--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, October 30th. I'm Shamitza Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, why the public face of federal immigration enforcement is facing court scrutiny, Rio in shock after police carry out its deadliest ever raid, and a newly discovered Dr. Seuss manuscript will soon be published. But first, the Federal Reserve made another interest rate cut for the second month in a row yesterday.
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--:-- Shumita Basu: The quarter point reduction was expected and long priced into market expectations. What was more surprising was Fed Chair Jay Powell's warning on the road ahead.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In the committee's discussions at this meeting, there were strongly differing views about how to proceed in December. A further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion. Far from it.
--:-- Shumita Basu: His wording here, characterized by the Wall Street Journal as an unusually pointed intervention, was seen as an attempt to rein in markets that had already begun to price in another rate cut, something President Trump is eager to see.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Wall Street dipped following Powell's comments. Powell also acknowledged uncertainty owing to the shutdown, which has led to a big gap in fresh economic data for them to draw conclusions from.
--:-- Shumita Basu: What do you do if you're driving in the fog? You slow down. So that could or could not. I don't know how that's going to play into things.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The data may come back, but there's a possibility that it would make sense to be more cautious about moving.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Officials described inflation as somewhat elevated, still at 3 percent above the Fed's target, though rising at a slower pace than the last three months.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But the rate cut decision shows the Fed are continuing to prioritize the softening jobs market.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On that front, there appears to be a shift in perception among some labor experts.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Throughout much of the year, economists have been talking about a no-hire, no-fire environment, essentially meaning that job seekers were having a difficult time getting work, but those who did have jobs were holding on to them.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In recent days, though, a few major corporations have announced job cuts that challenge that thesis.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Amazon announced it was letting 14,000 workers go, and UPS reduced its workforce by about 48,000 compared to last year.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Target said last week that it was cutting about 1,000 corporate jobs and leaving another 100 unfilled.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And jobs in the federal workforce have declined this year, with more expected to fall off payrolls after this month.
--:-- Daniel Zhao: I think we're starting to move into an environment that's more low-hire sum fire.
--:-- Daniel Zhao: So we're starting to see layoffs tick up to where they were compared to pre-pandemic levels.
--:-- Daniel Zhao: And the fact that we are starting to see more of those layoffs and we are seeing hiring still at a pretty sluggish rate perhaps indicates that we are going to see the unemployment rate rise a little bit.
--:-- Daniel Zhao: We are going to see some more weakening in the job market.
--:-- Daniel Zhao: And so I do think that some of these announced layoffs are signs of a trend of the job market continuing to slow.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Even with Powell's comments yesterday, this has been a sky high period for Wall Street, powered in large part by AI focused companies like NVIDIA, which became an unprecedented $5 trillion company yesterday.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The market boom over the course of this year has contributed to a K-shaped economy, where wealthier Americans benefiting from the stock market gains are spending more and lower and middle Americans impacted most by stubbornly high prices of everyday goods are spending less.
--:-- Heather Long: This economy right now is being driven by spending from the top 20 percent of Americans.
--:-- Heather Long: So that dividing line is roughly $175,000.
--:-- Heather Long: Families that aren't above that mark, they're living la vida loca.
--:-- Heather Long: You know, they're out there, they're spending on birthday parties and lavish weddings and big trips abroad and growing their spending month after month.
--:-- Heather Long: And the rest of America, the bottom 80 percent, they're cautious right now.
--:-- Shumita Basu: This kind of wealth inequality and spending power is nothing new in the United States, but Long said that it has become more pronounced.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can go back to kind of the early 90s and the top 10 percent, the wealthiest Americans, you know, they would account for 35 percent of overall spending.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So a pretty good chunk was relying on the top.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But today that number is basically 50 percent.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Half of spending is now dependent on just the top 10 percent.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Even if another cut doesn't come in December, this week's decision brought interest rates below 4 percent for the first time in three years.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now to the man who's become the public face of President Trump's escalating federal law enforcement tactics.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Gregory Bovino is a Customs and Border Patrol commander, and he's been heading up federal activity taking place in democratically-led cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, leading the charge even in cases where local officials have objected to their presence.
--:-- Shumita Basu: His efforts have resulted in multiple lawsuits and a strict ban on certain enforcement tactics from a federal judge.
--:-- Jason Meisner: The federal judge Sarah Ellis in Chicago entered a restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, restricting the use of tear gas indiscriminately and without warning on the streets, and also requiring agents to be using body cameras when they're out interacting with the public and to have identification on their uniforms.
--:-- Jason Meisner: And on Tuesday, the same judge, Judge Ellis, cited concerns that the restraining order had not been followed and took the rare step of ordering Bovino to come in and brief her on immigration enforcement efforts every day, which he did starting yesterday.
--:-- Jason Meisner: It was a very kind of dramatic moment where he came in in full uniform and protesters were outside the courthouse in downtown Chicago on both sides, actually.
--:-- Jason Meisner: So ICE supporters and protesters against the immigration agents.
--:-- Jason Meisner: And he sat in court for a little over an hour and listened to the judge lecture him and ask him questions.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Those briefings are scheduled to continue at least until November 5th, when there will be a full hearing.
--:-- Jason Meisner: During these briefings, Bovino is expected to give Judge Ellis the names, dates of arrests, and charges for people that have been detained for anything non-immigration related.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Ellis specifically pressed Bovino on one incident that occurred on a residential street where children were getting ready to go to a Halloween parade this past weekend.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Agents went in the neighborhood, heavily armed, chased a day laborer down the street who they had just randomly come upon, apparently.
