--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, November 19. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For more than two years, the House Ethics Committee was investigating Florida Representative Matt Gaetz over claims of sexual misconduct, drug use and other allegations. When he resigned from the House last week after being picked by Donald Trump for attorney general, the investigation was shut down, and it seemed possible that the details of what they found would never be released. House Speaker Mike Johnson moved to block their report.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, a lawyer representing two women who were subpoenaed to testify in front of the committee is speaking out. [She arrived at the party. She had sex with Representative Gates within minutes of her arrival.]
--:-- Joel Leppard: Joel Leppard told multiple TV news programs last night that Gates paid his two clients for sex in 2017, soon after Gates took office. He said the women told the committee they were paid on Venmo. And Leppard said one of his clients also testified she saw Gates having sex with her underage friend, who was 17 at the time.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My clients didn't vote in the last two elections. They don't care one way or another. But they do want the public to know that they are not lying. Gates has previously denied the allegations, and a spokesman for the Trump transition team called them baseless, saying Gates was, quote, the right man for the job for attorney general.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Still, The Times has learned that in private conversations over the last few days, Trump admitted Gates may not get confirmed. Senators from both parties have expressed concerns about him. But picking someone as polarizing as Gates was part of Trump's plan, basically a flood-the-zone approach. He's made so many controversial choices for his cabinet, he's betting the Senate won't turn all of them down.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, Trump used his social media platform to confirm how he plans to conduct the immigration crackdown he promised while campaigning. On Truth Social yesterday, he shared a post that said his administration will declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out a mass deportation program Trump added the word TRUE in all caps with three exclamation points.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Declaring a national emergency would give him the power to deploy troops inside the U and to reallocate funding. Trump's top immigration advisor, Stephen Miller, has said that part of the Pentagon budget will be used to build vast holding facilities to process migrants.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Immigrant advocacy groups have rushed to condemn the plan, with one director at the group Human Rights First telling The Times, quote, families will be torn apart, businesses left without vital employees, and our country will be left to pick up the pieces for years to come.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: President Biden is asking Congress to approve almost $100 billion in aid to help communities across the U.S. recover from a series of devastating recent natural disasters. In a letter to Congress yesterday, Biden said the aid is urgently needed in places like Florida and the Carolinas that are struggling to recover from hurricanes this fall, as well as Midwestern states still rebuilding after tornadoes last year.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Congress has not taken up Biden's other recent requests for disaster aid, but this one may get bipartisan support because Congress is trying to tie up loose ends before the end of the year, and because much of the disaster aid would go to Republican districts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This morning, a court in Hong Kong handed down sentences for 45 former politicians and activists in what's being called a knockout blow to hopes for democracy in the city. They were arrested for participating in an unofficial primary election several years ago and charged under a national security law that Beijing has used to tighten its grip on the Chinese territory.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So many people were on trial that the courthouse had to set up what it called a megacourtroom to carry out the sentencing. The court handed down multi-year prison terms for many of the defendants, including veteran lawmakers and also young pro-democracy politicians.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Analysts say that the trial was a stark reminder of how the Chinese government is unwilling to tolerate dissent of any kind and that criticizing Beijing carries significant risks.
--:-- Vivian Yee: I've been covering the war in Gaza for the last year, and it's been this awful story of tens of thousands of people being killed, many people starving nearly to death, a struggle to get even the most basic supplies in to the people who need it.
--:-- Vivian Yee: But at the same time, people have started to create these little tiny pockets of normality just to feel like even amid all this death and destruction, they have a little bit of their normal lives.
--:-- Vivian Yee: One place where you see this is a street called Martyrs Street. It's the longest one in town. And my colleague Bilal Chabert has reported on lots of businesses opening up there, including shawarma places where you can get a sandwich or coffee shops and juice shops where you can get avocado smoothies and orange juices freshly squeezed.
--:-- Vivian Yee: And he says that lots of people go and line up for dessert or go meet their friends for coffee. And he says that on parts of the street, it kind of does feel oddly normal.
--:-- Vivian Yee: Obviously, people in Darabala are not oblivious to what's happening elsewhere in Gaza. Everyone has friends or family living in much worse conditions. And so some of the people we spoke to said there's definitely this sort of cognitive dissonance where they want to be able to focus on their own lives, but they know other people are suffering terribly, and there's a sense of guilt, for sure.
--:-- Vivian Yee: We talked to one woman who said that when she is on the phone with her daughter in northern Gaza, where things are much, much worse, she basically just lies to her about what she's eating because she feels so guilty that she's able to get all this stuff while her daughter has almost nothing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The struggle to get supplies into Gaza was underscored this weekend when a large convoy of trucks was violently looted, according to UNRWA the U agency that oversees aid to Palestinians 109 trucks crossed together into southern Gaza before gunmen shot out the tires.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Only 11 of the trucks made it to their destination. The agency said some of the drivers were injured in the attack, and it's still waiting to hear about casualties. It's not clear who was responsible, but in much of Gaza, there are no police officers, and organized crime groups and armed gangs have stepped in to fill the vacuum.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, the man who encouraged millions of Americans to take that European vacation, Arthur Fromer, has died at 95. A trip to Europe has always been a luxury, but it used to be the exclusive domain of the super wealthy, until Fromer put out his guidebook in 1957, titled Europe on $5 a Day.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In it, he insisted you didn't have to own an oil well to see London, Paris, and Rome, and Americans jumped at the idea. The first copies sold out almost overnight, and Fromer's travel guides became the standard for budget-conscious tourism.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: One travel industry expert told The Times that Fromer basically single-handedly changed how Americans' vacation by making Europe seem possible. Fromer, who developed his love of travel in the army, believed that thrifty travelers did it better than the rich. They learned more, they saw more, and they interacted with more locals.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He had a couple of rules in his early editions. Never travel first class. He advised people to skip the propeller plane or the ocean liner and to consider traveling by freighter to Europe instead. He said you should pack lightly, take public transportation, and in Venice in particular, he said, skip the gondolas.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He warned in his first edition that they could cost as much as $3 an hour. Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today on The Daily, how the people who pushed back during Trump's first term, the so-called resistance, are responding to his win this time. That's next in the New York Times audio app, where you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
