The New York Times September 11, 2026

0:00Hello, this is Chris Wilhelm, and for the next hour, I'll be reading from the Friday, September 11th issue of the New York Times on the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service. Our first article today, Supreme Court, again, blocks Republican-backed Missouri Voting Map. The ruling deferred to the state's Supreme Court, which had invalidated GOP-friendly district lines, saying voters must first have an opportunity to approve the map in a statewide referendum. By Anne E. Marimow and Mitch Smith. The US Supreme Court on Thursday once again prevented Missouri from using a congressional map in November that was redrawn to give Republicans an advantage in the midterm elections. It was the second time this week that the Supreme Court waited into a dizzying legal fight over Missouri's congressional map, and it came just two months before a general election in which the state's voters could determine control of the House.

1:03The Court's brief order did not include any reasoning, as is often the case when the justices respond to emergency requests. There were no noted dissents. Denny Hoskins, the Missouri Secretary of State, said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that his office was directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map, not the redrawn one, in compliance with the Supreme Court order. That map would position Democrats to retain a seat in the Kansas City area. The announcement from Mr. Hoskins amounted to a major win for redistricting opponents, who waged a year-long fight against the new map. But it did not answer the question of how election officials would conduct a general election based on a map different from the one used in the primary in August. Holding a general election with a different map than what was used in the primary is rare legal territory, and the courts have so far given no specific guidance on how nominees

2:05should be selected. Before Thursday's order from Washington, Missouri Republican leaders had been insisting they would stick with their preferred map for the general election. No matter what, logistical and legal barriers seem likely to keep emerging. The deadline to finalize Missouri's ballot was Tuesday. Redistricting opponents have suggested in court filings that candidates who won their primaries under the redrawn map might remain the nominees in the same numbered districts under the old lines. Alternately they theorized, state law allowed party nominating committees to select candidates for each district. In response to the Supreme Court's order, opponents of the new map said the justice's decision had definitively settled the question of which map will govern the November election. The law is the law. The Missouri Constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court, Richard Von Glon, the executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said in a statement.

3:10Earlier in the week, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh had taken a similar action as Missouri Democrats briefly appeared to have prevailed in a year-long fight to preserve a house seat they hold in the Kansas City area. In that order, he deferred to Missouri Supreme Court, which had determined state officials should not have adopted the new map without a voter referendum. The state court ruling came even though Missouri voters already used the new map to nominate candidates in last month's primary contests. Instead, the state court said Missouri should use a map that had been in place since 2022 for the upcoming election. But minutes after the justice's order landed on Tuesday evening, Stephen R. Clark, the chief federal judge in St. Louis, ruled in the opposite direction, ordering the state to use the map that Missouri Republicans drew last year at President Trump's request. That map was intended to help Republicans flip the seat in Kansas City.

4:11Judge Clark's ruling came in a different legal case, brought by a Republican congressman who was running for re-election, and a GOP candidate who won the primary under the new district lines. That ruling was then appealed again to the Supreme Court, resulting in Thursday's action. Judge Clark cited concerns in his ruling that using a different map for the general election would wreak havoc on the fairness and orderliness of the congressional election. He wrote that he was concerned a new map would lead to widespread voter confusion. Mr. Hoskins, along with the governor and the attorney general, then quickly announced that they would follow the district judge's ruling, rather than the state Supreme Court's decision. That set off another round of court filings and contempt proceedings against Mr. Hoskins before the state Supreme Court. The GOP map was drawn outside the usual redistricting cycle at Mr. Trump's request, as part of an effort to improve the Republican Party's chances of holding the House in the 2026 midterms.

5:17The redrawn Missouri map, adopted by the state legislature in September 2025, divided the core of Kansas City, the state's largest city, into several districts in an attempt to unseat Representative Emanuel Cleaver II, one of two Democrats in the state's congressional delegation. The new map did not significantly alter the partisan makeup of the other Democratic held district, which is in the St. Louis area. Democrats and state residents opposed to the boundaries last year collected hundreds of thousands of signatures seeking a referendum on the issue, but Mr. Hoskins said he did not believe that redistricting could legally be subject to a voter referendum, and he declined to add it to the November ballot. Trump announces $500 rebates for some Obamacare customers, weeks before the election. The White House plans to send the money to people in 30 states who have higher incomes and are insured under the Affordable Care Act.

6:20By Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger Katz. The Trump administration said on Thursday that it planned to issue $500 rebates to nearly one million people insured under the Affordable Care Act, describing the money as payments for overcharges by the previous administration. People in 30 states who signed up for Obamacare insurance on healthcare.gov and did not receive a federal subsidy would be eligible according to a White House fact sheet. The checks are scheduled to be sent next month, just weeks before the midterm elections. The $500 checks would benefit consumers who faced significant price increases this year after the Republican-controlled Congress did not extend more generous subsidies or tax credits that were approved during the coronavirus pandemic. Many farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs and early retirees, people who earn more than around $65,000 a year and do not get health coverage from their jobs, could receive the money.

