The Headlines - Trump’s Latest Demands on Ukraine, and a White House Crypto Contest

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Plus, how to actually fall asleep. On Today’s Episode:Trump Pressures Ukraine to Accept a Peace Plan That Sharply Favors Russia, by David E. Sanger, Michael D. Shear and Mark LandlerTrump Offers Private Dinner to Top 220 Investors in His Memecoin, by David Yaffe-Bellany, Matthew Goldstein and Eric LiptonInterior Department to Fast-Track Oil, Gas and Mining Projects, by Lisa FriedmanTrump’s Approval Rating Has Been Falling Steadily, Polling Average Shows, by Tyler Pager and Ruth IgielnikIndia Takes Aim at Pakistan After Slaughter of Civilians in Kashmir, by Mujib Mashal and Suhasini RajThe Sleep Trends Experts Think You Should (and Shouldn’t) Try, by Caroline Hopkins LegaspiTune 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 is Thursday, April 24th. Here's what we're covering. I think we have a deal with Russia. We have to get a deal with Zelensky. And I hope that Zelensky, I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelensky. So far it's been harder.

President Trump is turning up the pressure on Ukraine to agree to a plan his administration drew up to end the war with Russia. Under the proposal, Russia would essentially get all of the land that it's taken since invading Ukraine. In exchange, Ukraine would only get vague security assurances. The plan would also explicitly block Ukraine from ever joining NATO, a concession Russia has long called for. But Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, quickly rejected the Trump administration's proposal saying, quote, this is our territory. President Zelensky's reaction and his rejection, his total rejection of the idea is not surprising

given the fact that the American proposal is so positive for Russia. My colleague Michael Shear has been reporting on the Trump administration's role in negotiations to stop the fighting. The motivation for the Trump administration behind pushing this peace plan is a little bit unclear. One possibility is that they really are trying to push President Zelensky into a deal that Ukrainians don't really approve

of. But the other possibility is that this is mostly a pretext. President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President Vance, they've all been talking in recent weeks about just walking away from the peace process, saying that, you know, it's too difficult to get these parties back together. And so it's just possible that proposing a plan that is this bad from the perspective of the Ukrainians means that it's basically dead in the water,

that it's not really about moving forward with the peace plan, but it's really about setting the stage for the U.S. to wash its hands of the crisis and just walk away for the U.S. to wash its hands of the crisis and just walk away from the war. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, people scrambled for shelter overnight as Russian forces launched a major missile and drone attack on the country's capital city. The strikes were the deadliest attack on Keef since last year. At least nine people were killed and more than 60 were injured. Yesterday a flashy announcement went up online promising what it called the most exclusive

invitation in the world. The pitch? Buy enough of President Trump's meme coin, a form of cryptocurrency, and you'll get a private dinner with the president and a tour of the White House. The offer is the Trump family's most explicit effort yet to profit from crypto. The president launched the coin just before inauguration day and holds a large number of them. He and his business partners personally make money every time it's traded. That earned them nearly $100 million in just the first few

weeks of his presidency. When news of the offer spread yesterday, the meme coin's price surged more than 60% as people rushed to buy enough to win their spot. The top 220 coin holders will get the invite for the event next month. There's even a leaderboard now up on the coin's website. The Trump family's embrace of cryptocurrency has come as the president's moved to scale back enforcement of regulations on the industry.

It's also amplified major ethical concerns that Trump is essentially asking people to pay for access to the White House and is directly profiting from his presidency. One former official who oversaw crypto policy under President Biden said, quote, they are making the pay to play deal explicit. The Department of the Interior says it will fast-track new projects involving coal, oil, gas, and minerals on public lands, and that it will radically reduce the review periods required by law.

Environmental reviews that normally take a year to complete, and give the public a chance to weigh in, will now be finished in just two weeks. It's a move that developers and builders have long called for, saying that the existing review process is too long and too expensive. The Interior Department says it has the authority to make this drastic change because President Trump declared a national energy emergency, saying the country's resources are insufficient. But dozens of energy experts say there is no emergency. The US is the world's largest exporter of natural gas and produces more oil than any other country. Notably, the administration has only been

using its emergency powers to promote fossil fuels and has moved to cut off renewable energy projects. Last week, it ordered an immediate stop on construction of a wind farm off the coast of New York that would have generated enough electricity to power about half a million homes. Also, a New Times analysis of national opinion polls gives a snapshot of how Americans feel about President Trump three months in. Overall, Trump's approval rating has dropped to about 44 percent, down from 52 percent

in his first week. Much of that drop appears to have been driven by independent voters. Among Republicans, there's been little drop in support for the president. Though experts say it's still too soon to measure how voters feel about some of Trump's most disruptive policies, like his aggressive new tariffs. The full polling tracker, which is updated daily, is at nytimes.com. This week, India and Pakistan are on edge after a terrorist attack killed more than two dozen Indian tourists. The attack happened in Kashmir, a disputed territory that both countries, who are long-time

adversaries, control parts of. Gunmen opened fire at a vacation area there that people have dubbed mini Switzerland with its picturesque mountains and valleys. While India hasn't officially blamed any group for the massacre, it's retaliated against Pakistan, claiming the country harbors and supports terrorists. It shut a key border crossing between the two countries, among other measures, and India's defense

minister hinted at the possibility of military strikes. A few years ago, another militant attack in Kashmir sparked an air battle between India and Pakistan that stopped just short of all-out war. Pakistan's National Security Committee is meeting today to prepare a formal response to India's initial measures. And finally, if you search for sleep advice on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, there's actually a military proven technique. You'll find an endless scroll of various obscure sleep hacks. Here's how you can do it too.

My colleague Caroline Hopkins-Legaspi is part of the team at The Times that looks into viral health trends, taking them to experts to ask what's actually worth trying and what does the science say? She says when it comes to sleep, obviously it's very personal. There's never one right answer for everyone. But the experts she talked with did pour water on a few ideas that are all over social media right now, like mouth tape.

Yes, people are really taping their mouths shut at night to try and stop snoring. And she says experts say you're better off talking to your doctor than getting out the tape. But Caroline says there are also a number of trending sleep suggestions that do get the seal of approval. Many of these were sort of mental exercises that you can do to get your mind off of you know the worries from your day. One of these is a hack called cognitive shuffling where you think of a word, can be any random

word, and then you think of the first letter of that word and as many words as you can think of that start with that first letter. And when you run out of words, you move on to the next one. So for example, say you choose the word apple, you would start with A and think of as many A words as you can, you know, art, air, atrium, then move on to P and think of as many P words as you can, and so on and so forth until you fall asleep. Another one that I found kind of fun is this idea of the house tour.

You imagine a house you know really well. It's not your own house though. Somebody's house may be your grandparents' house, a friend's house that you've been in enough times to sort of close your eyes and picture every detail of slowly walking up to the door, opening the door, noticing all the art on the walls, noticing, you know, the furniture. And people on TikTok say they never make it upstairs because they're asleep by the time they get through the first few rooms of the house. If you are one of those people on your third cup of coffee right now because you slept for all of 15 minutes last night. Caroline's

full list of sleep tips that experts say are worth trying is at NYTimes.com. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a soybean farmer in Iowa explains the toll the tariffs are having on her farm and her industry. 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.