--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, December 19th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the January 6th committee prepares its last word on Trump, the struggle in Puerto Rico for safe drinking water after hurricanes, and how parking lots could help fight climate change. But first, before we get into other news, we need to talk about the World Cup final yesterday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can hear how intense it was just listening to Telemundo's play-by-play legend Andres Cantor, who is Argentine-American when Argentina clinched the title. For almost 80 minutes of the match, Argentina dominated. With just a few minutes to go, they were up 2-0. But then French superstar Kylian Mbappe scored two quick goals. That sent the game into extra time, where each team scored again. Argentina won the game on penalty kicks. Lionel Messi finally had the trophy, cementing his place in soccer history.
--:-- Brendan Hunt: It feels like it was written in the stars but Messi was going to have to earn it.
--:-- Rebecca Lowe: You know it was almost like, the fairy tale is there, but you're not going to just be handed it. So you think you're going to be handed it with 10 minutes to go, five minutes or so to go, you think you're going to be handed it and you're cruising. And all of a sudden Mbappe says no.
--:-- Brendan Hunt: If it had been a script, script writers would be like, no, that can never happen. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I'm sitting here like part of me is just comatose from the sensory overload of not only the best World Cup final ever played, maybe the best football match ever played, maybe the best sporting event we've ever seen. Just incredible stuff, an incredible advertisement for the game and for what sport can be.
--:-- Rebecca Lowe: Just the emotions, the drama, you can't script it. It just has to play out. And sometimes there has to be magic involved. And there it all was, an absolutely perfect three hours.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can hear that full episode of After the Whistle in the Apple News app and the podcast app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol holds its final public hearing today. Bloomberg reports that the committee will vote on whether to recommend that Donald Trump be prosecuted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Charges under consideration include insurrection, obstructing a government proceeding, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Democratic committee member Adam Schiff told CNN that the case against Trump is strong.
--:-- Adam Schiff: Viewing it as a former prosecutor, I think there's sufficient evidence to charge the president.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The committee could also recommend that Trump associates be prosecuted. During hearings, the committee is focused on the actions of former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and Trump's former lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But any criminal referrals will be largely symbolic. The Justice Department makes the final decision. It's in the middle of its own investigation into the Capitol attack and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, it took months to restore clean water and power for residents, in some places longer. Nearly a billion in federal funds were earmarked to prevent similar problems.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But this year, Hurricane Fiona hit the island, and for more than a half a million people, water taps again ran dry. We wanted to explore the question of why, five years later and billions of dollars later, the local water utility had not come up with a solution to back up with emergency power the utility.
--:-- Arelis Hernandez: When the power goes out in Puerto Rico, water pumps rely on generators to keep running. But less than 1% of federal funds allocated to Puerto Rico went toward generators.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So in the case of Puerto Rico's water utility, they made a decision that they were going to save that bureaucratic process, those precious federal dollars, and use them instead for big picture projects, other projects that they had in mind that they still think would better serve a greater number of the population.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The chief of Puerto Rico's water agency said she thought the electrical grid would hold up, but critical water plants stalled after Fiona hit. And mayors in Puerto Rico say the agency failed to provide communities with enough generators and trucks with safe water. Some never arrived. Others didn't work.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the lack of clean water exposed people to waterborne diseases. After Fiona, there were dozens of confirmed deaths from a bacterial disease caused by exposure to contaminated water and soil.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hernandez visited the town of Moca. People there told her how exhausted they were from having to pay out of pocket for water after storms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the amount of money that these folks, many of them are on fixed incomes, were spending to try and supply their own needs, frustrated, doesn't even begin to describe what these folks have been experiencing, what they described to me, the fact that your government cannot deliver a basic service when you need it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Residents tell the Post they live in fear that the next storm and the next power outage will cause the same problems again.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Imagine a future where one of modern life's biggest eyesores, the sprawling paved parking lot, plays a role in the fight against climate change. That's the plan in France, where a new law requires owners of large parking lots to cover half of them with solar panels or else get fined.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This move has climate watchers in America saying, hey, we should be doing the same thing. A story by Time calculates what France's plan might look like here.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it's tough to do a one-to-one comparison. But Time's math says adding solar panels to half the parking lots in the mainland United States would add over 3,000 gigawatts of solar capacity. 3,000.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, to put that optimistic number into context, in 2021, U.S. power capacity across all energy sources was just over 1,000 gigawatts. So the potential here is huge.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But as Time explains, a law like the one in France would be a tougher sell in the United States. If the federal government tried to get involved in private land use, challenges from citizens and state governments would probably come next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Then there's the cost. Adding solar panels to parking lots requires building structures for them to sit on, so it's more expensive than just bolting them on top of a roof.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Still, this idea does have a certain elegance to it. There are 275 million motor vehicles in America gobbling up energy. Why not generate some while they're parked?
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can read more on this and all the stories that we cover today in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: People magazine goes inside the making of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Netflix documentary series. So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
