10 things you need to know today: October 11, 2022

1. Biden, other world leaders condemn Russia missile strikes in Ukraine

World leaders on Monday condemned Russia's broad flurry of airstrikes on civilian areas across Ukraine, which left at least 14 people dead. Moscow said the attacks were retaliation for what Russian President Vladimir Putin described as a "terrorist" attack on a bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014. President Biden promised Ukraine air-defense systems, and said the strikes exposed "the utter brutality of Mr. Putin's illegal war." The United Nations General Assembly used an emergency session to discuss the matter. Ukraine's ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said Russia's recent illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory represents an "existential threat" to the U.N. charter. "The U.N. charter is clear," said Csaba Korosi, the emergency session's president. "Invading a neighbor is illegal."

The New York Times Reuters

2. Ryan, Vance trade attacks in Ohio Senate debate

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Republican venture capitalist J.D. Vance faced off in their first debate in the race fill the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R). Ryan and Vance accused each other of putting party loyalty ahead of the needs of the people of Ohio. Ryan portrayed Vance as an extremist who associates with GOP "crazies" like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), "who wants to ban books," and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, "who's the absolute looniest politician in America." Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, said Ryan "pretends to be a moderate" but supports policies that kill jobs and drive inflation. The race is one of the closest in the battle for control of the evenly split Senate.

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The Associated Press

3. Nury Martinez gives up L.A. City Council leadership position after leaked racist remarks

Nury Martinez stepped down as Los Angeles City Council president on Monday after facing calls to resign over leaked audio in which she made apparently racist comments. Martinez, who remains a member of the council, made her comments in a closed-door October 2021 discussion with other Latino council members about the city's redistricting. Martinez is recorded saying City Councilman Mike Bonin, who is white, treated his young Black son like an "accessory," and that the child misbehaved on a float during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. "Parece changuito," she said, meaning "he's like a little monkey." Martinez repeated an earlier apology, saying she was "truly ashamed" about what she said, and asked "for forgiveness."

Los Angeles Times

4. Trump lawyer talks to agents investigating handling of classified documents

Christina Bobb, the attorney who signed a June letter claiming incorrectly that former President Donald Trump had returned all sensitive government documents, has spoken to federal authorities investigating Trump's handling of classified material, NBC News reported Monday. NBC says Bobb implicated two other Trump lawyers connected to the case. The June 3 letter Bobb signed affirmed that Trump no longer had any documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Florida, but FBI agents who searched the building on Aug. 8 seized more than 100 records with classified markings. Bobb didn't write the letter, NBC's sources said. She reportedly told investigators that Trump's lead lawyer on the case, Evan Corcoran, drafted the letter and told her to sign it.

NPR

5. Iranian oil workers join anti-government protests

Iran intensified its crackdown on anti-government protesters on Monday as oil workers reportedly started striking in support of the demonstrations. University students have played a key role in protests that erupted on Sept. 16, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being detained by Iran's morality police for "inappropriate attire." Dozens of workers at the Bushehr Petrochemical Project in southern Iran went on strike Monday, chanting "Do not fear, we stand together," and "Death to the dictator," according to social media posts. The demonstration at the Bushehr project and the Abadan and Kangan oil refineries marked the first time the unrest had spread to Iran's crucial oil industry. Previously, only stores and other small businesses had closed in support of the protesters.

Reuters The Wall Street Journal

6. Tuberville faces criticism over comments at Trump rally

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) faced a backlash Monday over a comment he made at a Nevada pro-Trump rally, describing descendents of enslaved people as criminals. Tuberville accused Democrats of being "pro-crime," saying: "They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls--t! They are not owed that." Reparations refer to compensation for wrongs people have suffered. In this case it refers to the ongoing effects of slavery. Last spring, more than 170 House Democrats co-sponsored a bill seeking a study on reparations for slavery. NAACP President Derrick Johnson said Tuberville's comments were "flat out racist, ignorant, and utterly sickening."

NPR

7. Former Hurricane Julia's death toll rises

Former Hurricane Julia continued to drench Guatemala and El Salvador on Monday after it hammered Nicaragua and pushed out over the Pacific. The death toll from the storm reached 28, including five people who died in Guatemala's Alta Verapaz province when a landslide crashed into their house. Two people died in eastern El Salvador when a wall weakened by heavy rains fell in their house. The National Hurricane Center said rainfall from the storm could continue to cause floods and mudslides in Central America and southern Mexico through Tuesday, with some areas getting as much as 15 inches of rain.

The Associated Press

8. Retailers offer discounts as inventory builds

Retailers that struggled to get enough goods during most of the coronavirus pandemic now have a glut of unsold merchandise, The Washington Post reports. U.S. retailers had a record $732 billion of inventory in July, up 21 from a year earlier, according to Census Bureau data. To lure reluctant shoppers into stores, major retailers, including Walmart and Target, are already starting Black Friday sales, with the traditional start of the crucial holiday shopping season still six weeks away. Amazon is holding a second Prime Day promotion, less than three months after the last one. "There is an increasing smell of desperation in the air because retailers are saddled with a ton of excess," said Elaine Kwon, managing partner at retail consulting firm Kwontified.

The Washington Post The Wall Street Journal

9. California man charged with kidnapping, killing

Prosecutors on Monday formally charged a California man, Jesus Salgado, with the kidnapping and murder of four members of a family taken at gunpoint from their trucking business on Oct. 3. The bodies of 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her 27-year-old mother Jasleen Kaur, her 36-year-old father Jasdeep Singh, and her 39-year-old uncle Amandeep Singh were found days later by a worker in an almond orchard in a remote part of the San Joaquin Valley. Salgado, 48, had worked for the family, and was involved in a longstanding dispute with them. If convicted, he could face life in prison without parole, although Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke called for the death penalty. His brother, Alberto Salgado, has been charged with criminal conspiracy, accessory, and destroying evidence.

The Associated Press

10. Pioneering DJ Art Laboe dies at 97

Art Laboe, a disc jockey for more than 70 years and one of the first to play rock 'n' roll on the West Coast, died Friday of pneumonia. He was 97. His popular "Art Laboe Connection Show" had a legion of devoted listeners, and was especially beloved by Latinos. "He was the voice of the real L.A.," record producer Lou Adler told the Los Angeles Times. "He reached out and touched people growing up in this melting pot." Laboe started an amateur radio station in his South Los Angeles bedroom in 1938, and later did broadcasts from drive-ins and hosted dance shows. He said he had loved radio since childhood. "I was enthralled with this box that talked," he told the Times in 2009.

Los Angeles Times