--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Thursday, March 10th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shemitah Bassu. 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 Bassu: Ukrainian officials say at least three people are dead after Russia bombed a maternity hospital. Several more were injured, including children. Calls to investigate Russia for war crimes are growing. A large number of Russian strikes have hit civilian targets. And in new talks today, foreign ministers from Russia and Ukraine failed to reach an agreement. They held a meeting in Turkey, and it was the highest level diplomacy between the countries since the war began.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: According to the families of some Russian soldiers, they never knew they were being sent to invade Ukraine. Some of these families say the last they heard, their loved ones were being sent away for training. Then the invasion began, and they haven't heard from them since. Just listen to this phone call from a Russian woman trying to find out if her husband was killed in Ukraine. You may not speak the language, but you can understand the emotion.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Through tears, you can hear her saying, "Please understand the troops were forced to attack." She says she wants the war to end and for people to live in peace. CNN actually got these recordings from a hotline for Russian families who want to get information about troops in Ukraine.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: What's striking here is who is on the other end of the line. The operator you hear comforting her saying she understands, is Ukrainian. The Ukrainian government set the hotline up partly as a humanitarian effort, but its operators say it's also part of a propaganda campaign designed to turn more Russians against the war.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In the past, Russian mothers of soldiers have been strong voices in anti-war protests. CNN spoke to the psychologist who runs the hotline. She says the calls haunt her. Many say they feel lied to by the Russian government. And a lot of the callers apologize to the Ukrainian operators for Putin's actions.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Now some of these calls are actually coming from people living in the USA checking on their Russian relatives. CNN spoke to one woman named Marina who dialed in from Florida. There wasn't any information about her cousin. She was hoping that he's maybe in a prison or something like that, that he's still alive.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: People like Marina, they're clinging to hope and searching for answers about their loved ones. Soldiers sent to fight a war many of them don't support.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: New laws in several states are making it harder to access abortions. And an upcoming Supreme Court ruling this year could allow more restrictions nationally, possibly even overturn Roe v. Wade. The focus is largely on abortions through surgery, but it's also possible to end a pregnancy using medication.
--:-- Cynthia Kuhn: With access to clinics tightening, the abortion pill may get more attention. It's called Mifepristone. Bloomberg Health reporter Cynthia Kuhn says activists had high hopes for it when it was first available in the U.S. 20 years ago.
--:-- Cynthia Kuhn: People thought it was going to revolutionize abortion, make it much more accessible, make it much easier for women to seek abortions without having to go to providers or cross picket lines where people were protesting abortion. And also, it would make it easier for women to get abortions in parts of the country where there aren't abortion clinics.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: But so far, that hasn't panned out. Today, most abortions in the U.S. are surgical. Around 80% of American adults haven't even heard of the abortion pill. And that's in part because the pill is hard to get.
--:-- Cynthia Kuhn: When the abortion pill was approved, the FDA immediately put on a number of restrictions that it usually reserves for highly dangerous drugs, drugs that may cause harm in some way, could even potentially be fatal, but are still really important medical innovations. They're just tightly controlled.
--:-- Cynthia Kuhn: Decades of medical data show the pill is very safe. Still, the FDA has made it much harder to get than many other medications. Say you went in and got a dental procedure and needed opioids or some very strong painkiller, you wouldn't have to get those pills from your dentist's office. You could go to CVS or Rite Aid.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: That would not be uncommon. And those are highly addictive and dangerous drugs. But in the instance of this drug, you would have to literally pick it up at a doctor's office. And that's a problem because doctors don't really have mechanisms for storing medication on site.
--:-- Cynthia Kuhn: The FDA did make a pretty significant rule change last year. It lifted a requirement that patients had to pick up the drug at a doctor's office. Now, the pill can be ordered by mail.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And if you look at the broader view, you can begin to understand why this is such a big deal. 9 out of 10 women live in counties with no abortion clinic. So access to these pills may be the next battleground over abortion policy.
--:-- Cynthia Kuhn: The Guttmacher Institute says 19 states have banned using telemedicine to prescribe the abortion pill. The next big legal fight may be over whether states can ban shipment of the pill, even if the FDA allows it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Bitcoin took another wild ride after President Biden issued a new executive order on cryptocurrency. The price spiked yesterday as details started to trickle out. But in early trading today, Bitcoin lost most of its gains. The Wall Street Journal looks at what's in this new executive order.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Some crypto investors worried about a federal crackdown. This isn't that, but it's not a total endorsement either. As one expert on fintech policy puts it, it's about as close to an embrace of crypto as fans could hope for.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The White House order largely tells federal agencies to do some homework. It's telling them to research potential benefits and risks. They're ordered to look into possible impact on the economy, national security, and climate, and they should consider new regulations.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Biden's order also tells agencies to look into what would happen if America issued a digital version of the dollar. The Fed has already been evaluating this. Other big central banks have experimented with digital currencies.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There are still a lot of questions about how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will be regulated in America down the road. The crypto industry is lobbying hard to avoid heavy regulations. Biden's executive order doesn't answer all these questions, so that debate will continue.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And Bitcoin investors should be ready for more changing prices and maybe changing rules, too.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Bye.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In 2017, Julius Burnside rented a car from Hertz. He said it was all pretty routine until Hertz accused him of stealing his rental vehicle. Here he is on MSNBC.
--:-- Julius Burnside: I turned it in, paid for it, kept my receipts, went about my life, found out it was a warrant for my arrest and subsequently went to jail.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Burnside says he spent seven months in jail. I got out right before my daughter's graduation. I actually took graduation pictures with her fresh out of jail. But yeah, I missed a lot.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: This is not an isolated case. Hundreds of people are now suing Hertz for false arrests. USA Today tells us the story of Paula Murray, who was about to start a new job with the state police. She brought her grandchildren to the station to witness this big moment in her career. And instead, they watched her get handcuffed and arrested.
--:-- Paula Murray: She also says it was because she allegedly stole a Hertz car that she had actually returned five years before.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It's not always clear what's happening here. A lawyer for the plaintiff says, the problem is Hertz is mixing up records on when cars are returned. When he can't find a car, it's calling police and reporting it's stolen.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: The company says the legal claims against it are baseless. It says it only reports cars stolen in very rare cases after many attempts to reach a customer who is late returning a car.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Court documents show the current group of people suing has collectively spent nearly 3,000 days in jail or prison because of these false arrests. Some took plea deals, admitting to stealing cars they didn't take just to go on with their lives.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And that criminal record, it affects their ability to get a job or a loan. As USA Today's headline puts it, if you've rented a car from Hertz, there could be a warrant out for your arrest.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The lead attorney for the claimant says there could be tens of thousands of Hertz customers affected. Many people may not even know they've been accused of theft.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: 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.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll talk with you again tomorrow. Thank you.
