A Quiet Surge in ICE Arrests, and Trump’s First Flight on Plane Given by Qatar

0:00This podcast is supported by BetterHelp. Have you ever had so many tabs open that your computer starts slowing down? Life can feel like that too. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report found that 74 % of Americans believe society still discourages asking for help. Therapy can help you sort through what's taking up space and quietly affecting you. With BetterHelp, connect with a licensed therapist online and switch anytime. Maybe it's time to close a few tabs. Visit BetterHelp.com slash New York Times to get started. From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, July 2nd.

0:39Here's what we're covering.

0:45So the air alarms went off a little before eight o 'clock last night. We started hearing air defenses firing around nine or ten. It's a bit of a rat-tat-tat sound. And then we heard one very, very big boom. That was the start of a lot of booms over the course of the night. My colleague Cassandra Vinograd is in Kiev, where Russia hammered the city overnight with deadly waves of drones and ballistic missiles. The Ukrainian authorities were telling everyone to stay in shelters, stay in shelters, because the attack was underway. We heard a lot of explosions in the center of Kiev, and this continued for hours and hours.

1:26While we're hearing all this going on, we're always monitoring telegram channels. And so images started coming out of an apartment building on fire. And then we heard that the roof of a hotel was on fire. And the reports just kept coming in. Through dawn, we were hearing explosions. And emergency workers and rescuers were already responding and rushing to respond to strike sites, even as more booms were being heard. Finally, at around 7 a.m., they lifted the air raid alarm. So we were under air raid alarm for over 11 hours. And now there's a lot of smoke over the city this morning, and you can smell the strikes in the air at the moment.

2:07It's this very specific smell after a strike. As of early this morning, Ukrainian authorities say at least 17 people were killed and dozens were injured. Cassie says many in Kiev had been bracing for this kind of large-scale assault in retaliation for Ukraine increasingly hitting Russia. Recently, advances in drone production and technology have allowed Kiev to launch bigger and bigger strikes against Moscow and against Russian oil infrastructure and supply lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the goal is, quote, bringing the reality of the war back to Russia, with the idea that exposing more Russians to the pain of the conflict will ramp up the pressure on Vladimir Putin to negotiate a deal.

2:54Putin, however, has dug in, saying that Russia's assault on Ukraine will continue.

3:07In Iran, government officials are making their final preparations for a massive funeral for the country's former supreme leader. months after his death. Millions of people are expected to turn out to mourn Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in February at the start of the war. It's highly unusual for a burial to be delayed this long in Muslim culture, underscoring just how much Iran has been disrupted by the conflict. Now the government is hoping to present the funeral as a moment of national unity and a kind of show of resistance. One Iranian official said the funeral represents, quote, the beginning of a new era in the Islamic Republic.

3:48It's expected to be a week-long spectacle, spanning at least five cities. Tehran has declared a three-day holiday starting Saturday, with Khamenei's body lying in state, then proceeding through the city. The ceremonies and the body will then move to other cities across Iran and Iraq. Khamenei had many devoted Shiite Muslim followers in nearby countries, and one expert on Iran told The Times that bringing the ceremonies across borders is, quote, a way of symbolizing Iran's regional influence and power. Massive crowds are expected along the route, but many people in Iran still deeply oppose the regime.

4:30Khamenei oversaw brutal repression, torture, killing of dissidents, and widespread corruption, and some Iranians openly celebrated when he was killed. Some had hoped the war would bring regime change, but it was Khamenei's son, Ayatollah Mushtaba Khamenei, who was tapped as the new supreme leader. He hasn't been seen in public since he was chosen for that role, though, and it's unclear whether he'll appear at the funeral.

5:02Now, two quick updates on the Trump administration. First... The Department of Homeland Security says ICE agents arrested 39 people in Wisconsin over the weekend. In the last week, there's been a major surge in immigration arrests across the U.S., with ICE agents detaining more than 10 ,000 people. According to interviews with federal officials and documents obtained by The Times, ICE was told that the White House wanted an increase in arrests and that 2 ,000 arrests a day was the new standard. That's roughly double what the arrest rate had been earlier this year. And in a statement, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said, Our message is clear.

