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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, January 18th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, Mexico's former top cop, accused of helping drug cartels, is on trial in Brooklyn. Explaining the contradictory numbers in the job market and why eggs are so expensive right now. But first, there are new details in the case of the Republican state legislative candidate in New Mexico accused of targeting Democratic lawmakers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Police say after losing his race, Solomon Pena masterminded a series of shootings, hiring people to fire into homes and allegedly pulling the trigger himself during one of the crimes. No one was injured. In one incident, gunshots went through the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl while she slept.
--:-- Natalie Naysa-Alland: It wasn't just a drive-by with one or two pops. Some of these homes were hit with at least a dozen bullets. And that's a scary thing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Alland told us how the 10-year-old, the daughter of State Senator Linda Lopez, woke up during the night of the shooting. Her 10-year-old daughter had woken her up and told her mother that she believed that there was a spider that crawled over her face in bed. So she jumped into bed with her daughter to go to sleep because she was scared. And while in bed, her daughter asked why it felt like there was sand in the bed. But the next morning when Lopez woke up, she noticed that there were holes in her house from gunfire and called police.
--:-- Natalie Naysa-Alland: Police say Peña made baseless claims that the election had been rigged against him. This case comes as violent threats against lawmakers are on the rise nationally. Some reference false claims of stolen elections and right-wing conspiracy theories.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Investigators say that Pena paid four men in cash and sent text messages with addresses he wanted them to target. He did know these four lawmakers. He did visit one of their homes prior to the shooting according to these criminal complaints. And according to a witness one of the senators who told police he was at my home very frustrated and angry several days before the shooting took place.
--:-- Natalie Naysa-Alland: Pena now faces a number of charges, including multiple counts of shooting into an occupied home, attempted aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and conspiracy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: USA Today hasn't reached him or an attorney for comment. Pena is expected in court this afternoon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Mexico's former top law enforcement official is on trial in Brooklyn this week. For over a decade, Hinaro Garcia Luna was considered an ally to the U.S. government and the face of Mexico's war on drugs.
--:-- Keegan Hamilton: Prosecutors say he led a double life, helping the very cartels he was supposed to be going after. Vice reporter Keegan Hamilton covers organized crime and the drug trade.
--:-- Keegan Hamilton: Honar Garcia Luna is accused of taking multimillion-dollar bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, basically to turn a blind eye to their drug trafficking activities, and also to feed them intelligence based on what the U.S. and Mexican governments knew and were hearing about. And the cartel could use that information to target their rivals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The powerful Sinaloa cartel was led by Joaquin Guzman, also known as El Chapo. It trafficked billions of dollars in illegal drugs. At the time, Garcia Luna worked for the Mexican government, at one point heading up the Mexican equivalent of the FBI.
--:-- Keegan Hamilton: He was seen as tough on drug runners, but American prosecutors say it was all a front. The allegation is that Genaro Garcino Luna was like double dealing, playing both sides, helping El Chapo while telling the U.S. that he was working with them to go after El Chapo.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Garcia Luna has pleaded not guilty. The trial is in the same federal courtroom where El Chapo was convicted a few years ago.
--:-- Keegan Hamilton: Genaro Garcia Luna doesn't have nearly the name recognition that Chapo does. He's basically unknown in the U.S. but he's a huge deal in Mexico. I think the people in the U.S. should really care about that because there are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of security aid that was going to Mexico at this time to fight the cartels. And García Luna was the guy who was tasked with spending that money.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Microsoft says it will lay off 10,000 people. That's less than 5% of its global workforce, but still its largest cuts in roughly eight years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's the latest headline about layoffs, which can be confusing when you look at the overall job market numbers, which are very strong. To understand the economy right now, you might be better off checking a psychology textbook rather than an econ one. To borrow a psych term, we are in a cognitive dissonance economy right now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's a lot of contradicting data that's confusing to professionals, let alone people who are just trying to understand what's going on. We're seeing big companies laying off tens of thousands of people. Amazon and Salesforce made deep cuts recently. But at the same time, the U.S. economy is adding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. Unemployment is at 3.5%, a 50-year low.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So what's the deal here? It's largely that layoffs are happening at tech companies. You hear about them more because they're big, they're popular investments, and many of them make products that we use every day. These companies did well during lockdowns. But now that boom is over and there are fears of a recession. Tech stocks have been clobbered lately and now they're cutting back hard.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some executives admit that they got too optimistic and overhired in the pandemic run-up. In short, both things can be true. Heavy tech layoffs and overall strength in the labor market.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Somehow this contradictory economy manages to create more than enough jobs to offset those that are disappearing from the tech sector.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'm not sure how I would have gotten through college without the cheap, fueling power of an egg-based meal. But lately, I found myself standing in the grocery store aisle for the first time, thinking, can I go without them this week? I don't have to tell you. Egg prices are soaring.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On average, Americans were paying $1.93 for a dozen last January. By December, we were paying $4.25. CBS recently visited a bakery where they're coddling every egg like it's a Fabergé. We don't drop an egg because that's a lot of cost. Every egg counts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One reason we're seeing this happen is demand. For years now, Americans have been eating more eggs, getting more protein from poultry products, while red meat consumption sunk.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The other factor here is bird flu. It's so contagious that farmers are quick to slaughter infected birds to prevent the spread. Close to 60 million birds have been infected in the deadliest outbreak in U.S. history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the third reason here is inflation. When farmers have to pay more for feed, labor, energy, and medicine, they need to raise prices or face going out of business.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There could be relief ahead. Recent data shows overall inflation cooling a bit. So even if egg prices stay high for a little bit longer, maybe you'll save money elsewhere. But if you're dreaming of a big fluffy omelet for brunch this weekend, sorry to tell you, it's going to cost you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. We talked yesterday about the trial over Elon Musk's tweets. Now, New York Magazine goes inside Twitter and talks to employees there to see how his takeover has been going. That's playing next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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