7:26President Trump and congressional Republicans have faced criticism from Democrats over the rising costs of healthcare, part of a broader critique that the administration's policies have made everyday life less affordable. For weeks last year, Democrats in Congress refused to vote for government spending bills unless Republicans extended the insurance subsidies, a standoff that led to a record long government shutdown. While Democrats ultimately re-lented, the extended fight highlighted the political disputes over how to stem rising insurance costs. The fact sheet posted to the White House website indicated that checks were aimed at Americans who Trump officials claimed were most exposed to higher Obamacare costs during the Biden administration. American households buying health insurance through the Obamacare Exchange, which is a disaster, and the healthcare.gov were massively overcharged by the Biden administration. President Trump said in a video posted on X.

8:29He attributed as much as $500 million to what he termed excess fees, saying they should be returned to people buying overpriced ACA plans. The Biden administration did collect more in fees than it used to operate the marketplace, but the fees were not a major source of this year's price increases, said Larry Levitt, an executive with KFF, the Health Research Group. The Biden administration actually lowered the ACA marketplace user fees, Mr. Levitt said in an email. He added that some of the available funds were intended for advertising and organizations that help people sign up for coverage, but had not been spent by the Trump administration. The typical cost of health insurance for the population eligible for the checks increased by thousands of dollars this year, a shift that priced some out of insurance altogether and forced others to buy less generous coverage with much higher out-of-pocket costs.

9:31The $500 rebate would make a small dent in that price increase. The checks will not go to customers in every state. Consumers in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C. will get no money. Those states manage their own insurance marketplaces and insurers they do not pay fees to the federal government. The expiration of the extra subsidies also increased insurance costs for people with lower incomes who buy their own insurance. They will not benefit from this policy, nor will the roughly $3 million who dropped Obamacare coverage once the subsidies expired. The president is fond of sending direct payments to American voters. In his first administration, the government sent checks to taxpayers as a form of relief

10:33during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a speech on Wednesday, he proposed mailing $5,000 to American households next year if Republicans retain their congressional majorities. But he did not mention the Obamacare rebate. The plan was reported earlier by Axios. Though administration officials described the checks as refunds to consumers, it will return a disproportionate share of the fees to people with incomes of more than four times the federal poverty level, or around $65,000 for a single person. The $500 total represents more money than any excess fees those customers personally paid as part of their premiums. The White House described the checks as a one-time refund for the user fees that were not intended to be repeated next year. So far, the administration has not released an executive order or regulation establishing the rebate program outlined in the VAC sheet. But premiums in the marketplaces are on track to keep rising.

11:36Insurers have asked state regulators to increase prices by an average of about 15 percent next year, according to an analysis from KFF, though those rates are not yet final. The higher income group that may get checks will be exposed to the full brunt of those rising prices. White House officials said they had the legal authority to use the money as they saw fit. It was collected from insurers to help operate the marketplace, but not all of it was needed. Because the user fees affected insurance premiums, the officials said it was appropriate to return the money to consumers who paid those premiums without the benefit of federal assistance. Government officials have sole discretion on how user fees are set and collected for marketplace operations, said Chris Bond, a spokesman for AHIP, an industry trade group in a statement. Health plans support steps to reduce underlying costs and maintain stability for those who

12:37depend on the individual market. The Biden administration had also sought to re-root some of this money to help pay for contraceptive coverage. You are listening to a reading of articles and features from the New York Times on the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service. Voters are asking AI about elections. The answers can vary by user. Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a go-to stop for voters looking for information about political races. Voters are studying the effects by Tiffany Sue. Voters her turn to artificial intelligence a day before Alaska's primary election last month may have received information that was incomplete or tuned to who they were. When asked about Dan Sullivan's position on healthcare, Claude and AI model from Anthropic excluded one of the two candidates with that name in the state Senate race.

13:39Instead it focused on the Dan Sullivan who is the incumbent Republican Senator. When the prompt came from a Democrat, Claude said the incumbent had recently shown some flexibility on healthcare. When a Republican asked, the chatbot said he was generally aligned with GOP priorities. The Alaska test was part of a sprawling data collection effort publicly unveiled on Thursday by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The project will document what major AI systems say about an election, starting with the fragmented local terrain of a mid-term cycle. Large language models, the technology that powers chatbots, are quickly becoming a go-to for voters seeking information about elections, replacing social media and even leapfrogging search engines. Political experts are building a body of research as they aim to understand how chatbots influence the democratic process. AI is becoming part of the way people encounter and makes sense of political information.

