A Major New Experiment in Voting, and the World’s Most Polluted Air

Summary

The Headlines (NYT) — November 14, 2025

Episode Theme:
This episode presents a broad briefing on significant national and international developments—focusing on the aftermath of a historic federal government shutdown, a pioneering experiment in smartphone voting in Alaska, severe air pollution in New Delhi, and Blue Origin’s breakthrough in reusable rocket technology. The episode features input from Times reporters and external experts, with insightful analysis and on-the-ground details.

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1. The Aftermath of the Federal Government Shutdown

Overview:

• The federal government is reopening, but Americans are only beginning to see the extensive economic and societal consequences of the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

Key Points & Insights:

• Economic Impact:
  • The White House's Council of Economic Advisors estimates the shutdown cost about $15 billion per week, totaling 1.5% of GDP when multiplier effects are considered.

    “It cost about 15 billion a week and it accumulates to maybe 1 and a half percent of GDP when you count the multiplier effects.” — Tracy Mumford [01:02]

  • 60,000 private sector job losses occurred due to secondary effects, beyond federal employees.
• Social Programs Disrupted:
  • For the first time, many food stamp (SNAP) recipients had benefits disrupted, leaving many in a “continuous uncertainty.”

    “[SNAP recipients] felt a sense of, quote, being used as a political pawn when you're just trying to feed your families…plunged into…continuous uncertainty.” — Tracy Mumford [01:25]

• Judicial and Public Lands Backlog:
  • Federal courts face a backlog after 40+ days of delay in non-urgent hearings.
  • National parks, kept partially open with little oversight, dealt with vandalism and environmental damage—e.g., a toppled wall at Gettysburg, off-road driving at Arches [02:08].
• TSA Officer Bonuses:
  • Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, distributed $10,000 checks to select TSA agents for outstanding service, though selection criteria were unclear and union reps called for broader compensation.

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2. Trump Administration Updates

Justice Department Strike Authorization:

• The U.S. military campaign against “alleged drug traffickers” in the Caribbean and Pacific has resulted in 80 deaths since September.
• New York Times reporting uncovered a secret DOJ memo justifying lethal strikes by declaring the U.S. in a state of “armed conflict with drug cartels”—a claim widely disputed by legal and military experts.

  “But those claims that the memo hangs on contradict the assessment of a broad range of experts…who say there is no legitimate armed conflict and that Trump has illegally ordered the military to commit murder.” — Tracy Mumford [03:50]

Criminal Referral for Rep. Eric Swalwell:

• News broke that Rep. Swalwell has been referred for federal investigation for alleged mortgage and tax fraud—allegations he firmly rejects as politically motivated.

  "The only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me." — Eric Swalwell (quoted by Tracy Mumford) [04:54]

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3. A Major Voting Experiment: Alaska’s Smartphone Voting Initiative

Segment Begins: [05:32]

Background:

• Anchorage, Alaska will pilot large-scale smartphone voting in municipal elections— the first such trial at this scale in the U.S.

Key Discussion Points:

• Motivation:
  • Alaska’s logistical challenges: extreme weather, vast distances, highly transient populations (oil workers, fishermen).
  • Aim: Increase accessibility and turnout for local elections (school board, city assembly) where participation tends to be low.

    “Their argument is that being able to vote on your phone will allow more people to participate...eliminate a lot of reasons ballots are either undelivered or never make it back...” — Nick Corrasiniti [05:54]

• Expert Concerns:
  • Trust issues: Amid ongoing fallout and falsehoods from the 2020 election, some experts warn new voting methods could fuel more conspiracy theories.
  • Potential for increased turnout vs. risk of undermining election integrity perceptions.

    “Rolling out voting by phone at a time when trust is just so shaken in our election system…could only exacerbate that problem.” — Nick Corrasiniti [06:41]

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4. Delhi’s Battle with the World’s Worst Air Pollution

Segment Begins: [07:42]

Main Points:

• Air quality in Delhi ranks as the worst globally, with AQI readings above 350—sometimes 30 times the WHO’s safe limit.
• The government imposed drastic measures: stopping construction, banning old vehicles, moving schools online, and multiple (futile) attempts at cloud seeding.
• Resident response:
  • Surge in air purification startups—including a $2,000 “clean room” air bubble system, highlighting urban inequality (the price is 70% of local average annual income).
• Quote:

  “The price tag for the system is about $2,000. That’s 70% of the average annual income there.” — Tracy Mumford [08:26]

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5. Blue Origin Lands an Orbital Rocket, Challenging SpaceX

Segment Begins: [09:15]

Details:

• Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s company, successfully lands an orbital rocket booster (“Never Tell Me the Odds”) on a barge off Florida—matching SpaceX’s game-changing reusability.
• U.S. private space competition heats up; Blue Origin positioned to compete for launch contracts long held by SpaceX.
• Even SpaceX executives publicly congratulate Blue Origin—a rare display of mutual respect.

