--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 16th. Mardi Gras. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm 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.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There's good news and there's bad news this week when it comes to our fight against COVID-19. Let's do the bad news first, get it out of the way.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The bad news is the U.K. variant that we've been hearing so much about. Well, we already believed it to be more transmissible. And this weekend, U.K. researchers said it could also be anywhere from 30 to 70 percent more deadly. That's particularly worrying because the CDC predicts this variant will become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S. in the next few weeks. That's something to keep in mind as you're moving around every day.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But on the other hand, for the first time in a long time, the average number of new daily infections in the U.S. is below 100,000. That's such a huge drop from where we were just a month ago when we were averaging nearly a quarter million daily cases.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So what are we supposed to do with these mixed headlines? Are things getting better? To understand that, we need to talk about what's causing the drop in cases. The Washington Post recently spoke with scientists about this decline.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, there are several potential explanations here. First, the drop is likely not just because people are getting vaccinated. Too little of the population is vaccinated to make much of a difference yet.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, the scientists do say a potentially bigger factor is more people's social distancing. That's what former director of the CDC Tom Frieden told Fareed Zakaria on CNN this weekend. I don't think, Fareed, the vaccine is having much of an impact at all on case rates. It's what we're doing right. Staying apart, wearing masks, not traveling, not mixing with others indoors.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Another possible explanation is resources that were going into testing are now being redirected to vaccinating. So less testing means fewer positive cases are being identified.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But again, scientists are not sure yet what's causing the recent drop in cases. It might be multiple factors. But no matter what the reasons all of these scientists agree When it comes to the pandemic the U.S. is still not in a good place. And they're warning governors who are loosening restrictions may be acting too fast.
--:-- [Jennifer Nuzzo is mentioned as a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist]
--:-- Jennifer Nuzzo: Unfortunately, what a lot of communities are doing is they're translating falling cases into now permission to reopen businesses and to ease restrictions. But this is a really worrisome time to be doing that because we're so deeply worried about the potential spread of these variants.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And even if the declining case count we're seeing right now is accurate, don't forget how bad things were. We are coming down from a quarter million new cases a day in the U.S. And the fact that we're now logging tens of thousands of cases a day is still a lot of people.
--:-- [Dr. Rochelle Walensky is mentioned as the CDC Director]
--:-- Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We are still at around 1,500 to 3,500 deaths per day. The cases are more than two and a half full times what we saw over the summer. It's encouraging to see these trends coming down, but they're coming down from extraordinarily high place.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are so many tools police officers can use when they subdue a suspect. Batons, tasers. We've seen how in so many instances, these weapons can seriously injure or even kill a person. But what about police dogs? We don't often hear about how harmful they can be.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And I want to warn you, there are some violent and disturbing moments involving children in this story. The Marshall Project has been investigating the use of police dogs in cities around the country, and it found Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ranks among the worst cities in the country when it comes to how often police dogs are unleashed on civilians.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to their tracking. Between 2017 and 2019, Baton Rouge police dogs bit at least 146 people, and of those, about a third were younger than 18 years old. In almost every case, the people who were bitten were black. Most were unarmed and suspected of nonviolent crimes.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: According to police records, in every instance, a white officer was handling the dog. The Marshall Project goes into detail about what happened to one kid Lester who was 14 years old.
--:-- [Story about Lester is told]
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's the physical trauma, but an attack like this can mess with your mind, your emotions, too. Lester's mom says her son is scared to death of the police now. He no longer wants to take part in school sports and mostly stays close to home.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Marshall Project also goes into the history of the use of attack dogs on people of color. During the Civil Rights Movement, dogs were used to attack peaceful protesters in Birmingham, Alabama. Those images were published in newspapers across the country, and they captured the brutality of police force being used against protesters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And even closer to present day, in Ferguson, Missouri, 2015, during protests against the police shooting of Michael Brown, canines were found to be used excessively and exclusively on Black people.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Marshall Project also found in cases like this, accountability is hard to get. Officers are often shielded from liability. And lawyers say cases that do go to trial often struggle. It's what they're calling the Lassie Effect. Jurors tend to sympathize with police dogs, thinking of them as cute pets, not weapons that can severely hurt people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Millions of people across the country have been caught off guard by snowstorms and extreme freezing temperatures this week. Did you know 70% of the country was covered in snow yesterday?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And the truth is, it's hitting people in the south really hard. My heart is in Texas right now where so many people are suffering. Last week, it was 70 degrees in Houston. This morning, 15 degrees.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That vast difference is causing accidents and life-threatening situations right now, Shamita. Yeah, USA Today has a pretty good roundup of what people are experiencing. There are more than 4 million people with no power in Texas this morning.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Some people are sleeping in their offices. And in Houston city officials have been opening up warming centers and shelters for people who are homeless. CNN is reporting at least 15 deaths related to this storm 50 million people could see temperatures go below zero.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Plus you have the pandemic right now, where the storm may complicate distribution of the vaccine and also keeping it cold if you don't actually have power or electricity.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yeah, the National Weather Service says we're definitely breaking some records this week. In at least seven states, governors have declared a state of emergency that's including Alabama, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Kentucky.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And they're all saying, brace yourselves, because more snow is on the way. Today is Mardi Gras, and Bourbon Street is going to look pretty different this year.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Of course, because of COVID, bars are closed, there won't be any street performers out, And the Mardi Gras floats are going to have to sit this year out, too.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But people in New Orleans know how to let the good times roll. This year is no exception. So the parade is moving to people's front yards and porches.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, The Washington Post spoke with Megan Boudreaux three months ago. She heard New Orleans was not issuing Mardi Gras parade permits this year because of the pandemic. So she decorated her house like it was a parade float.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She posted her plans on Facebook. Look, two days later, she had a thousand new followers. Boudreaux explains, a local business owner started calling what she was doing yardy-gras. And it just took off.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: I love that phrase, yardy-gras. Yeah, I actually searched it on Twitter last night and you can see lots of pictures of really fun homes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's a lot of pictures in this post piece, too. They actually toured New Orleans to check out all the porches and front yards. So Boudreaux's, for example, she decorated her home kind of like a ship. She calls it the USS House Float.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There was this other home. They had all these like tentacles coming out of the second floor windows. Like there was this huge octopus inside. It was very cool.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another home, it was already painted purple because it's New Orleans. So the person who lived there went all in on a Prince theme. It's called like the Purple Rainhouse.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And Boudreaux says, who knows? Yard-a-Gras might become a new tradition that outlasts the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: 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. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
