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I'm Tracy Mumford.
Today's Friday, July 24th. Here's what we're covering.
Just after midnight, the Trump administration imposed new tariffs of 10% on more than 80 countries. The latest move in its aggressive controversial trade policy. For years, President Trump has argued that higher tariffs are necessary to encourage domestic manufacturing and protect American industries from foreign competition. Since re-taking office, he's used them repeatedly, but that's often resulted in court challenges.
“In February, the Supreme Court struck down one major set of tariffs he'd put in place,”
so Trump turned to a different trade law as a stopgap. That had a strict time limit, though, that was set to expire today. So now Trump is using yet another trade law to put in place these new tariffs. Technically, the law he's basing the latest surcharge on, allows the President to impose tariffs on countries.
The U.S. says are engaging in unfair or discriminatory trade practices.
But this is the first time this particular provision has ever been used
to slap tariffs on dozens of countries simultaneously. Critics say the administration's new claims about unfair trade, including that other countries aren't doing enough to stop forced labor, are simply a convenient way to re-impose levies that had been struck down in the courts. In the coming months, the administration is expected to roll out additional tariffs
“on top of other recent surcharges, like a new 50% tariff on many goods from Canada”
that Trump announced earlier this week. The flurry of new tariffs echoes the early days of the President's second term when flipping rates often roiled the global economy and sent businesses scrambling to understand how they'd be affected. For consumers, if Trump's full slate of new tariffs
survives expected legal challenges and importers have to pay the new fees, and analysis by the Yale Budget Lab found that American households will face an average of about $1,100 in additional annual costs. Now, a few quick updates on the war with Iran. First, global oil prices hit $100 a barrel yesterday for the first time since May.
The spike came as the U.S. and Iran have returned to daily attacks, and after the Iran backed Houthi militia, said it hit two Saudi oil tankers in the red sea. The group has been threatening a partial blockade of those waters, potentially choking off what has become an alternate route to the straight-of-horre moves, which is effectively closed.
The cost of oil is now roughly 40% higher than it was before the war started. Also, the times has learned that President Trump sent a new ceasefire proposal to Iran through mediators from Iraq. But, according to Iranian and Iraqi officials, Iran rejected the deal yesterday. Details of the proposal are not clear, but Iran's foreign minister told the state media outlet
that, quote, "the problem is America's outlook, which is illogical, greedy, and controlling."
With no new peace deal in sight, strikes by both the U.S. and Iran continued, with explosions reported across Iran this morning, and Iranian officials saying they'd launched new attacks on U.S. military targets in the region. Meanwhile, in Washington yesterday, "On this boat, the Yays are 2014, the Nays are two away."
The House of Representatives narrowly passed a new measure, pushing back on Trump's campaign against Iran. Democrats, along with four Republicans, directed Trump to either end the conflict or get congressional authorization to continue it. The House and the Senate passed similar measures last month,
but they don't have the force of law and Trump ignored them. Still, Democrats continued to push these kinds of votes as they tried to convince Republicans to stop deferring to the President and demand an end to the unpopular war. According to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released last week,
just 29% of Americans support the conflict. In India,
Protests led by a growing group of angry and frustrated young people
have been spreading for over a month,
“and this week they reached ahead with thousands of people gathering in the capital”
and police cracking down with force. The epicenter for the protest movement, which is growing and multiplying, happens to be virtually across the street from the New York Times, South Asia Bureau here in New Delhi.
We could hear the pop of tear gas cannons going off right outside the office building and chanting and calling mostly protesters running either away from or towards police lines as been a constant sound throughout these days. My colleague Alex Trevelli covers India for the times.
He says the protests first erupted in May after a kind of messy administrative disaster
when the answers to the nationalized exam to get into medical school were leaked, forcing millions of students to retake the test. But that fed into more widespread anger about what protesters say
“is government mismanagement of the education system”
and a lack of opportunity under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The movement is being called a Gen Z movement. That's a term that all of these youth-led protests around this part of the world, especially if been called in recent years, since Nepal protesters brought down their country's government last September.
They are distinctive in being young, being very savvy with their memes, having a sense of bitter, sometimes dark humor. And they are also the Indians who were most bearing the brunt of a certain kind of crisis that pits very educated young people with a job market that just doesn't have room for them. There aren't enough jobs for the people who want them in India.
And you can see that when you look at how the unemployment statistics spray down, the more educated and the younger people are, the less likely they are to have a job. 40% of India's youngest university graduates have nothing good to do. That's been going on for a long time,
but the proportion of the country that is educated and young keeps growing bigger and bigger. And the amount of money that they've piled into these educations has become much greater. So the number of Indians who are stuck in this position and the leverage on them and their families
is like it's never been before.
Some students I've talked to, when asked about tested administration or some of the smaller and concrete demands of the protest movement, starting said by saying, "We feel like we're living under a dictatorship." They start off by talking about democracy, not about test results. There's a sense that this moment, this chance that young people seem to have seized
to talk back to the government to make their complaints heard, is a kind of thing that they've been waiting for. Modi has been empowering now for 12 years, and it's becoming hard to remember a time when the country felt like it could stand up and say no to the government.