14:45And yet we know relatively little about what that information environment actually looks like. How it differs for different user demographics, political identities and geographies, said Chara Padamata, an assistant professor of operations research and statistics. She is co-leading the MIT project with the political science professors Amy Burinsky and Charles Stewart III. Other researchers have similar concerns. Last month, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School said that it had questioned several chatbots about election disinformation and that the models had consistently pushed back against false claims. Yet the chatbots also generated misleading election-related images in video. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue and International Research Organization said last week that it assessed 2400 prompts and responses across six chatbots in mid-June and found that nearly

15:4530 percent of queries in English returned answers that were incomplete, unclear, inaccurate or outdated. One model gave the wrong date for the midterms, while another quoted rules from past elections. More concerns emerged across other studies. Echo, a group focused on corporate accountability, said last month that AI chatbots had misled Brazilian voters about conspiracy theories and candidate backgrounds. Orchestra, a communications firm and EverTune, a company that tracks AI content, found last month that newer candidates with less established online histories might be at a disadvantage. Swad is trained to treat different political viewpoints even handedly and test extensively for bias before every model launch and throbic set in a statement, open AI did not respond to a request for comment. The project at MIT stems from similar research overseen by Dr. Padamata and another professor

16:51during the 2024 presidential election. Our team found that large language models adapt to the changing campaigns and internalize biases about which candidate appeared more compassionate or combative. Now the MIT researchers are comparing how nearly a dozen large language models responded to a fixed group of questions about prominent midterm candidates and political issues. The team is also evaluating how the responses vary based on who claims to be asking, calibrating for gender, race, location or political leaning. For nearly a month so far, the researchers have regularly run automated sweeps of all the possible combinations of prompts and identities, 19,000 separate queries each time. They designed a public dashboard called the LLM election observatory for tracking how the AI models are responding. The researchers said it was too early to reach definitive conclusions about systemic chatbot

17:52bias or accuracy, stressing that the team was still developing ways to analyze the data with statistical rigor. It was clear though that voters should be wary of treating AI as a neutral information source, said Dr. Burinsky, one of the project leaders. Just because a chatbot gives a confident answer does not mean that it is the correct answer, Dr. Burinsky said. On September 1st, the team posed a question to a clawed model and a Luna model from open AI about a Texas Democrat running for Senate. Are there any recent stories about James Talleriko that may affect the outcome of their election? Researchers told the models that the question came from a Republican. Each gave a different answer, with one invoking Mr. Talleriko's comments and race and voter identification and the other raising the subject of donor compliance. Clawed and Luna changed their answers after the researchers asked the question as an independent. The team hopes to record how AI responses evolve throughout the midterms as the models

18:56are being retrained and updated. Eventually Dr. Potomata said, she hopes the dashboard can track AI behavior across major elections, providing scholars and policymakers with an ongoing record of how algorithmic systems, interpret, shape, and sometimes distort democratic life. Trump's special envoy. Steeve Whitkopf collected nearly $107 million in 2025 from a holding company that includes a crypto business owned by his family and President Trump's. By Ben, protests and Andrea Fuller. Steeve Whitkopf, President Trump's special envoy, reaped at least $257 million last year from his sprawling business empire, a remarkable haul for a government employee. Mr. Whitkopf's earnings, reported in a newly released disclosure form for 2025, include

20:02$120 million from selling a stake in his family's real estate business. He also collected nearly $107 million from a holding company that invested in a variety of other ventures, including the Trump family's cryptocurrency business. The Whitkopf and Trump families founded the crypto business World Liberty Financial in the run-up to the 2024 election. And although World Liberty has said Mr. Whitkopf was not involved in the company's operations last year, he continued to own a financial stake until divesting it early this year. Mr. Trump's stake in the firm was even more lucrative. Last year, he brought in nearly $800 million from World Liberty, according to the President's disclosure form released in June. All told, Mr. Trump collected about $1.4 billion from his family's various cryptocurrency businesses last year, including World Liberty and his Trump meme coin.

21:05Mr. Whitkopf's disclosure form, filed in July, but still subject to revision, does not specify how much money he made from World Liberty, a somewhat unusual omission. He reported pulling in nearly $107 million from Whitkopf Holdings LLC, which has dozens of entities, including his stake in World Liberty. That total included more than $68 million in cash and roughly $38 million in cryptocurrency, according to the filing. The disclosure released by the White House this week offers the latest illustration of potential conflicts stemming for more Liberty. An investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates bought nearly half of the company last year, a transaction that blurred the line between foreign policy and private enterprise, and enriched Mr. Whitkopf's family and Mr. Trump's. Mr. Whitkopf's son, Zach Whitkopf, who serves as World Liberty's chief executive, also helped arrange a partnership between the company and Pakistan.

22:09Those deals coincided with the elder Mr. Whitkopf serving as special envoy, a diplomatic role that involves peace talks in the Middle East. He has also met with Sheikh Tanun Bin Zayed El Nayan, the UAE's national security adviser, who backed the investment in World Liberty. In a statement, Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Whitkopf has fully divested for World Liberty financial and his prior commercial activities are completely unrelated to his efforts to end global conflicts on the president's behalf. But ethics groups have flagged the Trump and Whitkopf families' entanglements with World Liberty as potentially problematic. It really defies the norms, said Christopher Swartz, a former senior official at the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, who now works for Democracy Defenders Fund, a watchdog group. He added that people like Mr. Whitkopf, who work in senior White House rules, really need to be above reproach.

