2017, and then you have last year's champions, the Atlanta Braves. All three of these teams are juggernauts and have a real shot of winning it all.
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  Basu: So, let's talk about the new playoff format this year. It means that we're gonna have more teams competing for October glory than any other year outside of the COVID season. What are you expecting that to mean?
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  Samman: That means there's a few other teams that typically wouldn't be in that have a shot, namely the Phillies and the Rays who, you know-- the Rays made the World Series a few years ago, lost to the Dodgers. The Phillies are this really weird and interestingly-built team that gets a bunch of hits, hits a bunch of home runs, plays zero defense, right? And so a very kinda strangely constructed team, but one that can scare you if they're hot.
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  Basu: Mm-hmm.
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  Samman: There's the Blue Jays and the Cardinals and the Padres, all of whom have really top-tier talent. There's a really high chance for some weird games and some weird series and upsets.
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  Basu: [CHUCKLES] Okay. So, Shaker, what's your zero-money-down, absolutely-no-stakes prediction for who's gonna end the year as World Series Champions?
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  Samman: I've got the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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  Basu: Yeah?
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  Samman: You know, they're stronger than ever-- And I've got them over the Houston Astros in a rematch of 2017's World Series.
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  Basu: Mm.
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  Samman: These teams do not like each other. The stars are aligning here for a really cool World Series.
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  Basu: Shaker Samman, Apple News sports editor. Thanks a lot.
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  Samman: Thanks so much.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And only for those listening in the News app, we have an audio story queued up to play right after this. All you have to do is sit back and listen to this great "New Yorker" piece about how your personality is formed, and why we're often so different than we were as kids. Enjoy that listen, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
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