Six Months of War, and Trump’s Push for ‘Lake America’

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0:17Zolan Kanno-Youngs:From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, August 28th. Here's what we're covering.

0:29Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Six months ago today... The United States and its partners have launched Operation Epic Fury, one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensives the world has ever seen. The U.S. and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, with President Trump vowing there would be a quick, decisive victory over the country's hardline regime. I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. Now, half a year in, the war has failed to achieve the goals Trump first laid out, of sparking an uprising to overthrow Iran's government and crushing the country's nuclear program.

1:21Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Instead, the conflict is dragging on, with analysts saying there's no end in sight. And in Iran, my colleagues say there's a growing sense of hopelessness. For a lot of Iranians, when the war started, although they were very worried about what might happen, a lot of them had some kind of hope for what the war might bring in terms of unseating the regime. That, of course, has not come to pass. And so instead, they're sort of increasingly convinced that, OK, the Islamic Republic is here to stay. And then also they're just facing a lot of economic pressures. Yagina Torbati covers Iran for The Times.

1:58Zolan Kanno-Youngs:She says Iranians are facing high rates of unemployment and skyrocketing food prices that have put even basic staples out of reach for many people. At the same time, beyond the economic squeeze, they're also feeling the pressure of a regime that's gotten more and more repressive, tightening control over the country. There's been increased executions this year, especially of political prisoners. The government has been going after dissidents or even people who just speak out against it online. And so people feel quite scared and anxious about that. And then even small things. So recently, Tehran and other major cities have seen this kind of burgeoning cafe culture.

2:38And this has sort of come about because as Iranians are pressured economically, you know, they can't maybe even go out to dinner, but they can still at least afford a cup of coffee with their friends once a week or so and kind of go out for a few hours and feel normal. And these have been places where young people had been gathering, women were often unveiled, and that had become kind of this very conspicuous counterculture. That has now become a target for the state. And so recently, dozens of these cafes have been shut down. It's really just the latest instance of the state making very clear that it wants to be in control of society and is not allowing even these little pockets of sort of ordinary life or anything that they see as not fully in line with state ideology.

3:32Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Now, two quick updates on the Trump administration. First. We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately to Lake America. President Trump signed an executive order yesterday directing his administration to rename Lake Ontario as he continues to take aim at Canada amid an escalating trade war. Trump has issued a declaration like this before, ordering the Gulf of Mexico to be officially renamed the Gulf of America. In response to the move this week, The head of one Canadian province dismissed it as more of the same, saying, quote, he's trying to play the hits for his base, but I think everybody here thinks it's a little sad.

4:16Zolan Kanno-Youngs:When it comes to name changes, Trump's order only affects federal agencies and documents. And the governor of New York, the state that borders the Great Lake, said it will continue to call it Lake Ontario. And the Times has learned the Trump administration is planning to increase deportation flights to Haiti in an effort to quickly expel people whose legal status expired this summer. Over the years, more than 300 ,000 Haitians had been granted temporary protected status to legally live and work in the U.S. because Haiti was deemed so unsafe. First due to a deadly earthquake, then gang violence that has gripped the country.

4:59Zolan Kanno-Youngs:But in June, the Supreme Court allowed President Trump to cancel that status. Now, according to documents the Times reviewed, deportation flights to Haiti could go from once a month to once a week. Some human rights groups have warned that people are being sent back to dangerous conditions. The State Department itself has even told American travelers not to visit Haiti, due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care. While deportation flights used to land at Haiti's main airport in the capital, there have been reports of gangs firing on planes there, and the new flights will land at an airport in a smaller city instead.

5:47Zolan Kanno-Youngs:In Nepal, the full scale of the devastation from this week's catastrophic flash flood is still becoming clear. The official death toll has doubled from yesterday. It's now more than 450, with more than 1 ,000 people still missing. And the Times has been speaking with some of the survivors who described how the water seemed to come out of nowhere. One man from a village near Nepal's border with Tibet said he was at home with his family Wednesday morning when he heard what sounded like a thunderclap. Then he felt a whoosh of air, like a breeze coming through. Before he knew it, a massive wave of muddy water and rock had slammed into his home.

6:28Zolan Kanno-Youngs:He was able to outrun it, scrambling up the valley, but he watched as it carried away his wife and two daughters, age seven and eight. Nepal's foreign minister said the flood, which experts think was caused by a huge chunk of a glacier plummeting down into the valley below, has completely wiped out town after town. With the roads washed away, too, helicopters have been flying in and out of the mountains, picking up survivors. At this point, authorities are warning that there could be more water coming. Chinese officials say that the ice avalanche that set off the initial flood also formed a massive lake, and that lake is now at risk of bursting as rain sweeps through the region.

7:17Zolan Kanno-Youngs:And finally, buckle up here for a bit of a story. In Canada, starting a few years ago, there was a surge in car thefts. It got to the point that thieves were breaking into people's homes just to get keys. And specifically, a lot of pickup trucks like Dodge Rams, Toyota Tundras, and Ford F-150s seem to be just disappearing off the streets. So my colleague Michael Schwartz and I started looking into this when we got a tip-off from a source at Interpol, that's the International Police Agency. And they told us that thousands of stolen Canadian cars and trucks were ending up somewhere really surprising, Russia.

