--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, October 3rd. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: You can see homes that have moved from, clearly, from one side of the river, down the river, to another side of the river. And I can only imagine what it's like to have been in one of those homes.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: President Biden flew over Asheville and the mountains of North Carolina yesterday to survey the damage from Hurricane Helene, which turned creeks into rivers and flattened whole towns. Massive trees uprooted. Homes literally swept off their foundations, swept down rivers.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: You know, families are heartbroken. The death toll from the storm has now risen to at least 180 people across six states. Biden ordered the Pentagon to send 1,000 active-duty troops to help in North Carolina, where rescue workers are still trying to reach remote communities where people have been cut off by floodwaters, downed trees, and washed-out highways.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Biden also called on lawmakers to ensure the Federal Emergency Management Agency gets more resources. The Homeland Security Secretary, who oversees FEMA, has warned that the agency doesn't have enough funding to make it through the rest of this hurricane season.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The sheer amount of rain that poured down in North Carolina was so intense that no amount of preparation could have entirely prevented the destruction there. But the Times has been looking at how decisions by state officials likely made some of that damage worse.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Over the last 15 years, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina repeatedly blocked rules that experts say could have prevented some of the storm damage, like limiting construction on steep slopes or requiring homes to be built above expected flood levels.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The argument in favor of easing regulations or not adding new regulations has a certain logic to it, right? Proponents make the point that every new requirement or regulation on home builders tends to increase the upfront cost of a home.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And so their sort of argument, their explanation for this is they want to keep homes as affordable as possible.
--:-- Christopher Flavel: The counter argument, the point that was made to me by engineers and safety officials and Democrats was that over the lifetime of a home, if it's more vulnerable to storms or to flooding, the cost will only increase as well as the danger people face as these events become more frequent and severe.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Christopher says North Carolina now faces a major question as the state recovers. Should it rebuild to a higher standard, implementing some of the preparedness measures that Republicans have resisted? That would mean higher upfront costs now, but it would mean people are better protected down the road.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So this question of building codes kind of feels wonky and nerdy, but actually is hugely consequential as the state tries to recover from this storm.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: On Wednesday, we got the fullest picture yet of the evidence that the special counsel Jack Smith has collected about Donald Trump and his efforts to stay in power.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Times reporter Alan Foyer has been covering the twists and turns in the federal election case against Donald Trump. The latest development? The judge in the case just unsealed a document from the prosecution that outlines their argument for why Trump should not be immune from charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
--:-- Alan Foyer: Jack Smith essentially presented all of the facts that he has collected over the last two years of investigating Donald Trump. Some of the highlights were the following. When Trump was told by one of his advisors that his own vice president, Mike Pence, was in danger during the riot at the Capitol on January 6th, Donald Trump said, so what?
--:-- Alan Foyer: When one of Trump's lawyers told him that his false claims that the election had been marred by fraud were probably not going to hold up in court, Trump's response, the details don't matter.
--:-- Alan Foyer: And on a flight that Trump and his family were taking after the election, an Oval Office assistant overheard Trump saying, it doesn't matter if you won or lost the election, you still have to fight like hell.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Allen says the prosecution is aiming to show that Trump's actions surrounding the election were the actions of a losing candidate, not the official acts of a president, which the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year are covered by immunity.
--:-- Alan Foyer: Trump legal team is expected to submit their own arguments to the judge in the next two weeks.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Last night the former president railed against Smith filing in a TV interview repeating without evidence that it part of a government conspiracy against him.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This was a weaponization of government, and that's why it was released 30 days before the election. And it's nothing new in there, by the way, nothing new. They rigged the election. I didn't rig the election. They rigged the election.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Any decision the judge makes on whether the case against Trump can move forward is likely to be appealed back up to the Supreme Court.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Times has learned that Israel is still weighing how it will retaliate against Iran for the latest missile strike, but that whatever action it takes will likely be far more forceful than how it's responded before.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There's a growing sense that Israel is willing to risk a violent counterattack, with one former senior security official saying, quote, Many in Israel see this as an opportunity to do more to inflict pain on Iran.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Israeli officials tell The Times that they might target Iranian oil production sites or military bases, but that the exact nature of the plan might not become clear until after the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which runs until tomorrow night.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, the Israeli offensives in Lebanon and Gaza have continued. Loud explosions were heard in Beirut overnight, as Israel said it conducted a strike there.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In the south of Lebanon, where Israel invaded, the Israeli military clashed at close range with Hezbollah fighters.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The United Nations says that more than a million people in Lebanon have now been displaced by the fighting. And in Gaza, dozens of people have been killed in Israeli attacks in the last two days.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At least 50 were killed in Han Yunus during strikes on several homes and schools being used as shelters. The Israeli military said they were Hamas command centers, though it didn't provide evidence.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And in northern Gaza, at least eight people were killed when Israel bombed an orphanage building. The owner of the building says hundreds of civilians were staying there, mostly women and children.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Russia's President Vladimir Putin is doubling down on efforts to pull more everyday Russians into what he sees as a broad fight against the West.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For men, he wants them to enlist. The Russian military has an urgent need for troops. According to some estimates about 1 soldiers a day are being killed or injured in its war in Ukraine.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The government has now doubled signing bonuses and is allowing criminal suspects to avoid a trial if they enlist.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For women, Putin wants them to have more children, not just for future military recruits, but also to keep Russia's workforce up as the country's economy becomes increasingly isolated from the West.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Russian women can now get nearly $7,000 for having their first child. And lawmakers have proposed a new ban on advocating a child-free lifestyle.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Anyone who breaks the law could face up to $50,000 in fines. The number of children born in Russia in the first half of this year was the lowest in a quarter century.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's in part because there are far fewer women of childbearing age due to the poverty and chaos one generation ago when the Soviet Union collapsed.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, it is fully fall, whether you are ready to admit that or not, and the leaves are turning.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That means it's leaf-peeping season when millions of people fan out to catch the changing reds, yellows, and golds of the forest.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But for people who are red-green colorblind, that stunning fall landscape often looks kind of muted. Not a lot of difference between the shades.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, the Virginia State Park System is trying to change that. This year, it says it was the first park system in the country to install new viewfinders at all of its locations that give colorblind visitors the full effect.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The viewfinders use special lenses to expand the range of visible colors. The initiative is led by a Virginia park ranger who's colorblind himself.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He told the Times the response has been overwhelming. One visitor told him it was, quote, like a highlighter had been taken to the world.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: About 13 million people in the U.S. are colorblind to some degree. Problems distinguishing between shades with red and green in them is the most common.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: You can see an example of how fall leaves look with and without that colorblind view at nytimes.com.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, the Times reporters covering Iran and Israel explain how each country is weighing what to do next. Listen in the New York Times audio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
