The Daily - The Headlines: May 23

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Our new show brings you the biggest stories in about 10 minutes. It's the complement to The Daily you’ve been waiting for. This episode includes: Prosecutors Sought Records on Trump’s Foreign Business Deals Since 2017, with our courts and criminal justice reporter Alan FeuerA Breakthrough Deal to Keep the Colorado River From Going Dry, for Now, with our climate reporter Chris FlavelleWhy Bakhmut? It’s a Question as Old as War, with our Ukraine correspondent Thomas Gibbons-Neff We'll be sharing The Headlines every day this week, right here in your Daily feed. To get the full experience, download New York Times Audio, a new app that's home to all our audio journalism, including exclusive new shows. Free for Times news subscribers. Download it at nytimes.com/audioapp. 

Hey, it's Michael. Every day this week, we're bringing you something extra, a new show called The Headlines. It's a short show with three top stories that go beyond what we're covering on The Daily. In fact, the shows are designed to go together. So try it out. And after this week, you can only get The Headlines

in our new app, New York Times Audio, where you can find the shows you already know and love, like The Daily, This American Life, Serial, The Run-Up, and discover a bunch of new shows that you can't get anywhere else, like the headlines. You can find the app at nytimes.com slash audio app, or search for NYT Audio in the App Store. Okay, here's the headlines. in the App Store. Okay, here's the headlines. Special Counsel Jack Smith issued a subpoena to the Trump Organization for records relating

to his dealings in foreign countries going back to 2017. We saw an agreement over the Colorado River that at least temporarily forestalls what could be the biggest water crisis facing America. Most of the world had never heard of Baku, but both militaries decided this was where they were going to place their bets and fight it out. From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Annie Correale. Today's Tuesday, May 23rd. Here's what we're covering. My name is Alan Foyer, and I have been covering the special counsel's two investigations into

former President Trump. And on Monday, we got a little peek into one of those investigations, the one which touches on Trump's handling of classified documents after he left the White House. What we learned on Monday was that the office of special counsel Jack Smith issued a subpoena to the Trump organization, President Trump's business, for records relating to his dealings in foreign countries going back to 2017 when President Trump was sworn into office. Now, we don't know exactly why Jack Smith's office wants to figure out sort of, you know, Jack Smith's office wants to figure out sort of, you know, gaining insight into Trump's ventures overseas. But in context, it would suggest that there is an effort afoot to connect Trump's deal

making in foreign countries with the classified documents that he took with him when he left the White House. the classified documents that he took with him when he left the White House. So there are a couple of details that may prove to be instructive in all of this. The specific countries that the special counsel's office mentioned in its subpoena were places like China, France, Turkey, and then several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia and Oman. Separately, we know that some of the documents that were found in Trump's possession had some relation to Middle Eastern countries. We also know that when the FBI searched Trump's private club and residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, they found some documents related to a briefing about President Emmanuel Macron of France.

We don't know if there's a direct connection between the request for foreign business dealings about these countries and these documents that at least seem tangentially to be related to those countries. But those connections could prove to be relevant to what the special counsel's office is looking for. Now, that said, there is no evidence to date that prosecutors have found any connections of that nature. But the point of all of this appears to be an attempt to divine a motive for why Trump took certain documents with him. The grand jury investigation that this subpoena we just learned about is part of is coming to an end. The testimony and the subpoenas, you know, we believe that that phase of the investigation is wrapping up. And what that would suggest is that special counsel's office would then sort of

begin the process of deciding whether or not to bring charges, and if so, what charges to bring. So all of this kind of investigative fodder will have a little more clarity about where it's all headed in the weeks to come. Here's what else our reporters are covering. On Monday, we saw an agreement to at least temporarily forestall the collapse of one of the most important river systems in the country and probably the area where America is most vulnerable right now to the effects of climate change. Christopher Flavell is a climate reporter for The Times, and he's been covering the effort to keep the Colorado River from going dry. It's almost impossible to adequately explain just how important the Colorado is. It's been called the lifeblood of the Southwest United States, and that's probably fair. It provides drinking water for 40 million or so Americans.

