← The Headlines
The Headlines
Trump’s Deadline for Ukraine, and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Abrupt Resignation
00:10:21
Plus, a new crash-test dummy.
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Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
This podcast is supported by USA for unhcr. A dire new report from the UN Refugee agency. As the numbers of people fleeing war escalate, funding shortages have left them without the basics to survive. The impact is devastating. Families who've lost everything now struggle in overcrowded camps without food, water or safe shelter. Your gift can rush clean water, hygiene kits and shelter materials within 72 hours of an emergency. Donate@unrefugees.org Headlines.
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Tracy Mumford
From the New York Times. It's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, November 24th. Here's what we're covering.
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U.S. or Ukrainian Official
All right, we had a very good day today. I think we made a tremendous amount of progress even from the last time I spoke to you, and I apologize for keeping you waiting. But there was more work to be done.
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Tracy Mumford
U.S. and Ukrainian officials are sounding an optimistic note about a peace plan that could help stop the brutal war in Ukraine.
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U.S. or Ukrainian Official
I don't want to declare victory or finality here. There's still some work to be done. But we are much further ahead today at this time than we were when we began this morning.
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Tracy Mumford
The two countries said that in talks yesterday they had, quote, updated and refined the 28 point proposal that the US put forward last week. President Trump set a deadline of this Thursday for Ukraine to agree to the plan. And my colleague Cassandra Vinograd says that diplomats have been working to get on the same page.
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Cassandra Vinograd
When the draft proposal started circulating last week, a lot of Ukrainians rejected it outright, saying it was akin to a wish list for the Kremlin. It repeated so many of President Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands, including requirements that it cede territory Russia, reduce the size of its military and rule out NATO membership. We're still unclear today what points may have been adjusted and what issues still need to be addressed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the outstanding points not unsurmountable. But we do have word from at least one European leader this morning saying that major issues remain unresolved.
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Tracy Mumford
Cassandra says that there was no immediate comment from the Kremlin about yesterday's talks. But Turkey's president, who has offered to help mediate, said he expects to speak with Vladimir Putin about the potential agreement today. Now two quick updates from Washington.
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Interviewer
Did you expect it to be so chummy? What was going through your head when you were standing there?
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Zoran Mamdani
You know, I thought again and again about what it would mean for New Yorkers if we could establish a productive relationship that would focus on the issues that those New Yorkers stay up late at night thinking about New York City's.
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Tracy Mumford
Mayor elect Zoran Mandani and President Trump are both signaling that they intend to work together following a remarkably friendly meeting at the White House. For months, the two had attacked each other, with Mamdani calling Trump a fascist and Trump calling Mamdani a lunatic. But talking to reporters after their sit down on Friday, they were very buddy buddy with Trump even jumping in to defend Momdani from pointed questions from conservative news outlets. In interviews over the weekend, Mamdani insisted that he'll be able to find ways to work with Trump on the centerpiece of his campaign, making New York City more affordable. And Trump said he has no immediate plans to send the National Guard to New York, something he'd been threatening to do.
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Donald Trump
If they need it right now, other places need it more. But if they need it, we had a very good meeting yesterday. We talked about that. But if they need it, I would do it.
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Tracy Mumford
Mamdani's term as mayor will begin on January 1st. Meanwhile, in another unexpected political twist, I.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene
Have too much self respect and dignity. I love my family way too much and I do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president that we all fought for.
