--:-- Traci Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Traci Mumford. Today's Tuesday, October 22nd. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Traci Mumford: With two weeks to go until Election Day, more than 15 million Americans have already voted. And many states are setting records. Georgia, Louisiana, and even North Carolina, which is still reeling from Hurricane Helene, have all had record turnout. It's a sign that the huge boost in early voting that came with the pandemic is sticking around. Americans are embracing early voting in massive numbers. It's no longer just election day, but it's election season.
--:-- Nick Corsaniti: While it's still way too early to try and glean any partisan advantage or a look at who's winning through the early vote data that we have so far, we are seeing one key trend emerge, and that's that more Republicans are choosing to vote early.
--:-- Nick Corsaniti: When that comes to mail voting, Democrats are still dominating in the states where we have party registration data. But Republicans are also making gains there. So if you were to look at Pennsylvania, you could see that in the 2020 election, Republicans only cast about 23 percent of the total votes by mail. This year so far, they're about 27 percent. And that's important for helping campaigns know which votes are banked and which voters they still need to target.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are pushing their supporters to vote early this year, though Donald Trump has undermined that message at times, criticizing mail-in voting and spreading misinformation that it's rigged.
--:-- Donald Trump: At events in North Carolina yesterday, Trump said he hadn't seen evidence of cheating yet this year, but repeated his unfounded claims that Democrats are trying to cheat. He asked the chairman of the Republican National Committee about it on stage.
--:-- Donald Trump: He's going to stop the cheating. How are you doing? Are they cheating, Michael? They're trying, but they're not going to get away with it, right?
--:-- Michael: He said he said no.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Trump allies have also filed a flurry of lawsuits challenging voting rules and practices around the country. That suggests a broader effort to lay the groundwork to potentially challenge the election results in November.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: Much of the group's vast tunnel network remains intact, allowing Hamas fighters to emerge and booby-trap buildings or set roadside bombs. They've also been refilling their arsenal by gathering up unexploded Israeli munitions and turning them into improvised explosives.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: And even though Israel killed the group's leader, Yaya Sinwar, last week, its fighters have adapted to making decisions locally and independently. Sinwar, for example, hadn't had much direct control over militants in northern Gaza for almost a year.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: In that part of the territory, Israel has been carrying out intense bombardments and has issued evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people in the past few weeks. The escalation there comes as one former Israeli general has been pushing a dramatic proposal for northern Gaza. He wants the Israeli government to cut off all food and water to the region.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: He says it would force Hamas fighters to either surrender or to die of starvation. The plan has gotten some support in the Israeli government, though human rights advocates say it would threaten the welfare of civilians and violate international law.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: The memoir of Alexei Navalny, the pro-democracy Russian opposition leader who died in prison earlier this year, is being published today. The book contains the journal entries he managed to write and smuggle out of prison. His widow, Yulia Navalny, helped assemble them.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: In the entries, Navalny wrote that he knew Vladimir Putin might succeed in silencing him, but that he was resigned to it. Navalny was the most prominent figure in the opposition movement and in his absence, the movement has been struggling.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: In the period after Navalny's death, all opposition Russians were grieving not only for him, but for a democratic vision of Russia. But now, about half a year since his death, the opposition has actually never been more divided, it feels like.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: Tensions are high among the groups that oppose Putin, both Navalny's team and others. The groups have been beset by infighting, with accusations that some progressive Russians have been violent against Navalny supporters.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: Just after an investigation raising questions about where the Navalny team gets their funding and accusations that they are affiliated with potentially corrupt people. It's caused a lot of consternation and frustration and trust issues, frankly.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: So there are a lot of different disputes and visions for what a democratic Russia should look like and what are the compromises and political steps it's going to take to get there.
--:-- Valerie Hopkins: But as that looks far off, it seems like the opposition has been more focused on fighting itself than the Kremlin.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Officials in Arkansas, along with federal researchers, have announced that they've discovered a vast underground trove of lithium, the raw material that's critical for building batteries like those used in electric vehicles.
--:-- Traci Mumford: They say there could be millions of tons of lithium under the state in brine reservoirs, essentially huge deposits of salty water. There may be even enough to meet all of the world's demand.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Currently, most lithium comes from Australia and South America, and the energy industry, encouraged by the Biden administration, has been increasingly looking for domestic sources of the metal.
--:-- Traci Mumford: The question now is how to get the lithium out of the brine. One method uses huge, lake-sized evaporation ponds, but there are efforts underway to develop new technology that will use filters and other tools to extract it more efficiently with a smaller environmental footprint.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Even before the huge deposit of Arkansas lithium was discovered, ExxonMobil had been drilling exploratory wells in the state. It says that by 2030, it hopes to be extracting enough lithium a year from Arkansas to power a million electric vehicles.
--:-- Traci Mumford: And finally, even in places where the leaves don't change colors, you know it's officially fall when the Spirit Halloween opens.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Weak, horrific taste. From creepy glands to spine-tingling monsters, Spirit has the scariest collection. The Halloween retail giant opens up more than 1,500 pop-up locations across the country every year, taking over vacant spots in strip malls, selling costumes, fake blood, vampire fangs, and some truly terrifying animatronics that your neighbor inevitably buys.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Come November, the stores are gone again, before people even finish the candy corn. They're part of the massive and growing Halloween economy. This year, Americans are expected to spend more than $11 billion celebrating.
--:-- Traci Mumford: That amount has quadrupled over the last 20 years. About $3.5 billion of that will go to candy, roughly the same amount to costumes, and even $500 million to Halloween greeting cards, which are apparently a thing.
--:-- Traci Mumford: The CEO of Spirit Halloween says the Halloween boom is thanks in part to almost every age getting in on the holiday. When he was growing up, he said, you got to 12 and you stopped celebrating. But now college students and adults are in on it too.
--:-- Traci Mumford: And this year, the company has announced it's set its sights on another holiday. It's going to test a handful of Spirit Christmas shops across the Northeast.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a Times investigation into the health risks of marijuana, as more Americans use more potent forms of the drug more often. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Traci Mumford: I'm Traci Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
