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Good morning. Virginia's high stakes referendum to redraw its maps has arrived, bringing in presidential attention.
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By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field.
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If they get these additional seats, they're going to be making changes at the federal levels.
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Trump loses another cabinet member amid misconduct allegations and the battle over costs, pitting FIFA against its hosts. It's Tuesday, April 21st. I'm Gideon Resnick and this is Alex. News Today, It's a vote on borders within their state. But when Virginians cast a ballot today, there will be implications far outside of the commonwealth. On the ballot is one of the most consequential redistricting fights that's left to play out before the midterms this November. Right now, Virginia is pretty split in its congressional representation. Six Democrats and five Republicans.
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A yes vote would lead to probably a delegation of 10 Democrats and one Republican.
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Jad Khalil is a state politics reporter for VPN News, an NPR affiliate in Virginia.
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I think also what they're voting on is whether Virginia should respond to the gerrymandering push that President Donald Trump's been doing around the country with their own gerrymander.
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States typically redraw their maps every 10 years. But the president sparked a mid decade tit for tat redistricting fight when he asked lawmakers in Republican states to deliver him more congressional seats by redrawing their maps. Texas acted first, providing as many as five. Then California responded in kind with its own changes that could also bring Democrats up to five more seats. This pattern has continued across the country with states like Missouri, North Carolina and Florida making moves of their own. Right now, Republicans may have a slight advantage, but Virginia could deliver one of the bigger swings back in Democrats favorite. Khalil said that it has taken a lot of work to facilitate a change in the state like this on a relatively short timeline.
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Redistricting process is actually run by a bipartisan commission, and that's in our Constitution. So in order for Virginia Democrats to redistrict for their advantage, they would have to go around that commission. So that required a constitutional amendment.
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That bipartisan commission won overwhelming support back in 2020. And Democrats here and elsewhere have traditionally been more likely to favor these kinds of independent setups. But Trump's moves in Texas have shifted that dynamic. Kalil told us the central question today is whether the yes campaign to redraw the maps persuades enough voters to change their minds from only six years ago. Polls suggest the yes campaign holds a narrow edge, but these kinds of elections are notoriously Hard to predict. Already over a million people have cast early votes. Both sides have brought out their biggest names to campaign. Last night, Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson held a telerally where the President said this.
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What's going to happen if we lose these, these elections? You know, the House, in this case the House and just, it's going to be a disaster if they do this. They're guaranteed to pick up a lot of seats and it's. Everybody knows it's unjust, including them.
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And former President Obama has been campaigning for a yes vote.
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Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years, but you can stop them.
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But the no campaign has used his presence in their own ads featuring past remarks from Obama condemning these kinds of tactics.
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Because of things like political gerrymandering, our parties have moved further and further apart and it's harder and harder to find common ground.
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Kahlil reports that television ads like this and even vague wording on the ballot have left some voters with whom he's spoken feeling confused. If voters do approve of the new map, it would be in place until the 2030 census. Nationally, which party ends up having electioneered more of an advantage for the midterms is still in doubt. According to the Cook Political Report, all the new maps could result in Democrats or Republicans gaining as many as four seats. Either way, today's vote in Virginia will have a big say in how things turn out. The deadline for the U. S. Israeli ceasefire with Iran arrives tomorrow. At a press conference yesterday, President Trump said it was, quote, highly unlikely that he would extend it beyond Wednesday. But the fate of those talks remains far from certain. And traditional allies have turned to their own means to get the Strait of Hormuz open. Last week, more than a dozen countries offered to support shoring up the strait's security when the situation allowed. That did little to win over Trump, who said this to a turning point action crowd.
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And now that the harmless strait situation is almost over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would like some help. Thank you very much, NATO. And I told them I would have liked your help two months ago, but now I really don't want your help anymore.
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Trump's frustration with NATO has only grown over the course of the war. And relations between the US and the rest of the alliance were at a low even before it started because of the President's threats over Greenland. Bojan Panchevsky is a European political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. He's been reporting on worried conversations between European officials.
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They've been discreetly, sort of confidentially, to an extent, secretly discussing how to Europeanize NATO, how to use the existing command and control structures to make them more European, to kind of staff them with more European leaders, European officers, and how they can replace American assets and American troops should they be pulled out of Europe.
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So long as Congress stands in his way, Trump can't technically withdraw from NATO. And as of now, he doesn't have the support he needs. But that doesn't mean that he can't weaken NATO by other means.
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President Trump is the commander in chief, and he can essentially remove every single soldier from European soil and just move them elsewhere, bring them back home or move them to the Middle east or move them to the Asia Pacific theater, which is arguably more relevant for American security at the moment than Europe.
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Panchevski told us the discussion started happening in earnest last year. He reports that Germany has sparked a shift in thinking long the holdout in Europe for a more coordinated defense pact. Its chancellor, Friedrich Mears, has begun to question old assumptions about American reliability. But it's going to take more than discussions to fill any gaps left by a US Retreat.
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The United States is kind of an irreplaceable pillar at the moment of NATO. The commander in chief of NATO, the supreme commander, he is always an American, and there's no way the United States will surrender that post to anyone else. America has the most important assets for modern warfare intelligence, number one. They've got satellite networks, they've got anti missile defenses, they've got offensive missile capacities, they've got airlift capacities, a huge air force which the Europeans don't really have, etc. Etc. The list goes on.
