The Headlines - U.S. May Approve Ukrainian Strikes Deep in Russia, and Early Voting Begins

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Plus, a theater season packed with celebrities.   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:Trump Says He Won’t Do Another Debate as Harris Announces Cash Haul, by Maggie Haberman, Shane Goldmacher and Theodore SchleiferEarly Voting Is Beginning in These States. Here’s What to Know, by Taylor RobinsonBiden Poised to Approve Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Western Weapons in Russia, by David E. Sanger, Helene Cooper and Eric SchmittBoeing Workers Walk Off the Job in First Strike Since 2008, by Niraj ChokshiHollywood Is Heading for Broadway (and Off), by Michael Paulson

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Traci Mumford. Today's Friday, September 13th. Here's what we're covering. Kamala Harris's campaign announced that it's seen a huge post-debate jump in donations, bringing in almost $50 million in the 24 hours after her debate with Donald Trump. And she's eager to debate again. At a rally in North Carolina yesterday,

she told her supporters that she and Trump, quote, owe it to the voters to debate a second time. But Trump disagrees. When a prizefighter loses a fight, you've seen a lot of fights, right? The first words out of that fighter's mouth is, I want to rematch. I want to rematch. of that fighter's mouth is, I want to rematch. I want to rematch. And that's what she said. I want to rematch. At a rally of his own in Arizona, Trump said his debates this year, first with Biden, then with Harris, were so successful,

there doesn't need to be another one. It's too late anyway. The voting's already begun. You got to go out and vote. We got to vote. Meanwhile, early voting is getting underway. Mail-in ballots are now being sent out in some states, the first of the election. Nationwide, Americans have been increasingly turning to mail-in voting instead of going to vote in person. More than 60 million people mailed in ballots in the last presidential election. But there's been a noticeable split by party. A lot of this dates back to the 2020 election, in the last presidential election. But there's been a noticeable split by party. A lot of this dates back to the 2020 election,

when former President Trump was, you know, casting lots of aspersions on vote-by-mail, saying you need to vote in person, while Democrats were much more aligned with a lot of COVID policies and therefore were also embracing vote-by-mail in record numbers. Nick Corciniti covers voting for The Times. He says in 2020, Democrats were almost twice as likely to vote by mail than Republicans.

This election, the GOP is trying to narrow that gap. In the 2024 election, we've seen Republicans at both the national and state level start to make a concerted effort to convince their voters that vote by mail is safe and a method that they should embrace. And the Trump campaign has started their own program known as Swamp the Vote, trying to get voters to embrace voting by mail and bank their vote early. But Republican voters might be hearing a bit of a mixed message from Mr. Trump himself. While he's been out there in videos and on the campaign trail saying, you know, we need to vote by mail, he's also regularly very critical of it, saying we need to go back to one-day voting and paper ballots and calling mail voting rigged at times.

So it's sending a bit of a conflicting message of embrace this, but we also need to get rid of it that, you know, might have some Republican voters still hesitant to cast their mail ballot. The Times has learned that President Biden is on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to attack Russia. The weapons wouldn't be American-made, they're missiles from Britain and France, but the go-ahead would be crossing what has been a red line for Biden. Britain's already signaled it's eager to give Ukraine the green light. Now it wants explicit permission from the U.S. to show that Ukraine's allies have a coordinated strategy. Ukraine has

been increasingly insistent that it needs to use the weapons to hit Russian targets like airfields and weapons depots far behind the front lines. The long-range missiles would also let Ukraine continue to pressure Vladimir Putin by taking the fight into Russia. In recent weeks, Ukraine's been holding Russian territory and attacking Russian cities with hundreds of drones. The question of whether Biden will say yes to Ukraine's requests has played out repeatedly during the war, as he's tried to balance supporting Ukraine with not provoking a major escalation from Putin. On Thursday, Putin issued an unusually specific warning to the West about allowing Ukraine to use the long-range weapons. He said that because they require Western technical help and satellite guidance, it would change the, quote, essence of the conflict,

and that NATO countries, including the U.S., would be at war with Russia. White House officials say Biden will discuss the issue today with Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who's making his first official visit to Washington. At midnight in Seattle, thousands of union workers at Boeing walked off the job after they rejected a contract offer and voted to authorize a strike. The walkout is expected to shut down most of the company's commercial plane manufacturing, including production of the Boeing 737 MAX. The union has been at odds with the company over pay and retirement benefits. Union leaders say the proposed contract was the best they'd ever negotiated, but 96% of union members still

voted to strike, potentially sensing that they have the upper hand as Boeing's been struggling. The company's been veering from one crisis to another, and federal regulators already limited production of the 737 MAX earlier this year after a door panel blew out mid-flight, exposing safety and quality issues at the company. The strike could be a huge financial blow to Boeing, which plays a substantial role in the U.S. economy. The last strike by its workers in 2008 went on for almost two months. If this walkout goes on that long, one estimate says it could cost the company more than $3 billion. This spring on many college campuses, the sound of protest was nearly constant.

Students angered by the war in Gaza set up tent encampments, and thousands of demonstrators were arrested across the country. Now, as the fall semester gets underway, many schools have rolled out new restrictions on campus protests. Emory, Rutgers, and the University of California system have banned encampments on their campuses. Students at other schools, like Case Western and Carnegie Mellon, now have to get permission for large-scale protests. And some schools have basically put in place curfews or even time limits for demonstrations. One college in Pennsylvania says protests and rallies can now only last two hours. At Ohio State, all campus

events must now end by 10 p.m. Attorneys the Times spoke with say the restrictions don't seem to violate constitutional protections for free speech, though the ACLU of Indiana has already brought a lawsuit against a university there over its new policies. And finally. Get ready, George Clooney is set to make his Broadway acting debut. We now know more about the much-anticipated Broadway return of Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. This season of theater, on and off Broadway, is

going to be so packed with celebrities, you're going to be tripping over them in the aisles. I mean, it's the best. It's this weird mix of just the thrill, right, and just being able to do what you love, and then the terror of being in front of all those people. It's not new for big Hollywood names to take a turn on stage,

but this slate is unusually star-studded. Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington will appear in Shakespeare's Othello. Robert Downey Jr.'s trading in his Iron Man suit for the new play McNeil about a novelist with an unhealthy obsession with AI. And George Clooney's doing Good Night and Good Luck, a stage adaptation of the movie he starred in

about the journalist Edward R. Murrow. You'll also be able to catch Michelle Williams, that's the Destiny's Child Michelle Williams, Nick Jonas, Kieran Culkin, Marissa Tomei, Adam Driver, the list goes on. For the theaters, they're still trying to draw audiences back in after a devastating slump in the pandemic, from which they have not recovered. For the actors, it's a different calculation. TV networks and streaming companies have been slashing the number

of new series, and Hollywood's been laser-focused on sequels and reboots, so the stage offers a chance to tell more challenging stories. Christian Slater, who will star in a Sam Shepard play this winter, told The Times that while the Hollywood paycheck is undeniably nice, quote, the payoff you feel inside when you're doing theater is an even greater reward. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, an inside look at Springfield, Ohio, and the whirlwind of conspiracy theories that have thrown the town into the national spotlight. You can listen on the Times audio app or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is made by Robert Jemison, Jessica Metzger, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford, with help from Isabella Anderson and Jake Lucas.

Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Larissa Anderson, Zoe Murphy, Paula Schumann, and Chris Wood. The headlines will be back on Monday.