5:41If you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you. The new push is taking place without the Trump administration drawing a lot of attention to it, like they did with the highly visible operations in big cities before. It's part of Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen's pledge for a quieter enforcement campaign following the chaos in Minnesota where federal officers killed two U.S. citizens during operations. It's unclear how long this new surge will last. One immigration attorney the Times spoke to in Utah said it's left her clients afraid and on edge.

6:17Quote, people don't want to leave their houses. They are afraid to drive to do their grocery shopping. Also. So this will be the first flight of what I think is maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built. Yesterday, President Trump boarded the new Air Force One jet gifted to him by the Qatari royal family for the first time. The plane, which he took for a trip to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota, is worth about$200 million. His decision last year to accept the gift from the government of Qatar attracted a lot of scrutiny over whether a foreign government was trying to influence Trump.

6:56The U.S. government then poured hundreds of millions of dollars into making it secure enough to carry the president. According to senior administration officials, the plane will be donated to Trump's presidential library when he leaves office and could potentially be available for his personal use. Trump has said it would have been, quote, quote, stupid not to accept the gift, since other planes that have been ordered from Boeing to replace Air Force One had been repeatedly delayed and have still yet to be delivered.

7:30These are extremely dangerous conditions, and they will affect every part of our city. In New York and many other cities, officials are preparing for what could be a record-breaking heat wave. temperatures will climb into the high 90s and triple digits with a heat index that could peak around 112 degrees cities have opened cooling centers and sent out vans staffed by nurses doing wellness checks on vulnerable residents and er doctors are staring down a double whammy the fourth of july weekend always brings a surge of patients with fireworks injuries Now they're bracing for people suffering dehydration and heat stroke.

8:11In the U.S., extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths. The heat's already been hitting in many places. According to the National Weather Service, as of today, more than 230 million people in the U.S., from the Dakotas to Boston down to Miami, are likely to experience dangerous conditions.

8:40And finally... Let me identify each of you. May I have you by name, just not a faceless group. Victor Willis, I love you. And that's Victor. The lead singer of The Village People, Victor Willis, has died at age 74. In the campy disco-era band, Willis was the one often dressed as a police officer, up there on stage alongside a construction worker, a cowboy, etc. A critic for the Times once described Willis as the only, quote, overt musician in the group, which had a string of massive hits with YMCA and Macho Man, both of which Willis co-wrote.

9:19Raised in San Francisco, Willis later moved to New York to act and perform, and he frequented a YMCA, which helped inspire the song. It became a karaoke staple and a go-to hit at weddings, even for uncles that can't dance. Over the years, there were a lot of sometimes heated discussions about what the song meant. People had long embraced it as a gay anthem, with the lyrics calling to hang out with all the boys. But Willis, for his part, threatened to sue news outlets that called it that. He said he didn't mind gay people adopting the song, but that he never intended it as that. More recently, the song became the soundtrack to Trump rallies as the president danced along.

10:00I got a lot of calls and a lot of emails from people that were, like, really upset by the fact that they thought that we were endorsing Trump. In interviews, Willis, who performed as part of Trump's second inauguration, maintained he was not endorsing the president's policies. And he said that he believed music should be, quote, not preserved for one political side.

10:24Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford, and there is no show tomorrow for the holiday. That means no full quiz this week, but we will give you one question before we go. This weekend is the 250th anniversary of the United States. As part of the festivities, the federal government is burying a time capsule. And each state got a chance to put something in that will be dug up way, way, way in the future. I'm going to give you three items that are in there, and you tell me the state that contributed them. To start, a bit of fabric from the Wright brothers' first flight.

11:04That's Ohio. Kind of a trick because the flight took place in North Carolina. but the brothers were from Ohio. Next, a message etched into a whale bone.

11:18That's Maine. And last one, a bolo tie.

11:27That's New Mexico, coming in with a fashion contribution. The bolo tie is the official state tie of New Mexico, because every state needs a state tie. That's it for the week. The headlines will be back on Monday.