  “We as Americans should be proud of what we are accomplishing in space.” — SpaceX executive (paraphrased) [10:14]

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6. Friday News Quiz: Notable Stories of the Week

Segment Begins: [12:00]

Questions & Answers:

• Auction to support public media:
  • What iconic objects were auctioned?
    Answer: Original Bob Ross paintings (sold for over $500,000) [12:36]

    “It was three paintings by Bob Ross that together sold for over half a million dollars.” — Tracy Mumford [12:27]

• Retiring CEO’s philanthropic plans:
  • Who is the CEO speeding up his charitable giving after transforming a conglomerate?
    Answer: Warren Buffett [13:55]

    “Yes, even the jerks. It’s never too late to change.” — Warren Buffett (via Tracy Mumford) [13:55]

• Final U.S. penny pressed:
  • What notable cultural references are associated with the penny?
    • Music clips from The Beatles (“Penny Lane”), Willie Nelson (“Penny For Your Thoughts”), Lionel Richie (“Penny Lover”), and Dolly Parton with Porter Wagoner (“If Teardrops Were Pennies”) [14:55–15:52]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On food insecurity during the shutdown:

  “People had been plunged into what she called continuous uncertainty.” — Tracy Mumford [01:23]

• On potential risks with new voting methods:

  “Rolling out voting by phone at a time when trust is just so shaken…could only exacerbate that problem.” — Nick Corrasiniti [06:41]

• On Delhi’s air crisis and tech inequality:

  “The cost of the technology underscores the inequality in New Delhi.” — Tracy Mumford [08:17]

• On U.S. space achievements:

  “We as Americans should be proud of what we are accomplishing in space.” — (SpaceX executive, paraphrased) [10:14]

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Episode Timestamps

• [00:32] – Episode briefing: Shutdown aftermath
• [03:50] – DOJ memo and military strikes
• [04:31] – Eric Swalwell referral
• [05:32] – Alaska voting by smartphone
• [07:42] – Delhi’s air pollution emergency
• [09:15] – Blue Origin’s rocket landing
• [12:00] – Weekly news quiz

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This fast-paced episode delivers a clear-eyed look at political, technological, and environmental change, bridging national news and global challenges with tight analysis from The New York Times team.

Transcript

[American Petroleum Institute Representative]

This podcast is supported by the American Petroleum Institute. Energy demand is rising and the infrastructure we build today will power generations to come. We can deliver affordable, reliable and innovative energy solutions for all Americans. But we need to overhaul our broken permitting process to make that happen. It's time to modernize and build, because when America builds, America wins. Read our plan to secure America's future@ permittingreformnow.org.

[Tracy Mumford]

From the new York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, November 14th. Here's what we're covering. Across the country, the federal government has started to click back into gear. But even as employees return to work and government services come back online, the broader impacts of the record breaking shutdown are just now starting to come into focus.

[Rico]

Well, our Council of Economic Advisors said.

[Tracy Mumford]

That it cost about 15 billion a.

[Rico]

Week and it accumulates to maybe 1.

[Tracy Mumford]

1 1/2% of GDP when you count the multiplier effects. Speaking to reporters yesterday, one of President Trump's top economic advisers said the shutdown left lasting marks on the US economy and that roughly 60,000 people who weren't federal employees lost their jobs because of the economic impacts. At the same time, many recipients of food stamps are still waiting for their account balances to be updated and they're feeling a new sense of vulnerability. Even during previous shutdowns, the SNAP program had never been disrupted like this before, with the White House refusing to use emergency funding to keep benefits flowing. The head of a major food bank in Boston told the Times that SNAP recipients felt a sense of, quote, being used as a political pawn when you're just trying to feed your families, and that people had been plunged into what she called continuous uncertainty. Other side effects of the shutdown are also becoming clear. Federal courts now have a pileup of cases they're working through after spending more than 40 days delaying less urgent hearings. And the country's national parks are taking stock of damage after most remained partially open, even with little to no staff to monitor them. For example, at Gettysburg, a stone wall was toppled. And at Arches national park in Utah, people illegally drove off road vehicles across the landscape. Meanwhile, Rico, I want to present to you a check and say thank you from the American people. Appreciate it, Ashley, thank you. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, began handing out $10,000 checks to TSA officers who she said went above and beyond during the shutdown. She distributed the first round of checks during an event at an airport in Houston, though she didn't say exactly what criteria were used to decide who should get them or how many would be given out in total. TSA agents, along with air traffic controllers, were required to work unpaid during the shutdown. An official at a union representing the agents said the bonuses were, quote, great for some, but it's better to give everybody a little something because they all suffered. Foreign now two more updates on the Trump administration. The U.S. military has carried out another strike on a boat in the Caribbean, bringing the death toll in its campaign against alleged drug traffickers to 80 people. Since the strike started in early September, the US has hit boats in both the Caribbean and the Pacific claiming they're smuggling drugs to the U.S. though officials have provided little to no evidence of that. The Times has now learned new details about a secret Justice Department memo that signed off on the campaign. It says the killings are lawful based on claims President Trump has made that the US Is officially in a state of armed conflict with drug cartels. But those claims that the memo hangs on contradict the assessment of a broad range of experts in the use of force who say there is no legitimate armed conflict conflict and that Trump has illegally ordered the military to commit murder also.