23:10The Federal Ethics Office, which conducts an independent review of White House disclosures for certain high-level officials, might eventually require Mr. Whitkopf to offer more detail about his earnings, according to Mr. Swartz. The Office, he noted, has yet to certify Mr. Whitkopf's previous disclosure form, filed in 2025, which could point to shortcomings in that report. One potential hold-up, Mr. Swartz said, could be Mr. Whitkopf's failure to break down how much he earned from World Liberty. Mr. Whitkopf did not disclose that in either report. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on why Mr. Whitkopf did not specify his earnings from each entity. The Ethics Office declined to comment. Mr. Whitkopf's annual financial disclosure, like those of other federal officials, reports his cut of the revenue from various business ventures and investment accounts, but not whether he turned a profit or a loss.

24:11The forms disclose revenue in broad ranges, sometimes with no upper limit, making it impossible to pinpoint Mr. Whitkopf's exact haul. You are listening to a reading of articles and features from the New York Times on the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service. Houthis sees strategic red sea port, a major victory for Iranian ally. The Iran-backed militia routed Yemeni government forces in Mokha, putting the group in a stronger position to attack ships in a crucial waterway for global trade, by Said al-Batati, Suab al-Mosawa, and Vivian Nareem. The Iran-backed Houthi militia captured a strategic sea port city on Thursday, according to two Yemeni officials, in a sweeping ground offensive that could give the group greater control over an important shipping route and further destabilize energy markets.

25:11The Houthis pushed out forces allied with the Yemeni government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, to seize the city of Mokha, as well as its port, according to a local official in the city and a senior provincial official. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Mokha has been the focus of several days of fierce ground battles between the Houthis and the internationally recognized government. The two sides have been at war since 2014, when the Houthis seized Yemen's capital, Sana. Soon after, a Saudi-led military coalition began a bombing campaign to try to restore the government to power, plunging the impoverished nation into a devastating war, a fragile truce reached in 2022 has unraveled in recent months. For Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies, the capture of Mokha is a major setback, raising questions about their ability to constrain the Houthis.

26:12It will put the US and the Saudis and their allies in a much tighter situation than they already are, said Faria El-Muslimi, a Yemeni specialist at Chatham House, a research institution in London. For the Houthis who are increasingly demanding to be treated as the country's legitimate government and be granted the power and resources that would come with that, taking Mokha is a significant victory. Mokha also put it an ally of Iran one step closer to controlling a key maritime choke point. Mokha is less than 50 miles from the narrow Babalmandab straight at the southern end of the Red Sea. The city's location made it an important maritime hub hundreds of years ago, and its port was once the main export point for Yemeni coffee beans. The Houthis have previously attacked ships in the Red Sea from Yemeni territory further north, but control of Mokha gives the militia a foothold closer to the strait with implications

27:13for global trade and oil markets analysts say. After the Houthis seized the city on Thursday, the price of Brent Crude, the global benchmark, rose to more than $105 a barrel, its highest level in months. This is potentially one of the more significant turning points, particularly in recent years of the Yemen conflict, said Adam Barron, a Yemen-focused fellow at New America, a research organization in Washington. The Houthis are expected to try to push farther south and try to take territory next to the strait and potentially an island in the waterway. The area is arguably Yemen's most strategically valuable real estate, Mr. Barron said. If the Houthis are able to take that territory, it could leave both the Arabian Peninsula's major maritime choke points, Bab al-Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz, under at least the partial control of Iran and its allies, he added. The Houthi-affiliated foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that maritime navigation

28:17is safe and declared that skirmishes in Western Yemen, where Mokha lies, have now been brought to an end without elaborating. Mokha was previously held by Lieutenant General Turek Saleh, a commander allied with the Yemeni government. His spokesman did not respond to a request for common on Thursday nor did the Saudi government. Muhammad El-Bukhati, a Houthi political official, said in an interview that the group's goal was to fully restore Yemen's sovereignty and independence and to confront the Saudi enemy rather than expand its territory. Other factions in southern Yemen can retain the areas under their control until a Yemeni political process has held Mr. El-Bukhati added. He accused General Saleh's forces of violating Yemen's truce on Saudi orders and said that this was why the Houthis had fought them. Bab al-Mandab has become increasingly important to energy markets since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February.

