--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, October 2nd.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Mr Vice President, in every previous shutdown, workers have been furloughed, not laid off. So why does the president want to fire some workers and not just furlough them? Why is this shutdown any different?
--:-- Vice President J.D. Vance: Well, first of all, we haven't made any final decisions about what we're going to do with certain workers. What we're saying is that we might have to take extraordinary steps, especially the longer this goes on.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the White House, the Trump administration is forging ahead with plans to conduct mass layoffs and slash already approved projects, saying that could be necessary to save money as the government shutdown enters day two. Those kinds of cuts have not been required in past shutdowns.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But the Trump administration is looking at how to leverage this moment to cut programs and staff it considers not aligned with the president's agenda.
--:-- Vice President J.D. Vance: And I think that the Democrats, if they're so worried about the effect this is having on the American people, and they should be, what they should do is reopen the government, not complain about how we respond to the fact that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have shut down the government in the first place.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Vice President J.D. Vance denied the administration was targeting any federal agencies based on politics.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But the initial plans of what to slash include $18 billion for transportation projects in New York, home to Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the two Democratic leaders in Congress.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And the administration also said it was terminating about $8 billion in what the White House budget director called Green New Scam Funding to Fuel the Left's Climate Agenda, a move that affected projects in 16 states, most of which are led by Democrats.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The two parties have been deadlocked over a temporary funding measure that would reopen the government. The Democrats are holding out for a deal that would extend subsidies that help millions of Americans pay for their health insurance.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the moment, despite the shutdown, many crucial government operations are continuing without interruption. Though depending on how long it lasts, some services like child care and grocery vouchers for low-income families could be affected.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Yesterday, several federal agencies started using their websites to blame Democrats, or the quote, radical left, for any disruptions.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Some furloughed government employees have even been instructed to set their out message to a version of I am out of the office for the foreseeable future because Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The messaging is a remarkable breach for federal agencies and their typically nonpartisan workforce. Using government platforms to attack Democrats could violate the Hatch Act, which is designed to ensure the federal workforce operates free of political influence or coercion.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, two more updates on the Trump administration.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Yesterday, the Department of Education sent letters to nine universities urging them to pledge support for President Trump's political agenda in order to help ensure access to federal funds.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The letter came with a 10-page compact demanding that the schools cap the enrollment of international students, commit to strict definitions of gender, and freeze tuition for five years. In exchange, they'd get priority on federal research money.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The letters went out to schools including MIT, the University of Texas, and Vanderbilt.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The effort is part of the Trump administration's months-long pressure campaign on elite universities, which many conservatives have criticized as too liberal.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The White House has pressured schools to pay millions of dollars to close civil rights investigations and frozen billions in funding.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A top Education Department official said this compact could ultimately be extended to universities nationwide.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And the Supreme Court said yesterday that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her position for now.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As part of Trump's effort to reshape the Fed, a traditionally independent body, the president tried to fire Cook, alleging that she'd committed mortgage fraud.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump is the first president to try and remove a governor in the Fed's more than 100-year history.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Several former Fed chairs, along with past Treasury secretaries from both Democratic and Republican administrations, urged the Supreme Court to let Cook keep her job while her case was being reviewed to avoid causing instability at the Fed.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In an unsigned decision yesterday, the Supreme Court said it would hear full arguments about whether Trump can fire Cook in January.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It will be one of three cases the court will hear testing the limits of presidential power this term, which begins Monday.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In the Middle East Hamas is holding talks with mediators to discuss the ceasefire plan that President Trump put forward this week to end the war Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he supports it
--:-- Liam Stack: My colleague Liam Stack and other reporters working with The Times have been talking with Palestinians in Gaza as they wait to see what Hamas will say.
--:-- Liam Stack: I think every person we spoke with said they wanted Hamas to accept the deal. But there was quite a bit of skepticism from people that Hamas would do it.
--:-- Liam Stack: One woman, a single mother who was seeking shelter in the South with her young daughter, told us that she felt like no one cared about them, that they were just dying and nobody was paying attention, and Hamas needed to be thinking about them more.
--:-- Liam Stack: And we spoke to one man, Mahmoud Abu Mattar. He said at this point in the war, he is just disgusted by the negotiators, At one point he said something to the effect of, I'm here trying to get a bag of flour or get fresh water and nearly getting killed every day. And the negotiators who say they're speaking on my behalf, they're far away in a hotel room, in an air-conditioned conference room, not going through what I'm going through.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Over the last 10 days, there's been a wave of mysterious drone sightings across Scandinavia, hovering over military bases, flying over airports, and putting people on edge.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Authorities have implied that Russia is behind it, and analysts say it could be part of a Kremlin strategy to probe European countries' military readiness and to unsettle the public.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That part seems to be working. Police hotlines in Denmark, Sweden and Norway have lit up with people calling in false alarms. That turned out to be everything from just small planes to even stars.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And Danish news outlets have reported a surge in people buying emergency rations, radios, rice and canned foods.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Analysts say Denmark is a logical place for Russia to target with this kind of campaign. It's one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters. It's a founding member of NATO. And its defenses are weak.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The country announced it was boosting military spending in recent months, though many Danes feel officials haven't done enough.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Yesterday, leaders from the European Union met in Copenhagen under increased security to discuss defense strategy
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Some European officials have pushed for building what they calling a drone wall a system of overlapping radar stations and air defense units spread across the continent
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, in July 1960, Jane Goodall has embarked on a remarkable adventure.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The scientist and conservationist Jane Goodall, who changed how the world thought about chimpanzees and humans, died yesterday at 91.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Born in London in 1934, Goodall's research career began when she took an assignment to observe chimps in the wild in a remote area of Tanzania.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: When I arrived at the Gombe Stream Reserve, I felt that at long last, my childhood ambition was being realized.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There, Goodall spent so much time among the animals, they got used to her presence, and she began noticing the chimps behaving in surprising ways.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: She saw one deliberately break off a stalk of grass and use it to fish around for insects in a termite mound. She saw other chimps using tools, too.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Her observations stunned the scientific community. Making tools had been considered a hallmark of humans.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Louis Leakey, the paleoanthropologist, said, quote, Now we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Goodall shared her research and her wild adventures in the rainforest, complete with crocodiles and giant deadly centipedes, on TV, in documentaries, and in books.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That turned Goodall into a household name.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Eventually, she moved to spend less time observing and more time trying to protect chimps and their disappearing habitats.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Jane Goodall Institute, which she established in the 70s, evolved into one of the world's largest nonprofit research and conservation organizations, and she kept working with the organization until her death.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A colleague of Goodall's told The Times, quote, She kept her own curiosity and energy and enthusiasm that we all have as children and sometimes lose. I never saw her lose that.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a look at the Democrats' strategy to make the shutdown fight all about health care costs.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow with the latest and the Friday News Quiz.
--:-- [Theme music starts playing]
