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--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Friday, April 23rd. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The word of the moment is reform. You kept hearing it from lawmakers on Tuesday when Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You heard that word again and again throughout the week as we saw two fatal police shootings in Ohio and in North Carolina.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It was also invoked yesterday by the Reverend Al Sharpton while he was speaking at Daunte Wright's funeral.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now we are fighting for federal law. Why federal law? Because if we keep having to fight state by state, we'll never solve this.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Both Democrats and Republicans proposed their own versions of police reform bills last year. Vox looks at these two competing visions of what accountability should look like and where the parties might be able to compromise.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Democrats' bill is called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. It passed the House for the second time in March, but stalled in the Senate.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Republicans' bill is called the Justice Act, and Democrats voted it down last year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now here's what they have in common. Both bills include incentives for state and local police to ban chokeholds, although the Democratic bill would ban the practice outright for federal forces.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Both bills also would increase the use of body cameras and require states to report the use of force to the Justice Department.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, one major difference between these bills, which appears to be a sticking point in current negotiations, is the issue of qualified immunity.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This is a legal doctrine that protects officers from most civil lawsuits. It prevents them from being sued for things like injury or property damage as a result of doing their jobs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Democrats want to reduce qualified immunity protections, and Republicans are saying that doing that would not only expose individual officers to unfair financial risk and liability, but it could also make officers second-guess their actions in dangerous situations.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Republican Senator Tim Scott said on Wednesday, one way forward could be for police departments to be held responsible for lawsuits rather than individual officers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He and other lawmakers are optimistic. Both parties might be nearing a compromise, but negotiations are ongoing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And another question to consider is, can an eventual compromise get enough votes to clear a Senate filibuster?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: India is in a dire state. The country reported the world's highest daily tally of infections on Thursday, more than 314,000.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On Friday, that number went even higher, to more than 332,000. And it's very likely that this is a serious undercount.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Part of what's driving this surge is a more contagious variant. But many public health experts are also criticizing the Indian government for being too quick to declare victory against the virus and too lax in responding to this wave.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are so many new coronavirus cases in India that the country's health care infrastructure is just crumbling under the weight of so much demand.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Guardian is reporting, Young people are the ones who are filling up hospital beds. In Delhi, 65% of cases are people under 40.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Doctors tell The Guardian hospitals are stretched way beyond capacity. They're running out of oxygen and supplies.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One hospital in Delhi has two patients in each bed. Some people brought their own oxygen tanks to the hospitals. Others have died waiting in hospital parking lots.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The way Reuters frames it, health experts are saying India let its guard down this winter.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: At one point, the pandemic appeared to be under control, and the government lifted public health restrictions to allow big gatherings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's what allowed millions of people to travel to the Ganges River this month for a Hindu festival.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And another reason why people are gathering in large numbers right now? Local elections.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticized for continuing to hold packed political rallies.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And just this week, Modi urged state governments to implement lockdowns only as a last resort.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In West Bengal, Modi and his home minister, Amit Shah, continued their campaign events. Three candidates in that race have died from the virus.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And then there's this irony. India manufactures more vaccines than any country in the world.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And yet, a lot of people are concerned it won't have enough shots to meet its own demand.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Only a small percentage of Indians have been vaccinated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Part of the reason why is a battle over patents. India and South Africa are asking the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive intellectual property protections for things like equipment and drugs related to the pandemic.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: If the WTO agrees, it would enable these countries to quickly and cheaply manufacture generic vaccines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But so far, some of the WTO's wealthiest members, including the U.S. and the U.K., oppose waiving these protections.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The details of President Biden's multi-trillion dollar infrastructure bill are still being hashed out.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But one thing is clear. It's looking like tax increases are going to play a crucial role in financing it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the Wall Street Journal says relying on the IRS to carry this out could be a problem.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The journal has a long, close look at the tax agency and says years of budget cuts and brain drain have left it so dysfunctional that every year, billions of dollars in taxes go uncollected.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The sheer amount of uncollected tax money is striking. IRS data shows from 2011 to 2013, an estimated $400 billion in tax dollars went uncollected each year, and that was a decade ago.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Last week, IRS Commissioner Charles Reddick said, when you take into account budget cuts plus inflation over the past decade, the amount of uncollected taxes is now closer to a trillion dollars a year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: To put that into perspective, that figure is larger than the entire annual defense budget.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So what is going on here? As the Journal puts it, part of the problem is that it takes money to collect money.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And for years now, the IRS has been hurting for cash.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: When Republicans took over the House of Representatives in the years after the 2008 recession, austerity was the guiding principle that defined government spending.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the IRS saw its budget shrink. Then in 2013, when the IRS apologized for more closely scrutinizing conservative nonprofits, the GOP cut spending even more.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Adjusted for inflation, the agency's budget is down 7% from where it was in 2010, even after factoring in the cash injections it got during the pandemic to help pump out those stimulus checks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This lack of cash has what the journal calls a cascading effect. The agency is running on outdated technology.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There are trailers sitting outside IRS offices with a backlog of paperwork.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And customer service, it's a shot in the dark. The journal says only about 50 percent of callers actually get through to an agent.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The journal points out that the IRS could be in a good position to rebuild right now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's bipartisan support to get funding back up, and the current commissioner is widely respected.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But even with more funding, advocates for the agency say the biggest thing it needs is more people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And not just any people, but highly skilled agents.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Academy Awards are this Sunday, and NPR is calling this a banner year for diversity at the Oscars.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The quality of this year's films is extraordinary, but not their production budgets.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And before you go thinking this is just another hashtag Oscars so white or hashtag Oscars not so white story, NPR's art critic Bob Mondello has a theory about why women and people of color are so well represented this year.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And it doesn't have anything to do with the Academy being more inclusive.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Right. Mondello's theory is the diverse lineup has to do with the way the pandemic has impacted movie theaters and box office numbers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He says with theaters being mostly closed for the past year, studios had to make a tough call.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Either release their movie, taking a financial hit, but making it eligible to win awards this year, or hold the film and wait for a bigger box office draw.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Mandela points out, filmmakers, producers, and studio heads with the most clout decided to wait it out during the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Think movies like Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story or Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Mandela says that group of Hollywood power brokers happened to be mostly men and mostly white.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The folks who ended up going ahead and releasing their films were people with less influence or power to delay releases.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: These were largely filmmakers of color and women.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It was this shift that changed the pool of contenders.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The pandemic economy made it possible for films that might have usually been neglected to get more attention and therefore be considered for these big awards.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And what that means is nine out of the 20 acting nominees are people of color.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Two women are nominated for best director. That's a category that's only gone to a woman one time in the history of the Academy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app plus. If you're watching the Oscars on Sunday, be sure to follow along on the Apple News app. We'll be live blogging through the night.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll talk to you again on Monday.
