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After disappointing midterms, new GOP criticism of Trump · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning. It's Monday, November 14th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, Biden's high-stakes meeting with China's leader, why we still don't have a vaccine for the common cold, and tarantulas in Colorado go on a deadly quest for love.
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  But first… With the Nevada Senate race going to Democrats, the party will keep control, maybe even end up with a bigger majority, if they win the Georgia runoff. That's intensifying GOP finger-pointing for why Republicans didn't do as well as they'd predicted. With Trump expected to announce a 2024 presidential run tomorrow, his enemies in the party are racing to blame him for losses. Some of them are subtle, saying "candidate quality" was a problem. That's an indirect way of accusing Trump of backing candidates who are too extreme to win in the general election. But some of them are going straight for Trump, like outgoing Maryland Governor Larry Hogan on CNN…
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  Larry Hogan: It's basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it's like three strikes, you're out.
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  Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie took a similar line of attack, calling Trump a loser who's hurting the whole party. Both men might launch presidential campaigns of their own. But Trump is still very popular among voters. "The Washington Post" gets a GOP pollster to break it down. A tiny slice of Republicans are "Never Trumpers." Probably 40% are hardcore Trump supporters. That leaves about half of Republicans as what he calls "Maybe Trumpers." They voted for him because they like GOP policies, but they would like someone with less drama. The question is who. Governor Ron DeSantis is getting lots of buzz after a strong showing in Florida. Some in the party see potential in Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who won in a state that went big for Biden. There's also chatter about Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pompeo, among others. Now, not all of the finger-pointing is aimed at Trump. GOP leaders in each chamber of Congress are also getting criticized, Mitch McConnell in the Senate and Kevin McCarthy in the House. But criticizing these leaders isn't the same as forcing them out. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who supports McConnell, had a little fun with this on CBS.
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  Tom Cotton: The great wrestling champion Ric Flair used to say "To be the man, you got to beat the man." And so far, no one's had the nerve to step forward and challenge Senator McConnell.
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  House control is not yet set, so stay with the Apple News app for results and analysis in the days ahead.
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  Biden had his first face-to-face meeting as President with China's leader Xi Jinping earlier today, as the G20 summit gets underway in Indonesia. Before going behind closed doors, they did the usual shake-hands-in-front-of-a-bunch-of-flags photo-op. Biden said a few words about shared responsibility and managing differences. Xi talked about the importance of getting the countries' relationship to a better place. Ties between the two countries are at a low point in many ways, so now's a good time to take stock of some of the key issues causing these tensions. One of the biggest is Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. Biden has said he would use military force to defend the island from a Chinese attack. Beijing found that provocative, and said Biden was playing with fire. But the Biden administration has also said that U.S. policy around Taiwan hasn't changed. Other global hot spots where China plays a big role are Russia and North Korea. The U.S. would like to see China use more of its influence in both places, to help end the war in Ukraine and to get North Korea to ease back on missile testing. The U.S. also has concerns that China isn't playing fair when it comes to global trade. And it has human rights concerns, especially regarding the the Muslim minority in western China. And of course there's climate. China is currently the world's largest carbon emitter. The U.S. is number two. Any serious action to prevent climate catastrophe will require big moves by both countries, maybe even more cooperation.
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  It's the time of year for flu shots, and there's also a new COVID booster. With all of these shots available, maybe you're wondering why a universal vaccine for the common cold still doesn't exist. There are more than a billion cases a year in the U.S. alone, so there's definitely demand. It's not for lack of trying. Bill Gourgey with "Popular Science" explains why it's so hard.
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  Bill Gourgey: One of the challenges to actually making a common cold vaccine is that you're not really tackling one family of viruses, you're actually tackling a few if you really wanna make a dent. You'd need a vaccine that could target 200 different strains, which is pretty ambitious.
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  Another reason is that it's less urgent. The flu is deadlier than the common cold, and COVID-19 is far deadlier than both. So more resources go into those vaccines.
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  Gourgey: Unless you're a really young, you know-- young child or you're immunocompromised or elderly, getting a common cold is more of a nuisance, something that slows you down, maybe takes you out of work for a couple days. But for the most part it's not going to land you in the hospital and certainly won't lead to fatality.
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  Gourgey says A.I. technology is already making vaccine development faster, and might help develop a common cold vaccine down the road. But for now, we're just gonna have to deal with that runny nose, coughing, and sneezing from time to time.
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  Around this time every year, scientists and volunteers gather in Colorado to watch a rite of passage involving big, fuzzy spiders. "L.A. Times" special correspondent David Kelly tagged along.
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  David Kelly: For generations, I mean, you know, literally thousands of years, these tarantulas have emerged from their holes and gone searching for mates across the southeastern plains of Colorado. They wanted to find out, how is it that these tarantulas, which range all the way from Louisiana to Colorado, how do they survive the Colorado winters?
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  So, they lured the females out of their burrows and took a look inside, and they found that the spiders were pretty incredible architects.
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  Kelly: And they came up with some very weird shapes, looked like stomachs, very long. It's shocking that something that's six inches long could do that level of excavation.
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  The city of La Junta is trying to build a tourism industry around these spiders, including a tarantula festival.
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  Kelly: They took busloads of people out into the grasslands about 20 miles south of town to give tarantula tours, they had tarantula races, people dressed like tarantulas, they had beer gardens, they had murals all over town of tarantulas. They're fully embracing this arachnid.
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  You'll end up learning a lot from this story about the love lives of tarantulas. It's not easy out there for a tarantula looking for love.
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  Kelly: The males are often eaten by the females right after consummation of this relationship. And if they don't get eaten by the females, they face death by cold, death by starvation or death by being hit by a car. So it's really like one of the roughest dating scenes you can imagine.
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  Lots of tarantulas die in traffic. Conservationists want the state to dig tunnels so the spiders can go under highways safely. Kelly says that's kind of a hard sell because tarantulas are not endangered and they're not much of a threat to drivers, plus some people find them kinda creepy. But one scientist says they're important to protect because they control pests like grasshoppers and beetles. And also, he says, "because they're cool."
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  You can check out the full story, which has lots of great photography of tarantulas, in the Apple News app, along with all the stories that we talked about today. And if you're already listening in the News app, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next from "Smithsonian Magazine." It's about the new technology scientists are using to study, quite literally, the blood, sweat and tears on historical documents. Analyzing protein molecules can give new insights into the famous people who wrote them. So, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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