The Headlines - What Could Happen at the Trump-Putin Summit, and a Game of Chicken Over Voting Maps

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Plus, your Friday news quiz. On Today’s Episode:How Trump’s Meeting With Putin Could Unfold, by David E. SangerTexas Democrats Will Return Home, Allowing Vote on Congressional Map, by J. David GoodmanBorder Patrol Agents Show Up in Force at Newsom Rally, by Laurel Rosenhall, Jesus Jiménez and Hamed AleazizNo School, No Toys, No Hope: The Trauma of Childhood in Gaza, by Patrick Kingsley and Bilal ShbairWith Arson and Land Grabs, Israeli Settler Attacks in West Bank Hit Record High, by Patrick Kingsley, Fatima AbdulKarim and Natan OdenheimerThe U.S. Is Auctioning a Seized Russian Yacht. Will Anyone Buy It?, by Aishvarya KaviTune 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 Friday, August 15th. Here's what we're covering. If it's a bad meeting, it'll end very quickly. And if it's a good meeting, we'll end up getting peace in the pretty near future. This morning, President Trump is flying to a U.S. military base in Anchorage, Alaska, to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

for a high-stakes summit on how to end the war in Ukraine, which is now killed or wounded more than a million people. Almost no Western leaders have met with Putin since Russia's invasion in an effort to isolate him. But Trump has presented himself as the ultimate dealmaker who can get results. You know, I've solved six wars in the last six months, a little more than six months now, and I'm very proud of it. I thought the easiest one would be this one.

It's actually the most difficult. He's bragging a lot about getting involved in wars and skirmishes around the world. He is in the hot pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize. So the war in Russia and Ukraine is a big conflict that he would love to get some credit for solving. My colleague Katie Rogers is traveling with the president today for the summit. She says while Trump has talked himself up as a peacemaker, in the last few days, he's also tried to temper expectations. Over the course of this week, Trump's stated goals for this meeting have changed to become increasingly vague in terms of what he wants to get from Putin today. He has gone from saying, I want to end this war repeatedly to saying, I can't control Russia from killing civilians in Ukraine.

We saw him in the Oval Office actually say his main goal for this meeting in Alaska is actually to pursue another meeting in which, the president of Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin sit down and hammer out a peace agreement. So the standards and the goals for this meeting have gone in the span of a week from hearing Putin out to see if he has a peace deal to, I'm just there to get another meeting. Meanwhile, in Russia, the summit has already been celebrated as a win for Putin. A Kremlin-controlled TV program announced, quote, Putin's visit to the USA means the total collapse of the whole concept of isolating Russia, total collapse. And Ukrainian President Volomir Zelensky, who was not invited to the talks, said the same,

telling reporters Putin will score a win just by getting a photo with President Trump. The last time Trump and Putin met in person was back in 2018. Trump shocked a lot of people when he came out of that meeting, saying Putin denied that Russia had anything to do with any meddling in the 2016 election, and that he believed him, contradicting the findings of the U.S.'s own intelligence agencies. The Times will have live coverage of today's summit from reporters on the ground in Anchorage at n.y.times.com. On Thursday, dozens of Texas Democrats who fled the state in a dramatic attempt to stop Republicans from redrawing the congressional election map announced their going home. The lawmakers left Texas earlier this month to try and thwart the redistricting plan that's been pushed by President Trump

that would effectively turn five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives read. Without a quorum, Republicans couldn't push through the new map, which normally would only be adjusted every 10 years. When we first started this journey, we talked about the fact that eventually they still might pass these maps. but we're going to do everything we can to fight again for what we believe in and what we want. Democratic Representative Gene Wu, speaking on behalf of the lawmakers who faced fines and even the threat of arrest for their absence, said that they'll now take their fight to the courts. Texas Governor Greg Abbott says as soon as they're back, he's going to call for a special session of the House to bring the map back up for a vote.

In California, though, Governor Gavin Newsom is turning the fight over. over-election maps into a game of chicken. I know they say don't mess with Texas. Well, don't mess with the great golden state. At a press conference, Newsom unveiled a proposal to redraw California's election map to favor Democrats if the Texas map goes through. We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire.

Newsom's plan would require voters to approve all of this. It's not yet clear how much support. he'll get. Early public polling shows that many Californians might not be in favor of the effort. What happened outside Newsom's event also drew attention. More than a dozen border patrol agents, many of them wearing masks and carrying rifles, assembled in front of the building. The event had nothing to do with immigration, and local officials expressed outrage at the apparent show of force. Newsom, who's considering a run for president in 2008, has been one of Trump's most prominent critics. And L.A.'s mayor said the agent's presence wasn't a coincidence, calling it

