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At U.N. assembly, world condemns Putin’s war escalation · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, September 23rd. I'm Shumita Basu. 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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  We're following several important international stories, as world leaders convene this week in New York for the U.N. General Assembly. We'll talk about how they acknowledged the flooding crisis in Pakistan in just a moment. But let's start with talks on Russia, as Vladimir Putin mobilizes hundreds of thousands of troops and begins an illegal process to try to annex large parts of Ukraine.
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  At yesterday's Security Council meeting, leaders gathered to discuss allegations of war crimes by Russian forces and how to hold Russia accountable. They called on Russia to end its nuclear threats. Notably, Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was absent for most of the meeting. But according to a senior official at the U.S. State Department, Russia, quote, "felt the hot breath of world opinion." Here's U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressing the meeting.
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  Antony Blinken: One man chose this war, one man can end it. Because if Russia stops fighting, the war ends. If Ukraine stop fighting, Ukraine ends. That's why we will continue to support Ukraine as it defends itself and strengthen its hand to achieve a diplomatic solution on just terms at a negotiating table.
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  Blinken criticized Russia's plans to annex parts of Ukraine through so-called "referendums" that begin today. It's a violation of international law.
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  Antony Blinken: This is a diabolical strategy: violently uproot thousands of Ukrainians, bus in Russians to replace them, call a vote and manipulate the results to show near unanimous support for joining the Russian Federation. This is right out of the Crimea playbook.
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  World leaders at the U.N. this week also acknowledged the situation in Pakistan, where devastating floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains killed 1500 people and destroyed villages, crops and livestock. President Joe Biden spoke about Pakistan in his address to the assembly on Wednesday.
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  President Joe Biden: Much of Pakistan is still underwater. It needs help. Meanwhile, the Horn of Africa faces unprecedented drought. Families are facing impossible choices, choosing which child to feed, and wondering whether they'll survive. This is the human cost of climate change. And it's growing, not lessening.
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  Officials in Pakistan are saying it could take anywhere from three to six months for the flood waters to recede.
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  The flooding also brings increased risk of water-borne diseases. "The Guardian" has reporting on the tragic toll this is taking on children. Reporters there spoke with one dad who says all four of his daughters have fallen sick. Two have high fevers and their skin is literally peeling from wading through flood waters for hours. Nearly 600 children have died in since the flooding started in June. According to UNICEF, around three and a half million children are in need of immediate aid.
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  There's not much time to spare on the House calendar, and Democrats have a long list of legislation they want to bring to a vote before the midterms. The timing here is key. Political wins can galvanize voters. There's also the possibility that Democrats will lose their narrow majorities. Both reasons to try to speed through their agenda.
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  As usual, they've still got to hammer out the government budget for the next year, but just this week, House Democrats passed a long-delayed funding package for policing and a bill that makes it harder to overturn certified presidential election results.
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  There's another outstanding issue that hasn't gotten top billing, but has broad implications. Should members of Congress be banned from trading stocks? A bipartisan group of Congress members thinks there should be a ban, and a bill could be up for a vote in the House as soon as this month. There's already a law on the books that lays out what Congress members are and aren't allowed to do: the STOCK Act, passed in 2012. It says they can buy and sell financial assets as long as they don't trade on insider information, and they're required to disclose transactions worth $1,000 or more within 45 days.
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  But "Insider" investigated this issue for months and found dozens of lawmakers who violated the STOCK Act. They found nearly 75 federal lawmakers held stock in companies like Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson and many were buying and trading in the early days of the pandemic. At least 15 lawmakers who actively shape U.S. defense policy are also invested in military contractors. Many are invested in cryptocurrency, while government officials are debating how they should be regulated.
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  And just last week, "The New York Times" put out a report finding that at least 97 current members of Congress, or members of their families, bought or sold financial assets that overlapped with their work.
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  When asked for explanations, some Congress members claimed it was clerical error, mistakes made by accountants or assets moved without their knowledge. The penalty for violating the STOCK Act is usually a $200 fine.
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  Now, this new bill aims to change that by banning stock trading for Congress members and requiring them to put certain assets in a blind trust. Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger is one of the bill's co-sponsors. She told "Yahoo News" why she thinks the vote has been delayed.