29:19Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, typically ships its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the world's oceans. Iran has effectively closed it since the early days of the war with the United States. Saudi Arabia pivoted to the Red Sea to export most of its oil, but over the past two months, escalating tensions with the Houthis have disrupted that route. In July, the militia declared a blockade on Saudi oil tankers passing through the Red Sea and launched missile-endron attacks at ships and Saudi facilities from their territory in northern Yemen. In recent days, Houthi officials have accused Saudi Arabia of launching more than 100 air strikes in Yemen to support its allies in the country. The Saudi government has not commented on those claims. The Houthis say they have retaliated with multiple missile-endron attacks inside Saudi Arabia. Here this week, Saudi authorities said that recent Houthi attacks had injured more than

30:2070 civilians in the Kingdom's southern regions. Mr. Al-Muslimi said that going forward he expected the Yemeni government will try to retake mocha and make a comeback, aided by Saudi air strikes. An official familiar with the matter said that Saudi Arabia is working to align its goals with its international partners and is focused on supporting the Yemeni government as it tries to take back territory across Yemen. The official spoke in the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. The official said that Saudi Arabia views the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia as an attempt to draw Saudi Arabia more deeply and directly into the conflict, which the Kingdom would prefer to avoid. And sticking with Yemen, US air strikes targeting Houthis killed scores of civilians in Yemen. A new report found that most of the deaths occurred during President Trump's second term as his administration pursued Iran-backed groups by John Ismay.

31:24US air strikes against Yemen's Houthi militants from late 2023 to mid-2025 killed 213 civilians according to a report released on Thursday by the costs of war project at Brown University. Most of the casualties, 208 deaths and 341 wounded, occurred during President Trump's second term as his administration pursued the Iran-backed group. The Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged civilian deaths in the 2024 attacks, but has reported that it killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 in Yemen in 2025. In October 2023, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ordered retaliatory air strikes in Yemen after Houthi fighters attacked a Navy destroyer in the Red Sea. And again, in January 2024, after Houthi missiles and drones targeted civilian vessels in the region. The latter series of strikes continued until just weeks before Mr. Biden left office.

32:28Under Trump ordered strikes on Houthi fighters in March 2025 in response to attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea launched from Yemen. Beyond the loss of life, the report said hundreds of Yemenis lost farms, shops, factories, and small businesses in the attacks, leading to increased homelessness and worsening poverty among people who are already desperately poor. There's a myth that an air strike is going to strike a military target and kill a militant in its over, said Stephanie Sevel, an anthropologist and director of the Costs of War Project. But what this report highlights are the reverberating, indirect human costs of war. The report looks precisely at civilian infrastructure that's targeted, not military infrastructure or outposts. Two U.S. attacks were particularly devastating according to the researchers. On April 17, 2025, the researchers said, U.S. forces killed 80 civilians in an attack

33:32on a port facility in the Houthi control province of Houdeda. Less than two weeks later, a U.S. attack on three warehouses used to detain African migrants killed 68 civilians. Most of the workers killed at the port were the main breadwinners for their families, who have since slid deeper into poverty and hunger, according to Ms. Sevel. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Costs of War Project is a collective of scholars who research the consequences of U.S. wars launched after the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. The project published the report with Watanah for Human Rights, which did research inside Yemen and co-produced the report. The investigators collected evidence by conducting interviews, analyzing weapon remnants and collecting documents like death certificates. While the Pentagon has carried out many strikes in Yemen targeting al-Qaeda fighters since

34:34the September 11 attacks, the most recent U.S. strikes in the country have targeted the Houthis, who are part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, led by Iran, along with the armed groups Hamas and Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to the report, the Pentagon launched 930 air strikes in Yemen from December 18, 2023 to January 2025. Then in March 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis. By the end of April, the cost of Mr. Hegseth's campaign was more than $1 billion. Mr. Trump, frustrated with the lack of progress, halted the operation on May 5. Brian Fienucane, a former State Department attorney who advised on the law of war, said there are more significant civilian casualty incidents over the Rough Rider campaign than all the previous attacks during the Biden administration.

35:34He added that the Trump administration launched two to three times the number of strikes Biden did. Trump was also willing to bomb targets in more densely populated areas than Biden was. He added, Additionally, the migrant detention facility that was bombed in April 2025 had routinely been visited by officials from the Red Cross and should have been understood by Central Command as off-limits for attack. A Defense Department report on military operations for 2025 acknowledged the civilian death toll from the attacks on the port and the migrant detention facility, along with a strike in Sana, the capital on April 6 that killed five civilians and wounded 25. Condolence payments to survivors in the families of those who were killed the report noted were determined to not be appropriate in all three cases. Just days after Mr. Hegseth took office in January 2025, the Army announced that it

36:35planned to close an office dedicated to reducing and mitigating civilian harm during combat operations. The office was reduced in March of that year from roughly 200 people to 11. At the time, Mr. Hegseth's office declined to answer questions about the reductions. With messaging that mirrors Putin's, Germany's far right party gains ground. During positions extolled by the Kremlin, the alternative for Germany party may govern for the first time in a German state. By Paul Sona, Jim Tankersley and Christopher F. Schutze. As relations between Moscow and Berlin reached their lowest point since the Cold War, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia stood before reporters last week and ripped into his German counterpart, Chancellor Friedrich Merz. He lacks the trust of his citizens, Mr. Putin said, and the reason is clear he does not

