Maya: Good morning, and welcome to the Morning Rundown. I'm Maya, alongside David, and we have a packed show for you today.
David: Packed is an understatement. Like, where do you even start?
Maya: Okay, so the Supreme Court handed the Trump administration two major wins this morning, immigration, gun rights, big ideologically split rulings.
David: Yeah, and on top of that, Florida's Alligator-Alcatraz Detention Center is officially closing. That story has layers.
Maya: Right? And then globally, Venezuela just got hit by twin earthquakes at least 188 dead, and CBS News says the toll is likely to rise.
David: That's devastating. And meanwhile, Ukraine launched
Maya: what Wow.
David: AP is calling one of its biggest drone strikes of the entire war, 660 drones into Russia overnight,
Maya: 660 that number stopped me cold.
David: and Iran struck a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. So the Middle East peace is a lot.
Maya: Oh, an Apple stock dropped sharply. Price hikes on MacBooks and iPads blaming AI chip costs. NBC News is calling it RAMageddon.
David: RAMageddon. I love that. Also, possible Taylor Swift wedding at Madison Square Garden on the 4th of July?
Maya: Yes, that too. All right, Supreme Court first. The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration two major wins yesterday, and the scale of it is something.
David: Yeah, let's start with the bigger one. The court ruled 6-3 that the administration can strip Temporary Protected Status from Haitians and Syrians. The BBC had the numbers. 350,000 Haitians, 6,100 Syrians.
Maya: That's wild, right? These are people who've been living here legally for years in many cases, and now the path to deportation is wide open.
David: AP News framed it this way, TPS is a program that covers 1.3 million people from 17 countries total. This ruling clears the administration to act on Haitians and Syrians first, but it's a signal about the rest of the program too.
Maya: So it's not just those two groups watching this.
David: Right. And the Washington Post called it another victory at the high court for an administration that keeps running the table on immigration.
Maya: I mean, the lower courts had blocked this twice. Federal judges said no, and then the Supreme Court just reversed both of those orders.
David: That's the pattern. Administration moves, lower courts pump the brakes, Supreme Court says actually, go ahead. It happened on border enforcement last turn, too.
Maya: Hmm. And then separately, Reuters reported the court also struck down Hawaii's handgun restrictions, same day.
David: Different case, same direction. The court's reading of the Second Amendment keeps getting narrower on government restrictions and broader on individual rights. Hawaii had some of the tightest handgun rules in the country.
Maya: And those are gone now.
David: Gone.
Maya: Okay, and then there's this third thing I cannot stop thinking about. Florida's alligator Alcatraz.
David: The name alone.
Maya: Formerly known as the Glades Detention Center is closing. Governor DeSantis announced it Thursday. The AP reported he said about 21,000 people were deported through that facility.
David: And the reasoning is basically mission accomplished. They built it fast in the Everglades as overflow capacity. City federal officials say they have enough permanent space now, so it's done.
Maya: Which, I mean, if the numbers hold, that's a lot of throughput for a temporary airstrip in a swamp.
David: It really is. Advocates had serious criticisms about conditions. Detainees reported problems with heat, access to legal help, but the administration's line is it worked and they don't need it anymore.
Maya: And from a policy standpoint, closing it makes sense with the Supreme Court wins. You don't need overflow detention if you have a cleaner legal path to move people through faster.
David: Follow the money, or in this case, follow the capacity. They are consolidating.
Maya: That tracks.
David: So you've got TPS effectively dismantled for two major groups, Second Amendment restrictions knocked down in Hawaii, and the Everglades detention center shuttered all in one day.
Maya: That is a lot of legal ground covered in twenty four hours.
David: And this six three split on the TPS ruling? That's the conservative majority doing exactly what it was built to do. No surprises there, but the consequences for real people are not abstract. Exactly.
Maya: Right. 350,000 people from Haiti alone woke up to a very different legal reality this morning.
David: That's the number that sticks with me.
Maya: You know, while Washington was grinding through all of this, the rest of the world was not exactly sitting still either. We're talking earthquakes, a massive drone assault, and a cargo ship getting hit in one of the most important waterways on the planet. So what do you do when every crisis is happening at once? Okay, so while all of that was happening here at home, the rest of the world had a very busy day.
David: Understatement of the year.
Maya: Venezuela. Twin earthquakes. CBS News is reporting at least 188 dead, around 1,500 injured, and officials are saying that number is going to keep climbing.
David: That's devastating.
Maya: The USGS clocked the two quakes at magnitude 7.2 and 7.5. CNN's live coverage is calling the second one the most powerful Venezuela has seen in over a century.
