--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, August 10th. 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: There are several major developments in key stories this morning. So let's take a quick look at each of them, starting with news on legal troubles for Donald Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The former president says he pleaded the fifth during his deposition with the New York Attorney General's office today. This is in the same week his home was raided by the FBI in connection with another case. The state AG is conducting a civil investigation into his family businesses. This probe is looking into whether the Trump organization misstated the value of its assets to get better loans or tax breaks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the investigation politically motivated. Meanwhile, in yesterday's primaries, several Trump-backed candidates did well. In Wisconsin, his pick for governor beat another candidate that former Vice President Mike Pence had endorsed. The Democratic congressional primary in Minnesota was surprisingly tight. Representative Ilhan Omar barely beat a moderate opponent who attacked her campaign to defund police.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And we talked yesterday on the show about the killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque. Now police have a man in custody that they call a primary suspect. Mohamed Syed faces two murder charges, and police say he's involved in the two other killings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His daughter, Lubna, told the local CBS station that he is innocent. I believe they will release my father. He didn't do anything. Police say they made the arrest after a tip from the Muslim community in the city.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can read more about each of these stories as they develop in the Apple News app. Now, on to a different kind of story. You might have heard that Serena Williams just made a huge announcement in Vogue.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Big news out of the sports world. 23-time Grand Slam champ Serena Williams officially announcing she's retiring after this year's U.S. Open.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's hard to sum up just how much Serena Williams changed the sport. On top of those Grand Slam titles, she got four Olympic gold medals and is likely one of the highest-earning female athletes ever.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She writes for Vogue that deciding to step away was painful, that she really doesn't like the word retirement. But the big thing driving her decision is she wants another child and she doesn't want to be pregnant again while competing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She says plainly, it's not fair that she has to make this decision in order to grow her family, that if she were a male athlete, she wouldn't be writing the same essay. Instead of the word retirement, she's using evolution to describe where she's headed next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She says she's excited about her growing career as an investor. She'll have more time for Serena Ventures, her venture capital firm. Most of the companies she's invested in were founded by women and people of color.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some are now so-called unicorns, valued at over a billion dollars. She was on The Kelly Clarkson Show last year, talking about why she wants to help other women succeed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's room for so many of us to have our own successful companies, have our own TV shows, like to win Grand Slams. There's four a year, like there's so many opportunities.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Believe me, when I'm out there, I give a zillion percent. But at the end of the day, if someone else wins or if someone has a successful company, I'm genuinely happy for them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In this essay for Vogue, Williams opens up about the challenges that she faced as an elite athlete and a mom. She's made some amazing things happen, including winning the Australian Open while she was two months pregnant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Serena smashes Stiffy's record! It's number 23! But she had a very difficult experience just after childbirth.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's a clip from the HBO series Being Serena. I remember being wheeled back to the operating room because I had to reopen my C-section and restitch it. And then they had to check for, you know, blood clots and everything.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So they were doing all these different tests and everything was negative. I'm like, listen, I need you to run a CAT scan with dye because I have a pulmonary embolism in my lungs. I know it. I know I've had this before. I know my body.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She describes it this way. She went from a C-section to a second pulmonary embolism to a grand slam final. She played through postpartum depression and breastfeeding.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But in order to pursue another pregnancy in her early 40s, Williams says something got to give. Williams ends her essay with a word of gratitude for the fans who cheered her on.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She says she's not sure she'll be ready to win the U.S. Open, even though it's a fan fantasy. She says, I'm going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis. And I'm going to miss you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: IVF is expensive. It can cost $30,000 to go through just one IVF cycle to hopefully have a baby. And many insurance plans don't cover it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's why some people have turned to unconventional solutions to fund their future families. The women I spoke to applied for jobs at Amazon warehouses really because they had no other choice. They were struggling to get pregnant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Angelina Chapin, a senior writer at New York Magazine's The Cut. She interviewed 14 people who took jobs at Amazon warehouses because of the generous fertility coverage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many people who need IVF treatment are changing jobs, going to places like Starbucks and Target and Amazon, largely because they offer health plans that cover IVF costs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rebecca Bell is one of them. After four miscarriages and more than $10,000 spent on IVF, she took a job working overnight shifts at an Amazon warehouse in North Carolina.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Her previous job didn't cover the treatments she needed. They were literally selling their belongings to be able to fund these treatments. So she, in desperation, she went on Facebook support groups for people struggling with IVF, of which there are many.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And discovered there was this whole sort of underground network of women who took jobs at Amazon for the express purpose of getting the fertility coverage. And she decided to do the same.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amazon's benefits package can feel like a lifeline to people who want to have children. But the flip side is the jobs can be physically demanding.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are productivity requirements, long hours spent standing and lugging around heavy stuff. These jobs can put a lot of pressure on the body, which can be a problem when you're trying to conceive.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Most doctors will say, don't lift anything over five pounds. Don't do any cardio that's intense. And you know have access to a bathroom whenever you need it. And none of these things Amazon allows their employees.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amazon told The Cut that it offers flexible shifts and accommodations for employees, including those who are trying to get pregnant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some of the women that Chapin spoke to were doing Amazon work on top of another job. She met one mail carrier who would try to squeeze in a nap before her shift at the post office.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So she actually got to the point where she was dozing off behind the wheel, putting herself in physical danger. And that's when she knew she really had to step away from the job.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There is currently no federal mandate that provides fertility coverage. That means that for many people, deciding to pursue IVF means either paying lots of money out of pocket, potentially going into debt, or finding a job at a company that'll cover it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Can spiders dream? A new study suggests that they do. And the answer is more important than you might think.
--:-- Shamita Basu: National Geographic looks at this new research, which is worth reading even if you find spiders kind of creepy like I do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It started when a scientist was watching spiders sleep, specifically tiny jumping spiders. They sleep upside down, dangling from a single thread.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the thing was, they were twitching in their sleep, which got the scientist wondering, were they moving because they were dreaming? Or, as the scientist put it, experiencing REM sleep or something like it?
--:-- Shamita Basu: She made some more observations, and she concluded, jumping spiders experience rapid eye movements in their sleep, kind of like humans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: REM sleep had previously only been documented in animals with backbones. So us, birds, fish, and some others. Think of how dogs twitch in their sleep.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The new study on spiders has a lot of researchers excited, and not just spider experts. That's because it could totally alter our understanding of how far back dreaming evolved.
--:-- Shamita Basu: How and why we dream is something that artists, psychologists, and scientists have all puzzled over. And now spiders might have something new to add to that conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
