The Governor in the Spotlight at Climate Talks, and Escalating Violence in the West Bank

0:02From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis. Today's Wednesday, November 12th. Here's what we're covering.

0:14The reason I'm here is in the absence of leadership coming from the United States. This vacuum, it's rather jaw-dropping. This week at the world's highest-profile climate conference, COP30, California Governor Gavin Newsom has stepped into the spotlight. For the first time in the history of the U.N. summit, the U.S. did not send a delegation. So Newsom is the most prominent American official at the talks, which are taking place in Brazil. This is part of our economic strategy. It's an economic imperative. It's a global competitive responsibility for us to now assert ourselves more forcefully in the absence of national leadership.

0:57In speech after speech, Newsom, who's thought to be considering a run for president, pushed back forcefully on the Trump administration's efforts to pull back from global climate cooperation and double down on fossil fuels. Newsom cast his state, which is one of the top producers of renewable energy in the U.S., as a stable and reliable partner in the fight to reduce global emissions. He also painted President Trump as a threat to American industry, saying he's let China dominate clean energy technology. My colleague Somini Singupta has been covering COP30, where she says that even beyond Newsom's comments, China's status as the world's clean energy superpower has been getting a lot of attention.

1:38In the last decade, it's decided that this is how they're going to power their economy. And now they've produced so much of it. They've saturated the country with electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels. They now need new markets around the world. Somini says that as China has started flooding the global market with cheap renewable technology, the cost of that technology has dropped, allowing many of the world's developing countries to rapidly and affordably expand their use of green energy. There are new solar panel factories in Vietnam, new electric vehicle plants in Brazil, and Ethiopia has even banned the import of new gas-powered cars.

2:18While there are concerns in the United States and Europe about one country China dominating new energy technologies, the fact that China has made it so cheap and so accessible is actually good for climate action. That's exactly what a diplomat who was leading the talks here told us a couple of days ago. He said, if you're worried about climate, this is good news.

2:53Now, three updates on the Trump administration. The Times has learned that the White House is finalizing plans to send a surge of border agents to New Orleans and Charlotte, North Carolina. That would mark an escalation of the president's immigration crackdown in major U.S. cities, including most notably Chicago. There, a two-month enforcement blitz has led to thousands of arrests. and sparked intense confrontations between angry residents and federal agents, who've sometimes responded by using tear gas and pepper spray on crowds. Also, the U.S. Navy's largest and most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in the Caribbean yesterday.

3:33The U.S. has been ramping up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as White House aides have pushed to oust the authoritarian leader. At the same time, as recently as Sunday, U.S. troops in the region have been carrying out lethal strikes on boats the administration says are smuggling drugs from Venezuela and other countries. A wide range of military law experts have called those strikes illegal, and one of America's key allies, Britain, has now also pushed back. It recently stopped sharing intelligence on drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean, with a senior official telling The Times the country did not want to be complicit in the American strikes.

4:13And Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing criticism for a deal he struck with Equatorial Guinea to agree to take deportees from the U.S. in exchange for$7.5 million. In a letter to Rubio, Democratic Senator Gene Shaheen called the deal highly unusual, noting that Equatorial Guinea has one of the most corrupt governments in the world. The U.S. State Department itself has called corruption a, quote, severe problem, and noted in a report that government officials there are said to be involved in human trafficking. The deal is one of several similar agreements the U.S. has struck with third-party countries, including Rwanda and El Salvador, to take in deportees who are not their citizens.

4:55The$7.5 million payment for Equatorial Guinea is by far the largest sum yet. The State Department declined to comment on the arrangement.

5:12On Capitol Hill today, the House of Representatives will return to session to take up the bill that could end the ongoing shutdown and fund the government through January 30th. The bill has significant momentum, but the House vote could be close. Nearly all Democrats are opposed to the measure since it doesn't extend health care subsidies, so House Speaker Mike Johnson will likely need every single Republican to show up and vote for it. The House, though, hasn't been in session for over 50 days, and lawmakers trying to rush back to D.C. for the vote could be delayed by the air traffic disruptions that have escalated during the shutdown.

5:50Meanwhile, as the shutdown has caused cancellations and delays for commercial airlines, new data shows that private air travel has boomed. According to numbers from the industry, private aviation had its best month in nearly two decades in October, with companies reporting record numbers of bookings. Private jets can pivot more easily than big airlines when there are air traffic control issues or other problems. And they've largely been able to avoid flight restrictions that the Trump administration put in place at the country's largest airports. Overall, the recent surge is part of a bigger uptick in private air travel in the U.S.

6:24The CEO of one charter jet company told The Times, quote, Ultimately, airline disruption is good advertisement for private aviation.

6:37In the Middle East, Israeli settlers have been escalating their attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, burning homes, torching vehicles, and beating residents. According to the UN, October saw the most settler violence of any month in nearly two decades, with more than 250 attacks as large groups of Jewish extremists descended on the West Bank. The latest major attack came yesterday in an industrial zone, where dozens of masked Israelis set fire to a warehouse, smashing windows and beating several Palestinians. Israeli police said they arrested four people in connection with the attack.

7:18According to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups, arrests like that are a rarity. A number of rights groups have accused the Israeli government of frequently turning a blind eye to settler violence. They say authorities often disperse clashes without detaining Israeli attackers and that few are ever charged with crimes. One Israeli rights group found that over the course of 20 years, police investigated more than 1 ,700 cases of violence against Palestinians. Nearly all of them were closed without an indictment.

7:53And finally.

8:01For more than a century, a solemn, iconic part of funerals for American military veterans has been the 24-note bugle call known as taps. The Times has been covering how in recent years that song has been played across the country not just by official military musicians, but also by thousands of volunteers. Back in 2000, most veterans were made eligible to receive funeral honors that included a rendition of taps, but demand quickly outstripped supply. At one point, there were about 1 ,800 veteran deaths a day and only 500 military buglers. In response, the Pentagon greenlit a digital bugle, basically a bugle-shaped speaker that plays an old recording of taps from Arlington National Cemetery.

8:46But those modified bugles got a wide range of criticism from people who play the real thing. They've complained that they're deceptive or that they can sometimes be cued to play the wrong song altogether. So across the country, volunteers have stepped in to make sure that as many funerals as possible get traditional taps, played by a human. For example, members of the group Bugles Across America played at more than 5 ,000 military funerals or events last year. One volunteer told the Times, It just broke my heart when I realized that they were using canned music. And a 19-year-old student, who's also been playing at funerals, said that as he's playing taps, he thinks about each note, quote, like it's a story, like you're telling the story of this soldier.

9:32Those are the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis. The show will be back tomorrow with Tracy Mumford.