--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, April 15th. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. 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.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: First, a brief update on the war in Ukraine. One of Russia's key warships sunk in the Black Sea. Ukrainian officials claim responsibility, saying they launched a missile at the ship, while Russian officials claim it sank while being towed in a storm. This is a big blow to Russia's naval fleet, and it comes at a time when Ukraine is bracing for a massive Russian offensive. As always, you can find the latest on this war in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: What is Elon Musk's endgame? The world's richest man said this week that he's offering $43 billion to buy Twitter in a hostile takeover. By the way, that number is based off of shares being priced at $54.20, a reference to marijuana. You know, $4.20, $54.20, because this is Elon Musk. Now, he claims this isn't a joke and that he wants to take the publicly traded company private. Musk says his primary motivation for the purchase is to make the platform a place where free speech can thrive. He's also talked about wanting to add an edit option for tweets, offer a blue check verification to premium users. And he's even recently suggested converting Twitter's San Francisco offices into a homeless shelter. Though, in fairness, he quickly deleted that tweet, which might explain why he wishes there were an edit button.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Musk was also interviewed about his bid for Twitter at a TED conference yesterday. Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. But you've described yourself. I don't care about the economics at all. But for Verge reporter Liz Lopato, this move seems, well, not at all well thought out.
--:-- Liz Lopato: I think that having someone who is essentially a Twitter troll on the board of Twitter and then trying to take over Twitter is very funny in its own right. But it seems like a lot of this is very off the cuff. Musk's announcement came a couple of weeks after he became one of the company's largest shareholders. It also came after he was rumored to be joining the Twitter board, but he eventually declined that job.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The idea of Elon Musk taking over the platform is a big deal because of the influence Twitter has over a very specific kind of public discourse It where we get everything from official resignation letters by politicians to real updates on the war in Ukraine Still it comes close to the user numbers on TikTok or Facebook. In his TED interview, Musk referred to the app as the de facto town square. Lopato told us, this position excites a lot of conservatives, many of whom feel disgruntled with Twitter after several right-wing users, including Donald Trump, were banned or had their posts removed for violating Twitter's rules. They think it will be an environment that will be friendlier to them that might allow, for instance, Donald Trump to come back. Is that real? I don't know.
--:-- Liz Lopato: In the filing, Musk calls the offer his best and final, though it's still not clear how he would finance this purchase. He's also said if his offer is not accepted, he's going to need to reconsider his position as a shareholder. I do think this is a new frontier for causing drama online, both for Elon Musk and the world. I don't think that most people can do this kind of thing, although there is certainly, I would say, a handful of billionaires who could engage in this kind of trolling if they really felt like it. The question with Elon Musk is always how seriously to take him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: COVID is now the third leading cause of death in the United States. The unique kind of grief this is causing for millions of Americans is the subject of a gripping new article in The Atlantic. It's by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Young. It was easily the hardest story I've had to work on in over two years of covering the pandemic. He gathered the stories of dozens of people who lost loved ones to COVID. There were patterns, ways they suffered that were very different than typical grieving. Many of the conditions of the pandemic created an environment for grief to fester. People didn't get the social support that they needed. They didn't get to gather in rituals of mourning like funerals. They didn't get support from those closest to them, often because those people were exhausted or because the pandemic was so politicized.
--:-- Ed Young: COVID grief is relentless. Every time people read the news, everywhere they go, the thing that killed someone they love is the main topic. And those who are grieving tell Young they don't get much sympathy. Often there's harsh judgment instead. Many people I've talked to, in fact, almost everyone I've talked to, said that the first questions they get are things like, were they vaccinated? Did they have pre-existing conditions? Sometimes these questions come before people hear, I sorry for your loss Every person killed by COVID left on average nine close relatives who are grieving their loss That means around 9 million people in the US are dealing with intense grief Young argues the pandemic is revealing and amplifying the problems America has caring for people who are grieving. Even before the pandemic, we weren't great as a culture and a society about handling grief. All of our conceptions about grief are wrong. It doesn't progress according to five predictable stages. Closure is a simplistic myth. Grief can be long, it can be erratic, and it is often ignored.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today is Jackie Robinson Day. Every year on this day, Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson's legacy. This year's special. It's the 75th anniversary of Robinson's first game as the first black player in the league. Sports journalist Ron Rappaport writes about this in the LA Times. He says this annual celebration glosses over the fact that the bigotry that existed before Robinson joined the league was largely allowed to persist. And it's one of the reasons why Robinson steered clear of the MLB after retiring.
--:-- Ron Rappaport: Rappaport tells the story of the day he interviewed Jackie Robinson. and Robinson told him how he really felt about the league. It was June of 1972. Robinson had somewhat reluctantly agreed to come to town because his number, 42, was being retired. He told Rappaport how disappointed he was in baseball, how despite his success in breaking the color barrier, MLB still had never hired a Black manager, and how poorly he felt baseball treated its Black players after their playing days were behind them. As for having his number retired, Robinson told Rappaport that he couldn't care less. He was honored, yes, but if baseball truly wanted to honor him, to celebrate him, Robinson said they would allow baseball players to advance based on their abilities, not the color of their skin.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Keep in mind, this conversation took place when Robinson was 53 years old. His health was deteriorating, he'd suffered a heart attack, was diagnosed with diabetes, and he was almost blind. He would die by the end of that year. But a few days before his death, Robinson attended the second game of the 72 World Series in Cincinnati and addressed the crowd. And he said with a smile he was proud to be there, but he'd be more proud to one day look out and see a black face managing in baseball. Since Robinson died, there have been some black managers, but they're largely underrepresented. Today as MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson Day Rappaport wonders whether the league will heed Robinson's words and rank in with his critique of a sport he so loved.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So this weekend, the National Zoo is celebrating 50 years of giant pandas calling Washington, D.C. home. They're calling it Pandiversary. Pandas ended up at the zoo as a kind of a fluke. For decades now, they've drawn visitors and called attention to conservation efforts. The Washington Post goes into the origin story. What happened was the Nixons were in China on an official presidential visit in 1972. And the first lady happened to sit next to the Chinese premier at dinner. She noticed a little cigarette tin on the table with a logo. It had two giant pandas. and she mentioned sort of offhand that she loves pandas. So the premier said, I'll give you some. A few weeks later, two giant pandas arrived in the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's First Lady Pat Nixon welcoming the pandas to their new home. Here at the National Zoo, they will be enjoyed by the millions of people who come from across the country to visit the nation's capital each year. and I think pandemonium is going to break out right here at the zoo. Thank you very much. And here's a detail that you may not know. China leases pandas to the United States for a fee and it still claims rights to any new cubs, which, as you probably know, are famously rare and fragile. Panda newborns are about the size of a stick of butter or about one nine hundredth the size of its mom on average.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the past few decades, giant pandas have gone from being endangered to threatened, which is a less urgent category in the conservation world. And as for the three pandas who are at the zoo now, their lease will be up next year. So unless the agreement gets renewed, they'll head back to China by December of 2023.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And check out our weekend interview show, In Conversation. This week, we take a deep dive into the donor conception industry, how closed and unregulated it is, and how it affects people's lives. You'll hear about one woman who took a 23andMe test, learned she was conceived using a sperm donor, and confronted her parents about it. You know, the thing is the way mom and dad have always been with you. That when you get down to asking the truth, we have to tell you the truth. Just wish you had raised it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Check out that Weekend Listen. We'll be back with the news on Monday.
