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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, February 18th. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: 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: President Biden says the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remains very high. Russia claimed it pulled some forces back this week, but Western officials are questioning that, saying Moscow has continued to build up troops.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Meanwhile, inside Ukraine, violence has escalated, with Russian-backed rebels and the Ukrainian government accusing each other of breaking the ceasefire.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That internal violence has the West worried Russia may be trying to stoke tensions or use fake events to justify an attack.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Here's NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
--:-- Jens Stoltenberg: We have seen attempts to stage a pretext, false flag operations to provide an excuse for invading Ukraine. So, of course, this is of concern.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That phrase, false flag, is important to understand right now. The Biden administration is making a similar accusation that Russia could try to stage something as a pretext for war, which has been part of its playbook in the past.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: USA Today looks at how this might play out. The Pentagon said there was evidence that Russia was working on a propaganda video that shows a fake attack on its troops.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This video would make it look like Western allies had supplied weapons to Ukraine for the attack. One international affairs expert tells USA Today another potential false flag operation could include a cyber attack on Russian infrastructure that it would blame on Ukrainian hackers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Or Russia might infiltrate Ukrainian nationalist groups and provoke them to attack.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U and the West are sharing a lot of details on their theories about a potential Russian setup. It's an unusual move for the U to talk about intelligence assessments of another country's apparent military plans.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: On CNN last weekend, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained why.
--:-- Jake Sullivan: We're not putting forward this intelligence to start a war, which has happened in the past. We are putting forward this intelligence to stop a war.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A Texas jury found Eric Kaye guilty of supplying the drugs that led to the death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs. Kaye is a former Los Angeles Angels employee.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This story, it shows the deadly reach of the opioid crisis from wealthy athletes to low-income families. In 2019, Skaggs was found dead in his Dallas hotel room.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His team was in town to play the Texas Rangers. An autopsy found fentanyl, oxycodone, and alcohol in his system. The LA Times has been covering this trial.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Prosecutors called four former Angels players who said they also received drugs from Kay over several years. Kay is facing 20 years to life in federal prison and a fine of up to a million dollars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Beyond this criminal case, the Skaggs family is suing the Angels. They say the organization was negligent.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: After the verdict, the family's attorney says the Angels, quote, have given a black eye to our national pastime.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, in the past, the Angels said the team's investigation found no evidence management was aware of any employee providing opioids to players.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Major League Baseball is now reckoning with the issue of addiction. Months after Skaggs' death, the league and the players' union started testing for opioids.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The federal prosecutor said this case is a sobering reminder that fentanyl kills whether it's dealt on the streets or out of a world baseball stadium.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: By now, we're all familiar with the challenges that are getting in the way of distributing COVID vaccines to developing countries. Vaccines are expensive, they require extremely cold temperatures, and a lot of logistics to make sure that they're handled and administered properly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But a new vaccine is being hailed as a potentially huge game changer. This vaccine is known as Corbavax.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It was created by two scientists in Texas, doctors Peter Hotez and Maria Elena Botazi.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, this one does not require extremely cold temperatures, and that's important.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But as the Texas Tribune reports, the other reason it's a big deal is that it is patent-free. There are no intellectual property rights attached to it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That means this formula can be licensed to a producer in any country, which can make it, name it, and get it out to the people for way cheaper than any other vaccine that's currently on the market.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The scientists behind Corbevax say they were motivated by access, not profits. Their goal was to make a cheap, easy-to-store COVID vaccine for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to get the shot.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dr. Botazi told ABC this is about decolonizing the production of vaccines. It's really transferring and giving the opportunity to many around the world, manufacturers and producers around the world, that really can make vaccines for their own countries or for their own regions.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Even though the data for all clinical trials is not yet out, countries are already reaching out to the scientists to get the vaccine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Indian government is planning to roll out doses soon. Producers in Bangladesh, South Africa, and Botswana have licensed the technology.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And as Dr. Bortazzi told The Guardian, if more people would just stop asking what's in it for me, maybe the world can start to get control of COVID before the next variant pops up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Did you ever put a message in a bottle as a kid, throw it out to sea, hope someone would find it?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Maybe as an adult, you've kind of lost that magic. You don't believe in it anymore.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But this story could make you think twice. CNN introduces us to a group of fifth graders in New Hampshire.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They launched a miniature boat more than a year ago. This wasn't a Coke bottle vessel. It's part of a program called Educational Passages, which teaches kids about science and engineering.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It provides kits to make little boats equipped with GPS. They've got room to store little things, gifts, in case someone finds it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So the kids could use the GPS, and they spent weeks tracking their boat. And it sailed across the Atlantic until one day, the data just stopped.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So the kids assumed the boat was lost. But just a few days ago, there was a new GPS data point. The boat had made its way to Norway, 8,000 miles away.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The family that found it included a sixth grader. It was a mess. You can see the pictures that it's covered in all these barnacles, and the mast was gone.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, this boat had been through things. But the contents inside, they were intact, and in fact, they were dry.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They included U.S. quarters, a face mask with all the kids' names on it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: These kids successfully delivered a message in a boat.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And check out our weekend interview show and conversation. This week, I speak with Maurice Shema from The Marshall Project.
--:-- Maurice Shema: Maurice recently wrote about how certain police interrogation techniques are known to increase the risk of false confessions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The very same things that make a guilty person more likely to confess can also lead an innocent person to feel sort of hopeless and like their only way out is to confess to this crime, even if they didn't commit it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Check out that weekend listen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We'll be back with the news on Monday.
