--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, January 26th. I'm Shumita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Today is the day we learn what the Fed's going to do about inflation. It can be worrying to see prices going up, but it's something that happens over time. We can handle it if our income goes up too. The problem is, right now, salaries are not keeping up with prices.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: If you look at all the numbers, you can see this. Wages went up nearly 5% last year, which sounds like a sweet raise, right? But when you adjust for inflation, overall wages were actually down 2.4% on average.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Washington Post has a story that puts human faces on these numbers. The paper spoke with more than a dozen workers who say even though they got big raises lately, they're struggling. They say they can't even cover basic expenses, rent, groceries, gas.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Several people said they've also taken on second jobs. Devin Norris is one of them. He's a high school teacher in Florida. During the pandemic, his salary went up by more than 20 percent. It's now nearly $50,000 a year.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But when you factor in inflation, he feels more behind than ever. He told The Post he can't even find an apartment he can afford. Plus, food and gas costs have skyrocketed. And he's now started taking on additional work at restaurants.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He says even though he makes more money than he ever has in his life, he feels broke. He never imagined being 37 years old and still needing a roommate.
--:-- Shumita Basu: When the Fed makes its announcement, you'll see all kinds of analysis and terms flying around, wage price spiral, dual mandate. Monetary policy can be complicated, but essentially the Fed's mission is simple. Make sure people can get jobs and keep prices under control.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It's what connects the central bank to people like Devin. And it's why handling the economic consequences of the pandemic matters so much. Tensions are high right now between Russia and Ukraine.
--:-- Shumita Basu: American troops are on standby to go to Eastern Europe. Russian troops are on Ukraine's border. The West is trying to understand what Vladimir Putin may do next.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And we may have insight from one of Putin's biggest enemies. Alexei Navalny is Russia's most prominent opposition leader. The government calls him a terrorist.
--:-- Shumita Basu: He is currently in a Russian jail. He was poisoned and says the Kremlin tried to kill him. It denies involvement.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: I have known Navalny for more than a decade. That's Time magazine correspondent Simon Schuster, an expert on Russia. He recently exchanged letters with Navalny from prison.
--:-- Simon Schuster: Few people have studied Putin as long and as obsessively as Navalny, who thinks the U.S. is handling Putin all wrong. He says that the West is fooling itself if it thinks it can negotiate with Putin and reach some kind of friendly reset in relations because that is just not what he's about.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Navalny says the way to go after Putin and his regime is through their wallets by attacking their money. His main insight that he tries to get across to the West is that the Putin government's reason for being is corruption and its biggest political vulnerability is also corruption.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So they essentially are in power in order to enrich themselves. And by enriching themselves, they collect assets that they then store in Western banks and Western real estate, you know, condos in Miami, yachts in the Mediterranean.
--:-- Simon Schuster: Yesterday, President Biden said he'll consider personal sanctions on Putin himself. It's a rare move, and it's the kind of thing Navalny might support.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So Navalny's message to the West is if you want to influence Putin, if you want to change his behavior and the behavior of his government and the elites around him, all you have to do is impose very harsh sanctions on their wealth.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And he says by doing that, you will essentially pressure the elites to turn on Putin inside Russia and weaken his position enough to allow some democratic change to take place.
--:-- Simon Schuster: Navalny tells me he also wants to see opposition supporters apply pressure from within. Putin is scared of popular uprisings.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I mean, experience has shown in that part of the world and in many parts of the world that the biggest threat to an authoritarian regime is not some foreign military invasion. It's from within. It's when the people rise up and stage a revolution.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And Putin has seen this happen in his immediate neighborhood over and over again. And it is fundamentally the biggest threat to his rule.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Mexico is one of the deadliest countries in the world to work as a journalist. So far this year three journalists have been killed. Last year it was seven.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This means fewer people may be willing to sign up to do this dangerous and vital work work that keeps government business, and crime in check.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Journalists in Mexico are really tired of waking up to headlines about another reporter, another photographer who's been killed in a different part of the country.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That's Kate Linthicum from the Los Angeles Times. She's a reporter based in Mexico City.
