--:-- Shemita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, November 3rd. I'm Shemita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Republican Glenn Youngkin is the next governor of Virginia. National political observers are studying this race for clues about how the midterm elections might go.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: All righty, Virginia, we won this thing! Beating Democrat Terry McAuliffe makes Youngkin the first Republican to win statewide office in Virginia since 2009.
--:-- Shemita Basu: This state used to be considered solidly Republican, but it trended blue lately. The Democratic candidate won in the last four presidential elections. Last year, Donald Trump lost by 10 points in Virginia.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: McAuliffe's campaign leaned into that fact. They tried to play off of voters' concerns about Trump's divisiveness.
--:-- Shemita Basu: The Washington Post looks at how Youngkin pulled off what ended up being a real balancing act. He needed Trump supporters to show up, but he didn't want to turn off moderates.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Youngkin reportedly spoke to Trump by phone during the campaign, but he never invited Trump on the campaign trail.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Trump, meanwhile, used email and text messages to get his most loyal supporters to come out and vote for Youngkin.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Other Republicans may try this strategy. As one former GOP congressman describes it, you don't embrace him, but you don't dump him.
--:-- Shemita Basu: According to Politico, this race in Virginia shows that Democrats may struggle if they don't have a lot to say on the campaign trail.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The party's big infrastructure and social spending bills are still locked up in Congress. Democrats there are not fully aligned over major issues. And President Biden's approval ratings are low.
--:-- Shemita Basu: One Democratic strategist told Politico if Congress passes a bill soon, Democrats have nothing to run on.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Let's take a quick look at results in other key races. As of this morning, the New Jersey governor's race is too close to call.
--:-- Shemita Basu: This is a bit of a surprise. Many expected Democratic Governor Phil Murphy to decisively beat the Republican challenger, Jack Cittarelli.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In Minneapolis, voters rejected a ballot measure to replace the city's police department with a public safety department.
--:-- Shemita Basu: That's something we talked about on this show yesterday.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Boston voters elected Michelle Wu as mayor. She's the first woman and first person of color to win that office.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Eric Adams will be New York City's second black mayor. And Alvin Bragg won his race to become Manhattan's first black district attorney.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You will likely hear his name in the news as he's going to take over the investigation into the Trump family business.
--:-- Shemita Basu: You can find coverage of all these political developments throughout the day on the Apple News app.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Today, the Supreme Court turns its attention to guns. Justices are considering a challenge to a New York State handgun licensing law that's been on the books for more than 100 years.
--:-- Shemita Basu: This is a case that gun rights advocates have been hoping that the Supreme Court would hear for over a decade, really.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: [Amy Howell from SCOTUSBlock joins the conversation]
--:-- Amy Howell: It's been a while since the court ruled on the Second Amendment. Its last major decisions on this issue came more than a decade ago.
--:-- Shemita Basu: That was when the justices said the Second Amendment protects a person's right to have a gun in their home for self-defense.
--:-- Amy Howell: But then the Supreme Court really didn't say anything else about the scope of the Second Amendment. And in particular, what right the Second Amendment protects in terms of being able to carry a gun outside of your home for self-defense.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That is the crux of today's arguments. What are the limits of carrying a gun in public?
--:-- Amy Howell: In some places like in New York, it's really hard to get a license to carry a handgun outside of your home. You have to show what's called proper cause, which means not simply that you are an upstanding citizen but that you have a real special need to carry a gun outside of the home.
--:-- Shemita Basu: So the Second Amendment protects a right to keep and bear arms. And both sides in this case agree that there is some right to carry a gun outside of the home.
--:-- Amy Howell: But what they disagree about pretty strongly is whether or not the government can place any restrictions on that.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The challengers are arguing New York's law is too restrictive.
--:-- Amy Howell: [The state's argument in defense of its law is explained]
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They have sort of a warning for the court. They say if you accept the challenger's argument that really government can't place any restrictions on the right to bear arms, people are going to be carrying guns everywhere, you know, in schools, in airports, in courthouses.
--:-- Shemita Basu: At the big climate change summit in Glasgow, countries are promising to cut carbon emissions. And that's where one phrase in particular keeps coming up. Net zero.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Net zero. Net zero. Net zero. Net zero. Zero, that part is easy to understand. But net zero, it's not the same thing as zero emissions.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And if the world is really going to prevent a climate meltdown, it's important to understand what these commitments mean.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Vox explains that net zero, that phrase, means a country or a company still emits carbon dioxide, but offsets those emissions somehow.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Sort of like doing something a little extra good to make up for the bad that you keep doing.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Problem is, there's no standard defining net zero. In theory, it's possible to cancel out carbon emissions by say restoring a forest, something that naturally sucks carbon out of the air.
--:-- Shemita Basu: But critics of all these net zero pledges say this attitude of we'll make up for it elsewhere, it lets countries and companies off the hook in taking immediate, meaningful steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And there's a loophole and net zero goals. This article looks at countries like Australia, Saudi Arabia, Norway. They have their own domestic net zero targets, but they're also huge producers of fossil fuels, and they're still going to export them.
--:-- Shemita Basu: So in effect, they're still contributing to fossil fuel emissions, just not in their own backyard.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Vox quotes some experts who say, given the amount of pollution that humans have already created, we might need to have more conversations about not just achieving net zero, but reaching net negative emissions.
--:-- Shemita Basu: That means taking more CO2 out of the air than we're putting in.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Atlanta Braves are on top. They and their fans have been waiting a long time for a championship, and you could feel all that pent-up energy and release.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Here's the sound of the final out of the World Series.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: USA Today recaps Game 6, which wasn't even close. Atlanta crushed the Houston Astros 7-0.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And this ends a long drought. It gives the team its first Major League Baseball title in more than a quarter century.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Shemita Basu: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
