8.11.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the reading of the New York Times for Monday,
August eleventh, twenty twenty five. Your reader for today is
Mary Fullington. We'll start today's reading with the Merriam Webster
word of the day, which is stipulate. Stipulate is a
verb spelled s ti p u la t e. Stipulate

(00:29):
means to demand or require something as part of an agreement.
As an example, the rules stipulate that players must wear uniforms.
The word of the day stipulate. Now we will read

(00:49):
the front page headlines from today's print edition of The
New York Times. The quiet technocrat who enacts Putin's ruthless agenda.
For three years, Sergai v Kiryenko has handled the political

(01:10):
aspects of the war in Ukraine, rising among a cadre
of skilled managers who oversee the sprawling Russian state. Bite
Club the fraternity that awaits you after a shark attack.
Very few people know what it's like to recover physically

(01:30):
and emotionally from a shark bite, but some of the
ones who do are ready to help. Cannabis poisonings are rising,
mostly among kids, as products like weed gummies proliferate more
children and teens are suffering symptoms, including seizures and life

(01:53):
threatening breathing problems. In election cases, Supreme Court keeps moving guardrails.
The justices, having effectively blessed partisan jerrymandering, may be poised
to eliminate the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act.
First article. The quiet technocrat who enacts Putin's ruthless agenda.

(02:19):
For three years, Sergei v. Kiryenko has handled the political
aspects of the war in Ukraine. Rising among a cadre
of skilled managers who oversee the sprawling Russian state. By
Anton Tronowsky, the Kremlin official boasted of his commitment to
healthy living, opening a door in his office to show

(02:42):
a visiting businessman what looked like a private gym. Then
he described his latest project stage managing referendums in occupied
Ukraine to make it look like those regions wanted to
join Russia. The Moscow businessman, who had come to see

(03:02):
him about another matter, recalled that the official Sergei v. Kiryenko,
had gone into great detail about the referendums, even listening
the percentage breakdown of the results. The Kremlin would declare.
He added that mister Kiryenko left the impression of a calm,
ambitious bureaucrat quote solving a concrete technical problem. Since that

(03:28):
meeting three years ago, it has become more clear than
ever that mister Kuryenko is the man who turns President
Vladimir V. Putin's ideas into action. As the Russian leader
wages war, mister Kiryenko oversees wide ranging government efforts to

(03:49):
tighten mister Putin's grip on the country and on occupied Ukraine.
He has also recently gained new power inside the Kremlin,
taking over much of the portfolio of another Putin aide
who disagreed with the invasion of Ukraine. Despite his modest
title of first Deputy chief of Staff to mister Putin,

(04:12):
mister Kirryenko represents an underappreciated aspect of how the Russian
president exercises power, forming part of a cadre of skilled,
loyal and opportunistic managers who direct the sprawling apparatus of
the Russian state. For more than three years, mister Putin

(04:34):
has leaned on mister Kirryenko sixty three to manage the
political aspects of the Ukraine War, cracking down on domestic opposition,
expanding the Kremlin's control of the Internet, pushing mister Putin's
narrative into Russian schools and culture, shaping propaganda and governance

(04:58):
in occupied Ukraine, attempting to legitimize Russia's land grab. Just
in the past few months, mister Kirryenko's reach has extended
to efforts to reintegrate Ukraine war veterans into civilian life,
and to push Russians onto a state affiliated messaging app

(05:21):
instead of Western ones. If mister Putin makes a deal
with President Trump at their planned summit in Alaska on
Friday to end the fighting in Ukraine, it is likely
to be mister Kirryenko's job to sell any compromise to
Russians as a victory. In interviews, more than a dozen

(05:43):
former colleagues and other Russians who know mister Kirryenko described
him as a man whose proficiency in the minutia of
control and influence have greased the machinery of mister Putin's autocracy.
Many of the people, including three to the Kremlin, spoke
to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity

(06:05):
for fear of retribution. The Kremlin declined to make mister
Kirrienko available for an interview and did not respond to
a request for comment. One of his former aides, Boris B. Nadisen,
said that he noticed mister Kirryenko's skill at managing personnel

(06:27):
and at staying in his boss's good graces three decades ago,
when mister Kiryenko was a deputy energy minister. The two
men would collide in twenty twenty four, when the Kremlin
blocked mister Nadisen's attempt to run for president against mister Putin.
Mister Nadison noted in an interview that Russia's era of

