China can influence Russia. Will it?

Good morning! It's Friday, March 18th. I'm Duarte Geraldino.

And 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.

Russian missiles hit the outskirts of Lviv, in western Ukraine, today. A lot of non-military targets across the country have been hit. There was an American among the civilians killed yesterday, his name was Jimmy Hill. He was in the country with his Ukrainian partner. In Mariupol, rescuers have been searching the rubble of a bombed theater. Ukrainian officials say hundreds of people were sheltering there, including children. Some survivors have managed to make it out.

Diplomats have been thinking about what kind of role China might play in the conflict. Today, President Biden is speaking with China's Xi Jinping. The American message to China has been clear: active support of Russia's conflict will mean consequences. U.S. officials said earlier that Russia has asked China for military and economic help. Russia denies this, and China says it has not helped Russia's war in any way.

Yesterday, I sat down with Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia group. He recently wrote in "Time" magazine about how much of a difficult position China is in right now. On the one hand, Xi and Putin have been allies for a long time. But on the other, getting too close to Moscow at this moment has enormous consequences for Beijing.

I think that Xi Jinping does not want to be painted as so much of a Confederate of Putin that suddenly he is in a new cold war against a unified United States and NATO and Quad. He does not want a forcible decoupling of the Chinese economy from the rest of the world, the way the Russian economy has now been forcibly decoupled. What is the line here that if China crosses it, the U.S. is going to have to take action against Beijing? And what might such a response be from the U.S.?

Well, I think that there are a couple of red lines. One red line would be direct military assistance to the Russians to allow them to continue and expand their war-fighting capabilities against the Ukrainians. That would be one. And the second would be direct sanctions-breaking behavior on the part of the Chinese against American and European sanctions on Russia. Those two would be red lines. If they were broken, I think you would see severe sanctions against Chinese policy makers, individuals that were responsible for that, the companies that are involved, and perhaps even sectoral sanctions. That would be massively impactful. Now, then the question is: what about things that the Chinese are doing that are in a gray zone? They're not directly breaking the sanctions but they're clearly trying to evade the sanctions. They're breaking the spirit of the sanctions. They are allowing Chinese investment in ways that the Americans have no direct law on the books against, but clearly are helping the Russians to maintain significant economic strength, and fight against an independent Ukraine and, more broadly, against NATO. And I think that that's the nature of the conversation that Presidents Biden and Xi are having right now. That's the nature of a conversation that American policy makers have to think very seriously about.

China provides military support, economic support, and the U.S. imposes sanctions against China. How does China fare? Can it survive the type of isolation that Russia is being confronted with right now?

Well, it won't be isolated. If the Americans were to do that, what's gonna happen is you will have a fragmentation of the global economy. You will have, literally, a breaking into two. China is the most important trade partner of a majority of countries all over the world. You think about the last 50 years, we've created a global middle class. We've taken hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty because of globalization because, increasingly, people and goods and services and ideas were moving faster and faster across borders all over the world. This would be an end of that, and it would be incredibly damaging to the future of the planet.

Dozens of historically Black colleges and universities have gotten bomb threats in recent months. No bombs have been found, but it's still created a sense of terror on these campuses. And it's notable that many of the threats occurred during Black History Month. The FBI is investigating the threats as racially- or ethnically-motivated violent extremism and hate crimes.

This week, the White House announced these schools will be eligible for additional money to help them improve security and mental health resources. Vice President Kamala Harris is a graduate of one of the most famous historically Black schools, Howard University. She's spoken many times about the importance of supporting these schools and says what's happening now is a serious problem.

These threats have been made in phone calls and instant messages and emails and online posts. These threats have brought fear and anxiety to places of peace.

"The Atlantic" looks at the long history in America of terrorism targeting Black students. Many of today's Black colleges trace their history back to the end of the Civil War. It's part of the reason why they exist: to educate Black students because other places refuse to. In the decades that followed, many white people made violent threats against Black universities, and in some cases there was deadly violence. People were killed and injured. In 1960, someone called a bomb threat into Fisk University in Tennessee ahead of a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.

And this year, Howard University was one of the places that got threats on the first day of Black History Month. But students there returned to class. The university's president told "The Atlantic," quote, "We have to be resilient. People don't want to see African Americans in certain places. Some of this is hate, some of it is intended to disrupt what we do."