7:56Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Jane Bradley is an investigative reporter at The Times. She says, according to data from Interpol, there were almost 5 ,000 reports of stolen Canadian vehicles ending up in Russia over the past two years. And authorities think that's a significant undercount. What's happening, Jane says, is that Russians have developed a huge taste for Western pickups and luxury cars that they can no longer get due to Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine. And the more people can't have them, the more they want them. What we've found is that in order to feed these markets, these black markets in Russia, these organized crime networks have cropped up.

8:35So what happens is that there is somebody in Russia who wants 15 Land Rovers, say, and you will get these kind of foot soldiers, if you like, the lower-level criminals who will be walking around residential neighborhoods, high-end shopping malls in Canada, looking for those 15 Land Rovers to fulfill that order. So this is an incredibly sophisticated, incredibly organized network. These cars are not stolen by chance, they are stolen to order. One of the big questions we had when we heard about this was how they actually get these cars, these stolen cars, to Russia. And they basically use these huge like 40 foot shipping containers that leave Canadian borders through ports in Montreal and Vancouver.

9:21We found when I went on a raid with some border officials at the Canadian Border Services Agency was these stolen cars would be sandwiched hidden between mattresses, legitimate cars, household boxes in these huge shipping containers. And they would then be shipped to Russia, usually by the Middle East, places like Dubai. And the border officials I spoke to in Montreal said that they're recovering 20 to 30 stolen cars worth up to$2 million every week. So this is a hugely lucrative trade.

9:53Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Jane says Canada has been trying to crack down on these crime rings, and thefts have been going down recently, as the country has made changes like increasing prison sentences for car theft. Still, one man she talked to who was being held on charges of participating in a scheme like this, said he didn't think it would stop anytime soon. There's just too much money to be made. Interestingly, some of the stolen cars have actually been returned due to the work of authorities and a non-profit anti-fraud group. Last year, about 200 stolen cars were sent back to Canada from overseas, including from Russia.

10:32Zolan Kanno-Youngs:You just got to imagine that has to be a bizarre call to get, like, oh, we found your car. it's just going to take a little bit of time to get it back to you. Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around. It's just after these credits. And real quick, if you are not a Times subscriber yet, you can get a full month of free access to everything we publish when you download the Times app now. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Kadifa, Jake Lucas, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Sam Dolnick, Miles McKinley, Zoe Murphy, and Chris Wood.

11:12Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Now, time for the quiz. This week, in honor of Dolly Parton, we're going all in with a three-part-in Dolly quiz. And if you're not a Dolly superfan, don't worry, you got this. Don't be intimidated. Dolly never was. First question. Would you welcome Dolly Parton? Dolly! Over the course of her decades-long career, Dolly was everywhere. We're going to play you three little clips of her cameos on famous TV shows. See if you can name the show. Here's the first one. Cleaning lady, would you let us out of here? Me? I'm Dolly Parton. I didn't ask for your life story. Just give me the key. Young man, where I come from, the South, folks say please.

11:55Zolan Kanno-Youngs:That's Dolly on The Simpsons. Next one, where she even appeared on reality TV. I would not have known this was their first date. They rarely seemed into each other, because I have a pretty good eye for that kind of stuff myself.

12:12Zolan Kanno-Youngs:That was from an episode of The Bachelorette that was filmed at Dollywood. And last cameo, deep cut here. Simon, Theodore. and you must be Alvin. Meet my assistant, Fiddle and Freddy. That was Dolly on Alvin and the Chipmunks. Something tells me those chipmunks ain't from Nashville.

12:41Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Okay, next question. On top of being a musical legend, Dolly Parton was also known for her philanthropy, taking up so many different causes. We're going to do a speed round here. See how many you can get. Parton gave away over$300 million what to children in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the US. $300 million what?

13:09Zolan Kanno-Youngs:The answer is books. In the early 90s, she recorded a song for a charity album raising money to help people with this disease.

13:20Zolan Kanno-Youngs:HIV-AIDS. Her Dollywood Foundation gives$15 ,000 scholarships to students graduating in her home state of Tennessee. And final one, she helped found a sanctuary in Tennessee for this animal.

13:42Zolan Kanno-Youngs:A sanctuary for bald eagles. Very America. A few years ago, Parton put it this way to People magazine, saying, quote,

13:56Zolan Kanno-Youngs:And last round here, one of the Dolly hits that you cannot avoid out in the world is Jolene, a karaoke favorite. It's also a favorite for other artists to cover. We're going to play you three snippets of Jolene covers. You tell us which performer or band is doing their best Dolly. First up.

14:26That was Beyonce.

14:28Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Next one.

14:40Zolan Kanno-Youngs:Miley Cyrus there, who is Dolly Parton's goddaughter. And number three, maybe a little harder.

14:59Zolan Kanno-Youngs:That was the White Stripes covering Jolene. Dolly, of course, wrote Jolene when she realized her husband had a crush on a bank teller and seemed to be spending a lot of time there. She said in various interviews, I knew we didn't have the kind of money for him to be spending that kind of time at the bank.

15:22Zolan Kanno-Youngs:That's it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, our email is theheadlines at nytimes.com. I am off next week, but the show will be back with my colleague Will Jarvis. For now, have a great weekend in honor of Dolly, however you do it. Put on some rhinestones, watch Steel Magnolias, or sleep just three hours a night, which is how Dolly Parton said she managed to pull off everything she did.

15:50Thank you.