--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, February 24th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the surging popularity of a weight loss drug is causing a dangerous shortage. A judge in Texas could decide whether medication abortion gets taken off shelves nationwide. And why you've been hearing so much about the movie Cocaine Bear. But first, today marks one year since Russia invaded Ukraine, launching Europe's biggest war since World War II.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Despite Russia's military dominance, Ukrainian forces have largely held their ground with Western support. Still, the human toll has been staggering. More than 8 million Ukrainians have fled their homes. Thousands of civilians have been killed. hundreds of thousands of soldiers have died fighting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I wanted to talk to someone who has a uniquely insightful perspective on what this year has been like for Ukrainians, for Russians, and for their leaders. Masha Gessen at The New Yorker spent decades as a journalist in Moscow and has written extensively about Putin, Russia, and corruption.
--:-- Masha Gessen: Millions of people have been displaced, either out of Ukraine or internally displaced. It's very, very difficult to put an exact figure on it. But I was just in Kharkiv. The thing that I was observing was just how profoundly every single person's life has changed.
--:-- Masha Gessen: Even the people who have stayed home, disproportionately, those people are men, because men are banned from leaving the country, men under the age of 60. So their families have often left the country. Their girlfriends have left the country. They're living with their elderly parents a lot of the time. Families have been reconfigured. People no longer have the jobs they had before the war.
--:-- Masha Gessen: So the entire country has been changed. Nobody is living the kind of life that they imagine themselves living on February 23rd, 2022.
--:-- Masha Gessen: And what about in Russia? And what should Americans understand about how Russians are thinking about the war? There's no evidence that a significant number of Russians oppose the war. Most Russians support the war either actively or passively.
--:-- Masha Gessen: They're either apathetic to the fate of Ukrainians and to the fate of their own countrymen who are dying by the thousands, or they're actually actively, virulently, hatefully supporting this genocidal war.
--:-- Masha Gessen: Now earlier this week Putin pulled back from the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the U Moscow has used some pretty menacing language about using nuclear weapons You have recently argued that that should be taken seriously.
--:-- Masha Gessen: What do you think that analysts are perhaps getting wrong about Putin's willingness to launch a nuclear attack? The tool that we generally use, that a lot of analysts use, to try to argue that Putin wouldn't use nuclear weapons is the rationality argument, right?
--:-- Masha Gessen: He is a rational actor, so he wouldn't because Russia may be annihilated in response, because he may not be able to use nuclear weapons safely, he may not be able to transport them safely. I think all of these are basically false arguments because they frame rationality in American terms.
--:-- Masha Gessen: But they do not inhabit the imaginary that Putin inhabits. In his imagination, a small part of the world is against him. A larger part of the world, including China and India and the African continent, and a lot of Latin America, supports him.
--:-- Masha Gessen: He's in the forefront of a great struggle against Western hegemony. I'm not by any means arguing that he will use nuclear weapons, but what I'm saying is that we can't dismiss that threat out of hand.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. One year in, and it feels like we are a long way away from those early characterizations of him as a comedian turned politician.
--:-- Shamita Basu: What do you make of how he has handled this past year? And what do you think he's considering as the war enters its next phase?
--:-- Masha Gessen: His behavior has been heroic. It's been masterful. He has tirelessly both led his nation and communicated to the world in the most effective manner possible.
--:-- Masha Gessen: At the same time, he is in a much more difficult position than I think most people realize, because we're in this unprecedented position of having seen copious evidence of an enormous number of war crimes.
--:-- Masha Gessen: What we now know is what happens to Ukrainians under Russian occupation. It is the systematic commission of war crimes. And what that means is that that leaves absolutely no room for Zelensky ever to negotiate.
--:-- Masha Gessen: What I'm afraid of is hearing more and more about how Ukraine should negotiate. And that's a completely unrealistic demand because Russians don't want to negotiate.
