--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Friday, February 12th, and the start of a lunar new year.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And I'm Shemitah Bassu. Happy Year of the Ox.
--:-- 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.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: House impeachment managers rested their case yesterday in Donald Trump's impeachment trial. They've tried to demonstrate Trump incited the insurrection that he did nothing to stop it as rioters were threatening the lives of lawmakers. And they're warning, if the former president is not barred from office, he presents a danger to our democracy.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Here's House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin.
--:-- Jamie Raskin: My dear colleagues, is there any political leader in this room who believes that if he is ever allowed by the Senate to get back into the Oval Office, Donald Trump would stop inciting violence to get his way? Would you bet the lives of more police officers on that? Would you bet the safety of your family on that? Would you bet the future of your democracy on that?
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Today, Trump's defense begins. Axios breaks down the arguments we can expect to hear. Trump's attorneys will say the First Amendment protects Trump's speech, that there is no direct connection between his words and the insurrection, and that Trump's behavior doesn't meet the definition of incitement.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The heart of their strategy rests on a landmark free speech case involving the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court heard the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: This case involved a man who was convicted and sentenced to prison for inciting violence at a Klan rally. The Washington Post lays out the history here.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Police arrested Brandenburg after he suggested to a TV reporter at that rally that the civil rights movement might result in a violent KKK backlash. The Supreme Court later overturned his conviction and set up a now famous test that speech is protected unless it leads to imminent lawless action.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: You know, one thing that jumps out in this story is this Klan member was represented in court by some leading civil rights attorneys, including Eleanor Holmes Norton. She went on to become a congresswoman, and she's still representing D.C. And the Post spoke to her for this piece.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, the Congresswoman told the Post that if Trump is going to mount a First Amendment defense, Brandenburg is the case to lean on, although she does believe that Trump crossed a line that was set by that case.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Aside from free speech Trump team is going to argue this trial is fundamentally unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office. There also a due process defense. It rests on the claim that the impeachment trial moved too quickly for a thorough investigation. And finally, they're saying this trial goes against Biden's pledge to unify the U.S.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: For Democrats to get a conviction, they'll need 17 Republicans to agree with them. According to The Hill, six Republicans might side with Democrats. Senators Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: But throughout the trial, many Republicans have been signaling that their minds are already made up. According to reports, Trump's team is feeling confident. Yesterday, three of the former president's allies, Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Mike Lee, met with Trump's lawyers near the Senate chamber. And The Hill reports the mood was generally upbeat.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The defense has two days to make their case, but they are expected to wrap up in about three or four hours today.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Two companies that make voting machines are claiming Trump's false statements about election fraud are affecting their businesses in the long run. Dominion and Smartmatic have filed multimillion-dollar anti-defamation lawsuits against Fox News, Newsmax, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: These companies say the public has lost faith in them and they're losing business because of it. And you can take a look at Stark County, Ohio, for an example of how this is playing out in real time.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: The Washington Post is reporting, at the end of 2020, while Trump was spreading lies about voting machines and election fraud, the local board of elections for Stark County voted 4-0 to buy new voting machines from Dominion.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They were trying to get the machines in place for the next round of primaries, which takes place in May. And here's where things turned sour for the company. Dominion was one of the targets of a popular disinformation campaign. Residents got upset, and now the deal's on hold.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: The director of Stark County's board of elections, Jeff Matthews, is a Republican, And he tried to reassure community members that Dominion machines are safe, but they don't want to hear it. He says he's gotten a lot of backlash and complaints.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Post is pointing out here, this is not an isolated incident. In Arizona's largest county, the local government spent thousands of dollars auditing Dominion's machines. In Michigan, election officials are getting angry calls from constituents. And in Wisconsin, one elections commission meeting got really heated.