--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Good morning. It's Wednesday, January 6th. I'm Duarte Giraldo. And I'm Shamita Basu. 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: Democrat Raphael Warnock will be the first Black U.S. senator to represent Georgia. He defeated Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler in one of the state's two Senate runoff elections.
--:-- Raphael Warnock: We were told that we couldn't win this election. But tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: The AP has not called the other runoff race between Republican David Perdue and Democrat John Ossoff. And there is a lot riding on that result. As we've said before, if Democrats flip that seat, they'll have control of the Senate, the House and the presidency once President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, election officials say it might take some time to continue counting the votes in Georgia, including many votes that were sent in by mail. And as of this morning, Ossoff holds a slim lead. Many of the votes still to be counted are in areas that lean Democratic.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: If the party were to also win that race, they would fully control Congress. And this would make it easier for the Biden administration to push its policies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Biden stressed as soon as he gets into office, he wants lawmakers to approve more stimulus checks. Listen to what he said in Georgia earlier this week.
--:-- Joe Biden: By electing John and the Reverend, you can make an immediate difference in your own lives, the lives of the people all across this country, because their election will put an end to the block in Washington on that $2,000 stimulus check, that money that will go out the door immediately.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Democratic control of the Senate would also mean an easier path for Biden nominees to the federal bench, including the Supreme Court, if an opening comes up. Other priorities on Biden's agenda include a new infrastructure plan, a green jobs proposal and raising the minimum wage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But even if the other Senate runoff goes to the Democrats and we don't know the results yet, the Democratic Party will still have a slim majority at most.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: By the way, Reverend Warnock's campaign says he's keeping his job as senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. That's the same house of worship where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Georgia Senate races aren't the only big thing happening in politics today. Trump supporters are in D.C. protesting the results of the presidential election. They were out yesterday too and police arrested a handful of demonstrators including some who were carrying illegal guns
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: The protesters are there because there a meeting in Congress today that usually just a formality but now it getting extra attention That meeting is a joint session of Congress where lawmakers are supposed to count and confirm the presidential election results, but it's not going to be as easy as it has been in the past.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, Dorote, you and I have covered elections before. We've covered transitions. Can you think of a time when this day, when this otherwise pretty boring procedural process in Congress ever made it to the front page of all the papers?
--:-- Dorote: No, I can't. And that's what's so unusual about today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Keep in mind, states already certify their election results. All Congress is supposed to do today is count and confirm those votes and officially declare Joe Biden the winner.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, just for some context, CBS congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes did some digging and found in 2017, it took Congress 35 minutes to count the votes. In 2013, just 22 minutes. Today, it's expected to take hours. And that's because Republicans are under pressure to side with President Trump and question the election results in a number of states.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Yeah, so the Washington Post breaks down how today is supposed to go. Vice President Mike Pence will preside over the meeting, and he'll go through a list of all the states alphabetically and announce the vote count in each one. But lawmakers can object, and dozens of members in the House and at least a dozen in the Senate plan to do exactly that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, in order to officially challenge a vote count, you need at least one lawmaker in the House and one in the Senate to object to it. When that happens, the chambers split up and start debating for up to two hours. And this process would repeat for every state that's challenged.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: But none of this is going to stop Joe Biden from being sworn in as president in a couple of weeks. You see, Trump supporters do not have enough members in the House or the Senate to overturn any state election results. And just as a thought exercise, let's say they could manage to get the number of votes needed. The decision would then go to governors. And at this point, all 50 governors have already certified their state election results. So it'd be a dead end.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, it looks like this could be a very long day. And one person who plays a very big role in today's proceedings, like I mentioned earlier, is Mike Pence. It's important to understand what the vice president is there to do. Because, you know, President Trump has put a lot on his shoulders.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: And I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. I hope that our great vice president, our great vice president comes through for us. He's a great guy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Trump tweeted yesterday that Pence has the power to reject electors, which is not true. Pence role in today proceedings is mostly a mechanical one He kind of like the guy at the Oscars who wears the nice tux and who walks on stage He carries the envelopes with the names of the winners and just hands it to someone That guy doesn't get to decide who wins best picture. The votes were cast and certified weeks ago.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Exactly. You know, it's not unusual for there to be a few objections. The Washington Post points out it's become more common since the 2000 election, and it's mostly been a few House Democrats saying, hold up. But it's never been like this and never with so much support in the Senate.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Yeah. In 2016, some House Democrats challenged Trump's vote counts, but they couldn't convince any senators to stand with them. And the vice president at that time was Joe Biden. So he was the one presiding over the meeting that day. And The Washington Post reports Biden told Democrats stop challenging the results. Just accept it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, fast forward to today, Biden probably won't get that same treatment from his old colleagues in Congress.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: OK, so there were two separate events on Tuesday that rocked the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin. First, the Kenosha County District Attorney announced his office is not seeking charges against the police officer who shot Jacob Blake last summer. Jacob Blake is a black man. As you might remember, police repeatedly shot Blake in the back as his kids watched from the car. He's now paralyzed from the waist down.
