Today’s Headlines: Prosecutors say David DePape intended to kidnap, ‘kneecap’ Nancy Pelosi

Hello, it’s Tuesday, Nov. 1, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

Prosecutors released a chilling narrative as Paul Pelosi’s alleged attacker was charged

The man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi was hoping to find House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at their San Francisco home and intended to kidnap her and break her kneecaps, prosecutors said in filing federal charges against him.

The Department of Justice has filed federal assault and kidnapping charges against David DePape, and San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins charged DePape with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, among other crimes. Court papers offer the most detailed narrative to date of what authorities say happened.

In a voluntary interview with San Francisco police after his arrest, DePape said he set out to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and interrogate and torture her, according to the federal charges.

Conservatives on the Supreme Court appear ready to end college affirmative action

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority sounded skeptical of affirmative action during arguments, questioning why universities should be able to continue using race as a factor in deciding whom they admit.

The justices were clearly divided as they heard challenges to the admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The six conservatives said the court in the past had upheld race-based admissions policies as a temporary measure, not permanent. In their comments and questions, they said it might be time for such policies to end.

More politics

• Former President Trump asked the Supreme Court to step in and stop his tax returns from being handed to the House Ways and Means Committee.

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Will Orange County return to its conservative roots?

As the midterm elections sprint to a close, Democrat Katie Porter is locked in a fierce race against Republican Scott Baugh. At stake is not only her political trajectory or the balance of power in the House of Representatives, but the contest in California’s 47th Congressional District has also become a symbolic battle for Orange County’s ideological identity.

Baugh, a veteran of the county’s GOP establishment, harkens back to the traditional conservatism of the “Orange curtain,” while Porter is the best-known face of the blue wave that swept the region’s four congressional seats in 2018. Democratic registration in the county surpassed Republican a year later, fueling a sense of political transformation.

Since then, the narrative of Democratic takeover has been complicated. Now, with former President Trump out of office, Baugh is making the bet that Orange County voters are poised to return to their conservative roots.

Biden accused oil companies of ‘war profiteering’

President Biden urged major oil companies to stop “war profiteering” and use record profits to boost domestic production as the White House looks to curb rising fuel prices ahead of the midterm election.

Biden accused oil and gas companies of profiting off “a windfall of war” in Ukraine, and rewarding their shareholders instead of helping millions of Americans who continue to face higher prices at the gas pump. The president called on energy producers to expand output, invest in new refining capacity and lower prices for U.S. consumers.

“If they don’t, they’re going to pay a higher tax on their excess profits and face other restrictions,” he said.

Europe is grappling with an energy crisis

Energy and food costs soared in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And it could soon get even worse. On Saturday, Russia said that it would pull out of a United Nations-brokered deal to allow grain exports from Ukraine.

Since Russia, long Europe’s biggest natural gas supplier, cut off much of the continent last spring in retaliation for supporting Ukraine, energy costs from London to Warsaw have soared to unprecedented levels.

Over the summer, countries scrambled to fill reserves by upping flows from Norway and importing tanks of liquified natural gas from North America and Africa. That and an unusually toasty autumn offered some sense of reprieve. Yet for small businesses and families, savings have failed to trickle down — and may never as an energy-hungry Europe barrels toward a dark, long winter and governments warn of shortages for years to come.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Dancing for joy: At Saturday’s Let’s Dance it Out class in Santa Monica, participants celebrate Halloween. The class, for special needs kids and adults, builds social, emotional and cognitive skills with the power of movement.

(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

CALIFORNIA

A major flood would hit Los Angeles Black communities disproportionately hard. A study from UC Irvine researchers does not predict when the next 100-year flood will occur. The paper, however, is among the first to examine how whiplashing weather extremes may affect the Los Angeles Basin, concluding that such a flood would cause far greater damage than federal emergency officials have forecast.

An accidental carbon dioxide release at LAX sickened four people. The Los Angeles Fire Department said workers in a small electrical room about 200 feet from the Terminal 8 Baggage Area heard a “popping sound” around 7 a.m. that coincided with the release of the carbon dioxide vapor. One of the workers is in critical condition.

Danny Masterson’s accusers feared being kicked out of Scientology. His stepfather lived it. The former professional Australian rugby player said neither Masterson nor any other members of the family have spoken to him since 2005, when church officials declared him a “suppressive person” — a designation that expelled him from the religion and required other Scientologists to cut ties with him.

NATION-WORLD

In Israel, a tiny swing could determine the election outcome. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is asking voters to give him another chance while the current prime minister, Yair Lapid, has billed himself as a voice of decency and unity. But voters appear to be deadlocked ahead of the Tuesday vote, with opinion polls saying the race is too close to forecast.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

Taylor Swift became the first artist to occupy the top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100. On Monday, Swift became the first artist in history to occupy all 10 spots at once, entirely comprised of tracks from her 10th album, “Midnights.” Swift’s dominance this week also means that, for the first time in history, there were no male artists in the top 10 on the Hot 100.

