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Why Putin wants control of Ukraine’s Donbas region · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Wednesday, April 20th. I'm Shumita Basu.
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  Duarte Geraldino, Narrating: And I'm Duarte Geraldino. 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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  Basu: Ukrainian troops in Mariupol are holding out against Russian forces, but it's not clear how long they can last. The strategic port city near the Russian border has been the focus of intense attacks. The whole Ukrainian region of Donbas is bracing for tougher fighting in the days ahead, as Vladimir Putin concentrates his attacks on eastern Ukraine.
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  Duarte Geraldino: The "BBC" looks at why Russia is focusing on Donbas. It's not just that it's close to Russian territory. It's also rich in natural resources and is a longtime industrial center. It's an area where many people speak Russian. Pro-Moscow forces had control over some territory there even before the war.
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  Basu: You can see it more clearly if you look at the maps "BBC" has on the Apple News app. Taking Donbas would put Russia in control of territory closer to Crimea, the strategic peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. Ukraine's military believes that Putin now wants control of Donbas and more.
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  Duarte Geraldino: Russian forces are intensely going after this area, so the "BBC" spoke to strategy analysts about Ukraine's chances of holding on to Donbas. One thing Ukraine has going for it is that new shipments of heavy weapons from the U.S. and other allies have been arriving to bolster its fighters. But Russia is reinforcing its troops and regrouping in the east. Now, analysts are skeptical that Russian forces can make a quick breakthrough. But in terms of the overall strength of the Ukrainian defenders, that's just not clear.
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  In Shanghai, some COVID lockdown rules are easing, but more than 16 million people are still confined to their homes, in this city of 25 million people. Strict rules have forced businesses to close. Some people are relying on government food deliveries because they're banned from going outside to shop for groceries. And while exact figures aren't known, so far it seems a lot of people testing positive are only reporting mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. This is why some of them are now starting to question whether the lockdown rules in Shanghai have gone too far.
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  Basu: The city has been testing extensively and isolating people who test positive in quarantine centers. "The Wall Street Journal" focuses in on the experience of one woman, a 30-year-old Ukrainian who lives in Shanghai. She tested positive for COVID, with mild symptoms. So, she ended up in a mass quarantine center for nearly three weeks. During that time, she says she didn't see darkness. The center kept the lights on 24 hours a day.
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  Duarte Geraldino: She also says she was surrounded by 4,000 other people, so it was hard to find a quiet moment or enough privacy to change her clothes. And she told the "Journal" that over those three weeks, she wasn't able to shower. And only after she tested negative three times was she finally released. She told the "Journal" this experience made her feel like a criminal.
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  Basu: "Reuters" reports on how lockdown tensions are pitting neighbors against neighbors. In one case, a woman who was brought to a quarantine center accused her neighbor of reporting her to authorities. Older residents are reportedly turning in younger ones, calling for them to be taken away if they suspect they might have the disease. And in another case, a building manager tried to block a family's food deliveries unless they shared their latest test results. One person said, this situation is putting residents in the position of acting as doctor, police officer and judge at the same time.
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  Maybe you think of Facebook as a place where you see life updates, paid ads and unsolicited opinions. But I bet you haven't tried going to Facebook to buy a wild animal.
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  Gavin Butler: One dealer was selling me two leopard cat cubs. He would only sell them as a pair, but he was selling them for the equivalent of 280 U.S. dollars.
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  Duarte Geraldino: That's "VICE" reporter Gavin Butler. A recent World Wildlife Fund report says there's been a 74% increase in the number of wildlife sale listings on Facebook, including some threatened species. To get a sense of this market, Butler posed as a shopper to see how quickly and easily these deals happen.
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  Butler: Someone who was selling me the cub of an Asiatic black bear. And then of course there was the gentleman who was offering to sell me a tiger.
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  Basu: Yeah, it turns out it wasn't too hard to arrange. Butler's article is titled "It Took Us Less Than 24 Hours to Order an Endangered Tiger on Facebook." He exchanged some messages with someone who claimed to be an animal trafficker, and he could have agreed to meet him in Myanmar for the tiger pick-up. 29,000 dollars in cash. To be clear, we're talking about the illegal and unregulated trade of wild animals. A lot of these sales go through Myanmar. The animal trafficking industry there has been booming ever since last year's military coup and political upheaval.
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  Durate Geraldino, Narrating: The fact that you can buy or sell wild animals from a faraway country on social media is alarming for so many reasons. For one, it creates a market where people profit off mistreatment of animals.
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  Butler: It monetarily incentivizes people to go out and capture them from the wild. It contributes to the erosion of their population numbers because you're getting people who are catching them, keeping them in pretty awful conditions.
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  Duarte Geraldino: Facebook's parent company Meta told "VICE" that the sale or trade of endangered species on its apps is prohibited, and it's working to address illegal trading.
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  Today is 4/20, a day synonymous with marijuana. Now, there are a lot of claims and misconceptions about how that came to be. The "L.A. Times" recently spoke to some guys who claim to have started 4/20 a half century ago. And they have some evidence to back it up.
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  Basu: Right, so this is their story. Back in the 1970s, there were five friends at San Rafael High School in northern California who referred to themselves as the Waldos. That's a reference to the wall they would sit on at their school, like their hang-out spot.
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  And they would challenge themselves to get high together and go on adventures. And at some point, they decided to start gathering at 4: 20 p.m. Eventually, "420" became their secret code for getting together to smoke.
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  Duarte Geraldino: So, how'd it go from a Bay Area high school to the mainstream? Well, in this interview with the "L.A. Times," one of the Waldos explains that after high school, he was a roadie with the Grateful Dead. Backstage, they would pass around joints and use the term "420" and it became part of the Deadhead lexicon. Years later, "High Times" wrote about 420 and started using the term. And over time, it became more mainstream.
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  Basu: Now, the Waldos claim to have a lot of proof that they are the ones who started this slang, including letters that they had from the 1970s where they used the term. Fifty years later, these Waldos, they're still friends. And they told the "L.A. Times," when they can, they still get together on 4/20 and light up.
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  Duarte Geraldino: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
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  Basu: And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners.
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  Duarte Geraldino: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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