The Headlines - Anti-Drone Laser Is Said to Have Caused El Paso Airport Chaos, and Bondi Refuses to Apologize to Epstein Victims

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Plus, how the ultra-rich are changing the travel industry. Here’s what we’re covering:Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser, by Karoun Demirjian, Eric Schmitt, Kate Kelly, Hamed Aleaziz and Luke BroadwaterBondi Faces Anger From Lawmakers Over Handling of Epstein Files, by Glenn ThrushHouse Votes to Cancel Trump’s Canada Tariffs, by Robert JimisonEmployers Hired Swiftly in January After a Dismal 2025, by Lydia DePillisNew Method Can Find Hidden Eggs to Aid in Fertility Treatment, by Pam BelluckChampagne, Concierges and Emergency Sand: How the Ultra-Rich Travel, by Sarah LyallTune 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, February 12th. Here's what we're covering. I want to be very, very clear that this should have never happened. You cannot restrict airspace over a major city without coordinating with the city. In El Paso, Texas, local leaders sharply criticized the abrupt and mysterious closure of the airspace over the city yesterday. All aviation.

operations were grounded, including emergency flights. This was a major and unnecessary disruption, one that has not occurred since 9-11. The chaos began late Tuesday night when the Federal Aviation Administration announced a 10-day closure of El Paso's airspace with no warning. It was rescinded just hours later, but competing explanations for what happened have caused even more confusion. Top Trump administration officials said the shutdown happened after Mexican cartel drones suddenly crossed the U.S. border. The Secretary of Transportation claimed on social media that, quote, the threat has been neutralized. But that explanation was undercut by multiple people the Times talked to who'd been briefed on the situation.

They said the FAA issued the shutdown order after Border Patrol used an anti-drone laser on loan from the Pentagon. and aviation officials felt they didn't have enough time or information to make sure commercial flights wouldn't be affected. Border Patrol agents who used the laser thought they were targeting a cartel drone. It turned out to be a party balloon. Even before this incident, the ramped up use of anti-dron technology, like the Pentagon's laser, has raised safety concerns. In recent years, the military has developed a range of defensive systems, including microwave zappers and ryeye. rocket-launched counter drones, but most of those are intended for war zones. One drone expert told the times that using those kinds of deterrence domestically,

where there are thousands of passenger planes flying around, raises the risk of collateral damage. Now, three quick updates from Washington. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct? On Capitol Hill yesterday, Attorney General Pam Bondi faced off with lawmakers in a bitter back-and-forth, as they grilled her about the Department of Justice's handling of the Epstein investigation. How many have you indicted?

Excuse me. I'm going to answer the question. I'm going to answer the question. The hearing with the House Judiciary Committee quickly turned combative, as Democrats and at least one Republican on the panel, questioned why the department didn't redact the names of some of Epstein's victims from the files it released. It is about you taking responsibility for your department. of justice and the harm that it has done to the survivors who are standing right behind you. In one particularly tense exchange, Representative Pramila Jayapal tried to get Bondi to apologize

to a group of victims who were in the hearing room. I'm not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics. Bondi refused to apologize and defended her record, saying that as a prosecutor, she spent her, quote, entire career fighting for victims. Also in the House yesterday, lawmakers voted to rescind the tariffs President Trump imposed on Canada last year. It's a largely symbolic move because Trump can just veto it. But it's notable that six Republicans joined with Democrats to push back on the president. GOP leadership had been doing anything and everything it could to avoid this kind of vote,

in part because it didn't want its members to have to go on the record as supporting tariffs, which could be a divisive topic in the midterm elections. The GOP even went as far as manipulating what counts as a day in Congress to drag out a deadline on the topic. The question of whether Trump's sweeping tariffs will stand is also playing out in the Supreme Court. The justices are expected to rule soon on whether he had the authority to put them in place to begin with.

And new data from the Labor Department shows that the job market is off to a stronger than expected start this year, after a very bumpy 2025. The January jobs report shows employers added 130,000 jobs. The peppy results could be a sign that the labor market is emerging from a period of extremely slow hiring, brought on by trade wars, the administration's immigration crackdown, and its firing spree of government workers. Experts warn, though, that the economy is not growing evenly.

It called it a K-shaped economy, as in the letter K. Basically, higher-income households keep climbing up, like one branch of the letter, while lower-income households are struggling more and more, their branch angling down. The chief economist at U.S. Bank wrote in a report recently that the country has hit a 60-year peak in income inequality, a stat to drive that home. Last year, one-third of Americans' total net worth was held by the top 1% of households. This morning, a group of biotech researchers have published a new study that points to a potentially transformative method of fertility treatment. Many types of those treatments involve retrieving eggs from women, and the more eggs there are, the higher the chances are of getting a viable embryo that could lead to a birth.

The researchers discovered, though, that conventional methods of finding those eggs often miss some, and they've developed a device to collect more. of them. Fertility clinics have traditionally used high-power microscopes to search for eggs in what's known as follicular fluid, then discarded that fluid. The new method takes the fluid and runs it through a device that's basically like a mini pinball machine with a series of bumpers and lanes that catch eggs that might have otherwise been missed. Using that technique, the scientists were able to find additional eggs for more than half of patients. In one case, one of those eggs led to a pregnancy and healthy birth. A reproductive health expert, not involved in the research, told the times that showed that, quote, these extra eggs weren't small, shriveled up eggs that they

didn't want anyway. These were viable. That expert and others said the new research is promising, though larger studies are needed to confirm the results. The company behind the new findings says it's in talks with the FDA to get approval to deploy that pinball-like device more broadly. In the Meantime, it says fertility clinics can use it as part of research efforts. And finally, speaking of that K-shaped economy, our team personalizes every journey to inspire and amaze you. The luxury travel market is booming. While many people are cutting back on things like air travel or vacations, the ultra-rich,

we're talking 30 million plus, are going big and more and more companies want to a piece of that. At a recent travel expo in Cannes, there were ten times as many exhibitors and luxury travel advisors than in the early 2000s. The increasing competition has basically set off an arms race of how lux is lux? What wildest whim can we meet? If you're thinking, oh, private jet, you are not thinking big enough. Some of the travel executives shared stories like a client who wanted them to arrange it so his son could play soccer with big-name professional athletes in one of Italy's national stadiums. Or the time, a client panicked because a monsoon had eroded the beach near their rented villa in the Seychelles, and the advisor had to arrange to have an emergency

shipment of sand brought in. One said that for his clients, it's about emotion as much as anything, saying, quote, you want to feel more special than anyone else. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.