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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Monday, May 9th. I'm Shumita 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.
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Ukraine says dozens of people are dead following a Russian bombing of a school. And troops guarding Mariupol are promising to keep defending the steel mill that Russian forces have been trying to take control of. Yesterday, Dr. Jill Biden visited Ukraine's first lady in a surprise visit to the country.
Today, Russia is celebrating a historic anniversary: Victory Day, the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, which includes a massive parade at Red Square.
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It's always a big day for Russian patriotism and propaganda. But this year, the Kremlin needs it even more because the war in Ukraine is going badly. We reached out to "New Yorker" foreign policy writer Robin Wright for context.
Robin Wright: The end of World War II in 1945 marked the high point of the Kremlin's military power during seven decades of the Soviet Union's existence in the 20th century. The war in Ukraine in 2022 reflects one of the lowest and most humiliating performances by the Russian military in modern history.
At the parade, the Russian government showed off troops in crisp uniforms and all kinds of military hardware. It's a sharp contrast with the destroyed tanks and trucks on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Wright: Putin has used Victory Day with public displays of thousands of marching troops, and tanks rolling through the streets, and new weaponry on the roads of Moscow, and war planes flying overhead to create an illusion of greatness today that is based solely on Russia's greatness 77 years ago. And that's all it is, an illusion.
We also asked Wright about Vladimir Putin's changing strategy and the possible consequences if Russia takes over strategic territory.
Wright: One of the dangers is that Russia manages to hold part of eastern Ukraine and the southern coast that would cut Ukraine off from all its ports. That would divide the country, leave the heartland of Ukraine landlocked, and basically create a kind of division, like between North and South Korea.
As the conflict drags on and U.S. aid to Ukraine increases, America faces risks that it might be in direct conflict with Russia. There are new concerns of how the Kremlin will interpret U.S. involvement, after recent revelations that Ukraine used American intelligence to strike Russian targets.
Wright: Putin has framed the war as one designed to protect Russia, especially as NATO has expanded over the past 27 years. So any coverage of the United States providing information that might lead to the death of senior military officials or the sinking of a warship is clearly going to feed into Putin's paranoia.
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Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says he'll hold a vote on Wednesday on a federal law guaranteeing abortion rights. It's largely symbolic because there aren't enough votes to break a Republican filibuster. But it's a chance to see where the senators stand.
"ELLE" magazine is out with something that we don't hear very often. It got together five members of Congress: four women who've had abortions and one man whose wife had one. "ELLE" says they're the only current members of Congress who have gone on the record with their abortion stories. The five members are Representatives Cori Bush, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, and Jackie Speier, and Senator Gary Peters. All are Democrats.
Representative Cori Bush shared that she had an abortion when she was 17 years old. She describes the process to "ELLE" as really isolating.
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Representative Cori Bush: I remember pulling up on the parking lot, people surrounding the car, calling me all kinds of names. You know, "baby murderer" and all of this. Then when I went into my own consultation to have this done, I'll never forget how I was treated. I'll never forget being told, "If you don't do this, you're gonna be on welfare and adoption isn't really an option for you. You know, you just need to go ahead and get this done." And I felt very alone, but I had the option to make the decision to go ahead or to not.
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Reflecting on that moment now, Bush explains that having an abortion was the best decision for her.
Representative Jackie Speier told her abortion story on the House floor in 2011. She was speaking out against legislation that would cut funding for Planned Parenthood. As Speier told "ELLE," she wanted the baby, but had a serious complication.
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Representative Jackie Speier: I was 40 years old when I had my abortion. The abortion was at 17 weeks. What had happened was the fetus had slipped through the cervix into the vagina. They put me upside down in a hospital bed, trying to have the fetus return to the uterus. And it just wasn't happening. So, um, I decided that it was, um… It was time to have the abortion. I was a mother. I wanted that baby.
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Senator Gary Peters told "ELLE" about the experience that he and his former wife went through. He said when his then-wife was expecting her second child, the doctor told them that something was wrong.
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Senator Gary Peters: And he said, "I have to do this procedure immediately, or you're gonna lose your uterus. And if we wait any longer, you could lose your life." As a husband, to see my former wife go through the anguish that she went through. And to this day, it's something that's incredibly tough for her to think about. It's tough for me to think about.
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A 2017 study shows around one in four women in the U.S. will have an abortion in their lifetime. You can see "ELLE's" video of the roundtable with these Congress members on the Apple News App.
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You have probably been to a wedding, maybe even had one yourself. But have you ever worked a wedding? I have. And let me tell you, it is really demanding. At the end of that 14-hour day, you are beat.
This "Bloomberg" article caught my eye because they took a unique approach to the stories you've already heard about this year's surge in weddings. The reporter found a wedding planner who caters to super wealthy clients, and then embedded with that planner's team to really get to know what it's like to work these high-end jobs. That reporter was Brandon Presser.
Brandon Presser: So for this project, I was working for Colin Cowie, who really can claim the title as event planner to the stars.
Presser describes Cowie as sort of like a lion. He's calm, but when the situation calls for it, he can roar. After all, there's a lot on the line with clients like these.
Presser: These are weddings that start at a million dollars and go all the way up to $25 million. These are weddings, you know, everywhere from the Midwest to the Middle East, from Mexico to Europe. And no extravagance is spared.
That $25 million wedding, it was at a resort in Mexico. And it came out to almost $200,000 per person. Presser told us from his one week of working on Cowie's team, when the budget gets that big, there are a lot of odd requests.
Presser: I was responsible for stuffing suitcases full of barbecue Fritos, which you can't get in Mexico. And those were then parsed out into the welcome boxes, for example. And then while I was there, I was dealing with difficult guests. And we sort of figured out who the tough guests were, which tables they were at, and made sure that I was staffed near them to attend to all of their needs.
Cowie's team sets clients up with Broadway-level lighting, gown designers, Michelin-quality food. They'll organize private jets just for furniture and decorations. They'll even send out gift baskets to neighbors ahead of time, as a sort of pre-apology for all the noise and partying that's about to go down. The most difficult people to deal with, Presser told us he was surprised to learn, it wasn't really stressed-out brides or grooms.
Presser: And usually, as these planners told me, it's parents who have new money because when they got married, you know, 30 years prior, they didn't have all this wealth. So in a way, these weddings are their fantasy weddings.
You might think wedding planners want everything to go perfectly. But Presser said they actually kind of relish when things go wrong.
Presser: Planners actually trade in the mistakes that are made or in the things that go wrong and how they fix them. And that's sort of their social currency in the industry. And they all gather around over beers and share the story about, you know, the sudden rainstorm that destroyed the tent, or, you know, the wine that never showed up, or the violinists that never came to usher the bride down the aisle, and how all of these things need to be fixed in a matter of seconds.
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If you are a thrift store shopper, you've probably got stories of some amazing stuff that you found for cheap. But listen to what happened to this one woman who bought something at a Texas Goodwill. A $34.99 purchase turned out to be a lost treasure from around the first century.
The "San Antonio Express-News" has the story of a woman who saw this old bust in a thrift store. It was made of marble, 50 pounds, it was kind of chipped in some places. But she had a good feeling about it, so she decided to lug it home. She's an antiques dealer, so her hunches tend to work out.
Years later, she was working with experts, and she found out that she was right. A Sotheby's consultant said that it was a Roman-era bust. It was last known to be in Germany, but it got lost after a museum was hit in World War II. It's not clear how it wound up in Texas, of all places. Researchers say it's likely that an American soldier brought it back.
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So this smart antiques buyer connected with the German government and arranged for this bust to return there soon. The San Antonio Museum of Art has it on display until next year.
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+ partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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