The Headlines - A Big Test for Trump’s Tariffs, and Major Cuts to Air Traffic

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Plus, using A.I. to find a date. Here’s what we’re covering:Key Justices Cast a Skeptical Eye on Trump’s Tariffs by Ann E. MarimowTrump Officials to Cut Air Traffic at 40 Major Airports if Shutdown Continues by Karoun DemirjianFederal Judge Imposes Restrictions on ICE Facility at Center of Illinois Protests by Mitch SmithMexico’s President Presses Charges Against Man Who Groped Her on the Street by Annie Correal and Emiliano Rodríguez MegaYou Don’t Need to Swipe Right. A.I. Is Transforming Dating Apps by Eli TanTune in every weekday morning, and tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis in for Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, November 6th, here's what we're covering. At the Supreme Court yesterday, the justice has heard one of the most consequential cases of the term, as they considered arguments about President Trump's aggressive use of tariffs. The question at the center of the case is whether Trump overstepped his authority when he used a decades-old law to impose sweeping surcharges on goods coming into the U.S. I want to make a very important distinction here.

We don't contend that what's being exercised here is the power to tax. It's the power to regulate foreign commerce. Lawyers for the government argued that the law gives the president broad authority to respond to economic and national security threats. Past presidents have used it to impose things like sanctions or embargoes, but Trump is the first president to use it for tariffs. I just don't understand this argument. It's a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax.

And you want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that's exactly what they are. They're generating money from American citizens' revenue. The court's liberal justices sharply questioned the administration, and they were joined by several key members of the conservative majority, who seemed skeptical of Trump's authority to impose the widespread tariffs. I mean, these are kind of across the board. And so is it your contention that every country, needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defense and industrial base?

I mean, Spain, France. I mean, I could see it with some countries. Ahead of Wednesday's hearing, President Trump said the case was, quote, literally life or death for our country. And Trump's Treasury Secretary and Commerce Secretary went to the courtroom to sit in on the arguments. The outcome of the case could be decided in weeks or in months. If the court rules against the administration, the government could be forced to refund some or all of the billions of dollars the U.S. has collected in tariff revenue so far. Still, trade experts say there are other ways, including some obscure legal provisions that the president could use to tax imports going forward.

For more on the hearing and what it could mean for presidential power more broadly, listen to today's episode of The Daily with Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptack. Now, two more updates on the Trump and administration. I anticipate there will be additional disruptions. There will be frustration. But in the end, our sole role is to make sure that we keep this airspace as safe as possible. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says that the federal governments will limit air traffic at 40 of the country's busiest airports starting tomorrow if the government shutdown continues. The new limits could lead to thousands of flights being canceled on short notice ahead of the busiest

travel season of the year. Duffy said the move would lift some pressure from air traffic controllers, who he said have been stretched to the limit. They haven't been paid for weeks, and many were working overtime shifts before the shutdown due to staffing shortages. Across the country, air traffic controller absences have already led to significant delays for travelers. In recent weeks, the intensity of Duffy's warnings around disruptions to air travel have been ramping up and have been notably political, as the administration has tried to turn up pressure on Democrats to end the shutdown. Also, a federal judge in Illinois has ordered immigration officials to improve conditions

at a detention center near Chicago, conditions he had described as unnecessarily cruel. He said the government must provide detainees with showers, clean water, and access to lawyers, among other things. The order came a day after several former detainees told the judge, judge about the site's squalid conditions, with no soap, no beds, garbage everywhere, and some people sleeping on the concrete floor. While the facility was designed for short-term detention, some people have been locked up there for days, as the administration has ramped up its immigration crackdown in Chicago. There have been frequent protests outside.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said detainees' claims of poor conditions at the center are, quote, false. The judge gave federal officials until midday tomorrow to submit a report on their progress. In Mexico, President Claudia Shane Bond says she's filed a criminal complaint against a man who groped her on the street, an incident that was caught on camera and shocked many in the country. It happened on Tuesday. She was walking between meetings in central Mexico City to save time with no security when the man moved to kiss her and put his hands on her chest. He's since been arrested.

Speaking at a press conference, Shane Baum said, If this can happen to the president, what's going to happen to all the young women and women across our country? Shane Baum is Mexico's first female president, and she made ending violence against women a centerpiece of her campaign. Sexual harassment is not a federal crime in the country, or even a crime in all Mexican states. Something Shanebaum said she'll ask officials to reconsider.

For the moment, the high-profile case has prompted many Mexican women to reflect on how common it is to be groped, even while walking in public during the day. Many women the Times spoke with recalled being touched inappropriately on public transit in particular. People who study gender-based violence in the country said Shanebaum's decision to speak out and press charges was a meaningful change in the status quo, with one saying, quote, it sends an important message that such violence is completely real. And finally, in the past few years, dating apps have struggled with what they call, the cycle of despair, where you download an app, swipe on a bunch of matches, and then don't get responses or get ghosted and delete the app, only to redownload it a few months later.

These issues have really hurt the companies behind the dating apps, and as people are less willing to pay for subscriptions, the dating apps themselves are struggling to make money. So now they're trying to come up with a new plan to turn their businesses around, and that involves AI. Eli Tan is a technology reporter at the Times, who's been covering the AIification of dating apps, from top brands like Tinder to new AI-native startups. He says there's a whole range of tools the apps are rolling out. One example, there's an AI matchmaker service that has you spend about a half hour on a phone call with a chat bot that asks you questions about the kind of person you're looking for. It then charges you $25 for a single custom match who's supposedly a great fit.

There's also the app Grindr, which has what it calls an AI win. man that gives conversation advice, and Hinge lets you use AI to review your profile and give feedback about what to tweak. It's still yet to be seen if these features will catch on, but a lot of people are already turning to them. One person I talked to named Emma was a 25-year-old in San Francisco. She tried out the AI matchmaker, and she was nervous about the date, but it ended up going great.

They talked for multiple hours at a bar, and afterwards they exchanged numbers and said they were looking forward to a second date. But in the end, he ghosted her and never text her back. I think it's a reminder that the AI and the algorithms can only do so much for our dating lives. And in the end, it's still going to be two human beings that are talking to each other. Those are the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis. We'll be back tomorrow with the latest updates and the Friday News Quiz.

Thank you.