--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, November 18th. I'm Shamita Basu. Duarte Geraldino is off. 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: For the first time in more than a decade, the House of Representatives voted to censure one of its members, Paul Gosar. On this vote, the yeas are 223 and the nays are 207, with one answering present. The resolution is adopted. The largely party-line vote also removes him from committees.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It came after the congressman tweeted a doctored anime video that depicted him killing his House colleague, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The video also showed him running at President Biden while armed with swords. Only two Republicans voted to censure Gosar. One voted present.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Leading up to the vote, Gosar did not apologize. I do not espouse violence towards anyone. I never have. It was not my purpose to make anyone upset. I voluntarily took the cartoon down, not because it was itself a threat, but because some thought it was. Out of compassion for those who generally felt offense, I self-censored.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ocasio-Cortez also spoke from the House floor. The question that I pose to this body in response is, will we live up to the promises that we make our children, that this is a place where we will defend one another regardless of belief, that our core human dignity matters? If you believe that this behavior is acceptable, go ahead. Vote no. But if you believe that this behavior should not be accepted, then vote yes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The vote to censure Gosar stops short of expelling him from Congress. The Washington Post reminds us this isn't the first time Gosar has come under heavy criticism for extremist views, including spreading lies that the January 6th insurrection was a left plot.
--:-- Shamita Basu: During Wednesday House debate, several other Democratic women took to the floor to talk about the rise in violent threats they've been facing. Mary Gay Scanlon spoke about why a video like this isn't a joke.
--:-- Mary Gay Scanlon: So when a member of this Congress fantasizes in public about beheading another member of Congress, it is not fantasy to think that there are Americans out there who will take such a video as a call to action.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republicans largely avoided criticizing Gosar. Some said he addressed the issue when he took the video down. About a dozen Republicans stood by Gosar while the censure resolution was read as a sign of support.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And CNN reports about an hour after the vote, Gosar's Twitter account retweeted a post praising him that also included the original video.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Since the start of this school year, there have been a lot of stories about bus driver shortages and the kids and parents who are affected when the yellow bus is late or doesn't show up at all. But new reporting from FiveThirtyEight and the Fuller Project reveals this was a problem long before the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We found that the majority of school districts have not had enough bus drivers since at least 2006, possibly before that. That's Maggie Kurth, a reporter at FiveThirtyEight.
--:-- Maggie Kurth: The average pay for America's school bus drivers is just under $19 an hour. And I spoke to many drivers who can't get benefits or full-time work. So bus driving is a job that is basically a split shift. It's something where you work a few hours in the morning, you work a few hours in the afternoon.
--:-- Maggie Kurth: Depending on what is available, you might, you know, one of the bus drivers I spoke to said that she was only guaranteed four hours of work every day. If she got more than that, that was a bonus.
--:-- Maggie Kurth: Historically, many school bus drivers have been women. And aside from the low pay, the work is stressful. You're navigating a huge bus through traffic and dealing with dozens of loud sometimes rowdy kids at the same time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many bus drivers have left for better paying opportunities like delivery companies. And as more people leave, the drivers who stay find themselves having to take on more stress, covering longer routes with more kids.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's also the impact on families. Women do a disproportionate share of parenting labor. When bus service isn't available, it's often moms who have to drive the kids to and from school, and that can eat up several hours of their day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Maggie Kurth explains how disruptive it can be to rework your schedule around being free to drive your kids to school.
--:-- Maggie Kurth: I mean, you're talking about people who switched to overnight jobs who were, in some cases, going without sleep more than a couple of hours, three hours a day for this one woman who was working overnights as a nurse, then rushing to pick up her kids, then handling, like, cooking for the kids that were home.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She was worried about wrecking her car, driving to and from places. Kurth says this is an example of how shortages in one field can have a ripple effect, taking women out of the workforce in other places.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She says this all comes down to the fact that many jobs that support schools don't pay enough. One of the big functional problems here is that real wages for Americans, and particularly for Americans whose work is not did not require a college degree, real wages for those jobs have flatlined basically, over the last 30 or 40 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: By tonight, a bunch of cryptocurrency fans might own the U.S. Constitution. Sotheby's is auctioning off the last privately held original copy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A few days ago, a group of people online got the idea that this document shouldn't end up in some billionaire's private collection. They wanted to put it in the hands of the people. So they put out a call for people to pledge digital currency to bid on the artifact. And they got a big response.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This copy of the Constitution is valued at between 15 to 20 million dollars. The group has already raised more than that online.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The organizers of this effort haven't said much publicly. Most of them are known only by online usernames. But the Wall Street Journal actually got several of them to reveal their names and speak on the record.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One is a teenager who lives in Spain. And you get the sense that they're a little surprised this thing seems to be working. They appear to have enough digital money to win the auction. So now they're having to actually make plans for what happens if they do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They say they want to put the document in a place where it can be publicly seen for free. The group is getting advice from legal and historical experts. There are big philosophical questions about the concept of ownership.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And then there are the small but still important details. Like, they're not even sure who's supposed to pick up the thing if they win.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before you go to bed tonight, you might want to set an early alarm. For a few hours, the moon will be passing through the Earth's shadow, creating one of the longest partial lunar eclipses in almost 600 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, when astronomers say partial, don't get the wrong idea. The moon will still be 97% covered, so the view is going to be pretty amazing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At the peak of this eclipse, only a sliver of the moon will be visible. Another thing that's interesting about this eclipse is that it's happening during the part of the moon's orbit when it's farthest away from the Earth, something that's known as a micro-moon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: AccuWeather says if you're looking to get a glimpse, the best time to wake up is around 4 a.m. Eastern tomorrow. That's when you can hope to see the darkest parts of the moon take on an orange or even reddish glow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: 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. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