[Rico]

Well, first, of course, these allegations are false, just like the allegations against Adam Schiff are false and Letitia James are false.

[Tracy Mumford]

Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California is pushing back after reports broke that he's been referred to the Justice Department for a potential criminal investigation. According to NBC News, the referral claims Swalwell committed mortgage and tax fraud accusations similar to those made against other high profile critics or targets of the president like Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Swalwell, who helped lead one of the impeachment efforts against Trump, denied any wrongdoing and said in a statement, quote, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me. The Justice Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In Alaska, the state's largest city is gearing up for a big experiment letting residents vote not just in person or by mail, but by using their smartphones. Voting over the Internet is not entirely new. Some military and overseas voters have been able to do that for a while. But in Anchorage, with almost a quarter million registered voters, the trial run of phone voting will be the first of this scale in the country. My colleague Nick Corrasnitti, who covers elections and voting, says the city has a lot of reasons for trying this out, which they're preparing to do this spring.

[Rico]

Officials in Alaska told me that the main reason to experiment with this is because voting can just be logistically challenging in the state. They have to deal with bad weather. They have to deal with extremely long distances and people living in very rural areas. And they also have a pretty transient population. So people who work on the offshore oil and gas rigs or up in the North Slope, some fishermen who work very seasonally. So their argument is that being able to vote on your phone will allow more people to participate in elections and eliminate a lot of the reasons ballots are either undelivered or never make it back to them.

[Tracy Mumford]

Nick says officials are trying it first at the municipal level with school board and city assembly elections, the kind of local race where turnout can be really low.

[Rico]

Their argument is exploring any way to get more people. Voting is a good thing for the country. But at the same time, voting experts I talked to say that this push is coming at a time when trust in elections has been significantly shaken. There's the ongoing fallout from the 2020 election. President Trump is still saying the same falsehoods about his loss there, claiming that there's widespread voter fraud when there simply isn't. But those falsehoods have really taken root among a large part of the Republican base. And rolling out voting by phone at a time when trust is just so shaken in our election system, some experts worry, could only exacerbate that problem. So it'll be very interesting to see exactly how this experiment in Anchorage works. Does it increase turnout? It'll also be interesting to see whether the same kind of conspiracy theories that we've seen across the country appear in Alaska as well.

[Tracy Mumford]

