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Mark Garrison, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Wednesday, September 27th. I’m Mark Garrison in for Shumita Basu. This is “Apple News Today.” On today’s show… inside Azerbaijan, as tens of thousands flee the humanitarian crisis there, a hearing on the doping scandal in Olympic figure-skating is finally underway, and the first super models reunite, and tell their story.
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But first, let’s take a quick look at some other stories in the news.
North Korea says it will expel Travis King, the U.S. soldier who went into the country this summer. At the time, the American military was escorting King back to the U.S. for potential disciplinary action. But he slipped away and joined a tour group heading to the border, where he ran across.
A New York judge says Donald Trump and his family business committed fraud by making false and misleading valuations of his real-estate assets. The ruling is an early victory for the state’s Attorney General in the civil-fraud case against Trump that’s set to go to trial next week. New York’s A.G. accuses Trump of inflating his net worth by billions. Trump has denied the allegations. Trump will once again not be on stage at tonight’s Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. You can get full coverage of that in the Apple News app.
In Congress, the clock is ticking to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the week. The challenge is the House and Senate are far apart. Senators are moving forward on a bipartisan bill that would buy time and prevent a shutdown. But several hardline House Republicans are refusing to do that without major concessions. If the House and Senate don’t get aligned, and fast, there will be a shutdown.
In legal news, the federal government and 17 states are suing Amazon. They say the company abuses its market power to squeeze merchants and rivals, leading to higher prices for shoppers. Amazon says the government lawsuit is quote, “wrong on the facts and the law.”
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Tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians are running from Nagorno-Karabakh. That’s the area inside Azerbaijan where Azerbaijan’s military recently took over. And the Armenians living there no longer feel safe.
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The ethnic Armenians are leaving a place where many have lived for decades to live in neighboring Armenia. The latest military victory was quick, but the conflict over land that Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians both claim has been going on for generations.
Olga Ivshina: Both sides claim that they have centuries of history and heritage in Karabakh, and that's what makes this conflict so complicated, so hard for both sides.
I spoke to BBC Senior Correspondent Olga Ivshina, who was in Azerbaijan. She explained that the situation intensified recently when Azerbaijan blocked a key road. That kept some weapons from reaching the ethnic Armenian forces. But it also cut off humanitarian supplies.
Ivshina: This blockade harshly affected civilian populations. So, there were severe shortages of food and water supplies with a total lack of medicine. Many people are missing. People don't know whether their relatives survived because there is almost no cell phone connection. So, it's a very harsh humanitarian situation there.
The rush to escape has been chaotic, with traffic jams of cars overloaded with people and their belongings. A cease-fire deal is in place, and Azerbaijan’s military says it’s guaranteeing safe passage for civilians. But many ethnic Armenians don’t trust the military, and some fear ethnic cleansing. Earlier this week, a fuel explosion killed dozens of people who were attempting to leave. The cause isn’t clear.
Ivshina says people on the ground aren’t sure whether there can be a lasting peace.
Ivshina: After all those decades of casualties, of bloodshed, the only way peace is possible is if both sides are ready to learn from each other's pain, if they're ready to see each other's tragedy. So, there is a possibility for peace, but no one really knows how long this ceasefire will hold. And is it an end of the conflict, or is it just another ceasefire?
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A hearing is underway in Switzerland this week, in one of the biggest doping scandals in Olympic history. Potential gold medals for the U.S. figure-skating team hang in the balance.
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It involves the Russian skater Kamila Valieva and her performance during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Valieva was then 15 years old, seen as the best in the world. In the team event, where women and men compete together, she lived up to the hype, helping her Russian team place first. The U.S. was in second, and Japan third. But it was later revealed that she previously tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing drug. This news came out right before teams were set to get their medals. Now, nearly two years later, they’re still waiting. This week, the case is being heard behind closed doors in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It will have the final say.
“NPR” spoke to American skater Vincent Zhou. If the Court rules against Russia, he and his teammates will get gold medals, instead of silver. They're frustrated that it’s taking so long.
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Vincent Zhou: We're now closing in on 600 days and we haven't heard anything, we haven't been communicated with and we're really in the dark here.
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Zhou and his teammates asked to attend the hearing in Switzerland, but were denied. The Court has been criticized for the secrecy in how it’s holding the proceedings. Zhou says the whole handling of the situation has done a lot of damage.
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Zhou: It certainly is a statement about the state of clean sport, a landmark in the history of doping scandals in the Olympics and in figure-skating history.
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It’s not clear when the court will issue a ruling, or when the medals ceremony will finally be held once it does. So, Zhou, and other skaters, are still waiting for justice.
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They’re on the cover of "Vogue’s" September issue and in a new Apple TV+ documentary series. It’s called “The Super Models,” about Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington. They’re credited with defining the very concept of a supermodel.
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To understand just how much these women changed the fashion world in the 80s and 90s, it’s important to understand what came before, when the public didn’t know the names of models who appeared in ads and walked runways. Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion writer Robin Givhan explains in the series.
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Robin Givhan: When you look at the history of the model, the model's role was to basically be a living hanger. They were referred to as mannequins. Models typically are silent, and their job is to make everything look effortless.
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But these four women were not silent. They became public figures in their own right, bigger than the clothes or the brands. Naomi Campbell talked about why she wanted to tell her story.
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Noami Campbell: You see our photo, our image, so you feel that you know us. But there's no words that go with our pictures.
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Campbell is blunt about the racism she faced in the industry at a time when few Black women were on fashion-magazine covers. She talks about how she turned down a company that wanted to pay her much less than white models. Campbell and the other models reveal a lot of behind-the-scenes info about the fashion business. And some fun moments, like how several of them didn’t know the lyrics at first when they lip-synced “Freedom” in that famous George Michael video.
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You can read more about these fashion trailblazers, and all the stories we talked about, in the Apple News app. And if you’re already listening in the News app right now, we’ve got a narrated article coming up next.
There have been a lot of opinion pieces and studies arguing for the economic benefits of marriage lately. Rebecca Traister takes a closer look at this discussion and offers a counterpoint. Her article in "The Cut" is cued up to play for you next. And our narrated articles are now also available in the Podcasts App. So, if you want to have great journalism read to you there, just search for "News+ Narrated," to start listening to articles from the world’s best magazines and newspapers.
Enjoy listening to those. Shumita is back with the news tomorrow.
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