(06:49):
independent politicians had passed. He said that the Putin era
belonged to those like mister Kirenko quote, a person who
does not try to implement any of his own plans, ideas,
and so on, but simply clearly carries out tasks. Mister
Kirryenko casts himself as a student of the cold calculus

(07:14):
of power. He is a sixth rank black belt in aikido,
a Japanese martial art focused on harnessing an opponent's energy
and turning it against them. He professes an interest in methodology,
a Soviet era school of philosophy in which society can

(07:35):
be engineered, managed, and transformed from above. In the tumult
of modern Russian politics, that focus on power has translated
from mister Kirryenko into shifting alliances and repeated reinvention. Quote.

(07:56):
In a game without rules, he once told an interviewer,
the one who makes the rules wins. Mister Kirryenko was
just thirty five in nineteen ninety eight when he briefly
became Russia's Prime minister. His youthful image and meteoric rise
he'd been a regional oil refinery manager a few years before,

(08:18):
earned him the nickname Kinder Surprise, a play on the
name of a European children's candy. After losing his post
when Russia defaulted on its debt, mister Kirryenko co founded
a party pushing Western style economic overhauls. He took a
crash course in literature to appeal to the urban middle class,

(08:41):
reading five books a week in the midst of his
nineteen ninety nine election campaigns for Moscow mayor and for
the Russian Parliament. According to merit A Gulman, then his
campaign manager, quote, he was quick to perceive, quick to change,
said mister Gulman, who later turned against mister Putin and

(09:02):
now lives in Berlin. After mister Putin won the presidency
in two thousand, mister Kiryenko pivoted again and quit parliament
to work for the Kremlin. A few years on, mister
Gulman asked for help for an associate who had run
a foul of the authorities, describing him to mister Kurenko

(09:24):
as quote, a person of our convictions, mister Kiryenko, mister
Gulman recalled shot back, quote, I don't have convictions now,
I'm a soldier of Putin. Alfred R. Koch, a nineteen
nineties era deputy Prime Minister of Russia who also left
the country, described a similar exchange. He complained to mister

(09:48):
Kirryenko in two thousand and three about improprieties in that
year's parliamentary election campaign. Quote are we going to la la,
mister k Kiryenko replied, or are we going to talk business?
Already ensconced in the Kremlin machinery, mister Kirryenko ran one

(10:10):
of the government's biggest businesses from two thousand and five
to twenty sixteen, Rosatom, the state nuclear energy conglomerate. During
those years, mister Kiryenko deepened a bond with a banking
and medium magnate Yuri V. Kovalchuk. According to Western officials
and several of the Kirryenko associates who spoke to The Times,

(10:34):
a physicist by training, mister Kovalchuk is widely seen as
one of mister Putin's closest friends. He persuaded mister Putin
to bring mister Kirryenko back to the Kremlin. Some of
those people said mister Kirryenko had proven himself at Rosatom,
modernizing the company with Japanese management principles and extending Russian

(10:58):
influence by striking deals around the globe. In his new
Kremlin job, mister Kiryenko was entrusted with orchestrating mister Putin's
version of democracy, an exercise in cementing the president's legitimacy
and keeping control of a far flung nation. As the

(11:18):
first Deputy chief of Staff overseeing domestic politics, mister Kiryenko
planned the selection of the Kremlin's preferred candidate for governor
in each of Russia's more than eighty regions. The elections
to fill the more than six hundred seats in parliament
and the stage management of mister Putin's own reelection in

(11:38):
twenty eighteen and in twenty twenty four. Quote He's the
technical implementer, said grigory A Yavlinsky, a liberal politician in
Moscow who ran for president with the Kremlin's approval in
twenty eighteen. It's a huge amount of work. Mister Kirryenko

(12:02):
also held contests to identify the next generations of technocrats,
featuring online aptitude tests and role playing leadership games. Just
this year, finalists of his Quote leaders of Russia competition
have been named to government roles such as auditing construction
projects in occupied Ukraine, managing bus transit in suburban Moscow,

(12:28):
and running the health ministry in Kabrovsk in Russia's Far East.
He has broadened his portfolio further by taking on Russia's
last bastion of free speech, the Internet. In twenty twenty one,
mister Kirryenko rested control of the country's most popular social network,

(12:50):
v Ka from an oligarch. Mister Kovalchuk put up much
of the money. Mister Kirryenko's son became CEO. Mister Kovalchuk's
grand nephew took another senior role. The power of that
alliance was on display in a blitz that minny annalsts

(13:10):
saw as a prelude to a potential ban on WhatsApp.
In March, vik unveiled its own messaging app. In June,
Russia's Communications minister praised the company for releasing a quote
fully Russian messenger in a televised meeting with mister Putin.