provocative and unacceptable. A top border patrol official in the region who was part of the group said, quote, we're here making Los Angeles a safer place, since we don't have politicians who can do that. We do that ourselves. In Gaza, Israel says it's allowed more aid trucks to enter the territory after weeks of international pressure from the country's allies for Israel to do something about the rampant hunger there. This week, about 300 trucks a day filled with supplies have been getting in. But aid groups are warning that's not nearly enough to address the humanitarian crisis there, and they need to be allowed to flood the zone with supplies. The UN has said that Gaza's 1.1 million children are especially vulnerable. It says all children under age five there are at

risk of acute malnutrition, and doctors have described their youngest patients wasting away. Meanwhile, with much of the world's attention on Gaza, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has been surging. The Times has been tracking how Israeli settlers are carrying out one of their biggest land grabs in decades. Most of the international community considers the West Bank to be Palestinian territory and has condemned Israeli settlements there as illegal. But since the October attacks on Israel, and in the last few months in particular, extremist settlers have ramped up their efforts to push Palestinians out. In just the first half of this year, the U.N. says there were more than 750 attacks on Palestinians on their property. And Times reporters, who visited five

recently attacked villages, found there's been a pattern to the violence. Settlers will put on masks, sneak into the villages in the middle of the night, and set fire to vehicles and buildings. During one recent attack, they left a message spray-painted on a wall, revenge. The Times has found that Israeli authorities have historically done little to prevent such attacks, and settlers accused of violence are often not prosecuted at all. And finally, there's a very different kind of U.S. Russia news playing out right now off the coast of San Diego. The U.S. is often. auctioning off a luxury super yacht currently docked there that the government seized a few years ago from a Russian oligarch. The idea was to target the assets of Russia's richest men, many of whom are close to Vladimir Putin, in order to put pressure on the Russian president to end the war in Ukraine.

That effort was disbanded once Trump took office, but the U.S. still has the yacht, and they're hoping someone wants to buy it. Stretching a full football field long, it's one of the most expensive luxury boats ever made. It's got a movie theater, a helicopter pad, an infinity pool, you know, standard stuff. It's also got a lobster tank and a hand-painted Renaissance-style mural of clouds over the dining table. It should be worth at least $300 million, but the U.S. government knows it's probably not going to get that because there's kind of a big catch. Anyone who buys it probably shouldn't sail it into international waters. An extremely wealthy Russian man, who was at one point a pig breeder, claims that it's his. So ownership of your shiny new yacht could be challenged in courts and ports outside the U.S.

Those are the headlines. But stick around. We've got the Friday news quiz for you after the credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Jessica Metzker, Yon Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Michael Levinson, Jake Lucas, Zoe Murphy, Kossum Nauman, Katie O'Brien, and Paula Schumann.

Okay, now for the quiz. We've got questions about a few stories the Times covered this week. Can you answer them all? First up. Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mob, This week, President Trump deployed over 1,000 National Guard troops and federal agents to fight what he called out-of-control crime in Washington, D.C. He held a press conference to announce the plan, flanked by his defense secretary Pete Hegseth.

Well, Mr. President, it's an honor to be here. And Janine Piro, who was just confirmed as the U.S. attorney for Washington. I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together and beat the hell out of you or anyone else. Years before Hegeseth and Piro were standing up there together next to Trump, both of them used to work at the same place. So, your question, where was that? The answer?

Both Hegseth and Piro are former Fox News hosts. In all, more than two dozen former Fox staffers have joined the Trump. administration. Okay, next question. A new way to use your computer to communicate, have fun, and get instant news and information. Recently, a former giant of the tech world announced that one very old school cornerstone of the internet is going away for good. It's something almost everyone who had a computer used to use.

Now its users are measured in a tiny fraction of a percent. What is it? A little hint? The answer? AOL announced this week that its dial-up service, which was somehow still in existence, is going away at the end of next month. That means the end of a noise

that was basically the soundtrack of the early internet. If you have ever wondered, why did it sound like that? The shrieks and the whirers and the chirps, It was basically two modems' way of talking to each other, trying to establish a connection. A Times article from 1995 likened it to a mating call between modems. And last question. This is my brand new album.

We got TS12, baby. This week, Taylor Swift announced she has a new album. album coming out this fall titled The Life of a Showgirl. It will likely dominate the charts because that is what Swift does. Still, there are some music industry records that not even she has hit yet. For example, a handful of artists have had more number one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 than she has. We're going to play you just a little snippet of the top three record holders. You have to guess who they are. Bonus point, if you can name the song too. So here we go. First one, I feel really good about your chances here. Just think about who has a lot of hits.

I know that was short. Here it is one more time. That is the Beatles. They are in the lead with the most number one billboard hits ever, including that song, A Hard Day's Night. Ready for the next one? We'll play that again. That was Mariah Carey and her holiday anthem. All I want for Christmas is you. I'm sorry for getting that stuck in your head in August. She has the second most number one hits.

One more for you. Listen again. That is Rihanna, who rounds out the top three record holders. That was her song, SOS. Taylor herself is sitting tied at number six with the Supremes and Madonna. But just wait till October, that could change. All right, that is it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did or what you think about the quiz, you can always email us at the headlines at nytimes.com.

The show will be back on Monday.