And finally, there's been a lot of talk in recent years about movie theaters struggling, but there has been one very unexpected bright spot. This is the cinema exclusive Grogo popcorn bucket. Popcorn buckets.
“Are you wearing the Devil Worse part of two popcorn bucket purse?”
Yeah, I am. It's called fashion sweetie. The bag also comes with a little charm of like a stiletto heel. A elaborate plastic creations have kind of inexplicably hit it big, with people losing their minds for the $70 replica of a Trojan horse for the Odyssey, or a soon-to-be-released Harry Potter broomstick that holds your buttery snack in the bristly end.
The precise industry term is collectible concession vessel, and they've become astonishingly lucrative. AMC theaters estimates that buckets will generate $100 million in revenue this year. And other chains have seen big merch bumps too. The industry consensus is that in R2D2 bucket for the rise of Skywalker back in 2019,
helped spark interest, but it was really the bucket for Dune 2, which was oddly suggestive that supercharged the whole craze. What do you think of this? I don't want to say. When the designs are good, they can sell out super fast, so good luck trying to get a $50 bucket made to look like the IMAX camera,
Christopher Nolan used to film the Odyssey. Those were gone almost immediately. Not every design hits though. The beaver dam buckets for the Pixar movie Hoppers were not a fan favorite. One AMC executive told the Times the whole thing has been wild to watch.
"I would never suggest that popcorn buckets are the reason people go to the movies,
or that movie-themed merch is saving the industry. But over the last few years, they've become a big part of the conversation."
Those are the headlines.
stick around it's just after these credits.
“This show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Kadifa, Jake Lucas,”
John Stewart and me, Tracy Mumford, original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabelle Anderson, Sam Dolnik, Miles McKinley, and Zoe Murphy. Now time for the quiz. Every week we ask you a few questions about stories the Times has been covering. Can you get them all? We're kicking off this week with a speed round that will put your memory to the test.
Now closely have you been paying attention to the news. Here we go. This country got a new Prime Minister on Monday. It's 7th in just 10 years. That's Britain. This group in the Middle East said it's launching a partial blockade of the Red Sea.
The Houthis, the food-born parasite at the center of an outbreak in the US is called...
Cycle of Spora, Washer produce. On Wednesday, the US signed a contentious nuclear agreement with... Saudi Arabia. Also this week, the White House said that this will be temporarily taken out of service soon for, quote, "upgrades and enhancements." They were talking about the new Katari-donated Air Force One. Last one of the speed round. The musician who played the iconic saxophone part on this classic movie theme...
died this week at age 94. Name the movie. That was the slinky theme to the 1960s classic "The Pink Panther" with "Plaz Johnson" on saxophone. Okay, next question.
“Nowadays, if you want to go to Olive Garden and get unlimited pasta, you got it. This isn't complicated stuff.”
Recently, Republican lawmakers across the country have been talking a lot about Olive Garden.
Heck, you even need to preserve it. Do you allow the Olive Garden's never ending pasta paths?
The chain restaurant has been invoked in interviews, house committee hearings, and even on the floor of the Senate. All for one specific reason. In other words, Madam Chair, we're protecting our breadsticks more than our... across this country. You are a question.
What hot button political issue are they using all of garden to try and make a point about? The answer? Voter ID. Republicans are drawing the comparison because the chain restaurant just announced a new rule
“around its popular, never-ending pasta paths.”
In order to use it, customers must show photo ID. That quickly became a talking point on the right as some rush to claim that all of garden has tighter security than U.S. elections. The comparison's a little apples to oranges, though, or when Guini to Tordolini, because three dozen U.S. states already do require voters to show ID,
and the remaining states verify people's identities in other ways. And last question, this unusual, yet adorable furball, is none other than Timothy. Recently, a very oddly shaped raccoon prowling the streets of Seattle has become something of an internet icon. The creature joins a storied hall of other animals that have gone viral in recent years. We're going to play some clips here.
You named the kind of animal that became a star. First. When Neil comes to town, everybody knows about us, because this big boy is wrapped up. This ginormous marine mammal made headlines this summer in Australia for his unruly behavior. What is Neil?
Neil the seal loves a vessel and will break anything in his wife. Neil is a 2200 pound southern elephant seal. Ready for the next one? He's very picky when it comes to food. So blackball, that's the probably his finger thing.
Next to the line is definitely avocado. This bushy-tailed critter named Pina was a social media sensation before his story took a sad turn in 2024. Pina was a... Squirrel. He'd been capped as a pet for seven years before authorities in New York seized and utilized him to test for rabies.
That set off a complete uproar. The state agency involved faced a wave of bomb threats and conservative politicians jumped on the story saying Pina's death wasn't an example of government overreach.
Last viral animal here.
The hottest, hottest new it-throw on the planet.
She's got chubby pink cheeks.
I distinct potato shapes.
What's talking about?
“This mammal named Lou Dang became a worldwide sensation a few years ago.”
Turning her zoo in Thailand into a major tourist destination.
Mood Dang is a what?
“She's a hippo, specifically a pig me hippo who got so popular the zoo put out a line of hippo-themed clothing”
said it would trademark her name and even released an official Mood Dang song. That is it for this week's news quiz.
“If you want to tell us how you did, our email is the headlines at nytimes.com.”
I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back on Monday.
