Democrats Win Big in Election Map Fight, and Influencers Push Nicotine as a Health Hack

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0:35From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, April 22nd. Here's what we're covering.

0:46You're saying that you need at least the prospects for a signed deal today and tomorrow, or else you would resume bombing Iran. Well, I expect to be bombing because I think that's a better attitude to go in with. President Trump started the day yesterday vowing a new wave of attacks against Iran. I mean, the military is raring to go. They are absolutely incredible. But by the afternoon, he pivoted, announcing that he was indefinitely extending the ceasefire just hours before it was set to expire. In a statement posted to social media, Trump said Pakistan, which has been trying to mediate an end to the war, had asked him to keep the truce going, and he agreed, saying he'll hold off on attacks until Iran comes forward with a proposal.

1:31Iran, however, seemed to dismiss Trump's announcement, with a top government advisor responding, quote, The extension of the ceasefire by Donald Trump has no meaning. All of this happened just as Vice President J.D. Vance was expected to fly to Pakistan to continue negotiations, That trip's been paused for now, but a U.S. official told The Times it could be back on at a moment's notice.

1:58Now, a few more quick updates on the administration and politics. We sent a strong message to Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans. Democrats notched a major win last night in Virginia, locking in an aggressively gerrymandered new election map that could give the party four extra seats in Congress. It's the latest example of states redrawing maps in favor of one party or another ahead of the midterms. The rush to redistrict kicked off last year after President Trump urged red states to get the GOP more seats. With control of Congress potentially at stake, a staggering amount of money went into influencing the Virginia vote, and a lot of it was so-called dark money.

2:37According to a Times analysis of the groups that spent the most on advertising in the race, At least 96 percent of the nearly$100 million they raised came from nonprofits that don't disclose their donors. Those kinds of nonprofit groups that can offer anonymity are increasingly being used to bankroll elections across the country. Also, the money is going extremely fast. I've got one payroll left and there is no more emergency fund. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen, is warning that the agency is about to run out of money to pay its employees. Congress has left the department largely unfunded and partially shut down for more than two months.

3:19And Mullen said even the emergency funding that President Trump had pushed to pay TSA officers is on the verge of drying up, which could reignite chaos at American airports. Democrats have so far refused to back any funding deal that doesn't include new limits on immigration enforcement. And the Times has learned that the Trump administration is in talks to potentially send refugees from Afghanistan, who helped with the American war effort there, to the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to an aid worker familiar with the plan, the U.S. is considering sending as many as 1 ,100 refugees to the African country.

3:57The group includes former interpreters for the U.S. military and Afghans who fought alongside Americans. Many Afghans with similar backgrounds have already been resettled in the U.S., but this group, which was evacuated from Afghanistan to Qatar, has been living in limbo, in part because the Trump administration has tightened immigration policies. One of those policies, known as the Special Immigrant Visa Program, was frozen in the fall after an Afghan man shot two National Guard members in D.C. Now, the administration could give the group a stark choice. Go back home, where they could face retaliation from the Taliban, or go to Congo, which is already suffering one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

4:39Congo currently has hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring countries, and human rights activists say it's not equipped to take in any more. In response to questions from The Times, a State Department spokesman said the White is focused on, quote, advancing responsible voluntary resettlement options. One former diplomat pushed back on the potential strategy, saying, who is going to fight alongside the U.S. when the U.S. betrays the people who stood alongside us?

5:13Influencers online are increasingly talking about a substance that they say can help you live longer, think sharper, reverse the risk of Alzheimer's disease. It helps me slow down. It helps with recall, helps processing speed, I notice. And even make you more productive and happier. It is subtle at low dose, but it's just like, wow, everything just got easier. I've been really surprised to find out that what they're talking about is nicotine. Times health reporter Danny Bloom has been digging into how nicotine is getting hyped up online as a quote-unquote natural health hack. Influencers aren't necessarily advocating for everybody to start smoking, but they're pushing patches, gums, lozenges, and pouches with nicotine, which is highly addictive.

5:56And Danny says many of the people promoting it are aligned with the Make America Healthy Again movement. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself has been photographed carrying a tin of Zin, a brand of nicotine pouch. And Tucker Carlson, the conservative TV host, has claimed the pouches are life-saving and can increase male vitality. He even sells his own brand. A number of them are using the same rhetoric that I've seen really bubble up within the Maha space. And so you have influencers claiming that nicotine is natural. There are some that say that the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want you to know about the benefits of nicotine because they would rather have you shell out for prescription drugs, there's a real mindset and a mentality within the Maha movement that emphasizes this idea of the ability to put whatever you want in your body and to really challenge establishment wisdom.

6:48And so it's really been fascinating to see the ways in which this push for nicotine has slotted really nicely into this ecosystem that Maha has created. Dani says when she talked to medical experts about this trend, they warned that many influencers' claims about nicotine are unproven and that the drug can pose a health risk, especially to young people. One expert who has studied tobacco products said, quote, it's alarming that people who appear to be very health conscious are allowing themselves to participate in a giant human biology experiment when we know that nicotine is extremely harmful.

7:28And finally, a new study shows that rainforests may be more resilient than scientists knew. The critical ecosystems have been disappearing at an alarming rate, as much as 18 soccer fields a minute. And scientists studying them have found that it generally takes about a century for the trees and plants to fully regrow. They largely assumed it would also take about 100 years for the animals to come back, too. But new research published this month in the journal Nature shows that the forest creatures can actually bounce back much more quickly. A team studied dozens of patches of forest in Ecuador that had been slashed to make way for cacao plantations or cattle pastures and found that the majority of mammals, insects, and birds had returned after just three decades.

8:15One ecologist who was not involved in the study called it a message of hope. Now, the researchers say there are caveats. One of the most important is that they were looking at patches of deforested land that were next to untouched forests. They say that's crucial because basically the animals were able to shelter nearby and then make their way back over as the land recovered. Those are the headlines. Today, we have a special bonus episode of the show. We asked for your questions about the war in Iran, and this morning, we are answering them. You can find that in the Times app or wherever you get your podcasts.

8:50I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.

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