The Headlines - The Most Expensive Judicial Race in U.S. History, and a Growing Demand for Ivermectin

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Plus, the return of the rotating restaurant. On Today’s Episode:What to Watch in Today’s Big Elections in Wisconsin and Florida, by Reid J. Epstein and Emily CochraneU.S. Deports More Detainees to El Salvador, Calling Them ‘Violent Criminals,’ by Devlin Barrett, Karoun Demirjian and Annie CorrealPentagon Eliminates Lower Fitness Standards for Women in Combat Roles, by Chris CameronWhat Ivermectin Can (and Can’t) Do, by Dani BlumThe Revolving Restaurant Is Back Again (and Again), by Diana BuddsTune 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]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, April 1st. Here's what we're covering. Two elections today in two different states could offer the clearest view yet of how American voters are feeling about Donald Trump's presidency so far. First, in Wisconsin, there's an election to fill a seat on the state Supreme Court,

which will determine whether the court keeps its liberal majority or flips conservative. The outcome could have national impact since the court will likely oversee key election-related cases in the battleground state. The race has now become the most expensive judicial race in American history. The candidates and their supporters have spent nearly $100 million.

A huge portion of that money has come from Elon Musk and groups tied to him, as the billionaire has thrown his support behind the Trump-backed conservative candidate. Let me first hand out two $1 million checks in appreciation. Over the weekend, Musk took to the stage at a rally in support of the candidate, Brad Schimel, and handed out two oversized checks to voters, the same stunt he used during the presidential election. At the same time, I'm working hard to make sure that voters understand that they should not stand for

this, that we should not allow a seat on our Supreme Court to be bought. The liberal candidate, Susan Crawford, and her campaign have been calling out Musk's involvement and trying to mobilize voters who are upset with the drastic government cuts he's carried out under President Trump. I spent several days traveling through a handful of towns in western Wisconsin. And to a person, when you stop Wisconsinites to talk about this local race, you will get an earful about what has been happening in D.C. over the first couple of months of the Trump administration.

My colleague Ernesto Londoño has been reporting on the race. He says that for some supporters of the conservative candidate, a vote for Schiml is a way to also show their support for what Musk and Trump are doing in Washington. On the other hand, I also found liberals think Trump has gone too far in eroding core democratic norms. You get a real sense of indignation, outrage, and fear. And they see this election as a way to send a strong message from one of the battlegrounds of presidential races. The second key race to watch today is a special election in Florida. The House seat that Michael Waltz used to hold is up for grabs. He vacated it to become President Trump's national security

advisor. It's a majority Republican district and the Republican candidate is expected to win, but the Democrat has been picking up momentum. As of a few weeks ago, he'd out-raised his opponent 10 to 1, and the surge of support has Republican leaders nervously watching what the final margin will be. A close race could be a warning sign for the GOP that concerns over Trump's presidency could be eroding Republican support down the ballot.

presidency could be eroding Republican support down the ballot. The Trump administration announced yesterday that it has sent another plane of deportees to a high-security prison in El Salvador. On social media, President Trump shared a video, produced like a trailer for an action movie, showing a U.S. Air Force plane landing, troops marching, and handcuffed men being led away. The men are then shown kneeling in the prison while their heads are shaved. The White House says all 17 men, who they described as gang members, were deported under standard U.S. immigration law. The administration supplied a list showing they'd either been accused or convicted of

a crime that would make them eligible for deportation, including murder, assault, and theft. Notably, the administration did not cite the Alien Enemies Act, the rationale it gave for its previous deportation flights to El Salvador. That justification has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. For far too long, we allowed standards to slip and different standards for men and women and combat arms jobs. That's not acceptable. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced he's eliminating the lower physical fitness requirements that had been in place for women in some combat roles.

He announced the requirements must now be standardized for everyone. I'm signing this memorandum today. The services will review and soon we will have nothing but the highest and equal standards for men and women in combat. When the military first opened up all combat roles to women back in 2015, some branches set separate fitness standards for things like push-ups, sit-ups, and distance runs. In the Marines, for example, where men had to complete 34 push-ups in two minutes, women had to complete 15.

Some officials saw that as essential for recruiting and retaining female soldiers. But it also sparked a heated debate over whether that was compromising the readiness of combat units. Hegseth has a history of saying women should not be in combat roles at all, though he softened that during his confirmation hearing, where he essentially previewed this approach of allowing women to serve only if they meet the same standards as men. The most elite units in the military, like the Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, have always required all members to pass the same physical tests.

Hegseth has ordered military leadership to implement the new standards by the end of October. Recently, online searches for the drug Ivermectin have been spiking, and doctors say they're fielding more and more questions about it, fueled in part by misinformation. The drug is primarily used as a treatment for parasites in humans and animals, but it became a household name during the pandemic when people claimed it could treat COVID. Research has shown it does not, though claims it can treat other illnesses are still spreading, particularly among right-wing influencers. Earlier this year, the actor Mel Gibson went on the Joe Rogan podcast and said he had friends recover from stage four cancer after taking ivermectin and other drugs. A video of that episode got 10 million views. The problem is that ivermectin is, as far as we know now, not a miracle drug, and that there

are a number of things people are trying to use it for that just have not been proven. Dani Bloom covers health for the Times. There is very early research into ivermectin and cancer. The problem is that that research currently is mostly in animals or in petri dishes. We don't have large clinical trials done in humans. What we do know for sure is that if you take ivermectin in high doses it can have these pretty devastating effects on the central nervous system. It can cause people to go into comas, it can lead to seizures, it can even be fatal. A number of doctors that I spoke with expressed concern that people

would turn to these unproven treatments without much input from a doctor. And this doctor I spoke with said that he has seen patients with early stage, highly treatable tumors who forego cancer drugs and instead take ivermectin and come back months later with cancers that have spread. And so doctors are really getting concerned about not only the risks from the drug itself, but also people having this sort of do-it-yourself approach to medicine. Danny says even as health providers are warning about the dangers of people taking ivermectin on their own, lawmakers in multiple Republican controlled states are trying to make it easier

for people to get the drug. Last week, the governor of Arkansas signed sixties to find dining rooms in the clouds. The rotating restaurant, an architectural novelty from the 1960s and 70s, is making a comeback. When you walk in, you can barely tell it's moving at all. But once you sit, you really feel it. That's those glass walled circular dining rooms at the very top of skyscrapers

that spin slowly around so you can take in the whole view. The first one opened in the US in 1961. That was La Ronde, perched above a shopping center in Honolulu. Then everybody wanted one. There's a rotating restaurant on top of the Space Needle in Seattle. St. Louis, Indianapolis, Houston, and Detroit all had one. They sprang up in an age when construction in cities was booming, and people wanted to see the changing skylines up close. But over the decades, the trend faded. The machinery got old. Maintenance costs soared, and there were safety concerns. Many of the restaurants stopped spinning or closed entirely. Now though, what goes around comes back around.

The revolving bar and restaurant on top of the New York Marriott Marquis is spinning again, as are sky-high restaurants in Atlanta and San Francisco. In New York, they had to add a trick to make sure that diners don't get disoriented. Often, when people get up to use the bathroom, they have trouble finding their seat again because everything outside of the windows has shifted. So they've added a bunch of highly visible landmarks inside the restaurant to help people find their way. Those are the headlines today on The Daily, more on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and how Elon Musk has put himself at the center of it. That's next in the New York Times

audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.