A Norm-Shattering Indictment, and Amazon’s $2.5 Billion Settlement

0:00This podcast is supported by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Here's a story that's not getting nearly enough attention. Defunding Planned Parenthood has already caused chaos and harm, and access to essential reproductive care is plummeting. Right now, the Trump administration's backers in Congress want to permanently defund Planned Parenthood, forcing even more health centers to close and millions at risk of losing access to care. It takes less than a minute to help. Go to plannedparenthood.org slash defend and make a gift of any size. From The New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford.

0:37Today's Friday, September 26th. Here's what we're covering.

0:45At around 7 p.m. last night in federal district court, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted for making a false statement and obstructing a congressional hearing. The story of how these charges came about is an extraordinary example of President Trump's relentless demand for retribution against those he perceives as his enemies. Here's what happened. Comey was the head of the FBI when Trump first took office back in 2017. And he was abruptly fired by Trump when the bureau was investigating potential ties between his presidential campaign and Russia. Trump has railed against that investigation for years, calling it a hoax and a witch hunt, and calling Comey himself a leaker.

1:29Comey went on to become an outspoken critic of the president, comparing him to a mafia boss. When Trump came back to power this January, he began pressuring the Justice Department to pursue Comey. Recently, he'd become impatient with the lack of action. Last week, Trump forced out the U.S. attorney overseeing the Comey investigation after he failed to bring charges. And he installed a White House aide, who used to be one of his personal lawyers, in the job. She has no experience working as a prosecutor. Just days into her new position, she brought the Comey case to a grand jury, and they voted to indict.

2:09So your testimony is you've never authorized anyone to leak. In terms of what the charges are, they're related to testimony that the former FBI director gave in front of a Senate committee almost exactly five years ago. I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by what the testimony you summarized that I gave. The charging document alleges that when questioned by senators, Comey falsely claimed he had not authorized someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source to the media about an investigation. That investigation appears to have been into Hillary Clinton. If convicted, Comey faces up to five years in prison, Although many current and former prosecutors tell The Times, they believe the case will be difficult to prove.

2:50My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump. In a video statement, Comey declared himself innocent and urged Americans not to be intimidated by the administration. We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either. For more about the charges against Comey, listen to today's episode of The Daily with my colleague Devlin Barrett. Look, I think one of the most important details of what happened in this indictment is that no career prosecutor signed it. It is only signed by Trump's handpicked new head of the office. Is that unusual? That's very unusual.

3:32Now, three more updates on the Trump administration. Come October 1st, there will be more tariffs. President Trump announced yesterday that he's putting new import taxes in place on a varied list of common products, 50 percent on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, 25 percent on semi trucks and between 25 and 100 percent on some prescription drugs. The administration has said the goal is to spur domestic production, though some economists have warned that consumers could end up shouldering the additional costs of that plan. In particular, there have been concerns about drug prices going up.

4:10But at the moment, it seems like many of the most well-known and best-selling medicines won't be affected. Trump said companies can get an exemption from the tariffs if they agree to boost U.S. manufacturing, and most of the major brand-name drug makers have announced plans to do that this year. Also, the Times has learned that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued an unusual directive on short notice, ordering scores of U.S. generals and admirals stationed around the world to gather in Virginia on Tuesday. Hegseth has not disclosed the reason for the gathering, which could pull in up to 800 high-ranking officers, but it has set off concerns among the military's top brass about potential firings.

4:54In the past few months, Hegseth ordered a 20 % reduction in four-star officers and has already fired more than a dozen military leaders, many of them people of color and women. In a statement, the Pentagon's chief spokesman said Hegseth would be, quote, addressing his senior military leaders early next week, but offered no additional details. And.

5:45terrorism. They said he'd left many notes outlining his motivations and that the attack was carefully planned, but they called it a, quote, tragic irony that it was detainees who were shot instead, with one dead and two others injured. According to people who knew the gunman who killed himself after the shooting, he hadn't really expressed any strong political positions publicly, though like other recent gunmen in high-profile attacks, he'd struggled with growing isolation and adjusting to adulthood, bouncing from job to job and spending months living out of his car.

6:27In the Middle East, the Times has been covering a rare lifeline for injured Gazans stuck in the middle of the war, medical evacuation flights organized by the United Arab Emirates. Since the beginning of the conflict two years ago, there have been just over two dozen of the flights, carrying about 3 ,000 Gazans who need a doctor's referral and Israeli approval to travel to the UAE for advanced medical treatment. My colleague Ismail Nahr was recently able to travel on one of those flights. It was filled with kids and their parents who were getting a temporary break from the violence and hunger crisis that has gripped Gaza.

7:03One of the first parents to board this flight was Mohammed Raj ibn Qat. During the flight, he told me that he used to weigh over 240 pounds and then now he's down to 165. You could clearly see that he was very tired, you know, sunken eyes. And he was traveling with his son who's 10 years old. And as soon as they sat down, the flight crew was offering just like the basic trolley food. and they gave each one of them a tray that had a sandwich, that had a fruit bowl, a mini salad. And the first thing he said then was, wait, each one of us gets our own plate.

7:49Another parent I met on this flight was Asma Liddawi. She was traveling with her 12-year-old son Ahmed, who was in multiple bombings, but the first one that happened in December 2023 caused him a pelvic fracture and he hasn't been able to walk since then. Over the course of nearly two years of war, she tried to get him to multiple doctors, multiple hospitals, and eventually she got, I guess the word is lucky, to be evacuated. And I asked her what it meant for her being a parent, especially during this war. And she told me that before the war, she used to think about their futures and their education.

8:29And then now, over the past two years, it was just about survival, about just the next day.

