Dick Cheney Dies at 84, and Anonymous Ballroom Donors Face Scrutiny

0:02From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, November 4th. Here's what we're covering.

0:13Dick Cheney, widely regarded as the most powerful vice president in American history, has died at age 84. I started out in life to be an academic, and I got caught up in the political wars. He entered politics in the 1960s with an internship at the Wyoming legislature, later becoming a congressman himself and being tapped for secretary of defense by President George H.W. Bush. In that position, Cheney helped engineer the Gulf War in 1991. The coalition forces of Operation Desert Storm have begun a large-scale ground operation against Iraqi forces inside Kuwait. He left Washington briefly after that to run Halliburton, one of the largest companies in the oil industry, before returning when Bush's son, George W., was running for president.

1:03Cheney famously agreed to help Bush select a running mate in a process that ended up with him getting the job. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That looks like a second plane. On September 11, 2001, Bush happened to be away from the White House, so it was Cheney who took a leading role in responding to the terrorist attacks from a bunker underneath the East Wing. I think the important thing here is for people to understand that things have changed since last Tuesday. The world's shifted in some respects. He went on to advocate for aggressive policies in the so-called war on terror, including warrantless surveillance and brutal interrogations.

1:39And in 2003... Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. Cheney pushed for the invasion of Iraq, saying that there were weapons of mass destruction there, a claim that turned out to be false. That led to a bloody nearly nine-year occupation of the country. In all, his actions in the White House earned him a reputation for Machiavellian tactics, with even Bush himself acknowledging that people thought of Cheney as the, quote, Darth Vader of the administration, though Bush said he valued his steadiness and friendship. As Cheney left office, he insisted that historians would ultimately look back favorably on the administration's efforts to keep the U.S.

2:21safe. For Vice President Cheney's full obituary, go to nytimes.com.

2:35This week, President Trump is facing a series of major back-to-back tests of his power and influence, from the ballot box to the Supreme Court. First, today is Election Day across the U.S. We need a governor who will support the thousands of Virginia's families, whose livelihoods have been disrupted because of Doge. And now this government shutdown. In governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats have been trying to leverage some voters' anger over Trump's first nine months in office into momentum for their party. So it'll be a test for the GOP and the candidates Trump has endorsed. He's backed Republicans in those governor's races.

3:19And just last night, he said he's supporting Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor over the Democratic Socialist Zoran Mamdani, who has a significant lead. Next, at the Supreme Court tomorrow. What happens to your economic plan if the Supreme Court invalidates your tariffs? I think our country will be immeasurably hurt. The justices will hear arguments about whether the president's sweeping unilateral use of tariffs has been legal or not, a case Trump himself has framed as one of the most important in the history of the country. Legal experts say that the case is a complicated toss-up with thorny questions about the law and that the justices seem clearly aware that however they decide, the president will take their ruling either as a personal victory or a blow.

4:10And in the third big test facing the president this week, the ongoing government shutdown is now on the brink of becoming the longest shutdown in American history. And while Trump has continued to frame the impasse on Capitol Hill as purely Democrats' fault, recent polling of registered voters shows that Trump and Republicans are getting much of the blame. 46 % of people said they hold them responsible, compared to 37 % who blame Democrats. When asked about the stakes of this week for the president, a White House spokesman said in a statement, quote, Every week is pivotal when Americans have a president who is all gas, no brakes on his push to make America great again.

4:57Now, two more quick updates on the Trump administration. The funding for President Trump's$300 million White House ballroom is coming under scrutiny after the Times found that several donors' identities were not disclosed. The White House had promised transparency around the privately funded project and released a list of more than three dozen individual and corporate donors last month. But the Times found that the administration had given some donors the option of staying anonymous. Some of those who opted for that included two health care companies that are pushing for changes to Medicare and a major investor in TikTok who could benefit from a Trump-backed deal to keep the app running in the U.S.

