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- [00:05]
Cecilia Ley
Good morning. American and Iranian officials are set for talks today amid ongoing threats of US Strikes. And as Iran suppresses its opposition at home, the Wall Street Journal reveals how the Pentagon has been smuggling Internet access into the country.
- [00:19]
Alex Ward
It is the first time that the US has ever done such a thing like this. So it's a covert but still severe escalation in the way the US is dealing with Iran.
- [00:29]
Cecilia Ley
ProPublica gets rare access to what life is like for China, children inside a Texas detention facility. And remembering Robert Duvall, cinema's greatest conciliary, who has died at the age of 95. It's Tuesday, February 17th. I'm Cecilia Ley and this is Apple News. Today, The US And Iran are set to hold more talks in Switzerland today over Iran's nuclear program. It comes at a delicate time. Trump has warned the regime that he was considering military action and has built up the naval presence in the region. Yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn't say much to indicate that a deal's anywhere close.
- [01:10]
Marco Rubio
I think if there's an opportunity here to diplomatically reach an agreement that addresses the things we're concerned about, we will be very open and welcoming to that. But I don't want to overstate it either. It's going to be hard. It's been very difficult for anyone to do real deals with Iran because we're dealing with radical Shia clerics who are making theological decisions, not Jewish geopolitical ones. But let's see what happens. I hope it works out. We all hope it works out.
- [01:34]
Cecilia Ley
Iran's leadership is under pressure at home, too. It killed thousands of its own citizens in a violent crackdown and temporarily shut down online communications to suppress widespread protests against their rule. The latest protests began in late December, initially triggered by economic grievances, including a sharp collapse of Iran's currency. Iran has accused the Trump administration of fomenting unrest in the country, a claim the US Denies the. But the Wall Street Journal reports that behind the scenes, the administration has been engaged in a covert US mission to help keep protesters in the country connected to the Internet.
- [02:11]
Alex Ward
The US smuggled in roughly 6,000 or so Starlink terminals, which is the satellite Internet company Elon Musk owns, and it allows a user to connect to the Internet via satellite.
- [02:23]
Cecilia Ley
Alex Ward is a national security reporter with the Wall Street Journal. Who had to scoop.
- [02:27]
Alex Ward
Of course, if they have more access satellite terminals, the opposition group, as fractured as it is in Iran, can start to communicate and organize against the regime.
- [02:36]
Cecilia Ley
It's the first time that the US has directly sent Starlink terminals to Iran. The White House declined to comment, but the Journal's story would suggest that the administration was more involved in supporting protesters than what was previously known. Analysts and activists told Ward that tens of thousands of Iranians owned the terminals, but there are big risks to having them.
- [02:57]
Alex Ward
If someone were to be found with the Starlink terminal, they already could get many years in jail or even face capital punishment and executions. And now with this in public, there is the chance that the Iranian government goes Anyone with the Starlink could be suspected of receiving a US one, and therefore they could face even harsher punishment.
- [03:15]
Cecilia Ley
The State Department estimated that about 30 million Iranians accessed the Internet using the US funded virtual private networks, or VPNs, during 2022 protests. Ward said that it remains to be seen if the Starlink smuggling will have any discernible impact on the talks. Today, As the White House continues to expand a nationwide deportation program, hundreds of children have been detained across the country. The Biden administration halted the practice, but it's been revived this past year. Most families pass through the Dilley Immigration Processing center in Texas. The detention facility is the only one that holds families and was built during President Obama's second term. It was often used to house children and families who crossed the U S. Mexico border. These days, the facility holds immigrants who have already been living in the US last month, ProPublica was given a rare glimpse inside Dilley after receiving letters from children in the facility. All but two of them had been living in the United States when they were detained. One, one child, identified as Ariana, read her letter out loud for ProPublica.
- [04:28]
Ariana / Yulia Navalny
I'm 14 years old and I'm from Honduras. I've been detained for 45 days and I have never felt so much fear to go to a place as I feel here. Every time I remind myself that once I go back to Honduras, a lot of dangerous things could happen to my mom and I. My younger siblings haven't been able to see their mom in more than a month. They're very young and you need both of your parents when you're growing up. Since I got to this center, all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression.
- [05:02]
Cecilia Ley
Ariana and other people detained in the facility corresponded with Micah Rosenberg, an Investigative Reporter with ProPublica.
- [05:09]
Micah Rosenberg
She and her mother were detained at their ICE check in and she talked about missing her school, missing her friends and being really sad and depressed on the inside and, you know, more serious concerns that she expressed like waiting hours in line for medication and, you know, not having the proper schooling Inside According.
- [05:30]
Cecilia Ley
To ProPublica, in early February, there were more than 750 families inside Dilley. Almost half of them include children. Rosenberg found that conditions inside the facility worsen the longer that people are held to be processed.
- [05:44]
Micah Rosenberg
There were two cases of measles that had been discovered, and then there were a series of families and children who told me about just getting other kinds of illnesses all the time, getting colds, getting stomach bugs and skin rashes and other problems from being detained for a long period of time with a large number of people.
- [06:05]
Cecilia Ley
The company that runs the facility told ProPublica that it's subject to many layers of oversight and that it prioritizes health and safety. The Department of Homeland Security also said in a statement that all detainees at the facility are provided medical care, meals, clothing, and more, and that children have access to teachers, classrooms and curricula. DHS explained that these detentions are taking place because families are given a choice. Either be deported together or have their children be placed with another caregiver.
- [06:35]
Micah Rosenberg
But one thing that many families told us is that that might not be an option for them. Some said that either they might be afraid to return to their home country. There were asylum seekers who said that they feared being deported, and others said that they didn't have, you know, appropriate caregivers, caregivers to leave their kids with on the outside or just didn't want to be separated from them.