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Tracy Mumford
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia abruptly announced her plan to resign from office just days after President Trump un endorsed her and called her a traitor. While Greene was once one of Trump's most forceful supporters, she's been drifting away in recent months, opposing military aid to Israel, calling for the extension of Obamacare subsidies and most notably demanding that the administration release the Epstein files, something Trump long resisted. Her decision to leave Capitol Hill came as a surprise even to her inner circle, who apparently got only a 20 minute heads up before she posted the video announcing that be done January 5th. According to Green's friends and associates, she'd felt increasingly isolated politically, disgusted with her own party and terrified by a wave of death threats, apparently from supporters of the president. Following her announcement, speculation about her political future, maybe even a presidential run, exploded in Washington, though she said explicitly that she's not playing a calculated quote 4D chess game. In the meantime, her public rift with Trump underscores the fact that there's some dissatisfaction among the president's base with parts of his agenda as his lock tight grip on the Republican Party has started to show some signs of weakening. In the UK the country's prime minister is trying a new approach to immigration policy. It's what experts in immigration have labeled negative nation branding. In practice, it makes the lives of refugees as uncomfortable as possible to deter others from making the same trip. Under the plan, asylum seekers will no longer be entitled to automatic aid like housing. And even if they are granted asylum, they'd have to wait 20 years rather than the current five before they could apply to stay permanently. There's also a provision where the government can take an asylum seeker's valuables or jewelry to help pay for the cost of shelter. A lot of elements of the plan come straight from Denmark's policies.
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Gina Smilek
The Danish model is essentially a model that tries to tell asylum seekers that they aren't really welcome here. Like the goal is to get people to leave if they have any other choice.
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Tracy Mumford
My colleague Gina Smilek has been covering how negative nation branding played out in Denmark. It tightened its rules about a decade ago, and while the number of asylum seekers has dropped all across Europe, Denmark has one of the lowest rates of people applying for asylum in the entire eu. Other countries are now using its policies as a playbook, like the uk where the prime Minister's party is trying to fend off an anti immigration party that has a double digit lead in recent polling.
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Gina Smilek
I think what we've seen around the world, in the United States, in much of Europe is that a lot of working class voters in particular really want to see parties taking a hard stance on immigration. They think that immigration has gotten out of control. They think that it hasn't been managed very well in recent years. And so we're seeing parties that lean to the left embracing these harder stances.
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Tracy Mumford
Critics of negative nation branding say the people who lose out are those seeking asylum, as people who are already vulnerable may get caught in worse conditions. The federal Transportation Department has approved new standards for a crash test dummy designed to more accurately capture what happens to the female body during car crashes. Most of the safety features in modern cars have been designed and tested with the proportions of a man in mind, a man from about half a century ago. But female drivers in the US are almost 75% more likely than a male driver to be severely injured in a crash and about 17% more likely to die, according to government data. A government report linked that disparity to how cars are designed.
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Jonathan Morrison
The data is showing more and more that there are crash risks that are unique to women, that are different from men without the tools to really measure the differences. It's tough to account for that when you're designing a vehicle to protect people.
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Tracy Mumford
Jonathan Morrison, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told NBC News. The updates are overdue.
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Jonathan Morrison
It has taken far too long. Science takes time, but really, it's a matter of a sense of urgency.
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Tracy Mumford
Traffic safety advocates welcomed the new dummy, which the government says more accurately reflects the shape of women's necks, clothes, collarbones, pelvises and legs. But they want the government to go further and require car makers and the auto industry at large to use the new design. At the moment, it's optional. Legislation's been introduced in Congress to make it mandatory and to make sure that tests put the female dummy in the driver's seat. At one point, the government updated some of its testing standards but only required the female dummy to be in the passenger seat, the back seat, even though licensed female drivers in the US outnumber male drivers by about 3 million. And finally, the Internet has a new challenge. Luckily, this one doesn't involve getting dunked in water or having to chug anything. It is all about timing. You listen to Whitney Houston's big hit, I Will Always Love youe. You wait for the dramatic pause. You then try to come back in by hitting a drum, clapping your hands however you want to do it at the exact moment the song kicks back in. Videos of people trying and often failing have racked up millions of views, whether it's Scarlett Johansson or a middle school band teacher giving it a shot. The consensus is that it's way harder than it looks, which I completely agree with. So the Times called up David Foster, who produced and arranged the song for Whitney, to ask, what is going on here? He said, one tricky thing is that the booming of the drum lands between beats, which even he described as so random. The Times then obviously asked him to take the challenge. Even he struggled. But now that you know about the between the beat thing, here is your chance to give it one more try. Ready? Those are the headlines today on the Daily A look at the surge in the number of people being diagnosed with autism in the US you can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.