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Fears of political violence grow after attack on Paul Pelosi · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Monday, October 31st. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, Brazil's closely watched presidential race comes to a dramatic close, the Supreme Court hears a pair of cases about affirmative action, and a hiker's serendipitous survival story.
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  But first, there are big questions about politically driven extremist violence, following the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband at their home in San Francisco, Friday. Paul Pelosi had surgery to repair a skull fracture and other injuries from the man accused of attacking him with a hammer. His life may have been saved by a quick 911 call and fast police response. Nancy Pelosi says her husband is recovering and the family is "heartbroken and traumatized."
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  The suspect was booked on charges including attempted homicide and assault with a deadly weapon. He's expected to be arraigned tomorrow.
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  Law enforcement says the man shouted, "Where's Nancy?" during the attack. It was reminiscent of what some January 6th attackers said as they stormed the Capitol and targeted her office.
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  Both parties condemned the attack, but not in the same way. Democrats are connecting it to rhetoric from Republicans.
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  [START MEET THE PRESS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Senator Amy Klobuchar: She has been villainized for years and, big surprise, it's gone viral and it went violent.
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  That's Senator Amy Klobuchar on "Meet the Press."
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  Senator Amy Klobuchar: The attacks on her and this group of MAGA extremists, who, by the way, are putting up candidates on the ballot that Donald Trump supports, have been not ending when Donald Trump left office. They have been expanding into our politics.
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  Republicans are trying to focus on the suspect and violent threats against conservatives. Party chair Ronna McDaniel was on "Fox News."
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  Ronna McDaniel: This is a deranged individual. You can't say people saying, "Let's fire Pelosi" or "Let's take back the House" is saying, "Go do violence." It's just unfair. And I think we all need to recognize that violence is up across the board. Lee Zeldin was attacked, we had an assassination attempt against Brett Kavanaugh.
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  [END FOX NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  The attack at the Pelosi home came the same day as a grave warning from the FBI and other agencies. They said accusations of election fraud and anger at midterm results will likely mean greater threats of violence.
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  A lot happened over the weekend internationally, with several major stories that are still developing. So let's take a look at the some of the biggest ones, starting with the election in Brazil.
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  Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva beat incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a close and bitter race. The win moves Brazil's government back to the left. It's also a comeback for Lula, who was recently in prison until his conviction was annulled. Lula supporters took to the streets to cheer on his win.
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  Lula Supporters: [CHANTING] Lula! Lula!
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  A key question now is whether Bolsonaro and his supporters will accept the results. He speaks highly of Donald Trump and some analysts think that Bolsonaro might try a similar challenge to the election results.
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  In South Korea, investigators are looking into how a crowd crush at a Halloween street gathering in Seoul killed more than 150 people. There's still a lot that's unclear about what happened. Key questions focus on whether there was adequate security and crowd control.
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  In India, more than 130 people are dead after a bridge collapse in the western state of Gujarat. The historic bridge was a tourist attraction, in fact, newly reopened after renovations. The state filed a criminal complaint against the agency responsible for maintaining it.
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  And around 100 people are dead in the Philippines. A powerful tropical storm brought damaging winds and heavy rain that triggered landslides. Rescuers are looking for dozens more people who are reported missing.
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  Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for a pair of cases about affirmative action. Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are defending the right to continue considering race in the admissions process.
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  The plaintiff in both cases is a group called Students for Fair Admissions. It argues that these race-conscious admissions practices hurt white and Asian American applicants. A key difference between the cases is that the Harvard suit would affect private colleges and universities, and the UNC case public ones.
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  Nick Anderson is a higher education reporter for "The Washington Post." He recently wrote about how the Harvard suit has kind of overshadowed the UNC suit, but it's worth understanding UNC's history and culture. It's one of the most competitive public schools in the U.S. And Black students weren't allowed to attend for the first century and a half that it existed.
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  Nick Anderson: It was a university that served the elite of the state of North Carolina, and by definition, that meant serving the enslaving class. When the university continued to function after the Civil War and after slavery was abolished, the university also was connected in many ways with the culture of Jim Crow.
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  Black people account for 22 percent of the population in North Carolina. At UNC Chapel Hill, they make up just 9% of undergraduates. Race is one of the many factors UNC considers in applications. Anderson spoke to UNC students who are concerned that the Supreme Court will overturn decades of precedent.
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  Anderson: Julia Clark, who is the head of the Black Student Movement at UNC Chapel Hill, believes that the use of race is necessary in the consideration of admissions. In part because race is such a factor in people's lives, including hers, that it's impossible to ignore, and that it affects the educational opportunities of students in elementary and secondary schools. And so, it's, in her view, sort of difficult to exclude race from admissions when race has such an effect on the underlying educational system.
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  The outcome of both cases before the Court today could have a profound impact on what campuses look like moving forward.
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  Anderson: We're talking about highly competitive universities, public and private, and who gets in. And that is frankly a really serious issue to many people because the better the university, the more intense the competition. And should there be some kind of ability of universities to assemble diverse classes in order to give their students exposure to the racial diversity that the world contains?
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  The Court’s ruling won’t come for another few months.
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  We'll leave you today with a story about tenacity and luck. "CNN" has this report of a hiker who went missing in Colorado. She broke her leg and she was seriously injured for two nights in the wilderness, with no food, very little water, and the wrong clothes and gear for the severe evening cold.
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  But after the second night, she dragged herself to a spot on the riverbank near a train track. And she bet her life that a train would pass and somebody would see her.
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  A passenger happened to be looking out the window of a train and they saw her. So they stopped the train. Two people on board were trained medics. They crossed the river and they called for help. Soon, a rescue team arrived by helicopter and the injured hiker made it to the hospital.
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  An emergency response official said, "It's incredible that she survived."
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app, we've got a narrated article coming up for you next. "Town & Country" has a bizarre story about an MIT professor who went from advising presidents to life behind bars. That's queued up for you next. I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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