--:-- Jason Meisner: And that led to a confrontation.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Neighbors coming out of their houses, still in their pajamas, filming It got pretty ugly and people were yelling and people were tackled by the agents and then tear gas was deployed
--:-- Jason Meisner: The judge was very upset about this incident
--:-- Jason Meisner: She went on at length about it
--:-- Jason Meisner: She told Greg Bovino this is no way that anybody wants to live
--:-- Jason Meisner: Bovino did say that he would abide by the orders.
--:-- Jason Meisner: And DHS said of this specific incident that agents were, quote, surrounded and boxed in by a group of agitators.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Bovino himself has defended his aggressive tactics, including in an interview with CNN earlier this month.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Folks are free to criticize.
--:-- Jason Meisner: They're free to armchair quarterback.
--:-- Jason Meisner: When they don't walk a mile in the shoes of law enforcement, then they might want to think a second before full-blown criticism.
--:-- Jason Meisner: I've heard a lot of that.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Our officers act legally, ethically, and morally in all law enforcement actions, whether it's Los Angeles or Chicago.
--:-- Jason Meisner: Meisner described the moment he left the courthouse yesterday.
--:-- Jason Meisner: He had a bunch of his armed agents around him.
--:-- Jason Meisner: He jumped up onto a pickup truck and waved and motioned for his agents to move out as protesters were chanting.
--:-- Jason Meisner: So it was kind of like two sides of him once he got out of court.
--:-- Jason Meisner: The Greg Bovino that we've seen in the news was back.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Ellis set a Friday deadline for Bovino to get a body camera.
--:-- Shumita Basu: He's also being required to sit for a private deposition with lawyers.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It was the deadliest police raid in Brazil's history, which left at least 132 people dead and drew condemnation from the U.N.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The sound there of police in Rio firing during Tuesday's raid, which was targeting one of the country's biggest drug gangs, the Comando Vermejo, or Red Command.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Police said gang members weaponized drones in response, dropping explosives onto officers, and local media reported people blocking roads and using burning cars as barricades into the city.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The city's governor, Claudio Castro, said the raid was designed to target narco-terrorism, and police said they arrested over 100 suspects and seized large quantities of firearms.
--:-- Shumita Basu: O Globo newspaper called it the deadliest blow to the Red Command gang since its creation.
--:-- Mariana Giangiacomo: Just scenes of pure chaos and shootings happening in the middle of the city.
--:-- Mariana Giangiacomo: During the night, residents of the city went to search for bodies in the woods, where a big part of the operation also happened.
--:-- Mariana Giangiacomo: They then took the bodies to a central square and lined them down so that people could identify the bodies.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The scale of the violence unleashed by the raid has raised questions from international human rights groups as well as national leadership.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, said he was astonished by the news and expressed surprise at not being given prior warning.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Some speculated whether politics might have played a part in the operation.
--:-- Tim Vickery: This security operation was carried out by the governor of the state of Rio.
--:-- Tim Vickery: Now, he is a right-wing figure.
--:-- Tim Vickery: He is saying that this operation was a success, and with the exception of the four dead police officers, everyone else here is a member of the Red Command.
--:-- Tim Vickery: Now, this very much plays into a very strong rationale here.
--:-- Tim Vickery: Now, this is a city traumatised by the reality of urban crime, that the only good bandit is a dead bandit.
--:-- Tim Vickery: Specialists however would argue that such operations do nothing to combat the real problem
--:-- Tim Vickery: Vickery added many think the raid was more about the theatre
--:-- Tim Vickery: This has much more to do with the politics of spectacle than it really does with the politics of public safety
--:-- Shumita Basu: Specialists will argue, let's assume that all of the dead, with the exception of four police, are members of the Red Command.
--:-- Shumita Basu: They can be replaced very, very quickly, and the rifles and weapons captured by the police can also be replaced quickly because we are dealing with a major social force here in this criminal group.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The UN's Human Rights Office said the killings added to a larger trend of increasingly lethal police raids in Brazil's marginalized communities and urged an investigation.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It comes as the country prepares to welcome the UN as it hosts COP, the Global Climate Summit, next week.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's days away before enrollment opens for people shopping for health care through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And a new analysis from health policy think tank KFF says the average price is set to go up by 26 percent, which would confirm it as one of the sharpest rises since the health care program launched over a decade ago.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Consumers using the healthcare.gov platform could face even higher jumps at 30 percent on average.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The added pain to millions of household budgets come November 1st puts the spotlight back on the COVID-era subsidies at the center of the shutdown debate in Congress.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Democrats want to extend subsidies, while Trump and Republicans have said they will not negotiate on health care until the government is back up and running.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Residents in Jamaica are beginning to get a better picture of the devastation left behind by Hurricane Melissa.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Critical infrastructure was severely damaged, and most of the island was without power as of yesterday.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Officials say some places could be uninhabitable for weeks.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Two of Jamaica's airports will reopen today for commercial flights.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Meanwhile, in Cuba, significant damage to homes and critical crops were reported in the province of Santiago de Cuba.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Flooding and overflowing reservoirs were also a concern.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And in Haiti, at least 25 people are dead from flooding.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's now been downgraded to a Category 1 storm as it continues through the Caribbean.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And finally, a new book by beloved children's author Dr. Seuss will soon go on sale.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And yes, I said new because although Dr. Seuss, born Theodore Seuss Geisel, died in 1991, a manuscript, sketches, and storyboards were recently discovered at the University of California, San Diego's Geisel Library.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The book, titled Sing the 50 United States, features the author's famous Cat in the Hat character and will include some original sketches.
--:-- Shumita Basu: An executive from Random House Children's Books said, Finding an original Dr. Seuss story is something we dream of.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The book will be out next year.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Vox has the story of how the collapse of coral reefs off of Madagascar is endangering the livelihood of those who live there.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But researchers are now trying an unexpected method to bring back the island's most vital source of food.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Thank you.