And we're now getting some more inputs on the story. Overall, Delhi's air quality remains in the severe category, with most locations recording AQI above 350 this week. In New Delhi, the Indian government has imposed emergency measures because of severe air pollution in the capital city. New Delhi is considered the most polluted city in the world, and it gets particularly bad every year about this time when stagnant winds mean pollutants just hang around. A noxious grayish fog envelops everything. At some points the air can contain 30 times the world Health Organization's limit for fine grained dust that makes breathing difficult for the 32 million people who live there and can even lead to fatal health conditions. For the moment, the government's halted all non essential construction, banned older vehicles from the streets and moved schools online. Officials even tried multiple attempts at cloud seeding this season to try and create artificial rain to clean the air, but those efforts failed because there wasn't enough moisture. Facing those conditions, many residents have been looking for their own solutions. And the Times has been covering how the problem has spawned a boom in air purification systems. One startup's offering a device that basically creates a pressurized filtered air bubble in someone's home that prevents dirty air from leaking inside. It's modeled off the technology used in so called clean rooms in laboratories. Air quality readings inside those homes can improve drastically. But the cost of the technology underscores the inequality in New Delhi. The price tag for the system is about $2,000. That's 70% of the average annual income there. And finally, when it comes to rockets and the space race, Elon Musk's company, SpaceX has been enjoying a very comfortable lead for a decade or more, just dominating the competition. In part, that's because it developed the ability to reuse rocket boosters, which used to just crash back into the ocean, never to be used again. By figuring out how to safely land the boosters and put them back to work, SpaceX cut costs and made it possible to launch more rockets more often. It was alone in that innovation. Until yesterday. Congratulations, Team Blue. You did it. Now, Jeff Bezos company Blue Origin has cracked it. A landed orbital rocket. What an incredible day. The team nailed the landing of a rocket booster named Never Tell Me the Odds, gently setting it down on a floating platform off the coast of Florida, with the company's employees cheering like mad over the livestream. With this success in the books, Blue Origin could start to peel away some of the business that SpaceX has had a lock on, the lucrative contracts for sending stuff into space. Blue Origin's landing was impressive enough that even SpaceX had to give it to them. One of the executives of SpaceX posted online, well done. We as Americans should be proud of what we are accomplishing in space. Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday news quiz, stick around. It's just after the credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Cait Lopresti, Jan Stewart and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell Special thanks to Isabel Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Zoe Murphy and Paula Schumann. Now time for the quiz. Every week we ask you a few questions about stories the Times has been covering. Can you get them all? First up, this week there was a unique effort to try and offset some of the billion plus dollars in federal funding cuts that the Trump administration has made to public media. There was an auction of several objects from the estate of an iconic public media personality and the proceeds are going to strug juggling stations. Your Question. What went up for auction? You get four options here. A, wool cardigans that once belonged to Mr. Rogers. B, original landscape paintings done by Bob Ross. C, autographed cookbooks from Julia Child. D, the original Bert and Ernie puppets designed by Jim Henson. So again, your options are sweaters, paintings, cookbooks, or Muppets. The answer?

[Rico]

Painting should make you happy. And if it doesn't make you happy, you're doing the wrong thing.

[Tracy Mumford]

It was three paintings by Bob Ross that together sold for over half a million dollars.

[Rico]

We don't make mistakes. We have happy accidents.

[Tracy Mumford]

The estate of the soft spot spoken painter with his unforgettable perm, plans to keep the fundraising effort going and auction off 27 more paintings in the coming year. Okay, next one. On Monday, the CEO of one of the country's most valuable companies sent one of his last letters to shareholders before he retires at the end of this year. In it, he said he'd be speeding up his plans to give away much of his enormous personal fortune, which he made, transforming the company into a trillion dollar juggernaut with a controlling stake in everything from Dairy Queen to Geico. Your question? Who is this CEO? While you guess, please enjoy this clip featuring one of his after work interests playing the ukulele.

[Rico]

Now the end is near and so I face the final curtain.

[Tracy Mumford]

A hint if the ukulele is not doing it for you. Despite being worth $150 billion, the CEO has never moved out of the house he bought in 1958 in Omaha, Nebraska.

[Rico]

Much more than this. I did it the answer my way.

[Tracy Mumford]

And that's as we go. Warren Buffett, who has led Berkshire hathaway since the mid-60s. Buffett has actually gotten a reputation over the decades for his letters to shareholders which mix business with solid life advice. He signed off from the one this week with I wish all who read this a very happy Thanksgiving. Yes, even the jerks. It's never too late to change. Okay, last question. This week, the US Mint in Philadelphia pressed the very last American penny. After 232 years, our little copper colored friend is dunzo. But the penny will live on in our change jars, under our couch cushions and in song. We're going to play you four songs with Penny in the title. Some of these are real toughies. So we're just going to ask you to name the artist. Ready? We're starting Easy Rain.

[Rico]

Very strange.

[Tracy Mumford]

That band, of course, is the Beatles with Penny Lane. Next up, name this artist.

[Rico]

And it hurts me so to see the sorrow written on your face.

[Tracy Mumford]

That was Willie Nelson. Penny for your thoughts. Third one.

[Rico]

Tell me, baby, could this be true? That I could need someone like I need you?

[Tracy Mumford]

That is the very smooth Lionel Richie with Penny Lover. And lastly, I'd be also wealthy with treasures untold.

[Rico]

If teardrops were fannies and heartaches were go.

[Tracy Mumford]

That is Dolly Parton singing if teardrops were pennies with Porter Wagner. Pour one out for the pennies. That is it for the news quiz if you want to tell us how you did. As always, our email is the headlinesytimes.com I'm Tracy Mumford. The headlines will be back on Monday.

[American Petroleum Institute Representative]

This podcast is supported by the American Petroleum Institute. Energy demand is rising, and the infrastructure we build today will power generations to come. We can deliver affordable, reliable and innovative energy solutions for all Americans. But we need to overhaul our broken permitting process to make that happen. It's time to modernize and build, because when America builds, America wins. Read our plan to secure America's future@ permittingreformnow.org.