--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, July 31st.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Here's what we're covering. There's less than 24 hours to go until President Trump's trade deadline. Earlier this month, he threatened more than a dozen countries, including some of the U.S.'s closest allies, with steep tariffs if they didn't strike a deal before August 1st.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And with time running out, multiple countries have agreed to new trade terms, some in just the last few hours. U.S. officials said Thailand and Cambodia came in under the wire, though the details haven't been made public.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So did South Korea, which will face 15 percent tariffs, much higher than when Trump took office, but not as crippling as the 25 percent the president originally threatened.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For some other countries, though, Trump's taking an increasingly hostile approach. Yesterday, he singled out India, criticizing the country on social media for its ties to Russia and China.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And he announced that most products from India will face 25 percent tariffs starting tomorrow. President Trump's post to truth social was insulting. It was a slap to India. It was a humiliation to pretty much everyone who's invested a lot in this trade relationship.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And people in India this Thursday morning are reeling, trying to figure out how best to adjust and accommodate the new reality.
--:-- Alex Trevelli: It's particularly shocking for major companies like Apple, who've spent the last few years moving their production out of China to India to try and avoid getting caught up in a trade war.
--:-- Alex Trevelli: Suddenly, the supply chain that goes through India looks like one of the riskiest of all.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And in another aggressive trade move, Trump followed through on his threat to slap a 50% tariff on Brazil.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There are exceptions for some of its key exports like aircraft and orange juice. The U imports almost all of its fresh orange juice from Brazil
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But the move is a sharp escalation of a growing diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In addition to the tariffs the Trump administration also slapped sanctions on one of Brazil Supreme Court justices.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump is targeting Brazil, and that judge in particular, for what he claims is the political persecution of his ally, the country's former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Bolsonaro's been called the Trump of the tropics, and he's about to stand trial on charges that he orchestrated an attempted coup after he lost re-election.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump wants Brazil to drop those charges and has folded that issue into his trade demands.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In an interview with The Times, Brazil's current president said, quote, "If he wants to talk trade, let's sit down and discuss trade. But you can't mix everything together."
--:-- Shane Goldmacher: We're more than a year away from the midterm still, but President Trump is already thinking about how to maintain his extremely narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
--:-- Shane Goldmacher: My colleague Shane Goldmacher is covering a growing effort by the White House to pressure Republican-led states to redraw their U.S. House district maps to help Republicans win future elections.
--:-- Shane Goldmacher: He's been reporting on the most significant result of that push so far, a new voting map unveiled yesterday by Republicans in Texas.
--:-- Shane Goldmacher: Redistricting normally happens once a decade after the census. But this is something entirely different. A mid-decade redistricting for pretty explicit partisan gains, a gerrymander to install more Republicans and fewer Democrats in one of the biggest states in the country.
--:-- Shane Goldmacher: Shane says that the proposed map still needs to be greenlit by Texas lawmakers and approved by the governor.
--:-- Shane Goldmacher: But if it goes through, it could give Republicans the chance to gain five House seats on Capitol Hill.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Texas Democrats, however, have called the move outrageous and are expected to challenge the map in court if it's approved.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, other states are watching closely. The Democratic governors of California Illinois and New York have suggested that they could respond to any new map in Texas by redrawing their own state maps to help more Democrats win
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, three more updates out of Washington. The Trump administration has authorized a widespread deployment of the National Guard to support its immigration crackdown.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Troops will be deployed in 20 Republican-led states, where they will help process migrants who are already in custody and set to be deported.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Times obtained a private government memo about the plan. It does not authorize soldiers to participate in immigration raids.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Instead, the goal is to have them take on clerical duties, which will free up other authorities to carry out arrests.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Also, President Trump's pressure campaign against elite universities has led to another deal, this time with Brown.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The White House had threatened to block more than $500 million in federal research funds for the school over allegations the university allowed anti-Semitism to go unchecked on campus.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That set off a financial panic at Brown, and it raced to get massive loans.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, Brown has agreed to pay $50 million, and it said it will comply with the Trump administration's vision on policies like restricting trans athletes' participation in sports.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In exchange, the government will restore federal funding and promised that it will not try to dictate the school's curriculum, or, quote, "academic speech," measures it's threatened to take at other schools.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And today, we decided to leave our policy rate where it's been, which I would characterize as modestly restrictive.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As expected, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it's keeping interest rates steady.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That decision, though, was one of the most contentious in decades.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Fed governors that vote on what to do with interest rates were split, and two of them opposed the decision.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The last time something like that happened was in 1993.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The dissenting governors were both appointed to the Fed by Trump.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And the rare fracture comes as Trump's been forcefully demanding that the central bank lower rates which he says will juice the economy
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Fed Chair Jerome Powell has held off though saying that the country's economic indicators on things like jobs and inflation continue to give mixed signals about when lowering rates will be the right move
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, a huge chunk of the world from Japan to Alaska was on edge yesterday for tsunami warnings triggered by the massive earthquake near Russia.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There were sirens, evacuations, people were braced for massive damage. But the big waves never really showed.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And while there was some flooding, so far there are no reports of casualties.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So the question is, how did such a powerful earthquake produce such a weak tsunami?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As one geophysicist told the Times, there's big, and then there's really, really, really big.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 8.7 or 8.8.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: By contrast, quakes that triggered catastrophic tsunamis in the past, like the ones that hit Indonesia in 2004 or Japan in 2011, were a 9.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those numbers seem close, but because the scale that scientists use to measure quakes is logarithmic, there's actually a significant difference.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A magnitude 9 has two or three times the energy of an 8.7 or an 8.8.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There could be other factors at play, too. Not all earthquakes and tsunamis are created equal.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: What was notable this time, though, is how the early warning system has developed.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: An earthquake struck in almost the exact same spot back in 1952.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That triggered a 12-foot wave that reached Hawaii with almost no warning.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This time, people had several hours heads up.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's kind of a better safe than sorry situation, the geologist told The Times.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Quote, "Warnings went out. This is a big success."
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today on The Daily, a look at the Trump administration's most aggressive push yet to end the fight against climate change.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's up next if you're listening in our New York Times app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
