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--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Friday, February 19th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: 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: Power is slowly coming back on in Texas, but the state's problems won't all be solved when the weather warms up. The water supply could take longer to fix. More than 13 million people in the state are still being advised, boil your water before you drink it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Then there's the political fallout. Texas Republicans have come under fire for previous comments they made criticizing Democrats in California for their state's power problems last summer. And Senator Ted Cruz rushed back to Texas after he was spotted flying to Cancun while millions of people in his home state were shivering in the dark.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now Democrats are going after Republicans for being too hands-off. Here's Beto O'Rourke talking with MSNBC.
--:-- Beto O'Rourke: The energy capital of North America cannot provide the energy needed to warm and power people's homes in this great state. We are nearing a failed state in Texas, and it has nothing to do with God or natural disasters. It has everything to do with the leadership and those in positions of public trust who have failed us.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republicans want to move this conversation in a different direction. Governor Greg Abbott tried to blame the blackout on a push to green energy in his state. It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas, as well as other states, to make sure that we will be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, Abbott ultimately walked back some of his claims. As data showed, this week's outages mostly weren't because of wind or solar power. They happen because of problems with natural gas, the state's largest source of electricity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Texas Tribune points out a decade ago, state lawmakers were warned that their facilities weren't prepared for a tough winter. Let's step away from politics for a second. Officials at ERCOT, the company that operates the grid, told the Texas Tribune ordering blackouts was not a simple decision, but they felt forced into a terrible position.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They say the state power grid was literally seconds and minutes away from a much bigger system failure that could have left Texans without power for months. And now they defending their decision to initiate blackouts. They say because they did so the state narrowly avoided a much bigger disaster.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One rallying cry is coming up in a lot of Republican campaign ads. Reopen schools now. I'm Pete Snyder, candidate for governor, and my plan is simple. Open our schools now. Five days a week, every week, with a teacher in every classroom. That's in Virginia.
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--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Here's an ad running in multiple states. Unions and politicians seem more concerned about what's best for them. The failures won't go unnoticed because what's happening is real. It's time to let kids learn.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dave Weigel over at The Washington Post writes, Republicans see this open the schools messaging as a key way to energize their suburban base. Some in the GOP want to make this year's governor's races and next year's House races referendums on opening schools.
--:-- Dave Weigel: Republicans are now saying something that you often hear from Democrats. They're saying, hey, just follow the science. They're pointing to the CDC's recommendations, which say schools should reopen and transmission should stay low as long as the right safety protocols are in place.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Teachers unions want remote learning to continue until they feel conditions are safe. And they're demanding teachers are prioritized when it comes to getting the vaccine. Republicans, who are not generally fans of organized labor, argue teachers unions are to blame for so many schools remaining closed.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Here's Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
--:-- Ron DeSantis: The school reopening plan that makes the most sense, if you want to open schools, open them. Open the door. Let them come in and let them learn. And the only reason that that is not happening across this country like it is in Florida, like it is in a handful of other states, it's one reason and one reason only.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Because the Democratic Party puts the interests of education unions and special interests ahead of the well-being of our children and of our families. But Democrats say they are following the science. They say right there in the CDC guidelines it also says schools should consider reopening only if local COVID infection rates are below a certain threshold.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And according to that model more than 90 of counties across the country are not yet safe enough to reopen schools full time. Ultimately, Weigel explains, whichever party wins this messaging war could sway suburban voters in upcoming elections.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So far, when it comes to his handling of the pandemic, President Joe Biden gets high ratings, but his numbers are much lower when it comes to his plan for reopening schools.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This next story is about a coronavirus vaccine and an experiment taking place in South America. Brazilian authorities are experimenting on people who live in one of the country's small towns. Their findings can help us understand how soon we can get our lives back to normal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The idea is immunize everyone and figure out how many people really need to get the shot for a population to achieve herd immunity. The Wall Street Journal has the story about this first-of-its-kind study.
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--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Researchers have started immunizing every adult in Serrana, a town of about 45,000 people in the state of Sao Paulo. Now, this town is considered ideal for this type of experiment. It's got high infection rates. The population size is small, but not too small. And it's also a transit hub, so there are a lot of people who come and go.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Researchers are going to vaccinate residents in controlled stages. They'll be looking at how immunizations in one part of the town affect the infection rates in unvaccinated areas. Scientists are also comparing each region's data before and after its populations are vaccinated. And we can expect to hear the results in about three months.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: What's really fascinating about the way they're doing this study is residents of Serrano will be getting the vaccine in this orderly, thorough way, while the rest of Brazil is facing a very slow vaccine rollout. And the country is still in a state of crisis. Brazil has more than 10 million coronavirus infections. Nearly a quarter million people have died there.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So while the rest of the country waits for their turn for the vaccine, Serrano residents are right at the front of the line. And if this makes you want to pack up and move there, think again. Now this study, known as Project S, was kept a secret for half a year. And to avoid an influx of people moving to this town, the researchers registered all the residents ahead of time.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This year because of the pandemic the Academy Awards has said that movies released all the way through the end of February are eligible for this year Oscars which means we seeing a flood of new releases this month CNN's entertainment writer calls it Christmas in February.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Among some of the big releases is Nomadland. Hollywood's rising star Chloe Zhao directs this film, and she got A-list actor Frances McDormand to star in it. New York Mag says this movie might be the defining movie of this past pandemic year. It's also a favorite for Best Picture. And it's being released today in select theaters and on Hulu.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: My mom says that you're homeless. Is that true? No, I'm not homeless. I'm just houseless. Not the same thing, right? No.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Zhao is on the cover of this week's New York Magazine. She grew up in Beijing, moved to L.A. as a teenager, and later enrolled in film school at NYU. And it was around that time that she discovered she was drawn to Native American history and images of the American West.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This profile does a really nice job of describing how she thinks about place and belonging. This idea of being rooted to somewhere versus rootless. She tends to build her films around these feelings of belonging.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One of the elements that makes her movie so special is that she uses real people, a lot of non-actors, and then she guides them through fictionalized performances that come from their own lived experiences. In one movie, she found her lead actor by flipping through a school yearbook. In another, she cast a cowboy she met while visiting a ranch.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One thing she said in the interview that I really liked was, if you stick around for long enough, people have no choice but to be rude and real. And she definitely captures that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, Nomadland is pretty similar to her past approaches. It's based on a nonfiction book, and it's the story of a group of nomads who either lost their savings during the 2008 recession or never had any to begin with. And they're traveling around the country doing seasonal work in their retirement.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, a bunch of the actors are real nomads, just people playing themselves. 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, including the New York Magazine profile of Chloe Zhao.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We'll talk to you again on Monday.
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