--:-- Michael Gravely: I again want to emphasize to you that this case has to be laser focused on what a jury trial would look like. Everybody has seen the video. And so from their perspective, they have tried this case at their computer screen or in their living room. As a professional, I am called upon to talk about how to try this case in a real jury room, in a real courtroom.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Blake's family led a peaceful protest in Kenosha after the announcement yesterday. When Blake was shot at the end of August, protests were intense. One night turned deadly when Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people and wounded a third. Rittenhouse is white. He traveled to Kenosha from out of state to support police. And at the time, he was 17 years old.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Since those killings, many people on the right have embraced Rittenhouse as a hero. They also helped pay his $2 million bond. And that brings us to the second big news story out of Kenosha. Yesterday, Rittenhouse pleaded not guilty to felony charges, including first-degree intentional homicide.
--:-- Shamita Basu: To remind you of the facts, Rittenhouse was carrying an assault-style rifle when he arrived at the Kenosha protests. He was out past the local curfew, along with many other people set by Kenosha officials. And he was too young to be legally carrying his weapon
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: And yet one video shows police passing out water to Rittenhouse and other armed counter and saying We appreciate you guys We really do
--:-- Shamita Basu: By contrast, Blake was reportedly trying to break up an argument between two women the day he was shot. On this particular day, police arrived in the scene to respond to a domestic incident involving Blake. Police tried to arrest him. and as Blake was trying to get back into his car where his three children were sitting in the back seat, officers tased him and then shot him seven times in the back. His kids saw all this happen.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: State officials claim Blake resisted arrest and had a weapon. A knife was later found in Blake's car, though a lawyer for the Blake family denies that Blake had been carrying a knife.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to a Washington Post database of police shootings, Every year, police shoot and kill about 1,000 people in America. In most instances, no charges are ever filed against the officers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Monday morning around 1130 a.m., a nightmare scenario took place at a California hospital. The freezer storing 830 doses of the COVID vaccine just stopped working. The doses were thawing. If they didn't get used right away, they were going to go bad, be wasted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah, the L.A. Times explains what happened next as medical workers were racing against the clock. They estimated they had about two hours to use these vaccines. So they got on the phones. First, they called up elder care facilities. One place said they could take 40 doses right away. And the hospital's chief medical officer drove them there himself.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: Then they called up a county jail, which was experiencing an outbreak. So they got them 100 doses. Now, the hospital at this point still had close to 700 shots left. So they turned to the community and sent out a mass text saying, we have shots. Come and get them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Within 15 minutes, people showed up. And amazingly, by the two hour deadline, every single shot was used. The hospital says this was a heroic effort, a team effort. Everybody, doctors, nurses, administrators, volunteers, they all dropped everything to help.
--:-- Duarte Giraldo: And even though Monday was chaotic and at times kind of scary, the hospital spokeswoman told the LA Times, maybe the rest of the country could learn something from this. I mean, given how slow and sloppily the vaccine distribution process is going in most of the country, maybe we would all benefit from thinking in the back of our minds, what's our plan if the freezer breaks?
--:-- 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.
