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How a secret tape of racist remarks is rocking politics · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Thursday October 13th. I'm Shumita 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.
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  Racist remarks caught on tape from prominent Latino politicians are rocking the Los Angeles City Council. One council member and a labor leader have resigned, and others are under pressure to step down after the "L.A. Times" reported on the recordings. "Times" columnist and podcast host Gustavo Arrelano gives us the background…
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  Gustavo Arrelano: The conversation was a lot of just political-in-the-weeds: how to carve up districts, how to get back at perceived political enemies. And look, this is American democracy. For better for worse, it happens. What usually doesn't happen is having political leaders say vile, racist things.
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  In these recordings, three council members and a labor leader were talking about how to draw city council districts to keep and expand Latino political power. And in that conversation, they made racist and derogatory comments against Black, Indigenous, Jewish, and Armenian people, among others.
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  Arrelano: That's language you don't use anymore, horrible language that just disgusts everyone.
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  Arrelano says there could be broader fallout.
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  Arrelano: Latinos are now the majority in Los Angeles, and for generations we've had to deal with rumors that if we ever get power, we're going to try to exclude other people, we're going to quash our political power. And that's not true. But yet here you have three of the most powerful elected Latino officials in Southern California talking about that: how to limit Black power, mocking Black political power, all of that. It was just so nuclear, so toxic, and these are repercussions that we're going to have to deal with in Los Angeles for years to come.
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  California's attorney general says his office plans to investigate the redistricting process in Los Angeles for possible voting-rights violations.
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  Alex Jones must pay nearly a billion dollars for spreading lies about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.
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  Yesterday, a jury said he owes $965 million to victims' families and an FBI agent who responded to the attack. Jones had already been found liable for defamation and inflicting emotional distress, the jury's job was to decide how much he should have to pay.
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  Mark Barden, whose son Daniel was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, spoke to "MSNBC" after the jury's decision.
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  Mark Barden: This judgment today that came after four weeks of trial, which came after four years of this process, is a win for America. It's a win for our culture. It's a clear message that profiting from lies and disinformation and misinformation does not win, and there will be consequences and there will be accountability.
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  Jones was not in court yesterday. The conspiracy theorist did talk about the decision on his online show, laughing and mocking the amounts awarded to the families and urging his audience to give him money.
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  Jones' company has already filed for bankruptcy protection in a move that's possibly intended to make it harder for families to get the money. A former federal prosecutor told "MSNBC" that Jones can try different legal maneuvers, but most likely the end result is he'll be, quote, "basically broke" for the rest of his life.
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  Today, the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection holds what's probably going to be its final public hearing.
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  A lot has happened since the last hearings in July, including a recent interview with Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She was reportedly involved in efforts to challenge the 2020 election results and in touch with Trump administration officials.
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  "The Washington Post" reports on what we can expect to hear from the committee today. People briefed on the records say the committee plans to highlight newly-obtained Secret Service communications that demonstrate how Donald Trump was warned about at first the risk and then the reality of violence that day and how, in spite of that, he was still adamant about trying to join his supporters as they marched on the Capitol.
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  Today's hearing may be a kind of closing argument about Trump's role on January 6th. Here's what committee member Representative Zoe Lofgren told "CNN" earlier this week.
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  [START CNN YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Zoe Lofgren: We're going to be going through really some of what we've already found, but augmenting with new material that we discovered through our work throughout this summer, what the president's intentions were, what he knew, what he did.
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  A final committee report is expected before the end of the year. There's still some key decisions the committee has to make, such as whether to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, and whether it officially calls Trump or Mike Pence to testify.
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  [INTRIGUING MUSIC]
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  The hearing starts at 1 PM Eastern today, and you can follow developments in the Apple News app.
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  When you think of parrots, maybe the first thing that comes to your mind is their ability to mimic noises and voices.
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  Like this one, named Einstein, who lives at the Knoxville Zoo and is really good at making movie sound effects…
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  [START YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Unidentified Speaker: Can you fly around in a spaceship?
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  [PARROT SOUND]
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  Speaker: Just don't shoot the lasers!
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  [PARROT SOUND]
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  Speaker: Oh, my! You're gonna make everyone scream!
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  [PARROT SOUND]
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  Speaker: That sounds evil.
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  [PARROT SOUND]
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  [END YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  [LAUGHS] That's a good evil laugh from a bird. But here's something that you might not know about parrots: they're major targets for thieves. "The Atlantic" explains why in what might be one of the weirdest pandemic supply and demand stories that we've come across.
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  Parrot theft has been a thing for a long time. They're pretty easy to steal and they're hard to trace. And these birds can go for thousands of dollars apiece. See, during the pandemic, a lot of people on lockdown decided, "Hey, maybe it's a good time to get a bird, for company." That demand helped send prices through the roof, and it inspired a new wave of bird-nappers.
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  One bird expert told "The Atlantic" she's on alert. She has cameras and even a German Shepherd guarding her seven parrots.
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  You can read that story and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the news app right now, stick around.
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  Basu: We've got a narrated article coming up next from the "Wall Street Journal". It's about how sitting down to have dinner as a family is associated with better mental health for kids, but more people are saying they just don't have time to prioritize it. That's coming up next. I'll be back with the news tomorrow, and I'll give Einstein the last word.
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  Unidentified Speaker: What do you say when it's time to go?
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  Einstein: Bye.
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  Speaker: Goodbye.
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  [END YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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