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Still, the Journal notes that there are some signs that a transition is already underway. A growing number of key NATO command posts are held by Europeans, and they're leading more military exercises in the coming months. The FIFA Men's World cup is around the corner, and there's been plenty of criticism over the cost to get to a game. The cheapest resale tickets for the opening US game on my last check was more than $2,000 on one site. But a different fight over prices has broken out between FIFA and its largest host sites, New York and New Jersey. Accommodating so many visiting fans for the world's most popular sport is proving to be a challenge for the transit system there. Last week, the Athletic initially reported that it would cost $100 for fans to commute to the stadium.
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That then escalated when we reported that it would be $150.
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Adam Crafton is a reporter for the Athletic.
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And then this was all confirmed on Friday, a news conference that was held by New Jersey Transit, along with other stakeholders, the New York, New Jersey Joint Host Committee for the World Cup.
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MetLife Stadium is roughly an 18 mile round trip journey from New York's Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. It usually costs $12.90 on New Jersey Transit Trains alternatives for the World cup aren't much better either. Organizers announced bus services at $80 a seat without any reduced fare options. Crafton told us the announcement of such steep fares has resulted in anger from locals and others who have already bought their tickets.
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If you're a parent and two kids going to that game and then all of a sudden you have to spend another $300 even more just to get from Manhattan to MetLife Stadium, that's a huge cost.
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New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill has said she supports the higher ticket prices for World cup goers to get to the stadium. She said it will cost New Jersey Transit $48 million to safely move passengers to and from the stadium from New York.
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At the same time, FIFA is making $11 billion off of this World cup and charging fans up to $10,000 for a single ticket for the final. I won't stick New Jersey's commuters with that tab for years to come. That's not fair. So here's the bottom line. FIFA should pay for the rides, but if they don't, I'm not going to let New Jersey commuters get taken for one.
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Mikey Sherrill has come into office early this year, taken a look at her budget and essentially said, we as New Jerseyans are not going to pay for this. And she looked at this organization, FIFA, which is theoretically a non profit organization, but she saw an organization spending 3.6 billion on the tournament and coming away just under 8 billion in profit.
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Now, FIFA, for its part, maintains it reinvests that profit into the global soccer community. And it says that cities will benefit from increased economic activity. They've also come out strongly against Governor Sherrill suggesting that to, quote, arbitrarily set elevated prices and demand FIFA absorb these costs is unprecedented. One FIFA official said the commuter costs would have a chilling effect and would diminish the economic benefit the region stands to gain. Crafton notes that FIFA's strong response against Sheryl stands in contrast to their usual approach.
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It's unusual because FIFA don't usually go on the record to criticize politicians in host countries when Trump talks about potentially relocating World cup games from cities that he deemed to be unsafe, largely Democrat run cities that he deemed to be unsafe. FIFA never really had anything to say by way of criticism of that for their part in the cities.
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And he says at the end of the day, it's fans who might be left in the lurch.
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If we're talking about a chilling effect, I think FIFA also have to have a conversation with themselves over ticket pricing and parking prices. And I'm sure as we get closer, things like concessions within stadiums and all of this sort of stuff is probably going to come into the fray as well.
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Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. President Trump's Labor Secretary Lori Chavez de Ramier resigned on Monday amid allegations of misconduct in her department. An inspector general was reportedly finishing up an investigation into abuse of power claims, including misuse of resources and inappropriate messages to staff. Reporting from the New York Post, among other outlets, cited whistleblowers who said that Secretary Chavez de Ramire had fabricated a official visits to places that she wanted to go, using taxpayer dollars to visit friends and family. She was also accused of having an affair with a subordinate and drinking alcohol on the job. Yesterday, Chavez de Ramire denied the allegations and said they were being pushed by, quote, deep state actors. She is the third cabinet member to leave the administration in less than two months. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced he was stepping down on Monday after leading the company for nearly 15 years. Apple announced that his successor would be John Ternus, a 25 year Apple veteran and current head of the company's hardware engineering division. Ternus is known for having overseen the engineering teams behind the iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch, among others. Cook isn't leaving entirely. He will become Executive chairman of the board starting in September and support the transition over the summer. During Cook's tenure as CEO, Apple's market cap increased by more than 20 fold. He oversaw dozens of new releases, including Apple's first venture into wearables, and overhauled the company's supply chains. In a statement, Cook described the job as, quote, the greatest privilege of my life. This marks the first CEO transition since Cook succeeded Steve Jobs shortly before his death. And finally he did it again, but this time in record fashion. Bingo is the word for champion in Swahili. 201 John Career 20152 Bingo Boston Marathon champion in 2026 back to back for John Career. That course record is the fifth fastest marathon of all time with a blistering sub 5 minute per mile pace. It was a repeat for the women as well as Sharon Locetti won her second consecutive Boston Marathon. Conditions were ripe for a quick race with runners getting a tailwind boost and a chilly start in the 30s. Those two competitors saved their celebrations for after the race. Unlike Carson Melo, who recently went viral after starting to celebrate at the Delaware Marathon moments before he had actually crossed the finish line, only for another competitor to race past and steal the win from him. He ended up losing by all of two seconds. 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 have a narrated article that's coming up next. Time reports on the ever growing problem of space debris and how AI which is accelerating the demand for more satellites in orbit could be making the problem exponentially worse. If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Narrated to find that story and we'll be back with the news tomorrow.