Six Months of War, and Trump’s Push for ‘Lake America’

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford, today's Friday, August 28th. Here's what we're covering. Six months ago, today, the United States and its partners have launched Operation Epic Fury, one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensive. The U.S. and Israel launched massive air strikes on Iran, with President Trump vowing there would be a quick, decisive victory over the country's hard-line regime. I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom, to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. Now, half a year in, the war has failed to achieve the goal's Trump first laid out of sparking and uprising to overthrow Iran's government and crushing the country's nuclear program. Instead, the conflict is dragging on, with analysts saying there's no end in sight. And in Iran, my colleagues say there's a growing sense of hopelessness. For a lot of Iranians, when the war started, although they were very worried about what might happen, a lot of them had some kind of hope for what the war might bring in terms of unseeding the regime. That, of course, has not come to pass. And so instead, they're increasingly convinced that the Islamic Republic is here to stay. And then also, they're just facing a lot of economic pressures. Yeah, Gennad Turbadi covers Iran for the times. She says Iranians are facing high rates of unemployment and skyrocketing food prices that have put even basic staples out of reach for many people. At the same time, beyond the economic squeeze, they're also feeling the pressure of a regime that's gotten more and more repressive tightening control over the country. There's been increased executions this year, especially of political prisoners. The government has been going after dissidents or even people who just speak out against it online. And so people feel quite scared and anxious about that. And then even small things, so recently Tehran and other major cities have seen this kind of burgeoning cafe culture. And this has sort of come about because as Iranians are pressured economically, they can't maybe even go out to dinner, but they can still at least afford a cup of coffee with their friends once a week or so and kind of go out for a few hours and feel normal. And these have been places where young people have been gathering. Women were often unveiled. And that had become kind of this very conspicuous counterculture that has now become a target for the state. And so recently dozens of these cafes have been shut down. It's really just the latest instance of the state making very clear that it wants to be in control of society and is not allowing even these little pockets of sort of ordinary life or anything that they see as not fully in line with state ideology. Now two quick updates on the Trump administration. First, we're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America. President Trump signed an executive order yesterday directing his administration to rename Lake Ontario as he continues to take aim at Canada amid an escalating trade war. Trump has issued a declaration like this before ordering the Gulf of Mexico to be officially renamed the Gulf of America. In response to the move this week, the head of one Canadian province dismissed it as more of the same saying, quote, he's trying to play the hits for his base. But I think everybody here thinks it's a little sad. When it comes to name changes, Trump's order only affects federal agencies and documents. And the governor of New York, the state that borders the Great Lake, said it will continue to call it Lake Ontario. And the times has learned the Trump administration is planning to increase deportation flights to Haiti in an effort to quickly expel people whose legal status expired the summer. Over the years, more than 300,000 Haitians had been granted temporary protected status to legally live and work in the US because Haiti was deemed so unsafe. First due to a deadly earthquake, then gang violence that has gripped the country. But in June, the Supreme Court allowed President Trump to cancel that status. Now, according to documents, the Times reviewed deportation flights to Haiti could go from once a month to once a week. Some human rights groups have warned that people are being sent back to dangerous conditions. The State Department itself has even told American travelers not to visit Haiti, quote, "Due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care." While deportation flights used to land at Haiti's main airport in the capital, there have been reports of gangs firing on planes there, and the new flights will land at an airport in a smaller city instead. In Nepal, the death toll from this week's catastrophic flash flood is still rising. As of this morning, the official toll has doubled to more than 500, with nearly a thousand people still missing. And Times reporters on the ground in Nepal have been speaking with some of the survivors who described how the water seemed to come out of nowhere. One man from a village near Nepal's border with Tibet said he was at home with his family Wednesday morning when he heard what sounded like a thunder clap. Then, he felt a woosh of air like a breeze coming through. Before he knew it, a massive wave of muddy water and rock had slammed into his home. He was able to outrun it, scrambling up the valley, but he watched as it carried away his wife and two daughters, age seven and eight. Walls foreign ministers said the flood, which experts think was caused by a huge chunk of a glacier plummeting down into the valley below, has completely wiped out town after town. With the roads washed away too, helicopters have been flying in and out of the mountains, picking up survivors. At this point, authorities are warning that there could be more water coming. Chinese officials say that the ice avalanche that set off the initial flood also formed a massive lake. And that lake is now at risk of bursting as rain sweeps through the region. And finally, buckle up here for a bit of a story. In Canada, starting a few years ago, there was a surge in car thefts. It got to the point that thieves were breaking into people's homes just to get keys. And specifically, a lot of pickup trucks like Dodge Rams, Toyota Tundra's and Ford F-150s seem to be just disappearing off the streets. So my colleague Michael Schwarz and I started looking into this when we got a tip off from a saucer in Nepal. That's the international police agency. And they told us