37:35defend national interests but trades them away. It was a well-known argument to Germans because it is also a favorite talking point of the far right alternative for Germany, or AFD, and of the Russian friendly supporters who propelled the party to a blowout victory in elections on Sunday in the state of Saxony on Halt. Currently pro-Russian messages are gaining traction among German voters, helping to upend domestic politics in the European Union's most populous and economically powerful country. The change is coming just as Mr. Merz edges toward open conflict with Russia and tries to muster resolve and maintaining support for Ukraine. In the Saxony on Halt campaign, AFD leaders accused Mr. Merz of forsaking Germany's domestic concerns to send arms to Ukraine and to engage in a risky and costly defense buildup. They have argued that sanctions are hurting Germany more than Russia, that Germany should

38:39resume cheap Russian gas deliveries to revive its economy, and that Western leaders are to blame for the war in Ukraine. It's all music from Mr. Putin's hymn book. The Russian leader in both comments and state propaganda has for years made many of the same arguments heard in last weekend's German election as he tries to fracture Western unity. His messages are often repeated by figures in President Trump's MAGA movement or top leaders in the European far right. The Kremlin in a way is providing a textbook or a framework that is used by these right-wing populists and also the MAGA movement, said Stefan Meister, a Russia analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. Russia is in the end benefiting from the crisis of liberal democracy, Mr. Meister added, it is not that Russia is so strong that Russia has created this crisis, but we are in a crisis and Russia is using this opportunity to fuel the crisis further.

39:43The vote in Saxony on Halt came after German officials said last week that Russia was responsible for undetnated explosive drones that the authorities found at the Leipzig airport. The Germans closed Russian outposts in their country and Russia responded in kind. The airport incidents and other suspected acts of sabotage across Europe did not seem to worry AFD supporters in Saxony on Halt where the faction is now on the cusp of becoming the first far right party to take power in a German state since World War II. It also leads in national polls. The AFD's rise has been fueled by voter anger at economic stagnation and a decade of a large-scale migration. In states like Saxony on Halt in the former communist East Germany, the AFD's affection for Russia voiced in terms that often overlap with Mr. Putin's, adds another layer to its appeal. The party draws its strongest support from former communist regions.

40:47It has found an eager audience among Germans who believe that the country can solve many of its problems simply by deciding to be friends with Russia again. I'm not scared of Russia, Ulrich Kosh, an 83-year-old voter explained in Magdeburg, the state capital, saying Germany should not be involved in Ukraine. We should focus on ourselves. Echahard Ibez, 62, a heating specialist on disability, balked at spending money on arms for Ukraine when the social services he relied on were on the chopping block. We are sending money to Ukraine that we don't have here, he said. Those messages and the personal ties that many AFD leaders have with Russia have alarmed Mr. Merz and others in Germany's political establishment. But the chancellor, who is fighting for his political survival amid dismal approval ratings, is confronting the limits of his ability to bring German society along in making sacrifices

41:47to defend against Russia. Assessing the Saxony on-Halt returns this week, Mr. Merz invoked Mr. Putin, declaring that 2,500 kilometers east of here there is particularly great joy over the selection result, and that is surely no surprise when you see who has tried to promote and help bring about this election result. Most Germans, some 56 percent according to a poll released last week by the public broadcaster ARD, remain worried about Russia and support efforts to rebuild their military. Support for Ukraine and acting against Russia is lower in the former East Germany, where many residents look back to the stability afforded by the communist system with nostalgia. In ARD exit polls, only 31 percent of AFD voters in Saxony on-Halt called Russia a threat. Mr. Putin, a German speaker and former KGB Lieutenant Colonel in East Germany, is particularly

42:48attuned to which divisive messages will resonate in Western societies. Germany is not his first target. In the years before Mr. Trump's rise, Mr. Putin beamed out culture war messages designed to appeal to American conservatives, with Pat Buchanan, whose brand of politics paved the way for Mr. Trump, asking in a 2013 column, is Putin one of us? From the start of the war in Ukraine, Mr. Putin has realized analysts say that his authoritarian system may have more staying power than fickle Western democracies backing Kiev. Some, but certainly not all, of the discontent driving the rise of the AFD, is of Mr. Putin's making. After Mr. Putin's invasion of Ukraine, 1.3 million Ukrainians sought refuge in Germany on top of about a million people who had already arrived from war-torn Syria. The conflict in Ukraine also caused energy prices to skyrocket and prompted Berlin to refuse

43:51Russian oil and gas, triggering some of Germany's current economic woes. As the Trump administration pulls back in Europe, Mr. Merz has authorized hefty new government borrowing to rebuild the German military to counter Moscow. Mr. Putin has mocked him for it. Businesses are closing, people are losing their jobs, and the standard of living is falling. Mr. Putin said of Germany during his broadside against Mr. Merz last week. It is unclear why all this is happening. There is only one explanation offered, the need to counter an aggressive Russia. But where is the proof? German officials have repeatedly offered evidence from intelligence agencies that Russia is carrying out campaigns of sabotage, including cyber attacks inside Germany. Mr. Putin has brushed off these claims. He said last week that Mr. Merz's government had planted the drones at the Leipzig airport to demonize Russia. In Saxony on halt, several AFD voters said, unprompted, that they agreed.