Review: Memories of the Grateful Dead rise again as a book celebrates the people who made bootleg concert tapes. Mark A. Rodriguez, an artist who has built sculptures from recordings of Dead shows, gives readers a kaleidoscopic view of the band’s storied tapers. He thoroughly explores their obsessive quest for the lost chord and how they contributed to several cottage industries that grew up alongside the Grateful Dead.

When Julia Roberts was born, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King paid the bill. The “Ticket to Paradise” star revealed that factoid in a September interview, but it went viral again over the weekend when Zara Rahim, a former strategic advisor for Barack Obama, re-upped it on Twitter to mark Roberts’ 55th birthday on Oct. 28.

BUSINESS

The dubious history of the Santa Monica Observer, the outlet behind that false Paul Pelosi story. With an official-sounding name and a professional-looking website, the Observer is one of a number of outlets masking themselves as legitimate news sources. The phenomenon has been growing and indicates how bad actors are increasingly trying to fool the public into seeing them as purveyors of accurate information.

Workers walked out of a Chinese iPhone factory, highlighting COVID woes. Employees started leaving the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou after some fell ill in mid-October and received no treatment, according to an employee who asked not to be identified by name. He said Foxconn had begun requiring face masks and disinfected the workplace daily but that work continued normally.

OPINION

Republicans keep harping on inflation but don’t have any answers for it. As the midterm elections approach, inflation sometimes seems to be the party’s only issue. But a look at the GOP’s election manifesto, the “Commitment to America,” reveals no specifics on what to do about it. Nor have Republican candidates done so during the multitude of appearances they’ve made on cable talk shows.

SPORTS

Think esports pros aren’t athletes? Take a look at the intense lifestyle of Team Liquid. These aren’t teenage boys huddled in their bedrooms, tapping away at keyboards, joking with friends online. This is a professional esports franchise, and the mood is serious. When scrimmages finally conclude, many of the players return home to keep practicing on their own past midnight.

High-flying Amari Bailey should make an instant impact for UCLA with his skills and savvy. A McDonald’s All-American from Chatsworth Sierra Canyon High who was ranked as the nation’s third-best combo guard in his high school class, according to 247 Sports, Bailey might be exceeding early expectations based solely on his willingness to learn.

The Lakers’ big problem with their first win: Anthony Davis’ aching back. The 121-110 triumph over the Denver Nuggets spurred euphoria, writes columnist Dylan Hernández. But it was a temporary distraction from the enormous problem in plain sight: The Lakers are just six games into their season and their most important player already has back problems.

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA

Diego Rivera, “The Man,” 1927, is on view as part of “Diego Rivera’s America” at SFMOMA through Jan. 3, 2023.

(Museum of Modern Art / SCALA / Art Resource NY)

Two exhibits show how Diego Rivera and others constructed Latin American identity. “Before I set foot in SFMOMA’s galleries, I wasn’t sure I needed another Diego Rivera show,” writes The Times’ Carolina Miranda. The Mexican muralist is currently the subject of an expansive exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which features more than 150 paintings, frescoes, sketches and drawings.

And the deep dives on Rivera make for compelling viewing in tandem with a separate exhibition in Los Angeles: “Reinventing the Américas: Construct. Erase. Repeat,” currently on view at the Getty Center. Together the shows offer an intriguing window into Latin American identity as it was constructed — and is now being deconstructed.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Oct. 7, 1965: Dodgers southpaw pitcher Sandy Koufax pitches in the second World Series game against the Minnesota Twins at Metropolitan Stadium. The Dodgers went on to win the World Series.

(Associated Press)

Fifty-six years ago today, on Nov. 1, 1966, Sandy Koufax became the first three-time winner of the Cy Young Award. The Times’ headline atop the next day’s Sports section was: “Cy Young Award Goes to Koufax (Who Else?)”

Times Sports columnist Sid Ziff wrote on Nov. 17 of that year that Koufax also should have won the Most Valuable Player Award: “Probably some of those who didn’t vote for him felt that as the Cy Young Award winner he’d already been sufficiently recognized. … But until they disqualify pitchers from the MVP award, Sandy should not have been penalized.” Ziff added that “one writer didn’t mention Koufax on his ballot at all. It would seem this guy must be disqualified from future voting.”

Koufax won in 1963, 1965 and 1966. He was one of two Dodgers pitchers to win three Cy Young Awards, the other being fellow left-hander Clayton Kershaw (2011, 2013, 2014).

Times staff writer Amy Hubbard contributed to this report.

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