This is H.
reporter who's watched with a lot of alarm as our profession has shrunk in recent years. Normally, this is why I'd ask you to subscribe to The Times. But today, I'm encouraging you to support any news organization that's dedicated to original reporting. Whether that's
“your local newspaper, a national paper, or The New York Times, what matters most is that”
you subscribe to a real news organization doing firsthand fact-based reporting. And if you already do, thank you. From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, March 24th.
Here's what we're covering.
In the Middle East, the most of the attacks here reportedly caused extensive damage at oil facilities throughout the region. A recent wave of attacks on energy infrastructure has marked a new phase in the war. After Israel struck the South Pass Gasfield, Iran vowing to retaliate. Economists are raising the alarm that the damage to the global economy could be long-term.
Until now, much of the attention has been on the straight-of-horre moves, whether oil tankers
“and other ships can get in or out. The idea is if that's resolved, things will get flowing”
again. Fuel prices will come back down. But with targets like refineries and gas fields coming
under fire, the effects could be felt for years.
Let me explain how challenging the situation is. Yesterday, the head of the International Energy Agency said the war is the biggest threat to global energy security in history. At least 40-40 energy assets in the region are severely damaged. One site that's been hit, for example, is a vast, coutry complex that produces roughly
a fifth of the world's liquified natural gas. That's used to heat homes, cook food, and power factories across Asia and Europe. In official said it could take up to five years to repair.
“All the disruptions like that could continue to drive up global energy prices, and high”
energy prices tend to slow economic growth, increase unemployment and speed up inflation.
One energy consulting firm is now warning that oil, which was about $73 a barrel before the war, and is now crossed 100, could climb to as high as $200 a barrel by the end of the year. If that happens, one expert told the Times, "I couldn't fathom, we would not start seeing economies fall into a recession."
Meanwhile, there's been a slew of conflicting signals on how long the war could last, and whether any more energy infrastructure could come under fire. President Trump declared yesterday that the U.S. and Iran had had what he called "productive conversations," and Iranian parliamentary leader dismissed that "s fake news." The Times has learned that while some messages have been going back and forth, U.S. officials
say the negotiations have not been substantive despite Trump's claims. Now a few more quick updates on the Trump administration, from the Homeland Security shutdown, to an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars. "It would work, we could have had KSA paid by the end of the week, but the President said no deal, so my plan."
There was almost a bipartisan agreement in the Senate over the DHS shutdown, but President Trump has mixed it. GOP Senator John Kennedy told Fox News that he and other Republicans were prepared to accept a deal from Democrats that would have funded all of DHS except ICE for now. But when the President was looped in, he "quashed it."
Yesterday, Trump made clear he wants to leverage the funding stand-off as a way to push his voter ID bill without a deal on DHS, TSA agents will continue to go unpaid, which has already caused widespread disruption to air travel in the U.S. as some passengers wait in hours long security lines. Also, in the Senate, the eyes are 54, the Nays are 45, the nomination of Mark Wayne
Mullin of Oklahoma to be Secretary of Homeland Security is confirmed. Mark Wayne Mullin was confirmed as the next leader of DHS, taking over from Christy Nome, who Trump fired after a string of controversies, and national outrage over the killings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents. All of that combined with the ongoing shutdown make it a tenuous time for Mullin to step
into the role.
In his confirmation hearing, he struck a less combative and more cooperative ...
but he's made clear he's committed to fulfilling Trump's promise to crack down on a legal immigration.
“In last update on the administration, the White House has struck an unusual deal with”
a French energy company.
The U.S. is going to pay nearly $1 billion to total energies to abandon its plans to build
wind farms off the East Coast. The company paid for leases under the Biden administration to build off New York and North Carolina. The U.S. will now reimburse it for that. In exchange, total energies is supposed to invest that money in oil and gas projects in the
U.S. The deal is a remarkable transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company for the purposes of boosting the production of fossil fuels while throttling a renewable energy source.
“Trump has railed against wind power for years, calling the projects ugly and claiming”
without evidence that they are, quote, "driving whales crazy." In New York, a person briefed on the federal investigation into the deadly crash at LaGuardia on Sunday tells the times that officials are looking into whether an air traffic controller there was distracted moments before the accident. The reporters from the controlled tower show that just before the crash, one of the controllers
on duty was directing a fire truck to help with an issue on a separate flight. The controller gave the fire truck the go ahead to cross the runway, just as an air candidate flight was landing. One passenger on the flight told the time she heard a loud grinding sound, which she thought was the pilot trying to break before the crash, and she was thrown forward and people
started screaming. The force of the collision ejected one flight attendant who was tossed from the plane and landed on the runway still strapped to her seat. She was one of dozens of people who were injured, the two pilots on the plane both died in the crash.
While the airport partially reopened yesterday, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board say it will still take time to finish sorting through the wreckage and fully clear it. The head of the NTSB says its investigation got off to a bit of a slow start yesterday, in part because some of its specialists who were trying to fly in from around the country were
among those caught in long security lines.
And finally, in Argentina, the time's have been reporting on how the country's national
dance, Tango, is being put to use as therapy, specifically for patients with Parkinson's, the incurable disease that affects the central nervous system. Tango is known for its passion, its heart, and its precise movements, its those specific steps that doctors at one hospital in Buenos Aires have found are extremely helpful for their patients dealing with balance and coordination issues.
Tango involves a lot of going backwards, shifting weight from one foot to another as one researcher who helped start the hospital's program put it, quote, "Tango uses the same kind of movements that people with Parkinson's disease tend to lose." The class encourages patients to use the Tango moves they've learned to then help with
every day activities, for instance, opening the fridge is basically doing a side step.
“There's also a lot of torso rotation in Tango, a key movement for something like washing”
the dishes. Dance therapy is used to treat other conditions as well in Argentina and beyond, like Alzheimer's or multiple sclerosis. In Buenos Aires, the program has been so transformative for some patient sense of confidence that some people who walked in with canes and ended up walking out of Tango class without
them. Those are the headlines. Today on the Daily, a look at how China made itself tariff proof. 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.
