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Why Russia’s words about the war worry the U.S. · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Monday, May 2nd. 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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  Nancy Pelosi is in Poland today. The House Speaker is visiting the NATO ally after a surprise visit to Kyiv over the weekend. The trip comes as concern grows about Russia's war spilling over in a way that could lead to deeper U.S. involvement. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez talked about the rising stakes on "Meet the Press" Sunday.
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  Bob Menendez: I think we will do what it takes to see Ukraine win because it's not just about Ukraine, it is about the international order. If Ukraine does not win, if Putin can ultimately not only succeed in the Donbas, but then be emboldened maybe to go further, if he strikes a country under NATO, under our treaty obligations with NATO, then we would be directly engaged.
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  He's talking about Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty, something that's coming up more and more lately. It says an attack on any NATO country is considered an attack on all of them. So, a Russian attack on Poland could lead to a U.S. response.
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  We talked about this a bit on the show last week, signs that the war may get bigger, but we didn't get into the narrative inside Russia. Russian propaganda is increasingly framing this war not as a fight with Ukraine, but as a much larger conflict with the West. "The Wall Street Journal" explains what to understand about Russia's messaging right now, and why it may get even more intense this week.
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  May 9th is Victory Day, a holiday in Russia marking the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The "Journal" points out that the Kremlin is using state controlled media to tie that historic moment to Russia's current war. This is in line with ongoing propaganda falsely portraying Ukraine's leaders as Nazis.
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  Moscow's message to Russians is that the West is trying to strangle Russia and take away its independence. Add to that Russian officials talking about nuclear strikes and World War III, and that's why you have U.S. Senators talking about NATO's Article 5, which, by the way, has only been invoked once in history: after the September 11th attacks.
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  Some of the most stressful times on a flight happen right as people are getting on the plane. Right? People are struggling to fit their bags somewhere, kids are crying, sometimes adults are crying, and who has to stay calm through it all? The flight attendants. That's why I was shocked to learn recently that flight attendants are not paid during boarding. The industry standard is to start paying them after the doors close.
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  Nell McShane Wulfhart: There's a lot of unpaid labor that goes into being a flight attendant.
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  That's Nell McShane Wulfhart. She's the author of the book, "The Great Stewardess Rebellion." And she recently wrote an article for "TIME" magazine about efforts to unionize flight attendants. She said there's lots of demands placed on them, and they're time consuming.
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  Wulfhart: The uniforms have to be perfect and, you know, ironed and impeccably clean. There has to be makeup, and hairstyles, and the right shoes, and even the right luggage. There's an incredible amount of time and effort that flight attendants, particularly female flight attendants, have to put into just looking right for the job and being prepared for the job, and they're not paid for any of that.
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  Now, Delta is the second largest airline in the country, with around 24,000 flight attendants. And it's the only major airline where flight attendants are not unionized, though that might soon change. There's, right now, a huge union effort underway, something that the airline is fighting against, hard. Which is part of why it recently agreed to break with industry standards and start paying flight attendants during boarding time. Compensation will start at 50% of an attendant's hourly rate.
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  Wulfhart says one reason to pay attention to this unionization effort is because, in a lot of ways, flight attendants have been on the frontlines of the labor movement for decades. They were held to pretty sexist standards.
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  Wulfhart: Back in the 1960s and 70s, if you were a flight attendant who wanted to get married, you would lose your job. If you got pregnant, you would lose your job. And at most airlines, when you turned 32, you would also be fired. So, in addition to that, there were also limits on your weight. Everyone had to maintain a very strict weight that was determined according to height. You couldn't wear glasses. You had to have straight teeth, and perfect skin, and no scars.
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  Today, the challenges are different, but the pandemic has created new ones.
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  Wulfhart: The pandemic really inspired a spate of terrible passenger behavior among people flying, people who didn't wanna wear masks, who didn't wanna listen to safety instructions. There were physical altercations. Flight attendants were punched in the face. On one particularly memorable incident, flight attendants at Frontier Airlines had to duct tape a passenger to his chair because he was groping the flight attendants and punching flight attendants.