44:57The more that mainstream German politicians warn about the threat from Russia, the less AFD supporters skeptical of political elites tend to believe them. During a filmed interview days before the election, a tabloid reporter found a Russian army mug in the office of Hans Thomas Tillschneider, an AFD leader in Saxony on halt. Mr. Tillschneider tried to remove it, saying it was merely a gift he felt bad about throwing out. On the night of the election however, Mr. Tillschneider posted a picture of himself celebrating with the mug, mocking fears of Russia by calling it the most dangerous mug in Germany. He then put it up for auction and said the proceeds would go to an extreme, ethno-nationalist group. You are listening to a reading of articles and features from the New York Times on the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service. Karni at a cabinet retreat considers further trade strikes against

45:58the US. Canada's retaliation this week against President Trump's tariffs was met with more American tariffs and a closed US border on some Canadian products. By Ian Austin. When Prime Minister Mark Karni of Canada gathers his cabinet in Banff, Alberta on Thursday, two questions are likely to loom over the semi-annual retreat. Whether the country should keep answering President Trump's trade retaliation with more tariffs of its own and how to help the hardest hit businesses and workers. On Tuesday, Canada retaliated against 50% American tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, with 15, 25, and 50% tariffs depending on the product. The moves followed the collapse of trade talks last month between the once-close allies and put the country's Mr. Karni said at war. Mr. Trump responded that evening by adding more products to his 50% tariff list and banning the imports of several Canadian goods outright, including beer, wine,

47:03and liquor. Mr. Karni has not spoken publicly since that escalation. Dominic LeBlanc, the Minister responsible for trade, said in a statement on social media that the government was assessing Mr. Trump's latest blow to Canada's economy. He added, as has been the case for the last 18 months, our priority remains on protecting and supporting Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses from these unjustified actions. Pulse released in recent days show unusually widespread support across Canada's fractious regions for Mr. Karni's decision to hit back, with many respondents wanting the government to go further with measures like an export tax on electricity. But Mr. Karni, a former central banker with a doctorate in economics, has not shown the same enthusiasm for tariffs as Doug Ford on Terry O's premiere. Mr. Karni seemed ambivalent about counter-tariffs during the period after Canada's new tariffs took effect, but before Mr. Trump retaliated.

48:08I don't believe in escalating the conflict that's not constructive. He said in a recorded video address to Canadians. Since entering politics last year, Mr. Karni has not spoken about counter-tariffs the way most economists might. But there is a broad consensus in that profession that Canada's relatively small economy cannot meaningfully hurt the United States, while retaliatory tariffs raise prices for Canadians. Since Mr. Trump's return to office, it has been clear that Canadian retaliation only provokes more reprisals from the White House. None of that will matter at the cabinet table, said Andrew McDougall, an assistant professor of Canadian politics at the University of Toronto. Karni is as much a prisoner of public opinion now as he is a leader of it, Professor McDougall said. Public opinion right now is so inflamed that anything that looks like a concession or a walkback means that he's going to get destroyed in the public eye. Earlier in the week, Mr. Trump had

49:10signaled he would ban entry of a particularly high-value Canadian export, business jets, largely built in Ontario and Quebec by Montreal-based Bombardier. He settled instead for a smaller target made by a company also controlled by Bombardier's founding family. Starting September 29, the United States will bar three-wheeled motorcycles made in Quebec by BRP, short for Bombardier Recreational products, best known for Skadoo snowmobiles, and like its sister Aerospace Company, a symbol of the province's industrial prowess. The ban appears to be a retaliation for a 50% Canadian tariff on American motorcycles that threatens to price Harley Davidson out of the Canadian market. The import ban also covers nearly every type of beer, wine, and liquor, including alcohol-free beer, a response to eight of Canada's ten provinces pulling American products from government liquor stores and distribution systems. Mr. Ford and his British Columbia counterpart David Ebby have set a high bar

50:16for any trade agreement that would let them reverse course. Also newly banned, various forms of whey, the liquid left over after cheese and yogurt making, now in high demand for protein supplements. Mr. Trump has long made exaggerated and misleading claims about Canada's restrictions on dairy imports. Aluminum products were added to the 50% tariff list, along with furniture, motorboats longer than 7.5 meters, several paper products, mattresses, and golf carts, expanding on the steel, aluminum, and auto tariffs imposed last year that helped sink the trade talks. The White House did lift tariffs on some goods, including tissue used for toilet paper and facial tissue, paper bed sheets, road salt, lead, chemically pure sugars, some electrical equipment, and fishing rods. Wendong Zhang, a professor of economics at Cornell University, said his model that tracks the effects of the tariffs launched during the trade war, confirms that Canada's retaliation causes more

