The Headlines - The Campaign for the Midwest, and Antiracism Demonstrations in the U.K.

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Plus, a Hawaiian town debates how to rebuild.   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:Harris and Walz Roll Into the Midwest, Trying to Claw Back Rural Support, by Katie Rogers, Nicholas Nehamas, Katie Glueck and Jess BidgoodAfter Anti-Immigrant Riots, Thousands of Counterprotesters Gather in U.K., by Megan Specia and Stephen CastleTaylor Swift’s Vienna Concerts Are Canceled After Terror Plot Arrests, by Julia JacobsA Year After a Devastating Fire, Lahaina Is Ready to Rebuild. But How?, by Mike Baker and Tim ArangoNASA Says Boeing Starliner Astronauts May Fly Home on SpaceX in 2025, by Kenneth Chang

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, August 8th. Here's what we're covering. First, I want to say how great it is to be here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Oh, it really is good to be back in Wisconsin. I'd like to start with Michigan reporters. Holy hell, can you throw a party here in Michigan?

The battle to win over the Midwest is on. Both the Harris-Walls and Trump-Vance campaigns made dueling appearances in the same cities yesterday. Harris and her running mate held a packed rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, then another in Detroit, while J.D. Vance stopped in Eau Claire and the Detroit suburbs. We actually just saw the vice president's plane on the tarmac. We landed about the same time that she did.

Wooing Wisconsin and Michigan is a priority for both sides. The two swing states narrowly went for Joe Biden in 2020. And at the events yesterday, Harris brought in some of the biggest crowds of her campaign to date. But in Detroit, she also faced pushback. Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted her speech, accusing her of supporting genocide in Gaza. Harris moved to shut them down. You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking.

Opposition to the war has been a fault line in the Democratic Party and will continue to be an issue heading into November. As vice president, Harris has been more outspoken than Biden about the suffering of Palestinians, but has not strayed far from Biden's support of Israel. Her campaign will continue tomorrow when she and Walz hold their next rally in Arizona. Trump, meanwhile, will be back on the campaign trail talking to voters in Montana. Wall Street! All streets! Across the UK last night, thousands of people took to the streets to denounce the violent right-wing riots that have swept the country in recent days. Keep the fascists out! They chanted anti-racism slogans and held signs saying, refugees welcome and fascists out.

Britain's been in turmoil for the last week after misinformation spread online about the background of a teenager accused of a deadly attack on a children's dance class. Authorities have said the suspect was born and raised in Britain, but rumors that he was an undocumented immigrant circulated on social media. Right-wing extremist groups amplified the claims, and rioters in more than a dozen cities have attacked mosques, looted businesses,

and targeted hotels that house immigrants seeking asylum. The rate of immigration into the UK has spiked in recent years, turning the issue into a flashpoint, particularly on the right. And the rioters have included neo-Nazis and anti-Muslim campaigners. More than 400 people have been arrested so far, including some accused of using the internet to incite the violence. The country's Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticized social media companies for allowing the misinformation and calls for violence to spread on their platforms. And he said, quote, the far right are showing who they are. We have to show who we are in response to that.

Three nights of Taylor Swift's Blockbuster Eras tour have been canceled after authorities in Austria said they'd arrested two men who were plotting a terrorist attack. Swift had been scheduled to play three shows in Vienna starting today, with 200,000 fans expected to attend. Authorities say one of the men arrested, a 19-year-old Austrian citizen, recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State after becoming radicalized online. He was considering the ERA's tour as a target, and officials raided his home and sent a bomb squad there after finding chemical substances. The Islamic State has carried out three high-profile attacks on concert venues in the

past decade. One counterterrorism expert said several plots have been foiled across Europe this year, and that many of those plots have featured young ISIS supporters, some of whom were radicalized via TikTok. Today marks one year since a wildfire swept through Lahaina on the island of Maui. It reduced the town to ashes and killed at least 102 people. In the last year, officials have put new funding into firefighting equipment. They've revamped evacuation procedures and cut back the grasslands that fueled the flames. But Times reporter Mike Baker, who was there in the days after the fire,

says the town is just at the beginning of what will be a years-long rebuilding effort. fresh gravel. So you drive down the streets and sometimes it's difficult to tell what was the landmark that used to be here? What building was this that was on this corner? What street am I at? Mike says one of the biggest questions facing residents is what to rebuild. Some want to resurface layers of Hawaiian history that were buried by time and development. Lahaina was once home to palaces for the Royal Hawaiian Family, while others want to bring back a bustling commercial waterfront. In the rebuilding process, there's a lot of questions about whether Lahaina had become too focused on catering to tourism and had maybe lost sight of that deeper Native Hawaiian history. You know, there's a lot of a push to restore more of that heritage, maybe renaming the street names, maybe bringing back some of these old grounds that were central

to the Hawaiian kingdom. But there are others who also have deep ties to the area who are Native Hawaiian, who want to see that waterfront rebuilt as it was, to see the waterfront restaurants and nice boutiques and fancy art galleries come back and restored just as it used to be. The county has said it will release a long-term rebuilding plan for Lahaina by the end of this year. And finally. When we started this mission, it was a test mission. We knew that it potentially had a higher risk than a flight on a vehicle that has more experience, more flights on it. In a press conference on Wednesday, NASA acknowledged what it had been downplaying for weeks, that two of its astronauts on the International Space Station don't really have a ride back to Earth yet. We know that at some point we need to bring Butch and Sonny home.

Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams traveled to the station on the Boeing Starliner in June, the first time the craft had ever carried astronauts. It was supposed to be an eight-day trip, but there were problems with the ship that have kept them up there now for more than two months. And NASA says it's got a plan B. It's going to keep trying to fix the Starliner, but if it can't, the astronauts will just become a regular part

of the space station crew for now and come back on a capsule built by SpaceX in February. The whole thing adds more headaches and embarrassment for Boeing, which had been trying to prove it can be a player in space and compete with SpaceX. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a look inside the Harris campaign's Wisconsin field office and how they're trying to win over voters. You can listen on The Times audio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracey Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.