8:39Meanwhile, at the United Nations yesterday... I speak to you today after almost two years in which our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have been facing a war of genocide, destruction, starvation, and displacement. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, addressed the General Assembly through an interpreter, calling Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip war crimes. Abbas also condemned the October 7th attacks by Hamas and said that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was willing to take responsibility for Gaza, too, after the war.

9:21His speech came as a growing number of Israel's allies have broken with the country to say they recognize a Palestinian state. One notable holdout is the U.S., Israel's staunchest ally. Abbas had to give his speech yesterday by video link because the U.S. denied him a visa to visit the U.N.'s New York headquarters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to address the U.N. this morning.

9:54And finally, this may have happened to you at some point. You were shopping on Amazon, you put something in your cart, you went to buy it, and there was a big old orange button that screamed, Get free same-day delivery. Clicking it would have enrolled you in Prime, Amazon's subscription service with a monthly fee. If you didn't want that, you would have had to look down below and click on a small link that read, No thanks, I do not want free delivery. To the Federal Trade Commission, that was kind of sneaky, and the FTC sued Amazon back in 2023, claiming that with tactics like that, the company had tricked tens of millions of people into signing up for a Prime subscription, and then made it hard to cancel.

10:36Yesterday, Amazon agreed to pay$2.5 billion to settle those claims, which the FTC says is one of the largest settlements in the agency's history. Despite the major payout, the company denied any wrongdoing. One industry analyst told The Times, It seemed like Amazon may have just wanted to end the hassle of a trial and the coverage of it before the holiday shopping season starts. $1.5 billion of the settlement will go to customers who could get$51 each if they meet certain requirements about how and when they signed up for Prime. Those are the headlines. If you want to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around.

11:17It's just after these credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Jessica Metzger, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Alex Kosyakova, Jake Lucas, Zoe Murphy, Katie O 'Brien, and Paula Schumann.

11:37Now, time for the quiz. Every week, we ask you a few questions about stories The Times has been covering. How many can you get? OK, first up, former Vice President Kamala Harris published a new book on Tuesday about her presidential run. There's a couple of juicy nuggets in there for people who like the behind the scenes of politics. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow asked Harris about one particular revelation. You say in the book really bluntly that your personal first choice for your running mate would have been, and you praise him effusively. you say he would have been an ideal partner if I were a straight man.

12:16Who did Kamala Harris say she would have rather had on the ticket with her if she thought the country was ready?

12:28The answer? Pete Buttigieg. Harris wrote, We were already asking a lot of America to accept a woman, a Black woman. And she said that adding a VP candidate who was openly gay to the ticket was, quote, too big of a risk. She ultimately went with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz instead.

12:51Next question. Good morning, heads of states, excellencies, dear guests. The fourth plenary meeting of the General Assembly is called to order. This week, tons of diplomats and world leaders descended on New York City for the United Nations General Assembly. Obviously, there was some diplomacy to be done, but for some U.N. visitors, a nice perk of coming to the U.S. is the shopping. This year, though, the Trump administration issued new regulations, specifically banning Iranian diplomats and officials from going to a store that's really been a favorite of theirs in the past. Your question, where could the officials from Iran no longer shop?

13:36I'll give you a hint. This chain sells half of the world's cashews. Another hint. It also sells diamond earrings, swimsuits, 40 packs of three-ply toilet paper, and caskets.

13:54The answer? Costco. That's right. You could call it the Iran-Cosco affair. In the past, Iranian officials have been photographed loading up on things like TVs or cereal boxes at Costco, apparently to bring back to Iran. But the Trump administration has now prohibited them from shopping at any, quote, wholesale club store without permission, specifically naming Costco. Experts say it's a calculated move on the U.S.'s part to try and embarrass the Iranians by calling attention to their big shopping sprees when many of their citizens back home are facing economic hardship.

14:34And last question. Everybody's favorite week up in Alaska, Fat Bear Week, baby. The best week of the year. The bracket is posted for Fat Bear Week. You can vote for the bear that you think gained the most weight in preparation for winter. It's Fat Bear Week, the wildly popular annual competition where people vote on which brown bear in Alaska's Katmai National Park is the chonkiest. The viral stunt started as a way for people to engage with the park online. Every September, the bears are at their biggest because they've just been eating and eating and eating in preparation for hibernation. They can more than double their body weight over the course of a summer.

15:12Many of the competitors have earned nicknames, Chunk, Grazer, Otis, or they're just assigned numbers like my personal favorite, 747, an absolute jetliner of a bear. And for the competition, the bears are filmed hunting for fish at Brooks Falls in the park. Your question, what kind of fish are the brown bears trying to catch? Salmon, bass, carp, perch. Salmon, bass, carp, perch.

15:48The answer? The bears are getting their omega-3 fatty acids with salmon. The voting for Fat Bear Week technically runs through September 30th, so you still have time to fill out your bracket. Yes, there are brackets for Fat Bear Week, just like March Madness. Some of you have sports, okay? Some of us have fat bears. That is it for the news quiz. Our email, as always, is theheadlines at nytimes.com if you want to send us your score. Or challenge a friend, share the quiz with them, see how they do. I'm Tracy Mumford. The headlines will be back on Monday.

16:26This podcast is supported by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Here's a story that's not getting nearly enough attention. Defunding Planned Parenthood has already caused chaos and harm, and access to essential reproductive care is plummeting. Right now, the Trump administration's backers in Congress want to permanently defund Planned Parenthood, forcing even more health centers to close and millions at risk of losing access to care. It takes less than a minute to help. Go to plannedparenthood.org slash defend and make a gift of any size.