(13:30):
Days later, Russian lawmakers passed a bill mandating that a
Russian made messaging app should come pre installed on all smartphones.
In July, the government announced that this app would be
the one developed by v Kay. Quote for us, the
government is always a partner and a senior comrade, mister

(13:52):
Kiryenko's son and the head of Vikay, Vladimir S. Kirryenko
said in April, as mister Putin massed troops and plotted
his twenty twenty two invasion of Ukraine, the president's political
aids were largely in the dark, mister Kirryenko's associates said.

(14:16):
The three people close to the Kremlin said they were
convinced that mister Kirryenko didn't share the fixation on Ukraine's
pro Western turn that drove mister Putin to attack the country.
After the war started, mister Kirryenko soon refashioned himself once again,
trading his suit for olive green shirts. He started traveling

(14:39):
to occupied Ukraine amid the fighting, touring hospitals and schools.
He worked on planning a public war crimes trial of
Ukrainians to show mister Putin fulfilling his promise to denoify
the country. One of his associates told The Times in

(15:01):
June twenty twenty two. The trial never materialized as Russian
forces struggled on the battlefield, but mister Kirryenko said at
a conference in twenty twenty three that the war must
end with trials of Ukrainian criminals. He did succeed in
putting on a different show, the sham reperendums, in which

(15:23):
Moscow claimed Ukrainians under Russian occupation had voted overwhelmingly to
become part of Russia. Inside Russia, mister Kirryenko used the
levers of his office to try to engineer popular support
for mister Putin's invasion. The Public Project's Directorate, a unit

(15:43):
focused on patriotic initiatives that mister Kirryenko oversees, developed propaganda
lescens for Russian school children. His staff also pressurized mid
level officials to serve stints as administrators in occupied Ukraine,
said Sergai Markov, a pro Putin analyst in Moscow who

(16:04):
has worked with the Kremlin. Quote. Sure, those who don't
want to can refuse, mister Markov said, but in that
case they understand that they'll fe serious limits on their careers.
Mister Kirryenko's portfolio also includes the arts. He has ramped

(16:25):
up government support for pro war entertainers who backed the war,
while blackballing those critical of it. According to Russian media reports,
yasoff I Progosen, a major music producer, said in an
interview with The Times, that the Kremlin gave quote a

(16:47):
blank check after the invasion to musicians who were more
focused on national interests. Mister Progosen's wife, the pop star Volcelaria,
has performed at patriotic concerts in Red Square. He called
mister Kiryenko quote positive, decent, sensitive and precise. When mister

(17:15):
Kiryenko's office seeks performers for events, quote, the approach is
not demanding, but suggestive, mister Progosun said. Mister Kiryenko's policies
are also backed up by the full force of the
Russian state. Thousands of anti war Russians have been prosecuted

(17:37):
or forced into exile in an effort that many analysts,
opposition figures, and the former colleagues of mister Kiryenko say
they believe was largely coordinated by him as the Kremlin
official who oversees domestic politics. Iliya v Yashin, a Russian

(17:58):
opposition leader, had just been arrested and interrogated in July
twenty twenty two, when he said he chatted with the
Sex Security Service agent in the grim corridor of a
law enforcement agency in Moscow while waiting for his prisoner
transport to arrive. The agent told him that his arrest

(18:20):
was a quote political decision, dropping hints about a sergai
in the Kremlin who was a buddy of Boris y Nemstov,
the politician who brought mister Kiryenko into government in the
nineteen nineties. The suggestion was that mister Kiryenko was responsible

(18:41):
for his fate. Mister Yashin recalled in an interview after
his release in a prisoner exchange last year, though he
noted he couldn't be certain of mister Kirryenko's role, if any,
to mister Yashin the irony was remarkable. Both he and
mister Kiryenk were allies at different times of mister Nemsov,