It provides hydroelectric power to millions of homes and businesses. It's really hard to imagine how Arizona and Nevada and California in particular would survive in their current form if the Colorado were to dry up. Climate change has meant the flow of the river has decreased significantly by roughly one-third in recent years compared to historical averages. That change became a crisis last summer when it looked as though the two reservoirs on the river could get so low that the turbines creating power, especially at the Hoover Dam, would no longer have enough water to generate that electricity. And since then, the Biden administration and the states that draw from that river have been wrangling over what to do about it. And Monday's agreement reflects those states and the government finally reaching a position they can all agree to.

This is a complicated deal, but the top line takeaway is that the federal government is doing two things. First, it's spending $1.2 billion to compensate water users that voluntarily reduce the amount of water they use from the river. And then on top of that, the government has got an agreement from Nevada, California, and Arizona that among themselves, those three states will find a way to achieve the additional cuts required. And together, those two things on paper will stop the Colorado system from collapsing, at least until the end of 2026. This deal isn't perfect by any stretch. This deal relies significantly on federal money, and it's unclear how long federal taxpayers will still be willing to pay water users in the Southwest to use less water.

But the biggest challenge is the deal only lasts for the next three and a half years. And by the end of 2026, there's supposed to be a new agreement in place. And that new agreement will be almost certainly harder to negotiate than this one, because as climate change keeps getting worse, the amount of water in the river will keep going down. And over time, it'll be harder and harder for states to find a way to cut their water use that doesn't meaningfully impair their economies or their population growth. So Monday's announcement maybe is best seen as a precursor and a preview to that next round of really tough negotiations that will then determine the future of the Southwest.

And finally. The last night that I was in Bakhmut in December, looking out from the sixth floor apartment and watching this battle play out below, I mean, it was almost like a panoramic view of this level of violence that I had never seen before in my life, just unprecedented levels of destruction. After months of brutal fighting, Russia has claimed victory in Bakhmut, the Ukrainian city that became the site of the longest-running sustained fight in the war. On Monday, a top Ukrainian official essentially acknowledged that the city had been lost. My colleague Thomas Gibbons-Neff has reported from Bakhmut several times since the war began. In his early visits there last year, he saw the city before it became a major focus of the fighting.

Bakhmut was this speed bump of a city. It was in this bowl of rolling hills surrounded by salt mines. And most of the world had never heard of Bakhmut. I have fond memories of these shawarma stands in the middle of town that would just have lines of soldiers lined up each day. And some would be coming off the front and others would be going to the front and they'd be grabbing food there and sharing stories. And you could just kind of hear off in the distance the dull thud of artillery. As the weeks went on, it kept getting louder and louder until the eastern part of the city was under heavy shelling and apartment buildings were getting hit.

By the late fall in November, artillery was hitting the city center. It was hitting around the hospital. Windows were shattering. Places that had been shelled before were being shelled again. It was kind of like a slow-moving storm that just kept getting closer and closer and closer until there were parts of the city you couldn't go anymore, parts of the city that were destroyed. No matter how many troops the Ukrainians poured in, new American weapons, the Russians just kept getting closer and closer until just this weekend,

where the last couple of buildings that the Ukrainians were fighting from gave out and retreated. It's always an unknown what battles are going to be the big one, how wars kind of move and evolve and where armies decide to meet on the battlefield. And Bakhmut and its strategic significance was, you know, this kind of phrase that was tossed around for months by analysts and military officials and Pentagon spokespeople was, you know, that Bakhmut wasn't important because it wasn't on a rail line. It wasn't near a supply line. It was on low ground. But it didn't really matter because both militaries and their leadership had decided this was where they were going to place their bets and fight it out and either hold it or take it.

At the battle's end, it easily joins this pantheon of other battles, whether it be Felicia, Iwo Jima, Gettysburg, they're all kind of a part of this list of places that maybe before these battles occurred were not that well known. And because of the incredible amount of human life invested and lost, now becomes something kind of larger than itself. And for the people and the soldiers there, I mean, the soldiers are reckoning with, you know, was it worth it? And the civilians there will be picking up the pieces for decades. Those are the headlines. I'm Annie Correal.

We'll be back tomorrow.