The Headlines - F.B.I. Chief to Step Out of ‘the Fray,’ and Housing’s Terrible Year

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Plus, a labor fight that could upend reality TV.   Tune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. On Today’s Episode:Christopher Wray Says He’ll Step Down as F.B.I. Director, by Adam Goldman and Devlin BarrettColleges Warn Foreign Students to Get to Campus Before Trump Takes Office, by Sharon OttermanCan the U.S. Climb Out of Its ‘Unprecedented’ Housing Crisis?, by Ronda KaysenThe Gold Rush at the Heart of a Civil War, by Declan WalshLabor Board Classifies ‘Love Is Blind’ Contestants as Employees, by Julia Jacobs

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, December 12th. Here's what we're covering. President-elect Donald Trump is one step closer to achieving his vision for the FBI. The current FBI director, Christopher Wray, announced that he's going to end his term early, effectively stepping out of Trump's way.

After weeks of careful thought, I've decided the right thing for the Bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down. Wray made the announcement yesterday in brief remarks to a packed conference room of FBI employees. This is not easy for me. I love our mission and I love our people. But my focus is and always has been on us and on doing what's right for the FBI. His decision wasn't unexpected. Trump was the one who appointed Ray originally in his first term, but quickly soured on him and has made clear he wants Ray out. Trump has railed against him, especially after the FBI searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents in 2022. In

a speech yesterday, Ray tacitly acknowledged that the agencies become a political target, saying he's stepping down early to, quote, avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray. Trump has already said he intends to nominate Cash Patel to fill the role, someone who's vowed to wreak vengeance on the FBI for investigating Trump. Patel's also promised to fire FBI leadership and shut down the bureau's DC headquarters. He may still face a contentious confirmation process in the Senate, but Patel was confident yesterday when asked about Ray's resignation. We look forward to a very smooth transition at the FBI and I'll be ready to go on day

one. Ahead of Trump's inauguration, a number of U.S. colleges are warning their international students to make sure they're back on campus before he takes office. Otherwise, they could find themselves unable to get back at all. During Trump's last term, he put travel bans in place for people entering the US from some majority Muslim countries. That caught many students who were overseas at the time by surprise. Thousands were stranded.

Now Trump has talked about wanting to bring back some of those travel restrictions, and they could kick in when students are still wrapping up their winter breaks. The school's warnings are all just precautionary at this point, but Cornell University notified its students that additional countries could also be affected, particularly China and India. Students from those two countries alone make up more than half of international students in the US. I look on Zillow every single day. I think maybe one or two houses in my range have shown up in the last month or so.

The 2024 housing market is about to close out with the fewest number of home sales in almost 30 years. The first one that we put an offer on, I think it was 38 different offers besides ours. It went like 25-ish percent over list, over ask. Buyers have been struggling to find any properties, and they're facing prices that just keep rising. Who has $250,000 in cash, right? Right.

Times real estate reporter Rhonda Cason's been talking with buyers, or those trying to buy, all year. She says the country's basically frozen in place. Americans aren't able to move. Part of it is mortgage rates. They've stayed stubbornly high, pricing some people out of the market, and making current homeowners feel like they can't sell because they'd have to give up a lower rate on their current house.

But a bigger issue is supply. The U.S. has not built enough new homes to keep up with a growing population. The real estate listing site Zillow estimates there's a shortage of about four and a half million homes, and economists are skeptical that there will be enough new construction to ease the problem anytime soon. In Sudan, a vicious fight for power between two rival generals has left the country in a humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands have been killed in the civil war, and more than 25 million people

are facing acute hunger or starvation. The Times has been tracking how one precious resource is fueling the conflict. The warring parties are actually on both sides of the front line doubling down on gold. My colleague Declan Walsh says there's a wartime gold rush happening, with more mining and trading happening now than before the violence broke out. Billions of dollars of gold are on the move. On social media, you see these images of fighters showing off with gold bars or gold jewelry that they've looted from people's homes or from banks, flashing it for the cameras, boasting of what they've looted.

But it also, for the commanders on both sides, is an invaluable asset that pays for drones, for guns, for other weapons that are perpetuating this conflict. And not only that, as gold prices have touched historic highs just in the last 12 months, that has provided a further incentive for the foreign powers which are meddling in this war to get even more involved. Countries like Russia and the United Arab Emirates, our reporting has shown, are involved in gold mining across the country, trying to get their own piece of these riches and potentially prolonging the consequences of this horrific war.

And finally. We're on Love is Blind, in which people date without ever seeing each other, has been a massive hit for Netflix. It's going into its eighth season. But how the contestants are treated has now come under scrutiny from the National Labor Relations Board. A regional branch of the board started an investigation after two people on the show raised concerns about the contracts they had to sign.

Yesterday, the board announced that it had found the show committed multiple labor violations, including threatening anyone who leaves the show early with a potential $50,000 fine. The board also demanded that the show reclassify the participants looking for love as employees, something the creator of Love is Blind has previously resisted. He's argued that the show documents, quote, the independent choices of adults who volunteer to participate in a social experiment. The board's complaint will now be passed to a judge who will rule on it. And if the contestants are reclassified as employees,

it could open the door for them and other reality show stars to unionize, potentially upending the whole industry by changing the balance of power. Those are the headlines today on The Daily. whole industry by changing the balance of power. Those are the headlines today on The Daily. How China was able to penetrate some of America's biggest phone providers, like AT&T and Verizon, in one of the most dramatic hacking cases in American history. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford.

The headlines will be back tomorrow.