U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been denying people entry into the country after searching their phones. Gaby Del Valle from The Verge details what travelers should know about their rights. Andrea González-Ramírez, senior writer for The Cut, joins to discuss her reporting on a woman who was criminally charged after suffering a miscarriage. The Washington Post’s Patrick Marley tells us what to watch in today’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Plus, the worst quarter for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes in years, the bodies of three U.S. soldiers were recovered in Lithuania, and how April Fools’ pranks can backfire. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Good morning. It's Tuesday, April 1st. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, why Elon Musk is stumping for a state Supreme Court candidate in Wisconsin, what travelers should know about what border officials can access on your phone, and corporate April Fool's jokes that have failed spectacularly. But first, a warning.
Chapter 2: Why was a woman criminally charged after a miscarriage in Georgia?
This segment contains graphic descriptions of a miscarriage. Last month, a 24-year-old woman in Tifton, Georgia, was found unconscious and bleeding. She was transported to a hospital by paramedics who determined that she had miscarried.
But instead of having the time to grieve the loss and recover from the trauma, police charged her with concealing the death of another person and abandonment of a dead body.
This case, of course, has horrified abortion rights advocates and reproductive rights advocates because it's just like yet another example of what pregnancy criminalization looks like after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Andrea Gonzalez-Ramirez is a senior writer with New York magazine's The Cut.
The coroner determined that the fetus gestational age was around 19 weeks, meaning it would not have survived outside of the womb. The coroner also said there was no evidence of harm and that instead the woman had naturally miscarried.
Pregnancy loss is very common. About one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Some women might miscarry and not even realize it. In this specific case, the woman is not being charged for having a miscarriage, but for not properly disposing of the fetal remains, which were found in the dumpster of her apartment complex.
So the question here is like, what should a person do then if they're miscarrying, right? If you have an 11-week pregnancy when that loss might look more like slightly more than a heavy period, right? Does this mean that you're required to scoop the fetal remains from the toilet and take your pad to a hospital or to a coroner or to a funeral home, right?
Like, it just opens up a lot of questions that there's no law, there's no legislation that dictates how people should be handling the product of their miscarriages.
According to The Cut, the woman in the Georgia case was taken to jail and released two days later on bond. This is believed to be the first time that officials in Georgia have tried to use a fetal personhood law to bring criminal charges. Here's Gonzalez-Ramirez again.
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Chapter 3: How does fetal personhood affect abortion rights?
So when we talk about fetal personhood, we're talking about efforts to grant embryos and fetuses the same rights as people.
The reproductive rights advocates have warned that this legal theory not only curbs access to abortion care, but can also impact things like ABF, because in that process, you are creating and often destroying embryos, but also that this can lead to the criminalization of pregnant people, like in this Georgia case.
Granting fetuses equal rights has long been the anti-abortion movement's ultimate goal.
In a sign of how Republicans in Georgia are thinking about the future of pregnancy, the state legislature recently held a hearing on a bill that makes abortion illegal from the moment of fertilization. It would also mean women who terminate their pregnancies could be charged with homicide and it could pose a major threat to in vitro fertilization.
And while the cut explains that timing-wise, there's no chance the bill will pass before the end of this legislative session, Georgia already has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. Opponents warn a measure like this will certainly make the problem far worse.
Let's turn now to Wisconsin, where a local election has turned into something of a national political temperature check. Today, voters will decide if Brad Schimel or Susan Crawford will be elected to the state's Supreme Court. Currently, the balance on that court is 4-3 in favor of liberal-leaning justices.
So this race could tip the ideological scale, which would impact rulings on issues like abortion and congressional district maps. But there's been a curveball thrown into the contest. Elon Musk and allied groups have spent an estimated $20 million in support of Schimel, making it the most expensive judicial race in history. Over the weekend, Musk traveled to Wisconsin.
He put on a signature Green Bay cheesehead and described the stakes of the race as he sees it.
I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it's going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.
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Chapter 4: What is at stake in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
There's one other issue the court could take up soon that would be very personal for Elon Musk.
Right before he got involved in the race, Musk's electric car company, Tesla, did sue the state over a law that it has that bans car manufacturers from owning dealerships. He's trying to change that law. That's certainly a case that could get to the state Supreme Court.
Part of Musk's efforts on Sunday involved giving two voters $1 million and paying other voters smaller sums if they signed a petition and provided their contact information, similar to what he did for November's election. Wisconsin's Democratic attorney general said that Musk was violating a state anti-bribery law.
The state Supreme Court declined to take the case days before an election that would impact its very makeup. Marley told us voters in Wisconsin are hoping tomorrow's race is a bellwether of what's to come.
Chapter 5: Why is Elon Musk involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
Most voters really do seem to see this as a test of Donald Trump and his agenda after winning the presidency, with his supporters saying, hey, we won the swing state in November. We can keep it going. Let's build this momentum. And the Democratic voters saying, you know, we faced a bunch of losses. We're totally out of power in the federal government.
This is one small way to show that we're fighting back against Trumpism.
In recent weeks, there have been multiple instances of Customs and Border Protection denying people entry to the U.S. after searching their devices. That includes a French scientist who French government officials say was turned away after a search of his phone revealed messages critical of Trump's cuts to research programs, and a Lebanese physician at Brown University with a valid U.S.
visa who agents say had content on her phone sympathetic to Hezbollah.
I got a lot of questions, you know, from my friends, from my colleagues asking, should I be traveling with my phone right now?
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Chapter 6: What legal issues could impact Tesla in Wisconsin?
Gabby Del Valle is a reporter with The Verge covering immigration politics and border surveillance technology.
What happens if they ask to see my phone? Am I required to show them? And the answer is that it depends on your immigration status in the U.S. and also kind of on where you're flying into or entering the country.
We called up Del Valle to ask what travelers should know about their rights.
So travelers' rights to decline a search depend on several factors, including their immigration status. If you're a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident, you can decline a search, but CBP can take your phone and they can hold on to it. If you are a visa holder, you can decline a search, but then you can also be denied entry into the U.S. for declining a search.
CBP device searches have been pretty rare. Less than 0.01% of arriving international travelers had their electronics searched in the 2024 fiscal year. But the recent wave of headlines suggests things are shifting.
The Trump administration is kind of taking this like whole of government approach to immigration enforcement. They're not just, you know, trying to completely stop immigration at the border. And they're not just like doing ice raids in the interior of the country. They're also using CBP's presence at airports to conduct what appears to be like more stringent or additional screenings of travelers.
These are practices that have been in place for a long time, but given the Trump administration's kind of heightened interest in immigration enforcement, I think that's why we're seeing so many more reports of this now.
In the past, the Supreme Court has found that cell phone searches that take place without a warrant violate the Fourth Amendment. But border searches are exempt, and airports, regardless of where they are geographically in the country, are considered to be border zones. which means the screenshots, memes, and messages on your phone are all fair game when you enter the country.
The things on your phone, even things that you think are innocuous, can absolutely be used against you if you're seeking entry into the United States. But they can also be used against you or taken if you're a U.S. citizen. While I was reporting this, I came across stories of U.S. citizens who have had their devices searched and seized at the border as well, including one immigration lawyer who
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