--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Good morning. It's Monday, December 20th. I'm Shamitha Bassu. Duarte Geraldino is out. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them. President Biden's Build Back Better plan, his signature bill and top domestic priority for months now, looks just about dead in its current form. That's after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said this on Fox News Sunday.
--:-- [Audio clip of Joe Manchin plays]
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. The details matter here. Think about that as you listen to what politicians and political reporters say in the next few days. You'll hear some language that sounds vague but is actually very precise in Washington speak. Stuff like the bill as it stands or the bill in its current form. That's what Manchin has said no to.
--:-- [Audio clip of Joe Manchin plays]
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: But The Atlantic does a careful read of what he and other key people have said and explains how there could be a different spending bill, even a big one, that Manchin could say yes to. This piece goes into a lot of detail, which you can check out on the Apple News app. But the thing to understand here is that the current bill funds a lot of things for a short time. Expanded child tax credit, universal pre-K, some health care programs. Now, Manchin might be open to picking a few of these and funding them for a long time.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: So even though it looks hopeless for this exact bill right now, The Atlantic says the story isn't over yet. Now, this whole thing is made possible by our 50-50 split in the Senate right now. It's what gives Manchin the power to single-handedly bring down a bill he doesn't like. But it's important to remember how we got to this split. That takes us back to Georgia.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Democrats wouldn't have 50 votes if that state hadn't gone blue last year, sending two Democrats to the Senate. Many of Biden's priorities would have been dead in the water this whole time if a few people in Georgia had voted differently. It's why this state is the one to watch in the midterm elections. There's a heightened sense of urgency in Georgia because that's a battleground state.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: That's Maya King, a reporter for Politico. She's looking into everything Georgia Republicans are trying to do to win back what they lost. Here in Georgia, local politics matter. Democrats may have won the Georgia races that get national headlines, but Republicans kept control of the state legislature, giving them the power to redraw districts and set election rules.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: So in Georgia right now, what we're seeing are a number of key steps on the state and the local level to, one, try to rewrite election and voting laws, and two, dismantle some of the gains that Democrats have made. Democrats worry it could be harder for some of their supporters to vote in the state because of a recently passed law.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Some of the provisions in that law, folks have pointed out to me as the more egregious, were limits on the number of ballot drop boxes in a given county, limits on the length of time that one can take for a runoff. And then there are also smaller provisions in that law, like it actually outlaws the ability to pass out water or snacks to voters who are waiting in line if they're waiting for long times at their precincts.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: One organizer who's working to turn out Black voters told King she'll be looking at the midterm elections in November as a signal for whether democracy will be protected. Because as she put it, Georgia is a microcosm of what's happening all over the country. Under these new provisions, which aren't just taking place in Georgia, they're being tested and will be tested in many other states across the country next year.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: I don't know about you, but a lot of people I know found out they tested positive for COVID this weekend. U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker both have it. I turn on the TV to find Saturday Night Live doing a strangely stripped-down show with no audience. Governments, businesses, we're seeing strong new measures to try to keep people safe from the Omicron variant.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: And it comes just in time for you to be wondering, should I keep my holiday plans? It kind of depends on what you're doing. If you're among the tens of millions of Americans with holiday travel plans, you can check out this Wall Street Journal piece. They spoke to some health and travel experts to get advice.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: And the checklist to evaluate your risks is the same as always. How vulnerable are you and the loved ones that you're visiting? How much time will you be able to spend outdoors versus inside? How bad is the virus where you're going? The journal has some resources to help you assess that.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: If your travel involves taking an international flight, make sure you keep checking the rules for testing before arrival. Those are changing all the time. And just consider before you go what it would mean if the place you're going to locks down while you're there.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: The State Department is advising anyone who travels internationally to make a plan in case borders close and you can get home as planned. And if you test positive while you're abroad, you'll need to factor in the risk and the cost of quarantining in place.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Now, let's say your holiday plans are not taking you anywhere far, but you are planning on gathering in large groups. Deciding whether to get together with family and friends right now is a personal decision, and it can be a tough one. You might appreciate reading how Atlantic reporter Ed Young wrestled with this recently.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: He won the Pulitzer Prize for his COVID reporting, and he took everything that he's learned about the virus and he channeled it into making a tough decision. He decided to cancel his 40th birthday party. Now, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a huge deal. He knows that. But he was really looking forward to celebrating this milestone with his friends.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: He writes about how he carefully thought through the pros and cons and ultimately made peace with this decision. And read this piece to the end. Young talks about how he always tries to bring a note of hope to every story he writes, even when things are dark. And he reminds us and himself, despite all the frustrations of these past two years, pandemics do eventually end.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Electric vehicles can be a crucial part of bringing down carbon emissions. But there's a problem. Mining nickel, which is needed to make batteries for electric cars, can do a lot of damage to the environment. When you start a nickel mine, nickel tends to run along the Earth's surface. So you're not really digging deep. You're digging wide.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: And what that means is you're taking down a lot of trees and natural rainforest. You're stripping it away and you're going wide to do it. And that creates other problems. That's Andrew Lahren, senior editor with NBC News' investigative unit. He's talking about a specific rainforest, one that's in a remote part of the Philippines, which is rich in nickel reserves.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: A mining company wants to more than triple the size of a nickel mine there. Lahren and a team of reporters talk to indigenous residents who say their relationship to this mine is complicated. The company points out that it brought new development to the area. It upgraded the water system there.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: But locals say ultimately their way of life is threatened by this expanding mine. They worried about the toxic runoff and what kind of damage it might be doing to their fragile ecosystem. This took some original reporting from NBC News together with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: They tested the water in the area and found dangerous levels of carcinogens. There are a lot of potential health risks. The results of the mine are things like, you know, dust in the air that can cause coughs and respiratory issues. There are skin lesions. So, you know, the skin suffering, you know, having scars and itching and the like.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: It's people's drinking water not being drinkable. It's the fish and the fishing there not being what it once was that was able to sustain the community as well as it had been. This NBC piece looks at the damage inflicted on the environment to get material for electric cars, and it asks whether the tradeoff is worth it.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: In exchange for getting electric vehicles, one of the prices that we're paying is destroying pristine rainforest. And as we destroy this rainforest, it weakens our planet's ability to reduce carbon dioxide and to reduce climate change. Every bit of rainforest that we lose is essentially like losing part of the lungs of the planet. That's what scientists tell us.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Everybody knows that the best things in life are free. But here's the catch. Some of the worst things in life are also free. And that's what New York Giants fans learned this weekend when, as part of a fan appreciation day, they were given a free medium-sized soda. This disgruntled hot take comes from a writer for Deadspin, Jesse Spector.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: This is a real promotion that the Giants franchise offered season ticket holders, I guess as a gesture of appreciation. Spector writes, This medium-sized soda, not even a large, it was a medium size, was like salt in the wound.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: Here are the Giants on track to miss the playoffs for the ninth time in the last 10 years. They lost to the Dallas Cowboys yesterday, by the way, 21 to 6. And what do the fans get after suffering through all of this heartbreak? Spector writes, a cup of ice with maybe six cents worth of soda.
--:-- Shamitha Bassu: 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.