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Regarding this part of our responsibility I think also is to clarify that what we have and what the machines are operating properly Bob that just not true There have been problems with Dominion voting machines anywhere in the country That is a lie. They have not been a problem anywhere in the country. They've had audits and recounts and recounts. The fact that people think it is because you keep saying it. But it's a lie. Well, what I'm saying is what we need to do is we need to prove it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Even though the allegations against these voting machine companies are false, and so far there's no evidence of foul play, it's been hard for these counties to change public perception. Dominion told The Post it's too early to say just how much this has damaged the company's reputation. And as for the lawsuits, the CEO of Dominion has said he doesn't want a settlement. He wants the cases to go to trial. He said it's important for the truth to be aired.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: When you make a call in India these days, you first hear this message. What you hear her saying there is, when it's your turn, take the vaccine. Don't believe the rumors. This is just one part of India's massive campaign to get its population vaccinated.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And in a country of 1.4 billion people, NPR reports it's being called the biggest and most ambitious vaccination drive in the world. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to give 300 million people the COVID-19 vaccine by midsummer.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: In phase one of this campaign, India is inoculating frontline workers. People who qualify include doctors, nurses, police officers and some others. Yeah, you know who else qualifies? Trash collectors. They are considered frontline workers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: NPR spoke with one man in an area just north of Mumbai who has been waking up at dawn to clean the streets every day through the pandemic. And he says he feels so lucky to be one of the first people in the country to be offered the vaccine.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Right now, he's just waiting for an appointment. Immunizing the rest of its population is going to be challenging for India. A lot of Indians live in rural areas. Now, India does have experience getting to these hard-to-reach towns and villages.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They plan to employ the same systems they use during national elections. Basically, bring the polling station, or in this case, the vaccine stations, to the people. Yeah, there's this law in India for elections. No person should have to travel more than a mile and a quarter to reach a polling place.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And the way that they do that is millions of poll workers travel all over the country with mobile voting machines. And that sort of what they plan to do for vaccines Dispatch these teams to the hills to glaciers to jungles They going to go from clinics to homes in every village giving shots
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Getting this right is critical for India. As NPR reports, after the United States, India has the second highest caseload in the world. And at points during the pandemic, things got pretty bad. Hospitals are so overrun. Conditions are so crowded. People are reportedly dying in the parking lot, waiting to get in.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And just like here in the U.S., India will have to overcome the misinformation spreading about the vaccine. NPR spoke with a lot of Indians who say they're hesitant to get the shot. Some are worried that they might get sick from it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: When NPR visited one hospital, 115 people had appointments to get the shot. Only half of them showed up.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Valentine's Day is just two days away. And if you're a procrastinator and haven't gotten around to getting your special someone something for the day, there might be a place that you can turn to for a quick solution. That's the Free Stuff Forum in your neighborhood on Facebook or Craigslist.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You might already be part of one of these groups. Here in New York, basically every neighborhood has one on Facebook. a Buy Nothing or FreeCycle community page where people give away stuff they no longer need or want, all for free.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And listen, I just joined a Buy Nothing group in my area, and it's really interesting to look through, but I've got to admit, things are a little bit out of control.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Let me just tell you a couple of things I saw recently. An adult-size inflatable chicken costume. All of the supplies needed to make homemade soap. Two non-working computer keyboards. The offer was if anyone wants to take these apart. Seven balloons that say Sweet 16 on them and some leftover Sweet 16 napkins, the napkins were not used.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: The offer was if anyone wants to take these apart. And I'm telling you, all of these things got snapped up.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You know, the Wall Street Journal writes about this free stuff phenomenon and how the pandemic has been a huge motivator for people to declutter their homes.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: And, you know, the old saying about one man's trash? The Journal writes about one guy who had just finished deep frying a turkey in this huge big barrel of soy oil. Who knows how he seasoned his bird?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Anyway, he decides to post not the turkey, not the barrel, but the used cooking oil. Sure enough, he had to take it.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: A farmer said he could use that used oil.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: 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.
--:-- Shemitah Bassu: Enjoy the weekend, and we'll talk to you again on Monday. Thank you.
