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--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Friday, December 17th. I'm Duarte Giraldino.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'm Shamita Basu.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: 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: A $2 trillion priority for President Biden is probably going to have to wait until next year. Congressional Democrats are still divided over the giant spending bill. There was hope it might get passed and signed before the end of the month, but the White House now says it could be weeks before that happens.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We spoke with Tony Rahm, congressional reporter for The Washington Post.
--:-- Tony Rahm: The statement that we got from President Biden late Thursday night pretty much acknowledged that the odds of getting this done in a matter of days are very, very slim. He sought to manage expectations by saying that there was still much more work to do, that the negotiations were ongoing, and that it was going to take as long as it needed to take.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rahm explains how progressives thought they had a mandate for a massive spending bill, but moderate Senator Joe Manchin wasn't on board with the price tag. He thought that there's a need for austerity, especially after Democrats and other lawmakers spent so much money in the run-up to the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic.
--:-- Tony Rahm: There's just a big difference of opinion there. Rahm explains some Democrats are worried if they don't get something passed, it's going to cost them at the ballot box. That's the message that you hear from folks like Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who runs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is that if the party is going to be out there selling voters on this vision of improved health care and improved child care and education and so forth, that has got to actually provide that at the end of the day.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Looking at what's happening in sports today, you might be getting a little bit of early pandemic deja vu. Remember back in March of 2020, an NBA game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz was canceled just minutes before tip because of a confirmed COVID case. Later that day, the NBA suspended the season.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In many ways, that day marked a turning point for sports. Vaccines and testing eventually allowed athletes and fans to return, but lately, things have been changing. Waves of positive COVID tests are taking star players off the field. There have been around 100 positive tests in the NFL in the past few days. NBA teams, recently, they've been taking the court with skeleton crews. And last night, the NHL played a game without fans.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There's so much at stake here. Players' health, the fans, not to mention billions of dollars. The NFL and NBA are both putting in new COVID protocols.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ESPN looks at some of the key changes. For football players, there will be tighter rules on masking. The NFL also has rules to help players who recover from COVID get back on the field sooner. Previously, players who had COVID had to test negative twice before they could return. Now the league could allow them to come back sooner if their test results show they're not likely to be contagious.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In the NBA, there'll be more testing for players and staff, and they'll need to wear masks on the bench, in workout facilities, and when traveling with the team.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Wall Street Journal puts it this way. Professional sports have been a bellwether for the pandemic since early 2020. Now they're doubling down on the same strategies that apply to the rest of us. Get vaccinated, mask up, and test often.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You know the story of Rosa Parks. She was arrested in 1955 after refusing to give up her seat on a bus. Her defiance led to the Montgomery bus boycotts. It was a landmark moment in the civil rights movement.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But did you know that nine months before Parks, there was a 15-year-old girl named Claudette Colvin who was arrested for the same act of civil disobedience?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, nearly 70 years later, a judge has officially cleared her name. Colvin recently sat down with CBS News to talk about what happened when she and her friends were on the bus that day.
--:-- Claudette Colvin: Under the law at the time, Black and white people could not sit in the same row. When a white woman got on the bus, the driver told me and my friends to move. The other girls agreed, but I refused. And the traffic patrolman came to the rear of the bus and asked me why I wasn't sitting there. I told him I was sitting there because I paid my fare and it's my constitutional rights.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And though the U.S. has changed dramatically since then, that arrest stayed on her record. There's a reason history books don't really mention her name.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: CBS explains that Colvin was expecting at the time. And she said some civil rights leaders didn't think it was a good idea to make a pregnant teen the face of the movement.
--:-- Claudette Colvin: A few months ago, I filed a petition to have my record expunged. I'm 82 years old now, and I said it was important for me to have a clean record that would send the right message to my grandkids.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Her request was granted by a judge who surprised Colvin by flying from Alabama to Texas to meet with her in person.
--:-- Judge: [Apologizing] On behalf of myself and all of the judges of Montgomery, I offer my apology for an injustice that was perpetrated upon you.
--:-- Claudette Colvin: Oh, this is a surprise. When I did this in 1955, there were no African-American judges in Montgomery.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: She stood up for right, and now I, the beneficiary and byproduct of that, and I could correct the wrong that was done to her.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You ever use the phrase, "it's not rocket science"? Or maybe you're more of a, "this isn't brain surgery" kind of person. These phrases stick around because people seem to think that rocket scientists and brain surgeons are smarter than other people.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But new research says not so fast. The Guardian has this story. Some UK researchers, they put this to the test. They rounded up actual rocket scientists and brain surgeons and compared their intelligence scores to about 18,000 other people in the UK.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They found rocket scientists and brain surgeons were not significantly smarter than the overall population.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One of the researchers in this study is training to be a brain surgeon himself. And he says maybe it's time to put other professions on the intelligence pedestal, too. Or better yet, leave professions out of it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're trying to describe something that's easy, maybe you can just say it's a walk in the park. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And check out our weekend interview show and conversation this week. I speak with Rolling Stone journalists Jason Newman and Corey Groh about their investigation into Marilyn Manson.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Manson's real name is Brian Warner, and in the past year, more than a dozen women have accused him of psychological and sexual abuse. Allegations he denies.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He always sort of couched a lot of this darkness in humor or irony or sarcasm, but it's something that a lot of the survivors have told us, that he was kind of allowed him to hide these things in plain sight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's a tough but important story. Check it out this weekend in the Apple News app or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll be back with the news on Monday.
