--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Monday, March 7th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita 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.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Russia said this morning it would cease firing on several Ukrainian cities to allow safe corridors for civilians to escape. Ukraine's government is critical and skeptical of the announcement. It points out, if you look at the Russian maps, you're going to notice that under this plan, many Ukrainians will only be able to escape to Russian territory.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Over the weekend, Ukraine said Russian shelling of cities prevented residents from being able to evacuate. The UN says hundreds of civilians have been killed. Unverified numbers from the Ukrainian government claim that thousands have died.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As civilians and soldiers are killed, their families are struggling to hold funerals and bury their loved ones while the war is ongoing.
--:-- Sudarsan Raghavan: I'm a reporter with The Washington Post. I'm on the ground in Kiev and I want to tell you about one Ukrainian man named Volodymyr Neznetz. He was a child psychologist who signed up with the army after Russia invaded.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Raghavan tells us the story of what turned out to be this man's final phone call with his wife, Oksana Shlonska.
--:-- Sudarsan Raghavan: He said that he had one last thing to do, then he was going to go home, come home for dinner. And she never heard back from him. In fact, a couple hours later, she got a phone call from the Territorial Defense Unit saying that her husband had been killed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that was basically it. When she heard the news, she told me she basically felt numb. She didn't know what to do. She was just basically shocked and into silence.
--:-- Sudarsan Raghavan: His wife tried for days to make arrangements to bury him. In this time of war, the morgue was basically filled up. They were getting a lot more bodies. And so getting the medical certificate took several days and she had to wait for that first.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And then when she finally got it, she tried to bury her husband on Thursday. She went to the cemetery with their son, and there was a missile falling in. They weren't sure how many, but it was enough for them to take cover next to the tombstones.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The family was eventually able to hold a funeral under dangerous circumstances. The priest did the ceremony, and you could still hear the shelling, the outgoing shelling outside.
--:-- Sudarsan Raghavan: Throughout the whole thing, she was carrying this large portrait of him, of her husband, and she was clutching it really tightly. After the coffin was placed in the grave and then the grave diggers covered up the coffin. She finally took the portrait from her grasp and she put it on top of her husband's grave.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And her son, Dimitro, basically put his arm around her and they hugged. And it was just an extremely sad and emotional moment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Schlonska plans to volunteer at a hospital. She wants to help the wounded and says this is her way of helping her homeland.
--:-- Sudarsan Raghavan: I don't think I've met a single person who said, oh, we can't win this war, I'm leaving. Rather than backing down, what they want is more support from the international community, more support from the United States so they can really fight the might of the Russian army.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Average gas prices in the U.S. have broken through a dollar a gallon. AAA data shows that hasn't happened since 2008. It's the latest way the Russian attack on Ukraine is having an impact in America.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And global oil prices topped $130 a barrel at one point earlier today. These are levels not seen in more than a decade. Traders are bidding up prices as calls grow for the U.S. and other Western governments to ban imports of Russian oil.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Biden administration had a rare, high-level face-to-face meeting with Venezuela's government. The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. officials went to Caracas to talk about possibly easing oil sanctions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, even if sanctions were only lifted in a limited way, it would mark a policy change for America. You see, the U.S. has been putting economic pressure on Venezuela for several years.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: To stay afloat, its oil industry has relied on sales to Russia, China and Iran. A number of factors, including Venezuelan policy choices and Western sanctions, triggered an economic crisis that caused food shortages and hyperinflation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The situation became so dire that millions of Venezuelans fled. One energy expert tells the journal that resuming imports from Venezuela may not do much for Americans who are hoping for lower prices at the pump.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There's been no drilling of new wells in Venezuela for months. Getting to significant production levels could require years of work and billions of dollars in new investment. For now, he calls it a drop in the bucket in the world oil market.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U.S. Secretary of State says diplomats are working to secure the release of WNBA star Brittany Greiner. Reuters has a story. She was detained in Russia sometime last month.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Russian Customs Service said it detained an athlete who was carrying vape cartridges with hash oil which can carry a sentence of up to 10 years. Russian news agency TASS reported the player was Greiner.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's not clear how long she's been in custody, and there are concerns for her safety on multiple levels. She's an American detained in Russia at a time when the country's relationship is tense.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Also, Greiner has been outspoken in support of LGBTQ rights, and Russia has a track record of restricting those rights.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Greiner's wife went on Instagram to thank people for their prayers and support. Greiner has two Olympic gold medals and is a seven-time WNBA All-Star. She played for a team in Russia during the WNBA's offseason.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The U.S. Secretary of State said a team is working on cases of several Americans who are detained in Russia. Recently, the U.S. has warned Americans against traveling to Russia, saying the embassy there will have limited ability to help.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We're also following severe weather stories across America. At least seven people are dead after multiple tornadoes hit central and southwest Iowa on Saturday.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And two massive wildfires in the Florida panhandle burned thousands of acres and forced more than a thousand evacuations over the weekend.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also, the official global death toll from COVID-19 hit 6 million today. That's according to Johns Hopkins University data.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This week marks two years since the World Health Organization declared the start of the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can 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. Thank you.
