--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, October 23rd. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So I am on Secretary of State Blinken's plane right now, and we're taxiing to depart from Tel Aviv to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Earlier this morning, as we were getting ready to leave our hotel in Tel Aviv, air raid sirens sounded in the city and all the guests in the hotel, including Secretary Blinken, were rushed down to shelters.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As it happened, there were no explosions in the area, but it reflected the tension that so much of Israel is feeling right now as its conflicts escalate throughout the region.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleague Michael Crowley is traveling with Blinken on his latest Middle East tour, where Blinken is pushing Israel on a truce with Hezbollah in Lebanon and, once again, for a ceasefire in Gaza.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This is Secretary Blinken's 11th trip to the Middle East since October 7th. And there's frustration among U.S. officials that these visits have not been as effective as they had hoped.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Among other things, the U.S. tried for many months to prevent the conflict in Lebanon from escalating into the wider war that it's now become.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And now, of course, we're just a couple of weeks away from the U.S. election. And I think there's a feeling that that limits America's leverage as Israel is able to wait out the election and see whether it might have another president to deal with, potentially Donald Trump, who could be more forgiving toward Israel's military activities in the region.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A new report shows that abortions in the United States have increased since Roe v. Wade was overturned, even in states with tight restrictions.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The study is the most comprehensive look at abortions since the ruling. The data runs to the end of last year, and it shows that in 10 of the 13 states with near-total bans, the number of women getting abortions went up.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Some traveled to clinics where the procedure is legal. Others ordered pills online from out-of-state doctors.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The bans have prevented some women who wanted abortions from getting them. Research suggests they largely affect teenagers, Black and Native American women, and low-income women.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But overall, the upward trend has surprised experts, who thought the restrictions would at the very least keep the numbers steady.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: One possible explanation? Shield laws. Some states where the procedure is legal enacted those laws to protect doctors who prescribe mail-order pills for patients out of state.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Other potential factors behind the increase? A number of new abortion clinics have opened. And with a lot more people talking publicly about the procedure, the stigma around it may have decreased.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: U.S. intelligence officials are putting out new warnings that Russia and Iran may be planning to stoke post-election chaos.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The officials say they don't think foreign countries will be able to affect the election outcome, but that they could try to cause unrest as the votes are counted.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In a report issued yesterday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that Russia may try to spark protests and even violence after Election Day, especially if Donald Trump loses.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's part of an effort to undermine democracy as a political system. Iran is also considering stirring up and amplifying unrest, according to the report.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The intelligence officials say both countries are, quote, better prepared to exploit opportunities to exert influence this year, after having studied the chaos surrounding the 2020 election.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, the fallout from the 2020 election continues for Rudy Giuliani.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered Trump's former personal lawyer to turn over most of his possessions and available cash to help pay off his penalty for defaming two Georgia election workers.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Giuliani falsely claimed that they cheated Trump out of votes and later admitted he was lying.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The two women sued after they faced a torrent of threats and racist abuse. One of the workers told a jury last year, quote, Giuliani just messed me up.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Giuliani was ordered to pay them $1 million, and they've been waiting nearly a year for that payment. Now he has one week to give up his vintage Mercedes, his apartment, jewelry, and 26 watches, even his TV.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The cash from the sale will go to paying the damages. His lawyers say they'll appeal the ruling.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The financial penalty is not the only consequence Giuliani is facing for his efforts to overturn the results of the election.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He's been stripped of his law licenses in New York and Washington, D.C., and he faces criminal trials in Arizona and Georgia, related to his efforts to keep Trump in office.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At American colleges and universities, freshman enrollment appears to have dropped 5 percent from last year, the biggest drop since 2020, when the pandemic and remote learning upended higher education.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The drop comes after a year of problems, delays, and frustrations with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid Form, FAFSA.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The form was revamped under a mandate to make it simpler, but the very buggy rollout delayed schools from being able to send out financial aid offers until well into the summer, leaving many families struggling to determine how much college would cost.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: On its own, the data doesn't establish a link between the dip in enrollment and the FAFSA problems, but it does show there was a drop particularly at schools serving lower-income students.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The director of the research center that gathered the data said a lot of factors could be shaping students' decisions not to go to college, including the recent Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action, anxiety over student debt, and a strong job market, in addition to any FAFSA frustrations.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And he said there's little evidence to suggest high school students who put off college will ever enroll.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He said, quote, These students end up with jobs and sometimes families, and they find it harder and harder as time goes on to think about entering college again.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, on a little piece of land curling out from the coast in southwestern England, there is essentially a giant science experiment happening.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The area used to be low farmland constantly battling back the water. But over a decade ago, an environmental trust and the British government got together to try something.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They wanted to let it flood. The idea was fairly controversial because rather than doing what Britain and countless countries around the world have done for decades, which was investing in traditional flood defenses like seawalls, the plan was essentially surrender.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That seemed to be the logic behind the project, that you would give over the land to the water rather than trying to protect it.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Times reporter Rory Smith went out to the area where farmers were paid to give up their acreage so the trust could turn it back into marshland.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He says based on the results, the project could offer a blueprint for how other coastal areas can adapt as climate change brings more flooding.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I went out earlier this year to see what the project had become. It feels wild and windswept. There's lots of rivers and streams and rivulets. There's a lot of mud. There's a lot of grass.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But what's most impressive is not how it looks. It's what it does. It provides a sanctuary and a haven for all sorts of wildlife, species of birds that hadn't been seen frequently in that part of Britain for years and years because they hadn't had the appropriate environment in which to thrive.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It provides a natural flood defense. Last winter was a particularly rough one for everyone in Britain. But the village of Steir, right at the tip of the peninsula, didn't flood.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's because the water was absorbed by the marshland as it was designed to do. But the real success is the fact that there is more marsh than there used to be.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The land has grown vertically by several feet over the last 10 years, which is testament to the amount of carbon captured by the marsh.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's the lesson that the people who designed and managed the scheme take from the last 10 years. It can be more effective to surrender to nature, to let the land be what it wants to be, than try to resist.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a look at the dramatic gender divide that's formed among America's youngest voters.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracey Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
