Latest / Apple News Today / “A new age for astronomy.” What the Webb telescope shows us.

Transcript

“A new age for astronomy.” What the Webb telescope shows us. · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, July 12th. 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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  "A new age for astronomy." That's how "National Geographic" put it, as NASA releases its first suite of full-color images from its James Webb Space Telescope. President Biden unveiled the first image.
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  President Joe Biden: It's a new window into the history of our universe. And today, we're going to get a glimpse of the first light to shine through that window. Light from other worlds, orbiting stars far beyond our own.
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  This image shows hundreds, maybe thousands of distant galaxies. Some existed more than 13 billion years ago. It's like uncovering lost baby pictures of our universe, in sharp, full color.
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  I just want to stop and think about the scale here. Here's how NASA describes it. Imagine that you're lying on the ground outside, looking up at the stars. You have a single grain of sand between your fingers. You hold it up at arm's length. That grain of sand is about the size of the piece of sky that you can see in that first image. It's just one, tiny sliver of what's out there.
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  These images look so good because the Webb Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever to take flight. It's 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope. And it's got a prime spot orbiting the Sun, about one million miles from Earth. It's fueled up to operate for some 20 years, which guarantees more fascinating discoveries in the years ahead.
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  Now that I've painted a picture in your mind, you should go and check it out for yourself. It's actually hard to describe in words just how incredible these images are. You can check out the image that Biden revealed, along with more pictures released today, on the Apple News app.
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  A massive investigation led by "The Guardian" sheds light on questionable tactics that Uber used to enter new cities. Journalists at multiple news outlets around the world poured over 124,000 confidential documents leaked by Uber's former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The files show a company that skirted laws, exploited violence against its drivers and aggressively lobbied governments to help it expand.
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  Johana Bhuiyan is a senior tech reporter and editor for "The Guardian." She told us a lot of Uber's strategy was based on taking down the taxi industry. You might remember, in several countries, there were big protests against Uber by taxi drivers who were worried about their livelihoods being threatened.
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  Johana Bhuiyan: And so, when there was potential violence or when there was fear that anti-Uber protests would erupt in violence that could put drivers at risk, the documents show that Uber executives considered the risk and said that it might be worth it.
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  Then-CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick dismissed safety concerns about sending Uber drivers to a protest in France. He said, quote, "violence guarantees success." His spokesperson told "The Guardian" that Kalanick "never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety."
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  Kalanick was also at the center of a massive lobbying campaign to try to get regulations passed that would help Uber break into new markets.
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  Bhuiyan: The goal of it was to go over the heads of regulators who were trying to enforce existing taxi laws by going to politicians, big name politicians, like Emmanuel Macron.
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  This document leak includes texts between Kalanick and Macron, now president of France. There are indications that he was helping Uber back when he was economy minister. Kalanick also met with then-Vice President Biden at Davos, as well as the prime ministers of Israel and Ireland.
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  These documents are from 2013 to 2017. Kalanick was replaced as CEO in 2017. Uber says it doesn't make excuses for past behavior that's clearly not in line with its "present values," and it should be judged by what it's done under new leadership and in the future.
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  There's much more to this investigation, with more stories from other news outlets. The reporters are calling it "The Uber Files." You can read more in the Apple News app.
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  The richest man in the world is stirring up what could be the most unusual legal battle in corporate takeover history.
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  Elizabeth Lopatto: Like a lot of Elon Musk-related news, this not only started on Twitter, but also has taken a turn for the deeply weird.
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  That's Elizabeth Lopatto, senior reporter with "The Verge." Musk is saying that he wants out of the $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. He says one issue is that Twitter hasn't shared enough data about fake accounts on the platform, and this justifies him pulling out of the agreement. Twitter says it's doing what the agreement with Musk requires. But, as Lopatto explains, this whole issue of fake accounts could just be a lever that Musk is using to change the terms or totally pull out.
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  Lopatto: Either Elon Musk is looking to renegotiate the deal lower, and this is one of the few things that he has available to him to do that, or he's just willing to walk away and may have to pay more than that initial breakup fee that was included in the contract.
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  The legal details around this are complicated, but basically, Twitter is signaling that it'll fight him in court in order to force him to buy the company. Courts have forced buyers who got cold feet to go through with deals they agreed to. But never a sale as big as this. Twitter's stock market value is currently way below what Musk agreed to pay for it, so the company's got a good reason to fight. The $1 billion termination fee in the contract is peanuts compared to the $44 billion sale price.
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  Now, Musk has a history of hyping up major deals only to back out. Remember his 2018 tweet that he would take Tesla private? When that didn't happen, the SEC fined him $20 million, and he was forced to step down as chairman of Tesla. But that was his company. It'll be much harder and more expensive to undo his agreement to buy Twitter.
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  Lopatto: He's the dog that caught the car. And now he's just trying to find a way to either get out of it or continue forward with a reduced price.
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  To know how this is really gonna end, you have to be inside the head of Elon Musk. Good luck with that. It's possible that he still wants to own Twitter and this is a hardball negotiation tactic. It's also possible this was all just a very expensive way for him to have a laugh. Lopatto says he definitely seems to enjoy the spotlight.
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  Lopatto: It has made him the center of attention on Twitter, a platform we all know he loves, for many months now. It's made him the center of attention for the news media, which he also loves.
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  Whatever his motivation, the Musk-Twitter battle is on, with armies of lawyers already fighting it out. You can expect it to be complicated, expensive and bizarre.
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  Gambling scams sometimes happen in sports. But "SB Nation" reports on an alleged con in India that takes things to a whole new level. Authorities say a group of people faked an entire professional cricket league as a way of tricking naive Russian gamblers.
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  Investigators say a group of farmhands and unemployed kids in a small town in Gujarat hired fake players, dressed them up in pro uniforms, turned a farm into a cricket stadium and invited Russians to place bets. They even live-streamed HD broadcasts of the matches and offered seminars for Russians to educate them about cricket and get them excited about gambling. They left out the detail that the Indian Premier League season ended weeks before the fake league started.
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  So, Russians would bet, people would take down those wagers and talk to umpires over walkie talkies. Then, the umpires told the players exactly how to throw the match to make sure that the bettors lost. The league went on for several weeks, even getting to the quarterfinals, before cops busted it.
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  Now, this story took off when Indian media reported it, with some people calling for it to be made into a movie. Others applauded the "jugaad" on display, a word that's honestly hard to translate but sorta means "a gutsy, improvised way of solving a problem."
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app, including coverage of the latest January 6th committee hearing starting at 1: 00 p.m. Eastern. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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