The Headlines - Supreme Court Starts Consequential Term, and Illinois Governor Warns of ‘Trump’s Invasion’

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Plus, when Silicon Valley comes to the farm. Here’s what we’re covering:Supreme Court Returns to Face Trump Tests of Presidential Power by Ann E. Marimow and Abbie VanSickleJudge Again Blocks Guard Deployment as Trump Expands His Targets by Shawn Hubler, Anna Griffin and Eric SchmittPritzker Says Federal Agents Are Trying to Make Chicago a ‘War Zone’ by Sonia A. RaoBoth Parties Are Resigned to Deadlock as Shutdown Takes Hold by Annie KarniRubio Says U.S. Wants Quick Deal to Bring Gaza Hostages Home by Aaron BoxermanForget Cowbells. Cows Wear High-Tech Collars Now. by Eli TanTune in every weekend 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 Monday, October 6th. Here's what we're covering. In Washington, D.C. this morning, the Supreme Court will return to the bench for a new term that could have profound consequences for the country. Usually, this new term comes after a lull,

a summer break where the justices are traveling and giving public speeches. But this year, there's been no break at all. My colleague Abby Van Sickle covers the court for the times. She says that in the past few months, as the Trump administration has pushed the bounds of presidential power, the court has churned through more than 20 emergency applications on its so-called shadow docket.

It's issued a number of brief rulings, often without any explanation at all, weighing in on everything from deportations to federal funding cuts. Those decisions, though, were technically just tem. temporary placeholders. So far on the emergency applications, the Trump administration has been winning victory after victory before the justices. But now this term is really shaping up to be a blockbuster because we will see how the Trump administration fares when the justices confront the central issues of his policies head on. Three of the biggest cases of the term involve Trump administration actions and policies since he returned to the White House. And those are cases about terror. about the president's power in firing heads of independent agencies, and a case about the Federal Reserve and whether the president has the power to fire Lisa Cook, who is one of the leaders of the Fed. We will get to see whether the justices, having handed the Trump administration,

all these temporary victories, actually then greenlight these policy items, or whether the justices push back against the president. Abby says that beyond the questions about the president's power, the court is also expected to weigh in on a series of other hot-button issues. That includes potentially revisiting a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and challenges to state laws barring trans athletes from competing in women's sports. The facts on the ground in Oregon haven't changed. for military intervention in Oregon.

There's no insurrection in Portland. There's no threat to national security. They want mayhem on the ground. They want to create the war zone so that they can send in even more troops. Now they're claiming... In Oregon and Illinois, President Trump's push to deploy troops to major cities has left governors and the courts scrambling to keep up. We cannot normalize the approach he is taking with the military in our own country.

It's not warranted. It is unlawful. It is not American. In Portland, which the president has portrayed as a city on fire, where protesters have overwhelmed federal immigration agents, he'd moved to deploy hundreds of the state's National Guard troops. On Saturday, a federal judge who Trump appointed said that was unlawful because the protests there were, quote,

not significantly violent or disruptive, and that Trump seemed to have overstepped his authority to deploy the troops. The White House then tried to get around that ruling by sending troops to Oregon from California's National Guard against the wishes of both states' governors. But in an emergency ruling last night, the federal judge blocked that deployment too, accusing the administration of trying to circumvent her order. Now the Trump administration has indicated it's ready to try out another new strategy, sending hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas to Portland and to Chicago. The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker,

said no one from the federal government had contacted him to coordinate or discuss the deployment. And he said that the administration was intentionally trying to escalate tensions in the heavily Democratic city, writing in a statement, quote, we must now start calling this what it is, Trump's invasion. It's now day six of the government shutdown, and there's no sign of it ending soon, with both Democrats and Republicans doubling down on their talking points. Well, there's not a lot to negotiate. The Democrats have to negotiate. The Democrats have need to open up the government. Right now, we're at a stalemate.

Republicans are still laying the blame on Democrats, saying they're effectively holding the government hostage and that they need to help pass a short-term spending bill. And Democrats are still saying Republicans won't come to the table to discuss their demands over health care funding. The last time there was a conversation with Republican leadership was in the White House meeting last Monday. And unfortunately, since that point in time, Republicans, including Donald Trump, have gone radio silent. While the Senate is expecting, to vote again today, the House is not even in session. Majority Leader Mike Johnson has canceled votes telling members they can stay home for the third straight week. In the meantime,

the shutdown has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, with others, including TSA agents, working without pay. So are these layoffs definitely happening? Because Russ vote said on Wednesday it would happen within one to two days and still nothing. Well, again, I think that if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere, then there will start to be layoffs. The White House, meanwhile, has kept up its threats to carry out mass firings of federal workers during the shutdown, describing it as an unprecedented opportunity to dismantle federal programs. Secretary Rubio, welcome back to meet the press.

Is this now the end of the war in Gaza? Well, not yet. There's some work remains to be done. In the Middle East today, Israel and Hamas will begin a new round of negotiations as the prospect of a ceasefire deal is still up in the air. The two sides will meet in Egypt talking through intermediaries just a few days after Hamas indicated that it was open to releasing hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

It's all part of a sweeping peace plan outlined by the Trump administration that Israel says it's accepted. Under that plan, at least 20 living hostages and the bodies of about two dozen others would be exchanged for 250 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and 1,700 Gazans detained during the war. Even beyond the discussions about a prisoner swap, though, the talks are expected to be fraught. Hamas has so far been unwilling to agree to a key Israeli demand that it lay down its weapons and give up power in Gaza. How do you disarm any sort of terrorist groups that are going to be building tunnels and conducting attacks against Israel. How do you get them to demobilize?

All that work, that's going to be hard, but that's critical, because without that, you're not going to have lasting peace. And finally, the Times has been covering the rise of precision farming, where cutting-edge technology has increasingly become an essential part of agriculture. Starting in the 90s and early 2000s, satellite imagery helped change the way farmers did their work. And in the past few years, the vast majority of America's large farms have leaned into futuristic tech, like auto-steering tractors and cameras that help measure how crops are growing. Recently, that Silicon Valley influence has also been taking hold among

livestock farmers. A growing number are now using digital callers that track their animals' health. Think of it kind of like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch, but for a cow, the Wi-Fi-equipped collars have motion sensors that measure chewing to help track digestion. When something's off, it sends an alert with the cow's biometric data to the farmer, letting them get ahead of any potential illnesses. One dairy farmer in South Dakota said the collars had let her farm expand its herd from 2,700 cows to 5,000 without hiring any more workers, and had also boosted the amount of milk each cow produces. Another farmer in Merced, California, told the times the callers let him and his team adjust ingredients in the cow's feed down to the ounce to help keep them healthy.

The callers, he said, are, quote, the closest thing we can get to talking to the cows. Those are the headlines. Today on the daily, a look at White House Budget Director Russell Vote, the man at the center of the Trump administration's push to reshape the federal government. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Will Jarvis. We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you.