Fuel Riots Spread Around the World, and Trump Approves $2.8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracey Mumford, today's Wednesday, September 16. Here's what we're covering. All over the world, people are protesting over soaring energy prices once again caused by the war in Iran and in the Middle East. In country after country, people are furious about gas and diesel prices skyrocketing and they're taking to the streets. Damian Cave is a global affairs correspondent for the Times. He says between the ongoing attacks near the Strait of Hormuz and increasing threats to alternate shipping routes for oil and gas like the Red Sea, people are facing record high prices, especially for diesel. And he says everyone from farmers in Guatemala to drivers in Portugal have been staging demonstrations to say we can't go on like this. In Indonesia and a bunch of different islands, taxi drivers are protesting and in some cases just not going to work because everything that they make basically goes into their gas tanks if they're lucky enough to even get fuel. Because part of the problem in a lot of these places is that shortages are again appearing. You've got huge long lines and places where motorbikes are just being left and this long, snaking chain for miles, cars have been sitting there for 40 minutes an hour. Sometimes people are lining up at 3 a.m. and if they're lucky they get gas at 5 a.m. Bangladesh is another place that's really suffering because of a shortage of natural gas that powers electricity. You've got factories that are shutting down for many hours a day. And in Syria, which may be the most extreme example, people took to the streets after prices jumped by 40% and in one case there was a guy who was pouring fuel over himself and about to light himself on fire when crowds intervened and prevented that from happening. But the anger is really spreading from place to place. Tensions in the streets or fuel riots as some people call them are also becoming an increasing political challenge. Governments are being accused of colluding with rich oil and gas companies. So you're seeing a degree of political protest and tension morph from just frustration about prices to an accusation against governments and against an entire system that people are starting to question. Meanwhile, this vote, the age of 220, the age of 204, the concurrent resolution is adopted. In the US, the House passed a measure yesterday directing President Trump to end the war. The third time it's done that, and the Senate's done it twice. The measure calls for Trump to halt military operations or explicitly seek congresses approval to continue them. It doesn't carry the force of law, but the fact that enough Republican lawmakers continue to join with Democrats to pass these measures, underscores widespread frustration over the war's effects at home, including gas prices. Now, three other updates on the Trump administration. First, the White House has signed off on a $2.8 billion arm's deal with Israel, according to an official familiar with the proposed sale, it would include tens of thousands of bombs and warheads, and as one of the largest transfers of weapons ever between the two countries. As part of the deal, Israel would get more of the powerful 2,000-pound bombs that its military dropped across Gaza, drawing international outrage over civilian deaths. While there's likely to be pushback from Congress over this deal, as public support for Israel has been falling in the US, the Trump administration can use emergency powers to push it through. Also, the Senate yesterday blocked a major cryptocurrency bill in part over concerns about the Trump family's close ties to the industry. The bill would have created rules that were friendly to crypto businesses, and its defeat is a huge blow for pro-crypto groups which have spent tens of millions of dollars backing candidates who support the industry. Ultimately, a handful of Republicans joined Democrats in voting against considering the measure. After many lawmakers demanded it include stronger language, banning the president and other public officials from using crypto to make money. President Trump himself generated more than a billion dollars last year from a network of crypto businesses. And last update. The Trump family is facing questions after revelations that a Russian businessman helped pay for Donald Trump Jr.'s lavish wedding after party this year. ProPublica was first to report on the payments by Umar Kremlev, the head of the International Boxing Association, who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to people familiar with the matter, Kremlev covered the cost of renting a private island in the Bahamas and putting on a firework show. That kind of arrangement flies in the face of ethical norms for an American president's family, who are generally expected to steer clear of these sorts of personal and pricey gifts out of concerns that the gift giver might eventually expect something in return. Kremlev himself attended the party just days after he was seen with Putin. After the payments came to light this week, Donald Trump Jr. and his wife Bettina posted a statement on Instagram saying Kremlev is a friend. And that quote, "generosity doesn't automatically come with an agenda, and sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift." According to ProPublica, Kremlev's press office said that the businessman had quote, "never discussed political matters with any of his American friends and acquaintances." Pull watching has been a part of elections for ages. And usually it's a really boring job. Some people have called it watching paint dry, other people have said it's like waiting in a field for aliens to land. This year though, my colleagues and I have noticed that poll watchers are being told in some of their trainings to distrust what's happening in the process. Tiffany Shew covers elections and disinformation for the times. And in the run-up to the midterms, she's been reviewing dozens of slideshows and hundreds of instructional documents that think tanks and civics groups have put together to train poll watchers. Many of those materials are neutral and informative, basically just describing how volunteers can witness and document what's happening on election day to make sure everything's going by the book. But Tiffany says some of the training this year is essentially priming people to expect wrongdoing. I sat in on a webinar training in Michigan where there's a really tight Senate race that's happening. In that live stream, the trainer told the volunteers that they were, quote, part of this critical mission to ensure Republicans win. Those volunteers were told to keep their eyes peeled for people who didn't want to produce their ID, for Democrats who were maybe going to do something a little bit sketchy. The trainer told these folks, we've had Democrats that have run all these elections in turn into a nightmare. So it's time that we take them back. In talking to election experts about the tone of these trainings, a lot of them said we're probably not going to see this fearful overlay really affect election day. Election workers and election officials are trained to handle things day of. Things should be fine. But we've come out of a decade of great distrust in elections, a lot of conspiracy theories about voter fraud, about cheating. And in the past few election cycles, we've had election officials being stalked, voters being harassed, people intensely filming videos, openly caring firearms. All this to say that the hostility in some of these trainings could result in even more of this sort of behavior. Tiffany says groups on the right are not the only ones ramping up efforts to train poll Watchers. She reviewed training materials from groups on the left, too, who said their goal is to defend against any attempts to stop people from voting. She said in one example, organizers trained volunteers for a hypothetical scenario in which the National Guard and ICE agents were deployed to polling locations. And in another, volunteers were told they may need to be on guard for other poll watchers, who might have been trained by groups with "different motives" as to why they're observing. And finally, in China since the late 1970s, schools across the country have embraced teaching English. The language was seen as a key part of efforts to open up China to the rest of the world. And English is one of three core subjects there for students, along with math and Chinese. It takes up a significant amount of classroom time, even as there have been questions about how effective the teaching has been. And it counts heavily toward the country's college entrance exam. But earlier this month, a math teacher went on social media to call for English to become optional, saying that Chinese people should stop their quote blind worship of foreign imports. That post went viral, adding fuel to a growing debate in the country about whether learning English is appropriate and worth the effort. In the past few years, some Chinese schools have been dialing back their English requirements. And according to one ranking of English proficiency in countries around the world, China has fallen nearly 50 spots. Of course, this whole debate is also crashing right into the question of AI. The summer, one research university in Shenzhen announced that it's phasing out English classes because it said AI can now generate translations in real time. But one expert on Chinese history told the Times that the current language debate also reflects two vastly different visions of China, one where the country is focused on global engagement or one where the nation looks inward. Those are the headlines. Before we go, I just want to shout out another time show that you should put on your playlist, popcast, the Times' pop culture chat show. Now with new episodes every week in audio and video, catch interviews with big names like Olivia Rodrigo, ASAP Rocky, Rosalia, and more. You can listen to that in the Times app, and if you are not a Times subscriber yet, you can get every story and every episode we publish right now for free in the app when you download it today. Don't miss out. I'm Tracy Mumford, the headlines we'll be back tomorrow.