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--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, January 7th. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Last night over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I'm sharing with you today. I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide, competitive process.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday that he will step down from the country's top post, bowing to an increasingly disgruntled public and to tensions within his own Liberal Party.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's time for the temperature to come down, for the people to have a fresh start, to be able to navigate through these complex times, both domestically and internationally.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trudeau came to power nearly a decade ago, riding the same message of hope and change as Barack Obama. But he's now the latest Western leader to fall to a wave of dissatisfaction.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Unemployment's high, the pain of inflation's still fresh, and there's been backlash to the country's immigration policies. A poll last month showed 73% of Canadians wanted Trudeau out as party leader.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: His resignation comes as Canada's facing a major economic threat, American tariffs. Donald Trump has threatened to put 25% tariffs in place on Canadian imports if the country doesn't do more to stop drugs and migrants from coming across the border.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The tariffs would upend Canada's economy, since the U.S. and Canada are each other's largest trading partners. Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago for talks with Trump after he announced the tariffs, But Trump mocked him online afterwards, and has even joked that Canada should become America's 51st state.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For now, Trudeau will stay on as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party until a replacement can be chosen. General elections must happen by October, but a vote could happen earlier.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The first person in the U to get seriously ill from bird flu has now died. The patient who lived in Louisiana got infected after being exposed to wild birds in a backyard flock.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Health officials said the person was over 65, had underlying health conditions, and had been hospitalized since last month. It's the only death so far caused by the virus in the U.S., and officials say there are no other cases in the state and no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Still, samples of the virus from the patient show that it had mutated over the course of the illness in a way that might allow it to infect other people more easily.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Scientists say people should avoid sick animals and wild birds, and because the virus has been spreading rapidly among dairy cattle, you should not drink raw milk.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, in China, a surge in cases of a different virus, human metapneumovirus, known as HMPV, has sparked fears online, but medical experts say it's not a major concern.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The respiratory virus is similar to RSV and generally causes cough, fever, and congestion. Patients with pre-existing conditions can get more sick, though it's rarely fatal in countries with advanced health care systems.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: With just two weeks until Donald Trump takes office, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is tightening its ties to his administration.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The company has donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural fund, appointed a new head of global policy known for his Republican connections, and has now added a longtime friend of Trump's to the Meta board, Dana White.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: White runs UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship, which has become something like the semi-official sport of the MAGA movement.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In a post announcing the appointment, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that he admires White's, quote, ability to build such a beloved brand.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Zuckerberg and White have bonded over mixed martial arts. Zuckerberg started fighting himself back in 2022.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: White then tried to organize a televised cage match between Zuckerberg and another billionaire, Elon Musk. White said he spent days on the phone with them trying to broker the spectacle but Musk eventually backed out of the battle.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's now been nearly three years since Russia invaded Ukraine, and Moscow is continuing to push forward on the front lines at great human cost, not just to Ukrainian troops and civilians, but to its own soldiers.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Russia's classified a lot of details about how many soldiers have been killed or wounded, but some estimates say 300,000 Russian soldiers have now been seriously injured.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's left the country scrambling to accommodate them as they return home, whether that's ordering a record number of prosthetic limbs or trying to train more therapists to deal with the mental health toll.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I was able to speak to a Russian colonel who expressed concern that really surprised me for such a high-level military official to say that, you know, Russia was not institutionally ready to help returning soldiers grapple with PTSD.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Valerie Hopkins covers Russia for The Times. She's been looking at how the country is trying to reintegrate so many veterans.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: People are aware of stories of veterans returning and becoming violent and are frankly concerned about the way that the return of participants in the war will reverberate in society.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: You know, I was on a train from the city of Rostov in the West to Moscow, and I spoke to women there who were concerned.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Rostov is a big hub for soldiers that are returning back home from the front. And the woman said she had paid a lot extra to sleep in a women's only car because she had had a negative experience with soldiers.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And it prompted a discussion in our whole train cabin about the consequences of people who have witnessed so much horror and experienced so much trauma and what that means as they continue to live their lives back in a civilian society.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, there's been an unlikely surge in tourism in a country many governments are explicitly warning against traveling to.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This is what it's like to backpack in Taliban Afghanistan as an American tourist.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: We then tasted the delicious Afghani bolani, an Afghan stuffed flatbread.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's a country that I wanted to visit for a long time. Despite everything going on politically, I still wanted to see the country for myself.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After decades of war and terrorism, the Taliban government in Afghanistan has started promoting travel to the country, in part to boost its struggling economy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleague David Zucchino says over 14,000 people from around the world have made the trip in the last few years, exploring Afghanistan's mosques, museums, and mountains, despite the travel warnings and a deadly attack last year on a group of visitors.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Two of the tourists I talked to said they had visited every other country in the world except Afghanistan. And Afghanistan had been on their list for a long time, so they were checking it off.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Another one had visited more than 100 countries. So they tended to be very experienced travelers and were willing to take the risk.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I ran into one woman, a 23-year-old from Japan, who had traveled alone through Pakistan on her own and crossed the border into Afghanistan.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I did ask her about being a woman there and how she felt about it, whether she had concerns.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And she said, well, she knew treatment of women in Afghanistan is horrible, but she said she was treated very well, was not harassed in any way.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: She mentioned to me that some people looked at her with a lot of curiosity and a little bit of disapproval.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And because of that, she said she was considering buying a headscarf. But otherwise, she said she had a very wonderful trip.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And I'm sure the experience was exactly what the Taliban was hoping for. They are really counting on the word getting out as a way to sort of open up Afghanistan to the world and bring in hard currency.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, Republicans will soon control both the House and the Senate. A look at how they may still struggle to push through Trump's agenda.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's next in The New York Times audio app, where you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