- [06:56]
Cecilia Ley
You can find the full ProPublica investigation, as well as images of the other drawings and letters from children in the Apple News app. It's been two years since Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died. Yesterday, groups of mourners braved Moscow's harsh winter cold to lay flowers by his grave. This resident told Associated Press that everyone there was afraid. She said Navalny wasn't, and he fought for their freedom. Afraid or not, the locals faced risk by paying their respects. In addition to the supporters, the gathering also had what AP called a conspicuously high security presence. As Russian activists remember his life and sacrifice. More details have been revealed about the circumstances surrounding Navalny's death. Over the weekend, European governments said they believed Navalny had been poisoned by a toxin that's produced in South American poison dart frogs. Here's the UK's Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper. Only the Russian state had the means, the motive and the opportunity to do this. And that is why, with our partners, we are exposing this barbaric Kremlin plot. Russia has denied poisoning Navalny. They've always maintained that he died of natural causes while being held in an Arctic penal column colony. Marco Rubio said he found the report troubling while speaking to reporters over the weekend.
- [08:28]
Marco Rubio
It's a very serious thing. Look, those countries came to that conclusion. They coordinated. That we chose doesn't mean we disagree with the outcome. We just, it wasn't, you know, our endeavor. Sometimes countries go out and do their thing based on the intelligence they've gathered.
- [08:41]
Cecilia Ley
The toxin, called epibetadine, has been tested as a painkiller, but was deemed too dangerous for use clinically. One chemicals expert told the BBC that it's only found in tiny quantities when the frogs eat specific diets. She said the challenge of finding the toxin meant it was an incredibly rare way to poison a person. Christo Grazhev is an investigative journalist who is close to Navalny. He uncovered the Russian Security Service's plot to poison Navalny back in 2020. He told the BBC that even if the news comes as no surprise, it remains important.
- [09:15]
Christo Grazhev
I cannot overstate the miracle of this discovery because the Russian government did everything possible to not let any samples of the body not have the relatives have access to the body. And despite this, the family were able to carry out and transport tiny samples and deliver them to Western laboratories for independent testing. So it was a sequence of very unlikely events that led to this announcement a couple of days ago. I don't think this was anticipated by Putin. From everything we've seen this time around, they made everything possible for this to be untraceable, untractable as a crime.
- [09:54]
Cecilia Ley
Navalny's wife, Yulia was at the Munich security conference over the weekend as she continues to campaign for democracy. She gave her reaction of the news to Politico.
- [10:03]
Ariana / Yulia Navalny
I'm satisfied. I think it will be right to say that I'm satisfied. It's difficult for me to say that it's good news, you know, because my husband was killed and of course I knew that he was killed. And I am working on it very hard that one day it will be justice for Vladimir Putin.
- [10:23]
Cecilia Ley
That justice might be hard to achieve. Since Navalny's death, Russia's opposition has struggled to unite behind a clear plan. A small victory for opposition leaders came in late January, though. A new body was created to help them engage with European lawmakers. And here's a few other stories we're following. A shooting at a Rhode island high school hockey game yesterday left two people dead and three more critically injured. The suspected shooter also died of a self inflicted wound. According to the office of the local mayor, it appeared to be a targeted family dispute. Authorities have not released the names of any of the victims or of the suspect. Monday's tragedy comes nearly two months after Rhode island was rocked by another shooting at Brown University where a gunman killed two students and injured nine others. New Mexico's lawmakers voted to examine the late Jeffrey Epstein's ranch in Santa Fe county yesterday. The convicted sex offender was accused of trafficking and assaulting girls and women at the property known as Zorro Ranch. The vote paves the way for a so called truth commission which will interview people who might have information about what happened at the 7,000 acre property. Meanwhile, the billionaire hotel magnate Thomas Pritzker has retired as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels over his links to Epstein. Pritzker said he wanted to protect the company after documents revealed he had been a frequent guest of Epstein's townhouse and maintained contact long after his conviction. He said he had, quote, exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact. Hollywood paid tribute to the legend of cinema Robert Duvall, who died on Sunday at the age of 95. The Washington Post described him as the chameleon of the silver screen and other obituaries across outlets praised his capacity for disappearing into a diverse portfolio of unforgettable roles. As the Journal notes, he was the son of a naval officer and he lived in various parts of the US Setting him up well to play New Yorkers, Californians and Texans across seven decades. Duvall made his break without ever uttering a line as the reclusive Boo Radley in 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird. And he went on to star as the Godfather's understated conciliary Tom Hagen, a ratings hungry TV exec in Network and the deranged Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. There he uttered what became one of the most famous lines in movie history.
- [12:56]
Christo Grazhev
Smell that.
- [12:58]
Cecilia Ley
You smell that.
- [13:01]
Christo Grazhev
Napum son.
- [13:03]
Cecilia Ley
Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Following the news of his death, his godfather co star Robert De Niro wrote, quote, God bless Bobby, I hope I can live till I'm 95. May he rest in peace. And finally, Happy New Year to everyone celebrating the Lunar New Year I am. This week, communities across the globe will usher in the year of the Fire Horse. And as the Guardian reports, it's expected to be a record year of travel within China as families reconnect and and they're not the only kind of celebrations taking place. The start of Ramadan and the beginning of Lent also coincide this week. The holidays are all happening within two days of each other because several solar and lunar calendars are in sync. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Vox reports on why owning some small pets like birds, hamsters, or lizards can be bad for these types of animals, and how animal behaviorists argue owning them might be an enormous but hidden source of suffering. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.