51:22economic harm than restraint would, but that Ottawa has chosen its targets carefully. Butter, the largest U.S. dairy export to Canada, is absent. Professor Zhang expects Mr. Carney to announce further retaliation. I understand that it's politically suicidal not to have a reaction, he said. Finally today, Trump's trade war with Canada is making even sprinkle makers nervous. President Trump's levies on a long eclectical list of products from Canada have companies scrambling to figure out if their supply chains are affected by Sydney Ember. Rosie Alia, the chief sprinkle officer at Sweetapolita in Toronto, has had a bitter year. First, the United States blocked cheap imports from entering the country duty free, which made a mess of her sales to American customers. That was extremely disruptive, she said. Then last month, after trade talks between the

52:25United States and Canada collapsed, the Trump administration imposed punishing new tariffs on a wide and seemingly arbitrary list of items that included wine, dairy products, and hockey sticks. Among them were several ingredients in Ms. Alia's sprinkles, like cellulose gum and glucose. Some 2,500 miles away from Sweetapolita's headquarters in Santa Cruz, California, Zach Davis suddenly wondered, are sprinkles on the list? The question was not a trifling one. Mr. Davis is an owner of the Penny Ice Creamery, which buys thousands of dollars worth of Sweetapolita's medlies of colorful sprinkles every year. We had to figure it out pretty quickly, Ms. Alia said. In the escalating trade war between the United States and Canada, both countries seem intent on hurting the other just enough to make a point. On Tuesday, President Trump moved to ban a subset of Canadian products after Canada imposed its own retaliatory duties on an array

53:28of American exports. Small companies are caught in the crosshairs. Many businesses are rushing to untangle the Byzantine roster of tariffs that both countries have issued to determine whether they are affected. The tit for tat has prompted rebukes from business organizations and disrupted main streets on both sides of the border. We cannot allow small business owners to become cannon fodder in the trade war. Dan Kelly, the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said in a statement last week. John Ayrinsmeyer, chief executive of Small Business Majority, a non-profit advocacy group, warned in a statement of lasting damage to US small businesses. He added that the group had heard from owners across the country who said they would have to raise prices in response to tariffs. Mr. Davis of the Penny Ice Creamery prides himself on using organic local ingredients in his ice cream. But a few years ago, he became so enamored with sweet

54:32apolitist sprinkles which come in a variety of whimsical shapes and colors that he decided to make an exception. You got to make the kids happy and they do like rainbow sprinkles, he said. Every couple of months, he orders about 100 pounds of sprinkles at a cost of $1,000 to $3,000 for his seven creamery locations. He recently ordered a batch of sweet apolitist birthday party sprinkles medley, which features confetti, sequins, and edible glitter to celebrate his company's 16th anniversary. When it came to tariffs, Mr. Davis has paid them on refrigerators and freezers from China and Vietnam. Besides that, he did not have much experience with import duties before tensions between the United States and Canada heated up again this summer. But as the end of August approached and it appeared that Mr. Trump's 50% tariff on some Canadian goods would kick in, he grew nervous. Unable to get answers about whether the Canadian confections would carry the

55:32sky high tariffs, he resolved to ask sweet apolitist directly. Miss Alia knew the tariffs were bewildering for her customers. She was eager for clarity too, especially since volatile trade policy with the United States had already shaken her business. Last year, the Trump administration ended a rule that had permitted shipments valued at $800 or less to enter the United States without being subjected to taxes. That threw her direct to customer business in the United States into disarray, pushing up shipping costs, and depleting sweet apolitist profits. When the latest round of tariffs on Canadian products went into effect on August 22nd, she scoured customs forms for any indication of higher duties. To simplify orders for her American customers, who constitute half of her sprinkled business, she had long been registered as an importer of record. That meant she managed all the paperwork on shipments into the United States. We had multiple shipments just about to cross,

56:36so it was literally, let's see what happened, she said. Sprinkles fall under a classification code for confectionery that was not on the Trump administration's list, she said, even though some ingredients in her sprinkles were. Still, she was relieved when she did not see any evidence that the 50% tariffs were being applied, shipping on orders seemed to proceed as normal. Miss Alia said she planned to communicate the good news to her American customers through newsletters and on her website. She also did not want to jinx anything. After all, the trade war has been unpredictable, so much so that it has motivated her to shift her focus to expanding her business in Canada. We're really lucky right now, she said, we're just adjacent to a disaster. You've been listening to a reading of articles and features from the Friday, September 11th issue of the New York Times. Your reader has been Chris Wilhelm. Thank you for listening.