5:39One Democratic senator has now sent letters to the incognito donors asking why they chose to stay anonymous when they gave the money and raising questions about, quote, what promises may have been or may yet be made in exchange. And in Colorado, a video of a federal immigration agent putting a protester in a chokehold and throwing her to the ground has now sparked a state investigation that could pit local law enforcement against the federal government. While clashes between immigration agents and protesters across the country have sparked lawsuits over the agent's use of tear gas and other tactics, the case in Durango, Colorado, could lead to the first criminal charges against an agent.

6:27After reviewing footage of the incident, the local police chief called it an out-of-policy and possibly illegal use of force. If charges are filed, it would be a remarkable step, since federal agents have broad legal protections and there's little precedent for states arresting them. Customs and Border Patrol said in a statement that its agents are held to the, quote, highest professional standard and that the officer involved in the incident is under internal investigation.

7:04I'm Dave Phillips, and I write about the military for The New York Times. And for the last two years, I've been looking at how a lot of brain injuries in the military are caused not by combat, but by the blast waves that are released when soldiers fire their own weapons. And when we started to discover that that was going on in military weapons, it was natural for us to ask, what about the tens of millions of guns that are here in the United States that civilians own? What kind of hazard are they facing? And when we looked into it, we found that there was hardly any public information out there.

7:38No numbers, no assessment of the risk. And so since there was no data there, we decided to gather our own. There's a new investigation out today from The Times that looks at the potential for brain damage caused by going shooting at indoor gun ranges, something many Americans do on a regular basis. My colleague Dave Phillips says that the thing to remember about the human brain is that it's an extremely delicate network of trillions of connections. And it's basically got the consistency of jello. There are a lot of unknowns about how something that fragile can be affected by things like blast waves from gunshots.

8:16Given that, many firearms experts and neurologists say it's safest to limit blast exposure as much as possible. But data that the Times gathered shows shooting indoors does the opposite. We use the same blast sensors that the military uses, and we put them on a volunteer and took him to a civilian gun range. There we fired several very common rifles and handguns and gathered readings from all of them. We found that the largest rifle we tested, a.50 caliber, greatly exceeded what the military says is safe for the brain. And even smaller rifles, when fired repeatedly, could add up to a hazardous exposure.

8:54We also found that while indoor ranges are almost all designed with individual shooting booths to make shooting safer, Those enclosed areas actually reflect the blast back at the shooter, making the blast exposure double or triple what it would be in an open area. There's almost no research on how this low level of blast impacts the brain. And so scientists can't say whether brain injuries are actually happening. But if you talk to people who shoot indoors, it's not hard to find people that talk about symptoms of headache, foggy thinking, fatigue, and other signs of, you know, what we think of as concussion.

9:32So experts say it's quite possible that these injuries have been happening all along and we just haven't realized it. You can find video of how the Times measured blast waves at the gun range and tips on how people can limit their exposure when they do go shooting at NYTimes.com.

9:56And finally, killer whales vs. great white sharks. The two ocean predators have been known to clash before. In South Africa a few years ago, shark carcasses were washing up on shore without their livers. Researchers realized that the orcas had been going a little Hannibal Lecter on them. Now, a new study out this week has documented the orcas taking on the sharks off the coast of Mexico. The killer whales are using a hunting technique that involves flipping the sharks upside down onto their backs. It puts the sharks in a kind of trance-like state where they're temporarily paralyzed, really cuts down on the biting.

10:37Then, the killer whales go for the liver, and just the liver. A marine ecologist told The Times, that organ is full of calories, and it's really the only thing worth the orca's time, saying, quote, it's sort of like they're going for the cheeseburger surrounded by a bunch of celery. As for why we're seeing this now, scientists think that climate change and warming oceans may be altering the creature's territories and feeding habits, bringing them into contact with each other more and more often. The documented attacks have offered a counterpoint to great white sharks' reputation as invincible apex predators.

11:15The list of things that can take them down now has orcas on there, right underneath Richard Dreyfuss & Co.

11:25Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily. Is there an account balance? I have 12 cents. The view from one of the places in the U.S. that relies the most on food stamps. which have now been delayed or cut back during the government shutdown. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.