--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Thursday, October 7th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. Shemitah Basu is off. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, you're going to hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Just a quick update on a story you might have missed last night. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Texas law that bars abortions as early as six weeks of pregnancy. This is a big legal development. The state already filed an appeal.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Texas Tribune explains, it's not clear how the latest ruling is going to affect abortion access in that state. The architects of this law wrote it in such a way that people who violate it can still be sued for what they do while the law is on hold.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can learn more about this on the Apple News app. As of this morning, it's looking like senators are close to a deal that would stop the U.S. from defaulting on its debt later this month. The GOP has been refusing to vote to suspend the debt ceiling. They say Democrats could do it on their own.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But yesterday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell offered something new. The idea is to raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can borrow what it needs until sometime in December. It's not final yet. Talks were going on well past midnight.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Washington Post is reporting many key Democrats are optimistic this is going to happen. October 18th, though, is the day things get ugly if lawmakers don't act. Seniors could see Social Security checks delayed. Government and military paychecks would be in jeopardy. Interest rates could rise, which would drive a borrowing cost for Americans. The whole economy could take a hit.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: With so much at stake, Washington is under pressure to get their stuff together. And while a deal is looking more and more likely, remember, it may only fix things until December, which means you may see lawmakers playing the same game of chicken just in time for the holidays.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: A ransomware attack may have led to a baby's death. That's the allegation in an explosive lawsuit. This could be the first confirmed death from a ransomware attack. And it shows how dangerous these hacks could be.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Back in 2019, a woman named Tarani Kidd was preparing to deliver her baby at an Alabama hospital. What she didn't know at that time was that this hospital, Spring Hill Medical Center, was in the middle of a cyber attack, a ransomware attack.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Kevin Polson is a reporter with The Wall Street Journal. Because of the hack, hospital staff didn't get an important early signal that Kid's daughter had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.
--:-- Kevin Polson: The way it looks is that because that system was down as a result of this ransomware attack, the odds of missing something, missing a warning sign like this, would have been dramatically increased.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Kid's daughter was born with severe brain damage. She died nine months later. The attending doctor texted the nurse manager saying, quote, this was preventable.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now Kidd is suing the hospital. It's denying wrongdoing and says it handled the ransomware attack appropriately. Next year a court is going to decide whether the hospital did enough for Kidd and her baby.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: With less than a month to go, the Virginia governor's race is neck and neck. It may provide clues about how Republicans and Democrats are going to do in next year's midterm elections.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And now, one of the candidates is calling on Taylor Swift fans. Yes, I said Taylor Swift fans. The Verge explains what's going on here.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Democrat Terry McAuliffe is running a series of attack ads against Republican Glenn Youngkin. The ads tie Youngkin to the purchase of Taylor Swift's master recordings back in 2019.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You see, Youngkin used to be the co-CEO of a private equity firm called the Carlyle Group. While he was in that role, the firm worked with Scooter Braun to acquire Swift's masters. She complained about Braun and spoke out against the sale.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Her fans rallied around her. Now McAuliffe is trying to get those fans to vote for him. A Youngkin spokesman is calling the attack "pathetic" and "baseless."
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And you should know McAuliffe actually owns Carlyle stock. His campaign says he was a passive investor when Swift's masters were sold. And he now owns less than $5,000 in shares.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: As for Swift, she's been re-recording her early albums. Her new version of Red is out next month. And I'm a book lover.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So far this year, I've read "No Heaven for Good Boys" by Keisha Bush, "Dominicana" by Angie Cruz, and "An American Marriage" by Tayari Jones. For me, nothing beats sitting with a real book in my hands and losing myself in a story.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Can you relate? If so, brace yourself. Vox reports books are getting harder to come by. Some of this is the pandemic, of course. But a big factor is us. We're buying way more books.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And again, I'm talking real books you can hold. Printed book sales jumped 21% between 2019 and 2021. But this comes as printing books is getting harder.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: During the pandemic, all that extra online shopping created huge demand for cardboard shipping boxes. And many paper factories shifted from making pages for books to making cardboard for boxes.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Those that are still working with publishers are having trouble finding enough workers. So orders can take much longer to fill. And once the books do finally get printed and bound, it's tough to get them to where they need to be so you can buy them.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Shipping prices have gone up. There are shortages of truck drivers, so it's not easy for booksellers to meet the growing demand for reading material.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One supply chain expert tells Vox he's betting things are going to start getting better early next year. But for now, if you're looking to get your hands on a book this year, buy it as soon as you can.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And speaking of books, the Nobel Prize in Literature was just announced this morning. The winner is Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The committee recognized his work for, quote, "compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee." You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And while you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
