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How the U.S. is treating Ukrainian refugees differently · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, April 5th. 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: Russia's war in Ukraine is affecting U.S. immigration policy at the border with Mexico. Some people are alleging Ukrainians are getting special treatment. And this is sparking new controversy as the Biden administration tries to overhaul how it deals with asylum-seekers.
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  Geraldino: Ukrainian refugees are showing up in Mexico trying to cross into the U.S. Ukrainians, they don't need visas to enter Mexico, so those who can afford plane tickets are rolling the dice to see if they'll be allowed across the U.S. border. And some of them are getting through.
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  Basu: "The Washington Post" reports from the unusual scene in Tijuana, with all these new arrivals. It's a makeshift system. Ukrainian refugees' names go on a hand-written waiting list on a yellow legal pad. The staff there aren't well-prepared for people who don't speak English or Spanish, so Ukrainian-American volunteers are trying to fill in the gaps. "The Post" describes some of the people who are waiting there. Number 884 on the list, a sunflower farmer from outside Kharkiv. Number 319, a university student from Lviv…
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  Geraldino: And all this is happening as the Biden administration is preparing to end a controversial Trump-era move enforcing a policy called Title 42. It prevents asylum seekers from crossing into the U.S., and the reasoning is this is a public safety measure designed to stop the spread of COVID. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on "CNN" over the weekend.
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  Anthony Blinken: All along, we've been following the science, that's what this is about. So when the CDC and others conclude that the science doesn't warrant that, as is now happening, then we'll take action.
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  Basu: "The Cut" speaks to a human rights lawyer who's spent some time at the port of entry in Tijuana and she says she has seen Ukrainians getting different treatment at the southern border, compared to people coming from Latin American, Caribbean, and African countries.
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  Geraldino: She points to a Haitian family she met, a couple that has repeatedly tried to enter the U.S. to escape death threats for political activity. They've been living under a tarp in Tijuana for months, waiting for Title 42 to be lifted. All while some Ukrainians are being allowed across the border.
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  Basu: This lawyer tells "The Cut," if the policy were truly about science and public health, officials wouldn't be letting Ukrainians in while keeping Haitians and Hondurans out. She's frustrated it's taking so long for the Biden administration to end this policy, and she's hoping that it will follow through.
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  Geraldino: Louis DeJoy is the postmaster general; he took the job in 2020. Before that DeJoy was a logistics executive and major Trump campaign contributor. During the election, when even the mail was politicized, he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
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  Devin Leonard: He's very brash and he's very self-confident. And one of the things he says that I think's really interesting, and this is a real departure from some of his predecessors, but he says, look, we're an independent agency. We have a lot of power and we're gonna use that power.
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  Basu: That's Devin Leonard with "Bloomberg Businessweek." He spent some time in person with DeJoy, reporting on the current state of the Postal Service. This story looks into how he's held onto his job under the Biden administration, and at the challenges that are still ahead. Leonard told us that things were a bit of a mess when DeJoy took the reins at USPS. The agency was in danger of running out of cash, Covid was ripping through the workforce, and aging delivery trucks were leaving behind schedule and less than half full. DeJoy tells the story of one mail carrier driving a decades-old truck and he was told never to use the reverse gear.
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  Geraldino: In the summer of 2020, there was a lot of pressure on DeJoy and the Postal Service. Now, because of the pandemic a lot of Americans voted by mail, and Democrats worried about their supporters' ballots getting through. They accused DeJoy of scheming to slow down mail service to help Trump.
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  Devin Leonard: Half the country thought he was a villain and then it turned out that the election actually went pretty well.
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  DeJoy got the Postal Service through the election. And he managed to keep his job after Trump lost, despite Democratic pressure to push him out. But that job is a tough one.
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  Devin Leonard: It's been an agency in crisis for a while. People really stopped sending letters the way they used to after World War II and then the agency's bread and butter was really, um, you know, remittances, bill paying and with the sort of arrival or with the ubiquity of the internet in the early aughts, that started going away.
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  Basu: That reality has meant difficult choices. DeJoy's plan to overhaul the Postal Service keeps Saturday delivery in place, but it also raises prices and slows down some mail. Even though people don't use the mail as much as they used to, some people have strong feelings about it.
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  Devin Leonard: He's got a plan to try to fix the postal service. Well, that upset a lot of people. But anytime a postmaster general tries to make big changes a lot of people get upset.
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  Geraldino: Leonard points out, under DeJoy's leadership, the agency reduced its net losses. And a few weeks ago, he managed to convince Congress members from both parties to pass a bill allowing the Postal Service to change the way it funds certain benefits for retirees. Leonard says DeJoy pretty much shakes off his critics. He's having a good time in the job and he says he sleeps like a baby.
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  Basu: "Now or never." That's the stark language in a new UN report on climate change. Every so often, we get a report like this: scientists and policymakers sounding the alarm, explaining why governments and businesses are falling short. If you're not sure how to parse the urgency of this latest report, we recommend a "National Geographic" article that lays out some key takeaways.
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  Geraldino: One is that it's becoming much cheaper to move to clean energy. In order to keep warming under control, by the middle of this century, the world is going to need to make deep cuts in fossil fuel use. This report explains how in the last decade, green power has become much more competitive. Wind energy costs are down by more than half. Battery prices are down 85 percent.
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  Basu: This UN report argues, the problems now are mostly political and corporate will. The report says the technological hurdles and costs are "feasible," it really just comes down to willpower. The UN Secretary-General says governments and businesses are not keeping their promises to mitigate their impact on the environment. He says, "Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic."
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  Geraldino: Another takeaway is we can't solve this problem by cutting carbon emissions alone. The report says we need to do more to remove the greenhouse gas that's already in the atmosphere. Among the ways to do this is managing forests and farming better, in ways that naturally suck carbon dioxide out of the air.
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  Basu: If you're not a geneticist, it can be kinda hard to gauge when a new discovery related to the human genome is a big deal. That's why we liked this "NBC News" piece that explained exactly how significant a recent breakthrough is, in language that we found easy to understand.
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  Geraldino: In 2003, scientists announced they'd sequenced the human genome. The U.S. government spent billions of dollars on this project. But the reality is, they were at least eight percent short of being finished.
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  Evan Bush: So there's these huge gaps that existed in our understanding of the human genetic code.
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  Basu: That's "NBC" science reporter Evan Bush, who says lockdowns played a role in researchers being able to fill those gaps.
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  Evan Bush: All these scientists, like everybody in the U.S., had their lives disrupted by the pandemic. And they were at home with a lot of time on their hands and a big puzzle to fix. And so they've said that they think the pandemic actually speeded up some of this process.
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  Geraldino: As a genetics professor explains, assembling a genome is like ripping a book into tiny pieces and putting it back together. But when the human genome was first sequenced about two decades ago, they had to leave a lot of pages blank. Computing technology wasn't good enough at the time to handle certain parts of the genome. But during the pandemic, a huge group of scientists collaborated using more powerful computers. And they filled in those blank pages.
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  Basu: Bush says this new sequencing technology could lead to new breakthroughs. Scientists could get a better understanding of how humans developed over time. And they could get new insights into how cancer and other diseases develop in different people.
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  Evan Bush: And so what scientists are now going to do is look for variations and look for, you know, genes. And we might not have fully understood what's been happening in someone's genetics that could be, you know, triggering a certain disease or correlated with a certain condition. And that's really going to open up some interesting avenues for research.
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  Geraldino: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. You can also read about Kansas's massive comeback win over UNC in the men's college basketball championship.
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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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  Geraldino: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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