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  Abigail Spanberger: I think there's perhaps a hesitance toward change. It's one that the American people wanna see overwhelmingly. And it's one that bipartisan legislators, you know, across the political spectrum recognize a need to make this change.
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  And this is a popular proposal with voters across the board. A recent "Fox News" poll found 44% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans are strongly in favor of a stock ban for Congress members and their families. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said a vote will happen before the end of September, it's unlikely that the Senate will vote on their version of this bill until after the midterms.
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  Tonight, Roger Federer will play his last match. It's the end of an incredible, and incredibly long, career in tennis. He first broke into the top 20 as a teenager, and he became the oldest number one player in the history of men's tennis in 2018 at the age of 36. He holds 20 Grand Slam titles, and he was the subject of that now legendary David Foster Wallace article that coined the phrase "a Federer Moment" to describe the way he reliably delivers these shocking, near impossible plays. Tonight for his last match, he teams up with another all-time legend and major rival, Rafael Nadal, in a doubles match at the Laver Cup in London.
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  Chris Almeida: It's sad for me personally. I mean, I am in the media, but I make very little effort to hide that I am a Federer partisan.
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  That's Chris Almeida, a staff editor at "Sports Illustrated." Now, a lot of people talk about the fluidity of Federer's game. The one-handed backhand, a style of play that often dawn comparisons to a ballet dancer. But Almeida said that Federer's reputation as a good person is a critical part of his legacy too.
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  Almeida: Federer was well known as being the guy who would just always be around, always be accommodating, always try to basically never big time anyone. And in a sport like this, where some of the big figures have gotten extremely, extremely big, I think it's really quite something that it never seemed to really go to his head.
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  His retirement coincides with that of another tennis giant, Serena Williams. Professional tennis will look so different without the two of them, but Almeida thinks it's in a good place going forward, with rising talents like 19 year old U.S. Open winner Carlos Alcaraz. As for Federer himself, here's what he told CNBC International about his last match.
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  Roger Federer: Of course it will be emotional at the very end. Look, it has to be. I was always an emotional player and maybe we'll see more of that. I don't know. I'm just hoping that I will get through the match somehow. [CHUCKLES]
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  You can find more coverage of the match later on tonight in the Apple News app.
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  Okay, we've got one more sports story for you because right now, baseball is having a huge moment.
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  Katie Nolan: We have the chance right now to witness history happening. This is otherworldly. It feels like baseball magic.
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  That's Katie Nolan, a commentator for Apple TV+ "Friday Night Baseball." And what she's talking about there are two players who are on the verge of hitting major milestones. The first is Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals. He's close to hitting his 700th career home run after 22 seasons in the majors. Only three players in the history of baseball belong to the 700 club.
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  Nolan: And you know their names: Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. It's three names that, like, if you had to name three baseball players and you had barely watched any baseball in your life, you'd probably name those three. So he has a chance to become the fourth guy to do that.
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  And he'll be attempting to do it at the age of 42 in his final season.
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  The other player on the verge of a milestone is New York Yankees star outfielder Aaron Judge, who is just two shy of 62 home runs. That would break the American League record set by Roger Maris over six decades ago. Now, there's been some debate online about whether breaking this record would make Judge the true home run king.
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  Nolan: So there's no debate in the American League with the record, but if you're going for Major League Baseball record or National League record, there's a little bit of controversy there.
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  The controversy being that technically, three other people have hit more home runs in a season. Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. But their accomplishments are considered tainted by some because it was during baseball's steroid era. Wherever you may stand on that debate, if Aaron Judge can do it today, it'll be the high note at the end of a huge year for him.
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  Nolan: The Yankees made him an offer at the beginning of the season. He didn't like it. He thought he was worth more. Now, he's out here proving that he's worth a lot more.
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  Now, Nolan will have one of the best seats in the world tonight. She'll be live in the booth broadcasting for Apple TV+ during tonight's game.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And check out our weekend interview show, "In Conversation." This week, I talk with Sarah Hepola at "Texas Monthly," who reported on the history of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. One thing we talked about was pay.
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  Sarah Hepola: And so, as they're on bestselling calendars, as they're on the love boat, et cetera, they're still making $15 a game. And amazingly, this goes through the '80s. It doesn't change until the late '90s.
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  Enjoy that weekend listen. I'll be back with the news on Monday.
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