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--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Thursday, August 19th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shemitah 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.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: A classroom full of young Afghan girls raising their hands. A Marine taking off her helmet to show a young girl she's a woman. These are just some of the iconic photos Lindsay Odario captured in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: She was there before 9-11, at the height of the Taliban's power. And she returned over the years after the Taliban fell to see women make progress in education, work and in politics. In The Atlantic this week, Odario published a series of her photos, along with an essay, about her fears for women now that the Taliban has retaken power.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: I asked her what people she knows in Afghanistan are telling her right now.
--:-- Lindsay Odario: Most of my Afghan friends and former translators are terrified. You know, for 20 years, they've been told that they should exercise their freedom. And they've been out in the workforce, some of them working as journalists, some in human rights, some as lawyers, advocates for women. And then suddenly overnight, they wake up to a Taliban regime.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And I think, you know, some of them were old enough to remember what it was like under the Taliban. Some were nine, 10 years old. They remember seeing beatings on the street. They remember seeing women beaten on the street for not, you know, having a long enough burqa or for having hair exposed or for very little things.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: There is just this overlying sentiment of terror and fear.
--:-- Lindsay Odario: Let's talk about what things were like when you were in Afghanistan in 2000, 2001. You wrote that one of the things that really stuck out to you about life under the Taliban was the silence.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yeah. At that time, all forms of entertainment were illegal. The Taliban exercised and believed in a very strict interpretation of Islamic law, Sharia law. And so they prohibited, they forbade all types of entertainment, no movie, no television, no music. And people were also really scared because you were seeing people being beaten on the streets. There were public executions on Fridays.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: So people basically just tried to make themselves invisible. So many people who were walking on the streets really didn't make conversation. The women were really quiet because even the sound of a woman's voice was provocative. You know, you couldn't laugh out in public.
--:-- Lindsay Odario: The Taliban is now saying that it will allow women to work and to study. There's understandably a lot of skepticism around how the group is choosing to message itself right now to the world.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Have you talked with women in Afghanistan about how they're interpreting this?
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Yeah, they don't believe one thing of what the Taliban says. That's pretty clear, given that we still don't see any women on the streets.
--:-- Lindsay Odario: I mean, everyone that I know has not left their house since Sunday. And these are women who were working every single day. We're out of the house, we're shopping, we're going to the beauty salon, we're living their lives essentially, because I feel to some part, you know, we as Americans and the foreign governments that were there and foreign aid workers were there, we sort of promised them democracy.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This is your new life and you don't have the restraints of the Taliban and come out and find your voice. But then suddenly overnight, the Taliban is back. And so all of those people who have spent the last 20 years finding their voice and exercising their voice are suddenly stuck back at home.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Lindsay Adario is a photojournalist. She's also the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, It's What I Do, A Photographer's Life of Love and War.
--:-- Lindsay Adario: Thank you so much for your time.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Thank you.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: You can see Adario's photos and read her essay in The Atlantic. In the Apple News app, you can get there by tapping the notification that we send you during the show or search in the app for Apple News today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The United States is continuing to evacuate Afghans who supported U.S. forces as translators and in other ways. They'll be resettled in the United States through the Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, program.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The Sacramento Bee reports on some of the issues with this resettlement process.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Resettlement agencies in Sacramento, they're having trouble keeping up with the pace of new arrivals from Afghanistan. Typically, these organizations have weeks or months to coordinate housing and other needs. But recently, they've had as little as 48 hours notice to prep.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And this time crunch has meant recent arrivals are living in hotels temporarily. More permanent living situations could be difficult to come by given the affordable housing shortage in California.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And there have been issues with SIV resettlements in the past. In 2016, the Sacramento Bee revealed new arrivals were finding themselves stuck in low-wage jobs. Some were living in old, bug-infested apartments in high-crime neighborhoods.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And you should know the Sacramento region is one of the largest resettlement destinations for Afghans in America. Nearly 10,000 Afghan people live in Sacramento County alone. That's more than any other county in the U.S.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The CEO of one resettlement agency tells the Sacramento Bee, for Afghans who put their life at risk by working for the U.S., our responsibility to them doesn't end once they get on the plane.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: There's a need to help them establish secure and stable lives in the United States.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can read more about this story and find other great reporting by checking out the Read Local feature within the Apple News app.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Every Thursday, we highlight standout stories from local news outlets across the U.S.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Biologists are racing against the clock to save endangered species. All the heat this summer, the droughts, the seemingly endlessly burning wildfires, they're all part of a lethal combination of climate change and human activity that's pushing more than a million plants and animals to the brink of extinction.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: In an effort to save them, one particular conservation effort in California is wrapping up. You might call it a modern-day Noah's Ark.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You know how the story goes. The animals went in two by two. Well, across the state of California, biologists have identified which species are in the most danger right now, like red-legged frogs, Joshua trees, desert tortoises.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And they're racing to create captive breeding programs and seed banks to preserve these animals and plants.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Captive breeding, that phrase, refers to a practice where conservation is create an ideal, controlled environment to grow the population of a species that's in trouble.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: So, for example, the rarest fish on Earth is the devil's hole pupfish. This species has been around since the Ice Age. Its home is in the Death Valley National Park. The water there is becoming too warm for the fish, so scientists created a multi-million dollar replica tank to try to save the pulp fish.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This approach to saving endangered species comes with some risks. The LA Times explains, Critics say captive breeding could result in a generation of plants and animals that don't have the genetic diversity that needed to survive in the wild.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: But scientists say they have to do something or else they risk losing species altogether. One biologist said he can't think of a single ecosystem on Earth that isn't stressed to its limits right now.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: When you imagine people who are working two jobs, maybe you think of actors who are working multiple gigs between auditions or students balancing several jobs to pay for school.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: These are people who are putting in a lot of hours. But the Wall Street Journal has uncovered something very different.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: People working two full-time jobs, both remotely, but the twist is they're spending less time working and making more money than when they had one job.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Some are putting in less than 40 hours a week and still pulling in six figures. It sounds too good to be true, right? Like a get-rich-quick scheme or maybe a George Costanza move from a Seinfeld episode.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But with all the office work that can be done remotely, more and more crafty people are figuring out how to game the system.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The tricky part is doing it so that their boss or their bosses don't catch them. And just so you know, this is not illegal. Some people just consider it really sneaky.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Not illegal, technically, but it might be a breach of contract. I mean, keep in mind, these are white collar desk jobs. That's what allows people to stay on the clock twice over remotely.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And it adds up. The journal says some people they spoke to are on track to earn anywhere from $200,000 to $600,000 a year.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: A lot of these doubly employed people told the journal one secret to their success is declining meetings as much as possible. That frees up time to get two jobs done during a normal workday.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: There are a lot of stories in here of potentially close calls, people almost blowing their cover when they mix up conference calls. It's kind of a high wire act.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It's really not for everybody, but maybe there's a lesson there for the rest of us who aren't trying to double dip, but could use a little more work-life balance. If you cut down on meetings, you can get a lot more done in a lot less time.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: You're going to find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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--:-- Shemitah Basu: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
