The Headlines - Israelis Go On Strike After Hostage Deaths, and German Far Right Makes Election Gains

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Plus, the U.S. coffee wars are heating up.   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:Workers Strike as Israelis Seethe Over Hostage Killings, by Patrick KingsleyTakeaways From East Germany’s State Elections, by Christopher F. SchuetzeHow a Leading Chain of Psychiatric Hospitals Traps Patients, by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Katie ThomasA Funnel Cake Macchiato, Anyone? The Coffee Wars Are Heating Up, by Julie Creswell

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracey Mumford. Today's Monday, September 2nd. Here's what we're covering. Israel is in the middle of a labor strike this morning, as protesters demand that the government reach a ceasefire deal to bring the remaining hostages home. Many schools and businesses are closed, some hospitals have cut services, and nearly all early flights out of the Tel Aviv airport were canceled. The uproar has been spreading since the Israeli military announced this weekend that it found the bodies of six hostages in tunnels underneath the city of Rafah in Gaza.

Israel says they were killed by Hamas shortly before soldiers reached them. And the news of their deaths brought thousands of people to the streets last night. The protesters said the hostages could have been saved if the government had agreed to a ceasefire earlier and that an immediate deal is the best chance to recover the 100 people, living and dead, still being held in Gaza. We demand the deal to be right now. That's why we're marching for, that's why we're shouting for.

The mood in Israel is generally somber and also angry as we witness what amounts to the biggest expression of dissent against the government since the war started. Patrick Kingsley is the Jerusalem bureau chief for The Times. Many Israelis are furious that Hamas has killed six hostages in captivity in recent days. And in addition to blaming Hamas for that, they blame their government, in particular Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for failing to compromise enough with Hamas in order to secure a ceasefire deal. It remains to be seen how much this will affect

Prime Minister Netanyahu's thinking. The protesters are basically saying that Israel cannot wait for the perfect ceasefire deal and that it's better to make a quick compromise in order to save the lives of the remaining hostages. On the other hand, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his supporters feel that it's better to hold out for a better deal in order to weaken Hamas than it is to agree a flawed deal that would save the lives of a few dozen hostages.

The hostages who were found dead in Gaza include Hirsch Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli-American citizen who was abducted from a music festival on October 7th. His parents campaigned widely for his release, and they spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month. After his death was announced, Kamala Harris released a statement saying that, quote, the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel and American citizens in Israel must be eliminated, and Hamas cannot control Gaza. Harris and President Biden are expected to meet this morning at the White House

with the American negotiators who have been participating in the ceasefire talks. In Germany yesterday, a far-right party, the AfD, made major gains in state elections. It won one state outright, the first time since the Nazi era that a far-right party has done that in Germany. Branches of the party have been classified by intelligence agencies as, quote, confirmed extremist, based on their outspoken Islamophobia and defamation of state institutions. Other parties have said the AFD threatens the country's democracy and that they would shun the party if it won. But the AFD has been gathering support with its calls for cutting off military aid to Ukraine and cracking down on immigration. And its surge in popularity

in recent years has been part of a shift in political conversations in Germany. Some mainstream politicians are now talking about taking a harsher stance towards immigration and calling for tougher asylum laws. A Times investigation has found that one of the largest chains of psychiatric hospitals in the U.S. has been holding patients against their will to maximize profits. Acadia Healthcare operates in 19 states, and there have been dozens of reports of the hospitals detaining patients using laws meant for people who pose an imminent threat, even when they didn't meet that legal standard. Times investigative reporter Katie Thomas and her colleagues spoke to Acadia patients as well as more than 50 staff members.

What we learned from speaking to these current and former employees was that it was very important to Acadia to keep these facilities full. They call that heads and beds. It was the norm to not discharge a patient until their insurance had run out. So it wasn't really a question about whether somebody was medically ready to leave or psychologically ready to leave. It was a question about how much more time would the insurance cover. Acadia pitched itself to hospitals and emergency rooms as a place where they could send patients when the facilities were struggling to keep up with a growing mental health crisis in the country. She says that once patients were at Acadia facilities, the staff have used an array of strategies to keep them there. They've exaggerated patient symptoms, used buzzwords like combative or uncooperative on medical records, and said patients needed to be detained for things like skipping group therapy or not finishing a meal.

One woman in Florida with bipolar disorder was sent to an Acadia facility after she went to the ER to ask for help with her prescriptions. Acadia held her for six days, even though she begged to be released, and her medical records said she even though she begged to be released, and her medical records said she wasn't a danger to herself or others. Her mother told the Times she's now terrified of trying to get medical help again because she doesn't want to be trapped. The Times found that Acadia charged her insurance $13,200 for the stay. You know, Acadia is really indicative of this major shift that has occurred in mental health care over the past decade or so, where traditionally governments or non-profit

organizations had run psychiatric hospitals. But increasingly today, they're being run by large for-profit companies like Acadia. One of the major things that has been driving that in the last 10 years is the Affordable Care Act, which required insurers to cover mental health care. When that happened, a lot of for-profit companies saw an opportunity there, and Acadia was one of them. In response to questions from the Times, an Acadia spokesman said that the examples of mistreatment the Times found were not representative, but that, quote, any incident that falls short of our rigorous standards is unacceptable. Earlier this year, Acadia said it tentatively agreed to settle a Justice Department investigation

into its practices. Meanwhile, Acadia's stock prices have been rising. It's now valued at about $7 billion. And finally, we've entered a coffee shop arms race. Across the country, stores that specialize in coffee and tea drinks are one of the fastest-growing segments of the entire restaurant industry. And it's not just Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts expanding. Smaller regional chains are also making a play, especially in the Midwest and South, which weren't as saturated with options. For example, Dunn Brothers says it's blanketing the I-35 corridor from Minnesota to Texas.

And in Tyler, Texas, there were just 17 coffee shops a few years ago. Now, there's more than 50. And the shops aren't trying to win the coffee wars with just black coffee. Most of their sales growth is coming from iced drinks. That's syrupy, foamy, cookie-flavored lattes, fruit smoothies, and other creations that feel like a Willy Wonka caffeinated fever dream. Consider a white chocolate pumpkin energy drink or a funnel cake macchiato. Some of the chains say they are ready to go head-to-head with Starbucks, though analysts point out that might be a tall order.

Starbucks already has more than 16,000 locations across the U.S. That's more than the next 10 biggest coffee chains combined. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracey Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.