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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, June 21st. 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: Up to 10,000 Japanese fans could be in the stands for Summer Olympic events next month. The Wall Street Journal has the story from Tokyo, where organizers have announced they will allow domestic spectators, despite advice from leading doctors who say empty stands would be safer.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Guidelines say venues can be filled up to 50 percent capacity. Today's announcement on the spectators comes after a member of the Ugandan team tested positive for the coronavirus over the weekend. This is after that athlete arrived in Japan.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The latest round of international talks with Iran has failed to reach a nuclear deal that would end U.S. sanctions. One complicating factor is that Iran has a new president, the hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi. He was declared the winner over the weekend in a vote that was widely seen as rigged.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Today, in his first news conference since the election, Raisi called on America to lift all sanctions on Iran. Bloomberg News lays out what's at stake here.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A revitalized deal could include the U.S., Russia, China, and key European countries. But negotiators already missed several critical deadlines. They were hoping to strike a deal before the election in Iran. They could still get it done before the new president takes power in August.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Abraham Raisi's rise from ultra-conservative judge to president is a major change for Iran. It's one that could have big implications for generations to come.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Vox puts Raisi's career into focus. He's a cleric who worked his way up through Iran's legal system. Amnesty International linked him to the killings of thousands of political dissidents.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In the past several years, Raisi gained even more political influence. In 2019, the U.S. imposed sanctions on him personally in order for any nuclear deal to happen. Iran is insisting sanctions against Raisi will have to be lifted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Still, Vox says Raisi probably won't stand in the way of reaching a nuclear agreement. After all, he falls in step with Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, who's expressed that he wants to see a nuclear deal revived.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Raisi is seen as a leading contender to eventually replace the aging Ayatollah. So in the meantime, observers say, while he waits to get tapped for that role, he'll try not to rock the boat too much as president.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Did you have last Friday off when the country was celebrating Juneteenth? What if you had every Friday off and your pay stayed the same?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: People who want a four-day work week say the idea is not as crazy as you might think. They argue that for businesses and the people who work there, it actually makes a lot of sense.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You might be thinking that working only four days a week would be bad for business. But a new Atlantic article says not necessarily.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It points to some recent examples of companies that did it without hurting profits. In New Zealand, an estate planning firm made a deal with employees and said, let's figure out how to be more productive during the day so that we can shorten the work week.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They did things like shorten meetings, remove distractions, even soundproof so that people could focus better. Three years later, the four-day work week there is still in place.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This trend, it's not limited to office workers. In Roanoke, Virginia, a nursing home started giving people 40 hours of pay for 30 hours of work.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Because of that change, it needed to hire more nursing assistants, but it also saved a lot in overtime. The company also saved money on recruitment because workers were less likely to quit.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And when you look at the people who live in this nursing home, measures of their health went up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But The Atlantic writes the most compelling argument for the four-day work week isn't about efficiency. It's not about profits. It's about how it would benefit people, improve their quality of life.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Atlantic notes people with work schedules like this say they feel healthier, both physically and mentally, because people with a shorter work week have more time to spend with their families, go back to school, volunteer, develop hobbies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And this shorter work week, it may not just be good for them. It could be good for society, too.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The most valuable crop that comes out of the state of Maine isn't blueberries. It's marijuana. And the majority of medical marijuana is sold by small businesses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Like a lot of states, Maine is working to make sure its regulations can keep up with demand. But advocates for mom-and-pop weed sellers worry that state rules could give giant marijuana corporations the advantage.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Politico takes us inside one of these indie pot shops. It's run by this guy who got into the business after a career in the Navy and as a state lawmaker.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's got this mellow, homespun feel like a classic New England house. The owner worries new regulations are going to make it harder for tiny stores like his to stay in business.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One of the biggest concerns for people like him is a proposed seed-to-sale tracking system. And the idea here is that the system would help local government make sure that businesses are complying with industry rules.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But some small business owners say that putting the system into practice is going to be too expensive for them. Testing is another area of concern.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Politico explains most small operators acknowledge some screening of marijuana products is necessary but they argue overly strict rules could be problematic for them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For example, extensive mandatory testing could lead to backups at labs and in that scenario, giant clients may get priority. It could get tough for small shops to comply.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Politico explains how small weed sellers are coming together to push back. And recently they scored a small victory. In a special session the Maine legislature voted to pause the proposed rules.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But this may just be the beginning of a longer process. The trick for regulators is finding a way to have rules that keep people safe, but not in a way that damages small businesses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So there's this painting that was going to be trash, but then somebody bought it for a few dollars and they got a major deal. That painting is being auctioned off for tens of thousands of dollars.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That would-be hunk of trash was actually a piece of rock and roll history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, CNN explains the story began in a donation center at a landfill in Ontario. There was this abstract painting, kind of looks like a person in profile with teal blue hair and a ghostly white face.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It looked interesting enough and it was super cheap, so this person bought it. It was only later that the buyer figured out that this work was something special.
--:-- Shamita Basu: David Bowie painted it. He created dozens of paintings in the 90s. And you can tell that it's the real deal because of the style and Bowie's signature on the back.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There is one mystery still, though. Who is depicted in this portrait? Bowie often painted his friends, his family, other musicians, sometimes even himself, but he didn't identify his subjects.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So the secret is still safe with him. There's no mystery about the value, though. Once it was saved from being trashed and put up for auction, bidders quickly pushed its price from $4 to five figures.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, the auction ends on Thursday, so if you want to hang this trash-turned-treasure story on the wall, get your bid in now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Details are in the article, which we'll link to on our show notes page. And while you're in the Apple News app, check out some of our audio stories from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Goodbye for now.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Goodbye.
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