--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, March 10th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Here's what we're covering. I've only been here for a while. Are you expecting a recession this year?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: President Trump has declined to rule out the possibility that his economic policies, including waves of aggressive tariffs, could trigger a recession.
--:-- President Trump: Our country's been ripped off for many decades, for many, many decades, and we're not going to be ripped off anymore.
--:-- President Trump: In an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News, the president said that he was stopping America from being taken advantage of in trade, but acknowledged that his moves could take some time to pay off.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: His willingness to put tariffs on America's closest trading partners, even if he's then paused some of them, has been sending shockwaves through the stock market.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And forecasts from Wall Street giants like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs say a recession in the next 12 months has become more likely.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Still, Trump has promised more tariffs as soon as this week, and other countries, including Canada and China, have responded in turn.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today, China's retaliatory tariffs on a lot of American farm products kicked in. Chicken, wheat, corn, soybeans, and more are going to face a 10 to 15 percent levy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That could deal a blow to U.S. farmers. China is their biggest overseas market.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, I know that these are dark days.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The trade war that Trump has kicked off was hanging over Canada this weekend as the Liberal Party chose its new leader.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Mark Carney will replace Justin Trudeau as the country's prime minister, and he's vowed to push back on the U.S.
--:-- Mark Carney: My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Carney's never been elected to office. His background's in banking. He led the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Federal elections in a few months will determine whether Carney will keep the prime minister post.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Some Canadian voters have said that a crucial question for them going into that election is, who will be the best choice to stand up to Trump?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This weekend, immigration authorities arrested a recent graduate of Columbia University.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil holds a green card and is a legal permanent resident of the United States, but a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security claimed that he led activities aligned with Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on social media, quote, Khalil's lawyer told The Times that they haven't been able to find out where he's being held and said his arrest is part of a broader attack on activism and free speech.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For the Trump administration, it's a significant escalation in its crackdown on what the president has called anti-Semitic campus activity.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: On Friday the administration canceled million in grants and contracts for Colombia in response to what it said was the school failure to protect Jewish students from harassment.
--:-- Colombia President: Colombia president said it takes those concerns seriously and will work with the federal government to address them.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In the meantime, she said the cuts will affect nearly every corner of the school.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In Syria, the country's facing the biggest flare-up in violence since the fall of its authoritarian leader, Bashar al-Assad.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Assad was thrown out of power back in December, but in the past few days, his loyalists have attacked the new government's security forces along the country's west coast, and those forces have responded with a bloody crackdown.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: More than 1,000 people have been killed, according to an independent monitoring group.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The majority of them have been civilians.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Syria is very on edge right now.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The roads leading into the coast have been closed down. There are new government checkpoints manning those roads.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Very few people there have been leaving their homes for fear of what could happen if they do.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And others in more rural areas where most of this violence has been happening have also taken up arms to guard their homes and their communities.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: for fear of what could happen.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleague Christina Goldbaum has been reporting from Syria.
--:-- Christina Goldbaum: Most people on the coast do not support the armed uprising by these Assad loyalists, but many people there are from the same sect as Assad.
--:-- Christina Goldbaum: And so they're worried that they could be caught up in this violence, even targeted by government forces, as they try to squash that armed rebellion.
--:-- Christina Goldbaum: And people are very worried that this could spiral into another civil war after this three-month period of relative calm.
--:-- Christina Goldbaum: So right now has become this critical test for the country new leaders about whether they are able to manage the situation reestablish control or if this becomes a broader conflict
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, When the movie Flow won the Oscar last week for Best Animated Feature, it was a bit of a surprise.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The scrappy little movie about a black cat who survives an epic flood triumphed over big studio hits from Pixar and DreamWorks.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And now, Flo has been finding a new fan base in people's pets.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: People have been posting videos of their cats and dogs totally entranced by Flo.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Fishbone, a cat, was so engrossed, one owner wrote, that he moved his cat's tower closer to the TV so he could get a better view.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Samson, a golden retriever, was also very invested, according to his owner.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: One of the producers and writers of Flo told The Times, he thinks all of the animal attention is probably because the movie used real animal sounds in production.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The movie's actually all animal sounds. There's no dialogue. Just a cat, a dog, a lemur, a bird, and a capybara.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Prime pet viewing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There is, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, a lot of content already out there for pets to watch.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Dog TV is a whole channel. And YouTube's got a lot of mouse videos for your couch potato cat.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But Flo finally offers an Academy Award-winning option if your pet is more of a movie snob.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today on The Daily, how President Trump wants to both dismantle and weaponize the Department of Education.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's next in 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.