that thousands of stolen Canadian cars and trucks were ending up somewhere really surprising. Russia. Jane Bradley is an investigative reporter at the Times. She says, according to data from Interpol, there were almost 5,000 reports of stolen Canadian vehicles ending up in Russia over the past two years. And authorities think that's a significant undercount. What's happening, Jane says, is that Russians have developed a huge taste for Western pickups and luxury cars that they can no longer get due to sanctions over the war in Ukraine. And the more people can't have them, the more they want them. What we've found is that in order to feed these markets, these black markets in Russia, these organized crime networks have cropped up. So what happens is that there is somebody in Russia who wants 15 land rovers say, and you will get these kind of foot soldiers if you like, the lower-level criminals who will be walking around residential neighborhoods, high-end shopping malls in Canada, looking for those 15 land rovers to fulfill that order. So this is an incredibly sophisticated, incredibly organized network. These cars are not stolen by chance. They are stolen to order. One of the big questions we had when we heard about this was how they actually get these cars, these stolen cars to Russia. And they basically use these huge, like 40-foot shipping containers that leave Canadian borders, the ports in Montreal and Vancouver, and what we found when I went on a raid with some border officials at the Canadian border services agency, was these stolen cars would be sandwiched, hidden between mattresses, legitimate cars, household boxes, in these huge shipping containers. And they would then be shipped to Russia, usually by the Middle East, places like Dubai. And the border officials I spoke to in Montreal said that they're recovering 20 to 30 stolen cars worth up to $2 million every week. So this is a hugely-equitive trade. Jane says Canada has been trying to crack down on these crime rings, and thefts have been going down recently, as the country has made changes like increasing prison sentences for car theft. Still, one man she talked to, who was being held on charges of participating in a scheme like this, said he didn't think it would stop any time soon. There's just too much money to be made. Interestingly, some of the stolen cars have actually since been returned due to the work of authorities and a non-profit anti-fraud group. You just gotta imagine that's a bizarre call to get. Good news, we found your car. It's just gonna take a little bit of time to get it back to you. Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday news quiz, stick around, it's just after these credits. And real quick, if you are not a time subscriber yet, you can get a full month of free access to everything we publish when you download the Times app now. This show is made by Will Jarvis Margaret Kidifa, Jake Lucas, Yann Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford, original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Sam Dolnick, Miles McKinley, Zoe Murphy, and Chris Wood. Now, time for the quiz. This week, in honor of Dolly Parton, we're going all in with a three-parton Dolly quiz. And if you're not a Dolly super fan, don't worry, you got this. Don't be intimidated. Dolly never was. First question. Would you welcome Dolly Parton, Dolly? Over the course of her decades-long career, Dolly was everywhere. We're gonna play you three little clips of her cameos on famous TV shows see if you can name the show. Here's the first one. Cleaning lady, would you let it start up here? Me? I'm Dolly Parton. I didn't ask for your life story. Just give me the key. Young man, where I come from, the south, folks say please. That's Dolly on The Simpsons. Next one, where she even appeared on reality TV. I would not have known this was their first date. They really seemed different to each other because I have a pretty good eye for that. I'm stuff myself too. I do know that there is such a-- That was from an episode of The Bachelorette that was filmed at Dollywood. And last cameo, Deep Cut here. Simon, Theodore. And you must be Alvin. That was Dolly on Alvin and the Chipmunks. Something tells me those chipmunks ain't from Nashville. OK, next question. On top of being a musical legend, Dolly Parton was also known for her philanthropy. Taking up so many different causes, we're going to do a speed round here. See how many you can get. Parton gave away over 300 million what to children in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the US. 300 million what? The answer's books. In the early '90s, she recorded a song for a charity album raising money to help people with this disease, HIV AIDS. Her Dollywood Foundation gives $15,000 scholarships to students graduating in her home state of Tennessee. And final one, she helped found a sanctuary in Tennessee for this animal. A sanctuary for bold eagles. Very America. A few years ago, Parton put it this way to people magazine saying, quote, I'm kind of addicted to the feeling of giving. And last round here, one of the Dolly hits that you cannot avoid out in the world is Jolyne, a karaoke favorite. It's also a favorite for other artists to cover. We're going to play you three snippets of Jolyne covers. You tell us which performer or band is doing their best, Dolly. First up. ♪ Jolyne, jolyne, jolyne, jolyne, jolyne ♪ ♪ Don't take the chance because you think you can ♪ That was Beyoncé. Next one. ♪ Your beauty is beyond compare ♪ ♪ But blame the lock to ball burn air ♪ ♪ Without brain skin and eyes ♪ ♪ I've been molding the green ♪ Miley Cyrus there, who is Dolly Parton's goddaughter. And number three, maybe a little harder. ♪ Dolly, jolyne, jolyne, jolyne, jolyne ♪ ♪ It's the second, even though you can ♪ That was the white stripes covering Jolyne. Dolly, of course, wrote Jolyne when she realized her husband had a crush on a bank teller and seemed to be spending a lot of time there. She said in various interviews, "I knew we didn't have the kind of money "for him to be spending that kind of time at the bank." (upbeat music) That's it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, our email is the headlines at nytimes.com. I am off next week, but the show will be back with my colleague, Will Jarvis. For now, have a great weekend in honor of Dolly, however you do it. Put on some rhinestones, watch steel magnolias, or sleep just three hours a night, which is how Dolly Parton said she managed to pull off everything she did. (upbeat music)