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Zelenskyy’s emotional address to Congress for more help · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Wednesday, March 16th. I'm Shumita Basu. Duarte Geraldino is off. 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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  Today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy remotely addressed a joint session of Congress. He called on American lawmakers to do more.
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  [START ARCHIVAL NEWS CLIP]
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  Volodymyr Zelenskyy: The American people are helping not just Ukraine, but Europe and the world to keep the planet alive, to keep justice in history.
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  [END ARCHIVAL NEWS CLIP]
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  It was an emotional speech. "POLITICO" reports that some lawmakers were seen wiping away tears. Zelenskyy evoked moments from American history: Pearl Harbor, 9-11. And through an interpreter, while calling for fighter aircraft, he quoted Martin Luther King Jr.
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  [START ARCHIVAL NEWS CLIP]
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  Volodymyr Zelenskyy: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
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  Translator: "I have a dream." These words are known to each of you today. I can say I have a need. I need to protect our sky. I need… [VOICE TRAILS OFF]
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  [END ARCHIVAL NEWS CLIP]
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  It's very rare for a foreign leader to speak directly to Congress in this way. In his video address, Zelenskyy wore a green t-shirt and sat beside a Ukrainian flag. He asked the West to implement a no-fly zone. It's something key American leaders have clearly said they won't do, as it could escalate into a much bigger global conflict with Russia.
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  Zelenskyy also asked for more military aid and called on lawmakers to appeal to businesses in their states to send more help.
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  At one point, Zelenskyy showed lawmakers a graphic video of images of war. You could see bombs hitting civilian targets throughout Ukraine, people who are injured and bloodied. And he called on President Biden to be, quote, "the leader of the world," which he says means being the leader of peace.
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  Where is Brittney Griner? That's the question a lot of people are asking after the news that the WNBA star was arrested in Russia, weeks ago. The Russian government says she's being detained after they found cannabis oil in her luggage. But one "Washington Post" journalist is skeptical of those claims. He's calling her detention politically motivated, and he's worried about her.
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  Jason Rezaian: We're about a month into this, and we still have not heard from Brittney Griner.
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  Jason Rezaian is a global opinions writer for "The Post." He follows the stories of Americans being held hostage abroad very closely, and that's because, at one point, he was one of them. For 18 months, Rezaian was held hostage by the Iranian government.
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  Rezaian: I was working very transparently as a member of the international media for "The Washington Post." I was abducted from my home, taken with my wife, thrown in solitary confinement, interrogated relentlessly for weeks, held incommunicado from my family, from my employers and everyone else.
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  Rezaian was released in 2016. When I asked him about Griner's case, he said he sees two major issues.
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  Rezaian: First and foremost, anytime an American is detained in another country, when that country's state media is the source of that information, I think that's the first red flag. The other big red flag is the fact that, as far as her congressional representatives say, she's not had consular access. Anytime an American or national of any country is arrested in a foreign country, one of the first things that is a right that you have is the ability to talk to people of your home country that represent you. From what we understand, she's been denied that right.
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  Griner is not the only American currently being held in Russia. There are at least two other Americans there, both veterans: Trevor Reed and Paul Whelan. The U.S. government has referred to Reed and Whelan's arrests as, quote, "wrongful detentions." But Rezaian doesn't like to use that phrase.
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  Rezaian: I'd like to use the term "state hostage" when we talk about wrongful detention because I think the diplomatic niceties often confuse the public.
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  He says more and more Americans are being held hostage by foreign governments, especially during moments of intense political or military conflict. Rezaian says the U.S. needs to view these actions as serial crimes and do more to deter governments from doing this. Because unless there are consequences, it'll keep happening. Until that changes, for Griner and others held abroad, that may mean difficult negotiations.
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  Rezaian: Ultimately, the idea that the U.S. does not provide concessions to hostage takers is a long-standing myth. All of the past experience that I have and everything that I've seen is that there's always a concession to getting Americans freed from being held hostage. I wish that were not the case, but until we have deterrence in place that makes it so that adversarial countries don't wanna do this anymore, we're gonna have to come up with ways to secure releases, and sometimes it's gonna be unsavory.
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  If you're interested in learning more about other Americans who are being held hostage by foreign governments, Rezaian worked on a documentary about the issue for "The Post." It's called "Bring Them Home."
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  It's been one year since a man shot and killed eight people in spas in the Atlanta area. Six of the victims were Asian women. These murders brought new attention to the rise of anti-Asian violence since the start of the pandemic. And sadly, in the year since then, there have been a number of high-profile, violent and even fatal attacks on Asians in America. "CNN" takes an in-depth look at the traumatic effect this is having on Asian American women especially, and the difficulty of identifying a clear root of the problem.
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  The numbers are large. Around three in four Asian American and Pacific Islander women say they experienced racism or discrimination in the past year. Many feel the climate of hatred sets the stage for violence. Communities have taken different steps toward finding solutions.
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  Some Asian American women see the seeds of violence in street harassment. In California, state lawmakers have worked with an anti-racist group to treat street harassment as a public health issue.
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  In New York, the death of a woman who was pushed onto the subway tracks led to a plan to make public transit safer. An advocate for the Asian community said this was a step, but worried that throwing police at the problem was not a complete answer.
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  Another activist says none of the moves made in the last year are a cure-all to the problem, but she's optimistic that many of these approaches are about making public spaces safer. A majority of incidents reported to the group Stop AAPI Hate happened out in the open.
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  One woman spoke to "CNN" about a racist encounter she had in public. This was in August of 2020. A man asked her to lunch, she declined, and he yelled derogatory insults at her for several minutes, which she filmed. When police arrived, they told her it wasn't a crime. She struggled with what else to do. Eventually, she decided to post the video on social media. Her story prompted others to come forward with similar accounts. And she says the police department later apologized to her and documented her experience as a hate incident.
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  COVID cases are rising in Europe, which could be a preview of what's in store for America. And this comes as there are new worries about funding for U.S. government programs to fight the Coronavirus.
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  "CNN" looks at the situation abroad. The numbers that U.S. doctors are concerned about come from the U.K. COVID cases rose by around half in a week. Hospitalizations were up nearly 20% in the same period. Daily cases are still below the Omicron peak, though.
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  Now the timing here matters because it's now been two weeks since the U.K. dropped its last standing COVID mitigation measure. More and more U.S. states have rolled back their rules too, so health officials say we may be in for a similar jump in cases here.
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  So that's what may be coming. "NPR's" reporting looks at America's defenses, specifically concerns about funding to fight COVID here. The White House says it's running out of money to vaccinate, test and treat people who don't have insurance. Press Secretary Jen Psaki has argued that there will be major problems if Congress doesn't provide more funding.
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  Jen Psaki: Those consequences are dire: fewer monoclonal antibodies sent to states, an inability to purchase additional treatments, fewer tests available to Americans, less surveillance for future variants, and a risk of running short on vaccines.
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  [END CNN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  But tens of billions of dollars in additional COVID money didn't make it into the spending bill that Biden signed into law yesterday. Republicans and Democrats couldn't agree on details around allocating money for key COVID programs.
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  There was typical partisan finger-pointing, but in the end, the thing to know is: new money is not coming. The U.S. has to make things work with what's there now, even as signs from Europe point to possible new dangers.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And it's not just hard news stories like we focused on in today's show. If you want something different, I like this story from "Washingtonian" about Daylight Saving Time. Maybe you heard, the Senate just passed a bill to end the changing of the clocks. But this article points out, we've tried this before, twice. And apparently, America hated it. So check out that article - it's an interesting bit of history - and we'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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