--:-- Masha Gessen: And that any kind of peace agreement entered into with a bad faith interlocutor, which is what Russia is by definition, any kind of agreement puts Ukraine in great danger of an attack at any time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Masha Gessen, thank you so much for your time. Thank you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A case before a federal judge in Texas could force a key abortion drug to get pulled off the market nationwide even in states where abortion is legal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is significant, considering medication abortions account for more than half of all terminated pregnancies in the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The pill, called mifepristone, was approved by the FDA more than 20 years ago. It's authorized to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks, and it's often taken as part of a two-step regimen with a second medication called misoprostol.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For many people, having access to medication abortions has only gotten more important after Roe v. Wade fell and states implemented bans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This lawsuit, which was brought by a coalition of doctors who oppose abortion, is seeking to overturn the FDA's approval for mifepristone, the first pill.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If that happens, medication abortions would still be possible using the second pill alone, but studies show it can be less effective and more painful for patients.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Washington Post reporter Caroline Kitchener has been following this case.
--:-- Caroline Kitchener: It's a question of, will this judge essentially say that the FDA did not have sufficient authority, did not kind of jump through all the hoops that it needed to jump through all of those years ago when it approved mifepristone and essentially take mifepristone off the market, which would mean that medication abortion as we know it across the country today would have to change.
--:-- Caroline Kitchener: The judge hearing this case has conservative views on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion.
--:-- Caroline Kitchener: Kitchener said the case might have been filed in his district for that reason. A lot of conservative lawyers, conservative legal groups file in his district through this practice that is kind of widely known as judge shopping.
--:-- Caroline Kitchener: This is where you kind of take a pulse on how particular judges are ruling, what their inclinations are, pay attention to that, and then choose to file in a very particular place.
--:-- Caroline Kitchener: Kitchener says abortion providers who are already overwhelmed are anticipating that a ban on the pill could lead to overcrowded clinics with more patients seeking surgical procedures.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A decision from the judge could come as soon as today, and an appeal could put the case in front of the Supreme Court in the future.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A drug that people with type 2 diabetes rely on is now in short supply.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And drug market watchers think that they know why. It's because Ozempic and drugs like it have proven to be incredibly effective at helping people lose weight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: These weren't developed initially as weight loss drugs. They were developed for people with diabetes because the other thing the drugs do is they lower blood sugar and they stimulate the release of insulin
--:-- Shamita Basu: That health reporter Julia Belous who writes about metabolism and obesity. Some medical professionals say these drugs could be a real breakthrough treatment for people who struggle with being chronically overweight.
--:-- Julia Belous: But a Wall Street Journal analysis recently found digital health startups have been prescribing them to people who are not overweight.
--:-- Julia Belous: One doctor describes them as being misused as a vanity drug.
--:-- Julia Belous: But Luz explained these drugs should not be thought of as some kind of quick fix. This is not for people who just want to lose like a little bit of weight before their holiday or whatever, or have like 10 or 20 pounds to lose.
--:-- Julia Belous: They're really supposed to be long-term treatments for the chronic disease of obesity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, some people with type 2 diabetes tell the journal they're rationing their drugs or switching to alternatives that are less effective at regulating their blood sugar.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The company that sells Ozempic says it's expanding production capacity, but it still expects supply chain disruptions to last through mid-March.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I had a longer conversation with Belouz about how these medications are being used for weight loss and why they're so different from what came before them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can hear it on our latest episode of In Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the Apple News app right now, We've queued it up to play for you right after today's show.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Finally, since it's Friday, let's talk about a new movie that's hitting theaters today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's called Cocaine Bear. The title tells you pretty much what you're getting into.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's about a bear that eats a lot of cocaine and goes on a rampage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amazingly, it was inspired by a real story, kind of loosely.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And there are a lot of scenes that go like this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's directed by Elizabeth Banks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And even if you have no plans to see the movie, you might enjoy Variety's cover story on Banks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's about a lot more than giant coked-up bears. She talks about the Marvel movie that she missed out on directing and on sexism in Hollywood.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's part of the reason she wanted to direct a horror movie. It's an opportunity that women don't often get.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The article also includes a very unusual photo spread, with Banks in full glam posing with a giant, menacing CGI bear.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can see those pictures and read the whole story on the Apple News app, along with all of today's news.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app, stick around.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We've got a new episode of In Conversation coming up next, the one I mentioned earlier about the new wave of weight loss drugs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So enjoy listening to that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Have a great weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