David: And this is a country that was already on the ropes politically, economically. The infrastructure to handle a disaster like this just isn't there.
Maya: Exactly. Rescuers are in this race against the clock. There's a window to pull people from collapsed buildings, and CNN's reporting says that window is closing fast.
David: Yeah, follow that one closely today.
Maya: Okay. Then Ukraine, and David, this one's yours.
David: Right. Right, so the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck a cargo ship near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz. CBS News and the Washington Post both covered it. The ship was on a UN-backed shipping lane actually set up by the UN and Oman specifically to create a safer route.
Maya: Wait, they hit a ship on a route specifically designed to be safer?
David: That's the move, yeah. And Iran is simultaneously floating this idea of charging with... with their calling transit fees for ships passing through the Strait.
Maya: Transit fees? That sounds almost polite for what it actually is.
David: Right. About a fifth of the world's oil moves through that Strait. If Iran starts taxing or just threatening every ship in that corridor, you're looking at higher shipping costs, tighter energy markets, and eventually higher prices on everything that moves by sea.
Maya: So it hits people at the pump, maybe at the grocery store too?
David: That's where it ends up, yeah. And this is happening while the U.S. and Iran are still in nuclear negotiations. The IAEA chief told CBS News a very strong verification system is going to be needed after any deal. So the stakes on all of this are stacked pretty high.
Maya: Nothing is ever just one thing with Iran, is it?
David: Never. Follow the money, and in this case, follow the tankers.
Maya: Okay. Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran. That is a lot before 8 a.m.
David: Could be worse.
Maya: Speaking of things hitting your wallet, Apple just raised prices on iPads and MacBooks, and there's a rumor about Taylor Swift that New York City is absolutely losing its mind over. Over.
David: Oh, I saw that Swift thing-I have questions.
Maya: So do the NYPD, apparently. We'll get into all of it right after this. Okay, shifting gears. Apple's having a rough week.
David: Yeah, rough is one word for it. Down 6.12% in a single day. That's about $265 billion in market value gone.
Maya: Wait, $265 billion in one day?
David: One day. NBC News had the full breakdown. And it's because they hiked prices on MacBooks, iPads, the iMac line. across the board.
Maya: And the reason is chips. AI is eating up memory and storage chips so fast that Apple says it literally can't absorb the cost anymore. The Guardian reported the MacBook Neo, which just launched, by the way, goes from $599 to $699.
David: A hundred bucks. Just like that.
Maya: Right. And the kicker, iPhones are fine for now. So if you needed a new laptop... Too bad timing.
David: I mean, this is what happens when every tech company on earth is racing to build AI data centers. The chip shortage doesn't stay contained in server rooms. It leaks out into your MacBook price.
Maya: Follow the money, right? It starts at the data center and ends at your credit card bill.
David: Exactly. And Apple said outright they cannot shield customers from this. That's a notable admission from a company that has spent years doing exactly that. Exactly that.
Maya: Yeah, they built their whole supply chain to avoid this moment. And here we are. Okay, can we do the Taylor Swift thing now?
David: Please.
Maya: So, Madison Square Garden, Fourth of July weekend, a street closure permit has been filed near MSG, invitations have reportedly gone out, and according to CNN, even the NYPD officers standing outside the Garden is skeptical.
David: What do they say?
Maya: Quote, she wouldn't get married here. An NYPD cop. About Taylor Swift.
David: I mean, they have a point. MSG is not exactly vineyard vibes.
Speaker 3: No, but the BBC confirmed the permit exists, filed in early June to close streets around the arena over Fourth of July weekend, so something is happening.
David: Or someone wants us to think something is happening.
Speaker 3: Okay, valid. But Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift, Madison Square Garden, Independence Day. The story basically writes itself.
David: It does. The whole city is in chaos over a rumor.
Speaker 3: New York is losing its mind. And honestly, same. If it's real, that's unhinged, iconic, very American way to get married. I respect it.
David: We'll know soon enough. Fourth of July is right around the corner.
Speaker 3: Watch this space. Alright, that's our lineup for this morning.
Maya: And that's the Rundown for today. What a day, honestly.
David: Supreme Court, a massive drone strike, earthquakes in Venezuela, a lot of ground.
Speaker 3: The one thing I keep coming back to is that TPS ruling. The scale of what that signals for 1.3 million people, it's not a small thing.
David: Right. And Iran taxing ships to the Strait of Hormuz. File that one away. That one's going to keep showing up.
Speaker 3: Plus a possible Taylor Swift wedding on the 4th of July? So, you know, balanced coverage.
David: Obviously.
Speaker 3: If you got something out of today, subscribe and leave us a review. It helps.
David: We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 3: And that's the Rundown.