--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Friday, January 15th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita 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.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States, he's going to face a pandemic, a struggling economy, and now Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Politico reports on how that could complicate Biden's first 100 days. The impeachment trial might even start just one hour after he's sworn in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Biden is pushing for the Senate to bifurcate, which means spend half the day on impeachment and half on the new administration's key priorities, which includes confirming his cabinet appointees.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Normally, incoming presidents have a few cabinet members confirm before they take office. As of right now, though. It's not clear if Biden is going to have any cabinet members in place when he starts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On the pandemic front, Biden needs the Senate to pass a massive coronavirus relief package. He unveiled his plan last night. The crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight. There's no time to waste. We have to act and we have to act now.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The plan includes $1,400 stimulus checks, extended unemployment benefits, and billions of dollars in vaccination funding. It's a $1.9 trillion package overall.
--:-- Shamita Basu: With Democrats running the Senate, Biden should have an easier time getting this through. But it's going to take more than passing bills for our country to get back on track.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Fed estimates that among the lowest earners one in five are unemployed. And as The Washington Post puts it Biden is going to have to create more jobs than any president in recent history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Donald Trump has overseen more federal executions than any president in decades, including three people this week.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: As GQ magazine reports, the selection of people to be put to death seems to be, quote, calibrated to be the least likely to prompt public outcry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On Wednesday, convicted murderer Lisa Montgomery was executed. She was the first female federal inmate executed in nearly seven decades. Her lawyers argue she was severely mentally ill and traumatized by years of abuse as a child.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Overnight, Corey Johnson was executed. He was convicted of seven gang-related murders. His lawyers argue he was, quote, intellectually disabled.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And tonight, federal officials plan to execute Dustin Higgs. Wesley Lowry writes about his case for GQ. You might know Lowry from his coverage of racial justice issues.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He and Higgs have been writing each other for weeks now. For the past 20 years, Higgs has been on death row. He was convicted of overseeing the kidnapping and murder of three women.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Higgs maintains his innocence. All witnesses say Higgs didn't kill anyone. In fact, his co-defendant has admitted to being the sole killer in this case. But he was sentenced to life in prison while Higgs went to death row.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In one message to Lowry, Higgs writes, "Higgs was hoping he wouldn't be one of the people the Trump administration chose to execute."
--:-- Shamita Basu: A court delayed his execution because he had COVID but that was overturned this week. President Biden has said he wants to abolish the federal death penalty.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now if Higgs' execution were delayed just a few more days it's very possible his life would be spared.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U.S. Capitol Police are under intense scrutiny after last week's security failures. Some officers have been suspended for allegedly helping the rioters, and others are under investigation.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, some of its black officers are drawing a direct line between the violent insurrection and what they describe as institutional racism within the force.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ProPublica has this reporting. More than 250 black cops have sued the department since 2001. Complaints range from white officers using racial slurs to black officers who say their own colleagues pulled them over in unprovoked traffic stops.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One officer found a noose in his locker. In another case, a black officer found a cartoon on his desk of a black man and a KKK wizard.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When that officer complained to his superiors, he says he was denied promotions.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Two Black Capitol Hill police officers who were at the Capitol on January 6th told BuzzFeed News their leadership failed them that day and put everyone's lives at risk, particularly Black officers who say they were subjected to racist abuse from the mob.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another said the police force has long had a culture of racism, and she wasn't surprised that extremist Trump supporters were able to get into the building.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Capitol police did not respond to ProPublica's questions, And the officers interviewed for this article say the blame is not on police leadership alone.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Congress oversees the police force. House member Eleanor Holmes Norton says lawmakers share in the blame and she wants a national commission to investigate all of the failings that led to the attack on the Capitol.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Okay, consider yourself warned. It's time to break out your snowsuits, get out your long johns, in the next week or so, it might get really cold in some parts of the U.S. A polar vortex is in the forecast.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'm shivering just hearing you talk about it. Now, the polar vortex is a cap of rotating air that sits above the North Pole. Sometimes there's a disruption that causes massive amounts of Arctic air to shoot across the planet.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And all that cold air sends some regions of the world into a deep freeze. Right. So that is what's just happened, the sort of rare disruption. And it's happening in an unusually intense way right now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: National Geographic is reporting scientists detected a nearly 100 degree temperature increase in the Arctic. All of that warm air is powerful enough to break up the polar vortex.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And a chunk of it could bring brutal winter weather to America. So get ready. Freezing cold Arctic air could hit different parts of the northern hemisphere very soon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: By the way, the polar vortex is the reason that in 2019, Chicago was ever so briefly colder than the North Pole.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our audio stories.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you again on Monday.