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  Delta flight attendants have voted on unionization three times in the last 20 years, and each time, the union lost. Delta argues, flight attendants come out ahead on pay when there isn't a union standing between them and the airline. We've now seen a surge of strength in the labor movement across industries from Amazon to Starbucks. Now, union activists are hoping they might have a new shot to score an elusive win in the skies.
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  This next story is about a really innovative infrastructure project in Los Angeles. But to tell you about it, I first have to explain the Brad Pitt mountain lion. For years now, people in the L.A. area have come to love and sort of celebrate this one wild cougar. Officially, he's tagged "P-22" by scientists who monitor the area. But people mostly know him as this really, strikingly good looking mountain lion. "Curbed" reporter Alissa Walker is gonna help me out with this part, since she's based in L.A. She says, this story's emerged as, here is this eligible bachelor, roaming Griffith Park.
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  Alissa Walker: We think he's living there by himself. But since there's no other mountain lions there, he is not able to mate.
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  So how can this Brad Pitt of mountain lions find, I'm just gonna say it, his Jennifer Aniston? This is a big problem for wildlife in urbanized areas. We've poured concrete and built highways through their natural habitats, boxing them in. We know from GPS tracking of animals that they're often afraid to cross busy highways.
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  Walker: He took a pretty big field trip a few weeks ago, actually, and went about three miles south and showed up in a neighborhood, not at anywhere near the park. And everybody was terrified that he wasn't going to be able to get back home. He's managed to so far, but without having good crossings in place to allow him to meet somebody special and start a family, he's probably going to die and he is not going to be able to breed.
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  This is where the infrastructure solution comes in. L.A. broke ground on an $87 million dollar project, a wildlife crossing that'll create a bridge just for animals over the 8 lanes of traffic on the 101. It's nothing like a normal bridge. They're planning this big span of greenery, with landscaping that mimics the natural world, and special sound walls to drown out the traffic. Scientists hope it's gonna be used by not just hunky mountain lions, but also rabbits, snakes, coyotes, bobcats, and toads. Wildlife bridges have had positive impact elsewhere, protecting everything from Canadian elk to Australian crabs.
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  It's a big deal this is happening in L.A. This is not a place where people want their freeways messed with. They revere the roads. If you live there, you don't say, "Highway 101" or "U.S. 101." It's "The 101." But Walker says, people are pretty psyched about the idea of a mountain lion striding over their daily commute.
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  Walker: Everyone from local leaders, mayors, senators, governors, congressional leaders, we had such a wide range of people who were there to show support for this. And it, it just shows how important it is, and to really put the funding behind something like this, that can really bring everyone together around a certain issue. I was very impressed.
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  The Poison Book Project. Sounds like a mystery novel, right? But in this case, we're talking about books that are themselves poisonous. "National Geographic" looks at the effort to track down book bindings colored with a poisonous green pigment.
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  It all started a few years ago, when a book was being treated to get ready for display. And its binding was a color that worried curators. Conservationist Melissa Tedone spoke to the Athenaeum of Philadelphia about it.
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  Melissa Tedone: Bright green in cultural heritage materials has long been associated with arsenic, and so we just thought we'd test the book just to be sure.
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  The lab said the emerald green was, in fact, laced with poison. That kicked off a quest to hunt down other books that used this toxic dye. So far, the team has found dozens. Nineteenth century bookbinders knew that arsenic was toxic, but they used it anyway for its vibrant color. It was also in wallpaper and even clothing. The arsenic based emerald green was never banned, it was just used less and less over time.
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  Now, can picking up one of these books kill you? No, you would probably need to literally eat one of these old editions to risk death. But there's enough poison to make people pretty sick. The Poison Book Project shares some tips on how to identify potentially dangerous books. The conservator says libraries shouldn't panic and throw old green books away. They should just take the danger seriously.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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