--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. Today's Monday, October 14th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Pentagon has announced it's sending an advanced missile defense system to Israel, along with 100 American troops to operate it. It's the first deployment of U.S. troops to Israel since October 7th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In a statement, the Pentagon said the goal is to help Israel defend against any further ballistic missile attacks from Iran, which launched about 200 missiles at the country earlier this month.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The U.S. decision to send the missile system comes as senior Pentagon officials have been debating whether the increased American military presence in the Middle East is containing the conflict, like they hope, or inflaming it.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Several Pentagon officials have expressed concerns in recent weeks that Israel feels comfortable carrying out an increasingly aggressive campaign against Hezbollah, Iran's most powerful ally, because they know that nearby American warships and attack planes are standing at the ready to blunt any Iranian response.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: According to a senior U.S. military official, it will take at least a week to get the new missile system and the American troops to Israel.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, Hezbollah carried out a drone strike on an Israeli military base over the weekend, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens more.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The strike's being interpreted in Israel as a sign of resilience from Hezbollah, which has not stopped its cross-border attacks, even as Israel has pummeled southern Lebanon with deadly airstrikes.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Hezbollah drone attack also raised concerns in Israel about troubling gaps in the country's air defense systems.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Three weeks out from Election Day, the New York Times polling average shows Kamala Harris and Donald Trump essentially tied across the seven key battleground states.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But the Harris campaign is facing a complicated path to victory Polls from The Times and Siena College show Black and Latino voters drifting away from the Democratic Party in notable numbers.
--:-- Jenny Medina: For decades now, Democrats have really counted on diversity as helping them, as helping them be key for support and really believed that as the country became more diverse, they would have a solid majority.
--:-- Jenny Medina: They thought that would be even more true with Trump, who had made so many comments that people viewed as offensive. But instead of repelling those voters, Trump has actually attracted them.
--:-- Jenny Medina: And we're seeing more support for him among Latino voters, which started in 2020 and now among Black voters.
--:-- Jenny Medina: And that's, of course, particularly interesting as Kamala Harris is the candidate because she would be the first Black and South Asian woman in the White House.
--:-- Jenny Medina: And it's interesting to see that for a lot of people, this idea of representation doesn't seem to resonate.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In Coachella, California this weekend, a man was arrested and accused of illegally possessing a shotgun and a loaded handgun as he tried to get into a Trump rally.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's not clear what his motives were.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In a joint statement, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Secret Service, and the FBI said they've determined the former president was not in any danger.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The man, identified as Vem Miller, 49, of Las Vegas, got through one level of security but was stopped at a second level before Trump arrived at the venue.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: What we do know is he showed up with multiple passports with different names, an unregistered vehicle with fake license plate, and loaded firearms.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Riverside County Sheriff said Miller appeared to consider himself a sovereign citizen part of a far fringe group that believes government laws don't apply to them
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Miller has since been released on bail according to the county online inmate information system
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And Miller said in a local news interview that he was shocked he was arrested
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He said he supports Trump and was unfamiliar with California's gun laws.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: On today's episode of The Daily, a Times investigation into the Secret Service and how its failure to protect Trump from the assassination attempt in July exposed even larger issues within the agency.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Earlier this year, a Times investigation into sugar production in India showed that workers in the state of Maharashtra are being subjected to a brutal system of labor.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There's so much pressure to keep working that many women are getting unnecessary hysterectomies just so they don't lose time to medical checkups or dealing with their periods.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After the Times investigation came out, the U.S. Department of Labor added Indian sugar cane to its list of products made with forced labor.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But on the ground, the practices have continued.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Our team has been reporting on the sugar industry in Maharashtra for more than a year now.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And a question that kept coming up is why nothing has changed, despite the fact that many of these abuses are an open secret.
--:-- Megha Rajagopalan: One thing we wanted to look at is this question of who actually benefits and who profits from these abuses.
--:-- Megha Rajagopalan: And what we found is that the group of people that has the power to make and enforce laws that could directly benefit laborers is also deeply enmeshed with the sugar industry.
--:-- Megha Rajagopalan: And those politicians often control the very sugar mills that they are charged with regulating.
--:-- Megha Rajagopalan: So reforming or changing the links between the state elite political class and the sugar industry would require a really systemic reform and something that would completely change the industry
--:-- Megha Rajagopalan: Mega says that as long as there are customers and therefore profits conditions in Maharashtra are likely to change.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: International brands including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo all buy sugar from mills there.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi pledged this year to look into abuses identified in their supply chains, but they have not yet provided any details on what steps they've taken.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, for decades, space travel has relied on rockets that were mostly one and done.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They'd cost tens of millions of dollars to make, you'd get one good launch out of them, and then they'd be toast.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: SpaceX has been trying to change that, finding ways to reuse rocket boosters to make the industry more efficient and cost-effective.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This weekend, the company pulled off a major technical feat in that effort.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Booster ship, avionics power, telemetry nominal.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's the sound of 33 Raptor engines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It launched one of its Starship vehicles, and then... We are go for catch.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The rocket booster dropped away, falling through the sky at supersonic speeds.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Look at the reentry.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's six and a half minutes that is moving so fast.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Look at how hard it is.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Oh! Ignition.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It fired its engines to slow itself as it approached the ground and navigated right into two mechanical arms, nicknamed Chopsticks, ready to catch it.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: We have successfully put the super heavy booster back at the launch tower.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The rocket booster successfully landed right back in Boca Chica, Texas, where it started.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The head of NASA congratulated SpaceX for the successful launch and catch.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: NASA is relying on SpaceX to get astronauts to the moon for its Artemis mission.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
