--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, September 30th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Here's what we're covering. The Israeli military launched attacks on multiple fronts this weekend, striking targets in Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The strikes come as violence ramps up between Israel and Iran-backed groups across the Middle East, threatening to push all the parties involved into all-out war.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In Yemen, Israeli warplanes flew over 1,000 miles to strike power plants and a seaport after Houthi militants, who are based there, fired missiles at Israel.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And in Lebanon, Israel launched a wave of deadly attacks this weekend, on the heels of its heavy bombing campaign Friday that killed Hezbollah's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Nasrallah was considered by many to be the most important militia leader in Iran's so-called axis of resistance against Israel.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He led Hezbollah for over 30 years, pushing the message that Israel needed to be eliminated.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: To kill Nasrallah, Israel dropped bombs that flattened three apartment buildings near Beirut that it said were sheltering the group's underground headquarters.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday that this was all part of a strategy to create a new balance of power in the Middle East in which Israel's status isn't questioned.
--:-- Adam Razgon: In other words, the prime minister was saying that he wants these groups, the Iranian-backed groups, to think twice before they attack Israel.
--:-- Adam Razgon: And he said, our foes and friends view Israel, again, for what it is, a strong, determined, and powerful state.
--:-- Adam Razgon: For the Israeli government, this is a bold strategy going after the most senior leaders of Hezbollah.
--:-- Adam Razgon: But it's also a risky one in the eyes of some Israeli officials who say that Hezbollah is battered.
--:-- Adam Razgon: It is sort of shocked by everything that's happened over the past two weeks, especially Nasrallah's killing.
--:-- Adam Razgon: But no one should make a mistake about their capacity to fire hundreds of rockets simultaneously at big Israeli cities in a way that will overwhelm Israel air defenses and could cause immense damage.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah is adding to what already been a massive amount of upheaval.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Tens of thousands of Israelis and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced from their homes because of the fighting.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: According to the UN, as many as 100,000 people have now fled from Lebanon to Syria because of the most recent airstrikes.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Across the southeastern U.S., rescue and recovery efforts are still underway this morning, after Hurricane Helene tore through the region.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At least 90 people have been confirmed dead across five states, but officials expect that number to rise as rescuers make their way deeper into the Appalachian Mountains, where whole towns have been decimated by flooding and landslides.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This is an unprecedented tragedy that requires an unprecedented response.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The highest death toll has been in North Carolina, where the state's governor, Roy Cooper, says they're racing to deliver supplies to communities that have been cut off.
--:-- Roy Cooper: Hundreds of roads there have been closed, forcing authorities to use helicopters to airdrop in food and supplies.
--:-- Roy Cooper: Even as the rain and the winds have subsided, the challenge for people there increases.
--:-- Roy Cooper: People are desperate for help, and we are pushing to get it to them.
--:-- Roy Cooper: What I can see around me, there's lots of downed trees, there's debris all over the streets, there is no electricity, there's no water, and there's no cell service.
--:-- Eduardo Medina: Lots of people have been huddling around the few hotels or libraries that still have a Wi-Fi signal.
--:-- Eduardo Medina: And what they're trying to do, what they've been trying to do, these residents is, one, tell their loved ones they're okay, and two, check with those who they haven't been able to connect with yet.
--:-- Eduardo Medina: And it's sort of been this anxiety-inducing storm because of that, because of the lack of cell service here for many residents.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In the 2024 presidential race, Kamala Harris started her weekend with a campaign stop at the U.S.-Mexico border, where she delivered one of the Democratic Party's most hard-line speeches on immigration in a generation.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I will protect our nation's sovereignty, secure our border, and work to fix our broken system of immigration.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: She vowed to continue the crackdown on asylum that President Biden began.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: She then held a rally in Las Vegas where she continued her effort to try and bait Donald Trump into debating her again telling crowds that she was all in while Trump was quote ready to fold.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It was a lucrative weekend for Harris. Her campaign says she pulled in $55 million.
--:-- Donald Trump: Kamala was born that way.
--:-- Donald Trump: Anybody would know this.
--:-- Donald Trump: Trump repeated some of the insults at a rally on Sunday, sparking criticism from the American Association of People with Disabilities and driving several Republican lawmakers to try and distance themselves from Trump's remarks.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: What do you think about that rhetoric?
--:-- Lindsey Graham: I just think the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country.
--:-- Lindsey Graham: They're crazy liberal.
--:-- Tom Emmer: With five weeks to go until the election, polls show an exceedingly close race between Harris and Trump.
--:-- Tom Emmer: At the moment, Harris is ahead by three percentage points in the Times average of national polls.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Their VP candidates, Tim Walls and J.D. Vance, will debate tomorrow night in New York City.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The most ambitious effort yet in the U.S. to regulate artificial intelligence has been vetoed by California's governor.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The proposed law would have required that large AI systems like ChatGPT are tested for safety before being released to the public.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It would have also required that they have kill switches in case the systems get out of control.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Because there are no federal laws limiting AI, the California bill would have served as a model for the country.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The legislation had nearly unanimous support from state lawmakers, but many of the biggest players in tech, like Google, Meta, and OpenAI, opposed it, saying it would have stifled innovation.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Governor Gavin Newsom faced an intense lobbying effort in recent weeks from opponents and supporters of the proposed guardrails.
--:-- Gavin Newsom: Ultimately, he said the bill focused too much on regulating the biggest AI systems, and said lawmakers should send him a new rewritten bill next year.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: What have I ever done Do deserve even one of the pleasures I known
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Chris Christofferson, the actor and country singer, has died at 88 years old.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He was arguably most influential because of the songs he wrote for other people.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Hundreds of artists from The Grateful Dead to Gladys Knight to Janis Joplin performed his music.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Word for nothing left to lose.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Nothing. I mean, nothing, honey, if it ain't free.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Christofferson's literary talent was noticed long before he became famous in Nashville.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As a college student, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to study English literature at Oxford University.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: While he was in the UK, he took up the pseudonym Chris Carson and tried to make it in the British pop scene.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That went nowhere.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But his big break came a few years later at the Newport Folk Festival when June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash's wife, basically dragged the struggling and very nervous singer-songwriter on stage with the duo.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That introduced Christofferson to a national audience, and Johnny Cash's performance of Sunday Morning Coming Down, which Christofferson wrote, went on to top the country charts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Well, I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That didn't hurt.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Christopherson also had a decades-long career in Hollywood.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He acted in more than 50 movies, including the 1970s version of A Star is Born with Barbra Streisand.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: You and I will make each night a first Christopherson won a Golden Globe for his performance but he always thought of writing as the key to his success
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In an interview with the magazine Country Standard Time he said, quote I never would have gotten to make records if I didn't write I wouldn't have gotten to tour without it and I never would have been asked to act in a movie if I hadn't been known as a writer
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today on The Daily, a look at Donald Trump and Kamala Harris's positions on foreign policy, from the war in Ukraine to how they would handle the crisis in the Middle East.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's next on the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