--:-- Kate Linthicum: Since the year 2000, one press advocacy group has documented the killings of 148 Mexican journalists. It says many of the victims covered crime and the links between gangs and corrupt police or lawmakers.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Linthicum told us about Margarito Martinez. He's one of the journalists who was recently killed in Mexico. This man was 49 years old and a father.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He was shot outside of his home. Linthicum, she considered him a friend. Margarito was famous in the journalism community.
--:-- Kate Linthicum: He had a great sense of humor, despite the fact that he covered really heavy subjects. He basically took photographs of crime scenes. Tijuana has seen just a spiraling homicide crisis in recent years.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And Margarito was really on the front lines of that, you know, taking pictures of sort of some of the worst of humanity. Yet he maintained this really incredible kind of lightness of being and was just a joy to work with.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Linthicum also told us about Lourdes Maldonado-Lopez. Just days after speaking at a vigil for Margarito, Lourdes was shot outside her home.
--:-- Kate Linthicum: Their deaths took place less than a week apart. She had worked as a broadcast and radio reporter for a number of years for the Televisa, local channel, and in recent years independently.
--:-- Shumita Basu: She was known as a really passionate journalist who cared deeply about politics and exposing corruption. Authorities say they're investigating both killings and that the motive is currently unknown.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But you should know, a few years before her death, Lourdes was at a press conference with Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador.
--:-- Kate Linthicum: In that press conference, she told the president that she feared for her life. She was entered into a state protection program for journalists.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The program is supposed to assign bodyguards and shelter for journalists who are under threat. But Linthicum told us it hasn't kept people like Lourdes safe.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They are really deficient. They're terribly underfunded, understaffed. And the proof that they're not working is quite evident because along with Lourdes, you know a handful of other journalists in recent years who were enrolled in these programs have been murdered
--:-- Kate Linthicum: Linthicum also told us this situation is worrying journalists in Mexico. Yesterday they protested in the streets to demand the government do more to protect them.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And all this fear has led to fewer people reporting on their communities. So what that means is these are places where there's no eyes on the ground.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There's nobody making sure that officials are doing their jobs. There's nobody tracking what organized crime groups are doing.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Baseball legends Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have been denied entry into the Hall of Fame. It was their final appearance on the ballot.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There wasn't much debate about their stats. These are superstars who broke records in their prime.
--:-- Shumita Basu: For many baseball observers, it was more about the players' connection to the steroid era and Major League Baseball's need to reckon with it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There were allegations against both men in the 2007 report on performance-enhancing drugs by former Senator George Mitchell.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Neither player ever admitted to knowingly using them. They never tested positive, although they played most of their career before baseball did testing.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And let's be clear, Bonds and Clemens were among the most prominent faces of the steroid era.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So for a lot of people, the vote going against them feels like closing the book on a controversial time for the sport.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: If you want to read more about this story, we've picked out a few options for you. For a straightforward take, the Wall Street Journal explains it well.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And for serious baseball fans who want to get into the weeds, including the controversy around David Ortiz getting into the Hall of Fame, there's a really good write-up for you in The Ringer.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can find those along with all the stories we talked about today on the Apple News app. Just search for Apple News today.
--:-- Shumita Basu: We've also got something exclusive there right now. It's a tribute to Kobe Bryant, two years after he died in a helicopter crash.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It's written and read by fellow NBA legend Allen Iverson. Here's a preview.
--:-- Allen Iverson: I remember hearing the story that you were on the road and you were watching highlights of me dropping 35 on the Knicks at the Garden all rookie year. and you got so mad you smashed up the hotel and started researching me like you were the CIA.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Get me to file on AI. I bet it was like that. Studying how great white sharks hunt down seals in the Pacific Ocean and whatnot.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: What I love about that story is the truth. That was just our relationship. Two dudes pushing each other to greatness.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can hear the rest on the Players' Tribune in the Apple News app.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Goodbye for now.
