A Breakthrough Government Shutdown Vote, and New Tax Cuts for the Ultrarich

0:02From the New York Times is the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis, in for Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, November 10th. Here's what we're covering.

0:13It's our responsibility to work not only here amongst ourselves, but across the aisle to solve these problems for the Americans, make their lives a little bit easier. And that's what we have done tonight. There was a breakthrough on Capitol Hill last night, as a group of Democratic senators joined Republicans in a vote that marked the first step towards ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The vote came after weeks of deadlock among lawmakers, as Democrats held out for an extension of health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But yesterday, eight moderates in the Democratic caucus split off and voted to reopen the government without any deal on health care.

0:52We were faced with a strategy that wasn't working to achieve the goal we wanted with regard to the ACA, but it was at the same time creating hardship and difficulty for millions of people across this country. They said they made that compromise because the fallout from the shutdown, now at 40 days and counting, was getting too painful for Americans. Hundreds of thousands of government workers have gone without pay, and millions of people are at risk of losing federal food assistance. The New Deal would fund the government through January and reverse the layoffs of federal employees made by the Trump administration during the shutdown.

1:28Now, the measure needs to be formally debated and passed by the Senate and House, and signed by President Trump, meaning that it could still take a while for the government to actually reopen. At the same time, the decision by the handful of Democrats to vote with the GOP has provoked fierce backlash in their own ranks. Democrats must fight because millions of families will lose health care coverage. We must fight because a senior citizen cannot afford to pay$25 ,000 a year just for health insurance. We must fight to keep millions from financial ruin. Senator Chuck Schumer blasted the move, echoing anger from many other Democrats that some of their colleagues had given up on the party's central demands around health care.

2:12As part of the agreement, the top Senate Republican, John Thune, has promised to allow a vote next month on health care subsidies. But many Democrats have been worried that once the government is reopened, they'll have lost their leverage on the issue. Meanwhile, with the shutdown not over yet. The problem is that as I try to reduce the pressure by lowering flights, I have more controllers that keep not coming to work. And so the pressure goes back up again. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says that disruptions to air travel are expected to get worse. Over the weekend, thousands of flights were canceled after federal officials limited air traffic at the country's busiest airports amid a shortage of air traffic controllers who have gone unpaid for weeks.

2:56For example, Duffy told CNN that at one point on Saturday, 18 out of 22 controllers in Atlanta didn't show up for work. Overall, the airport restrictions led Delta Airlines to cancel roughly 15 % of its scheduled flights yesterday, and American and United each canceled about 10%. The government has indicated that by Friday it will limit air traffic even more, which could cause the number of cancellations and delays to surge just ahead of Thanksgiving travel.

3:31The Times has been looking into a series of new moves by the Trump administration that give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to some of the country's most profitable companies and wealthiest investors. In the past few months, officials at the Treasury Department and the IRS have been quietly gutting tax regulations and rolling back their enforcement. In particular, they've taken aim at a law passed by Congress in 2022 that was designed to make sure that big corporations paid at least some federal income tax. It's a little weedsy, but basically it meant companies had to pay taxes on profits they reported to their investors rather than the often much smaller amounts they reported to the government after making deductions.

4:12The law had been projected to raise more than$200 billion for the federal government over a decade, but now a number of companies are seeing their tax bills shrink. One natural gas giant, for example, has said it expects to get a refund of almost$400 million for taxes it previously paid because of the 2022 law. While the Treasury Department and the IRS have some leeway in deciding how to implement tax law, tax experts told the Times that the administration appears to be exceeding its legal authority since Congress has the ultimate say over taxation. The experts also say the new tax moves could significantly add to the federal deficit.

4:51In response to questions from the Times, a Treasury spokesman said the new regulations were meant to replace the Biden administration's quote, compliance maze that would have buried taxpayers in red tape. He did not address questions about whether the Treasury was exceeding its authority.

5:14Breaking news to bring you about the BBC. The BBC chairman has announced that both the director general, Tim Davey, and the new CEO, Deborah Tennis, are to resign. In the UK, two top executives at the BBC resigned abruptly yesterday after the broadcaster came under fire for a misleading edit of a speech made by President Trump and other allegations of bias. Two bits of audio sandwiched together but recorded over 50 minutes apart. The controversy stemmed from a BBC documentary about January 6 that was released last year. In the film, parts of Trump's speech before the Capitol riot were cut together, and a leaked BBC memo argued that the clips were juxtaposed to make it seem like Trump explicitly encouraged the attack.

6:00The memo, written by a former journalist who had been serving as an independent advisor to the BBC, also critiqued other areas of coverage, saying the network avoided stories that raised, quote, difficult questions about transgender rights, and that the broadcaster gave airtime to a journalist who had made anti-Semitic comments. In announcing her resignation, the chief executive of BBC News wrote that mistakes had been made, but she insisted that allegations of institutional bias were false. Amid the turmoil, one BBC radio host wrote on social media that while the memo raises genuine concerns about editorial standards, quote, there is also a political campaign by people who want to destroy the organization.

6:41President Trump and White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt both celebrated the resignations, with Trump calling the leaders corrupt and dishonest.

6:59Officials in Iran are sounding the alarm about a water crisis that's been escalating for months. The country is facing its worst drought in more than half a century. The summer was dry and extremely hot. And so far this fall, some parts of the country have gotten no rainfall at all. Now, authorities say the main dams serving Tehran, the capital city of 10 million people, are down to just 5 % capacity. And Iran's president has warned that if the drought goes on, the city might have to be evacuated before the end of the year. It's one of several extreme measures that Iranian officials have been considering, including moving the capital hundreds of miles south toward the Persian Gulf.

7:40Earlier this year, they also made a failed attempt at so-called cloud seeding, where particles are sprayed into existing clouds to try and encourage rainfall. Beyond the ongoing drought and the growing impacts of climate change and rising temperatures, studies point to a wide range of reasons for Iran's water problems, including decades of mismanagement, illegal well drilling, and unsustainable agriculture. The crisis has gotten so dire that some Iranians have been promoting dramatic conspiracy theories that other countries in the region have been diverting and stealing rain clouds. A top Iranian water official has tried to tamp down those claims, but he said, quote, Since human knowledge is constantly advancing, we cannot rule out every possibility.

8:29And finally, if you're scared of spiders, I'm going to give you about two to three seconds to hit pause and stop for today. Okay, ready? Researchers writing in the peer-reviewed journal Subterranean Biology have recently published new findings about what is apparently the world's largest spider web. It's hanging in a long, narrow passage in a cave on the border between Albania and Greece, and it's the size of a small house, about 1 ,100 square feet of thickly woven, spongy white netting. The cave is a perfect spider habitat, apparently, 80 degrees year-round, teeming with tiny midges, i.e. lunch that get caught up in the silky web, and filled with foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide gas that's toxic enough to keep other animals out.

9:16In total, more than 100 ,000 spiders live there. But the scale of the whole thing was actually less surprising to the scientists than which spiders were part of the megacolony. They found two different spider species that are usually mortal enemies living there together, weaving side by side. One researcher told the Times that in her nearly two decades of spider studies, she'd never seen that before, and that the best hypothesis for the truce has to do with their pitch-black home, saying, quote, they do not see each other, so they do not attack. To see photos and videos from inside the cave, you can go to nytimes.com.

9:56Those are the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis. The show will be back tomorrow.