In this country, there are laws against discrimination in the workplace from race, to gender, to sexual orientation, to disability status, but there's no clear law that protects workers who are overweight. And a lot of people are rethinking that.

Josh Eidelson is a labor reporter for "Bloomberg Business Week," and his article points out how people who are overweight are less likely to be hired, promoted and also paid less. For example…

In one lawsuit, a manager at Coach alleged that when she was petite, she got promoted, and then when she ceased to be petite, she got fired. And in between, the company pressured her to get bariatric surgery, and even wrote in a performance evaluation that they wanted to know what happened to the version of her that ate lean cuisines for lunch each day.

Coach declined to comment. Generally, companies can get away with this kind of behavior because of the lack of legal protection. Michigan and a few cities, including San Francisco, ban weight discrimination. Now, activists are pressing for more.

Right now, advocates see what may be the best chance in decades to pass new state-wide legislation banning discrimination based on weight. In both New York and Massachusetts, bills are moving through legislatures that would prohibit discrimination based on weight or height in public accommodations, in housing and in employment.

Civil rights laws rest on this idea that you should be protected against discrimination based on traits you cannot change. This has been a sticking point in the conversation about weight-based discrimination.

One of the reasons there's been resistance to legal protections for people based on their weight is a perception that weight is under people's control, and that it's a matter of discipline. But Eidelson says current science doesn't always back that up… In fact, research suggests Americans don't have as much control over their weight as people like to think, that, in fact, our bodies are more a product of our genes and our environment than of our willpower.

Eidelson says expanding civil rights protections takes decades of momentum. It's hard to do, and it requires a shift in the way society thinks about people who are overweight. He says there's a good chance these legal campaigns will help cement changing cultural attitudes, and vice versa.

Happy World Sleep Day! Yeah, I don't know. Today is one of those made-up PR holidays. In this case, it's an attempt to raise awareness of the importance of a good night's sleep. It was founded by experts in sleep medicine. Now, Duarte and I, we start work at 3 o'clock every morning, so we're whatever the opposite of a sleep expert is. And this week, there's been so much news about sleep, [CHUCKLES] and we can't stop talking about it.

[LAUGHS]

Yeah, especially when you open your eyes at 2 a.m. Now, this week we changed our clocks, as usual. Now, we've talked about this on our show lately, and the Senate passed a bill that would end that ritual. The move took a lot of people by surprise. It would put us permanently on daylight saving time, the way your clock is right now. [SIGHS] It's rough.

Now, their argument is based on science, health and safety. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says standard time is the closest to humans' circadian rhythm. Disrupting that rhythm messes with our physical and mental health.

And losing sleep can be dangerous. Tired drivers are a real risk. We've been talking about this interesting article that popped up this week from "Road & Track." It basically says humans are not meant to drive at night. Some of that is about how our eyes struggle with lack of light, but a big chunk of why so many fatal accidents happen at night is lack of sleep.

Federal stats show drowsy driving causes tens of thousands of traffic accidents a year. According to the CDC, being awake for more than 18 hours is equivalent to being tipsy, and if you're driving after not sleeping for 24 hours, you are effectively a drunk driver.

As "Road & Track" puts it, we are unusual in the animal kingdom in that we use artificial light to keep going at night. But at night, we are hardwired to want sleep, and that's why missing out on it can be dangerous. A good night's sleep doesn't just feel good, it might save lives.

This weekend, we're spinning off our interview series, "In Conversation," into a new show on Apple Podcasts. It'll be the same content you get every week, now just in one place.

In this latest episode, I talk with Jon Stewart. He has a new show on Apple TV+ called "The Problem with Jon Stewart." In every episode, he identifies a problem, and then he talks to people who are advocating for a concrete solution. He told me he sees his return to TV as a chance to highlight change-makers.

Television is the dog in "Up." In other words, we start with something and then it's like "And this is the most important-- Squirrel!" And then you're off. But change is focused, tenacious and has stamina and has an attention span.

Check out that weekend listen. You can follow the channel "Apple News In Conversation" in the News app, or you can find the show in Apple podcasts. We'll be back with the news on Monday.