(19:05):
a Russian opposition leader assassinated in twenty fifteen. Quote. Now
Nepsov is dead and one of his friends put another
one in prison, mister Yashin wrote from jail in twenty
twenty two. In February of this year, Russian state news

(19:26):
outlets reported that mister Kirryenko was managing public unrest in Abkhazia,
a Russian backed breakaway region of Georgia. To help show
the benefits of being on the Kremlin side, mister Kirryenko
offered a gift of twenty Russian school buses and organized
a version of his trademark leadership competitions. Mister Kirryenko's remit

(19:51):
has been increasingly expanding outside Russian borders. A different Kremlin
Deputy Chief of Staff, Dmitri nkos Zak, oversaw relations with
Abkhazia as recently as last year, but mister Kozak has
lost influence in Moscow amid his criticism of the invasion
of Ukraine. According to the three people close to the Kremlin,

(20:15):
a US official and a Western contact. In the past
few months, they said, mister Kozak presented mister Putin with
a proposal to immediately stop the fighting in Ukraine, start
peace negotiations, and reduce the power of Russia's security services.

(20:35):
The Russian president has kept mister Kozak, who has been
at mister Putin's side since the nineteen nineties, in his
senior post, but he has shifted much of mister Kozak's
portfolio to mister Kirryenko, including managing Kremlin relations with Moldova
and with the two breakaway regions of Georgia. The people
said the expansion of mister Kirryenko's influence shows how his

(21:00):
star continues to rise at the Kremlin as he embraces
and executes mister Putin's wartime policies. Mister Kurenko is quote
effective and absolutely opportunistic, mister Yashin said, if mister Putin

(21:20):
or a future Russian leader pivots back toward the West, someday,
mister Yashin said, Kirrienko will find the words for it.
Next article Bite Club, the fraternity that awaits you after
a shark attack by Victoria Kim. It was from a

(21:43):
hospital bed, in a daze from painkillers, overwhelming media attention,
and a lingering frusson from her brush with death, that
Annika Craney saw the Facebook message quote welcome to Bite Club.
Days earlier, she had been free diving in the Great

(22:04):
Barrier reef when she saw a shark barreling toward her.
She flipped around to put her fins between herself and
the predator, but the murky water around her quickly turned crimson,
blood coursing out of her left foot. She struggled to
get to the beach, trying to stem the arterial bleeding

(22:25):
and screaming for help, and off duty medic fashioned a
tourniquet out of a belt, saving her life and her limb.
Even in those early moments, Miss Craney, then twenty nine,
was determined not to let the experience affect her life
long bond with the ocean. From a gurney as she

(22:47):
was taken from the rescue helicopter into the hospital, she
cried out to a swarm of news cameras, I still
love sharks. What she didn't know was that the bite
was the beginning of a long journey. Yet to come
were searing nerve, pain, nightmares, sleepless nights, hallucinations, and the

(23:13):
loneliness of suffering from physical and psychological wounds that few
can relate to. Still ahead were the offers of quick
money for an interview or a documentary, which would only
renew her trauma and underscore that the world's interest was
in the gruesome details of her encounter, not the grueling
recovery that would never truly be over. But Dave Pearson

(23:38):
knew because he had been through it a decade earlier,
after a shark shredded his left forearm down to the bone,
profoundly altering his life and his mind. So he reached
out to miss Craney, as he has for many other
survivors in the years since his own bite, welcoming her

(24:01):
into a fellowship no one would want to join. Over
the phone. In his calm, steady voice, he told her
a bit about what to expect, and he said there
was a group of people she could turn to, quote,
We've been through this and we're here for you through

(24:22):
every step of the way. She later recalled him saying,
there is a pattern mister Pearson has learned to what
comes after the bite. There is the elation of survival,
the celebration of a miraculous escape, the inundation of attention.

(24:45):
Then often comes months of obsession spent researching everything about
the creature and its behavior. Quote. You just want to
know why me, What did I do wrong? He said?
The hardest thing to accept is you did nothing. You

(25:06):
were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mister Pearson, sixty two, is the founder of Byte Club,
a network of shark attack survivors plus family members, first responders,
and a few people who've been bitten by other animals
like crocodiles. It started in Australia but now has more

(25:30):
than five hundred members across the world. Its private Facebook
page functions as a medical forum, a middle of the
night lifeline, a post traumatic stress disorder support group, and
an accidental family It is an exclusive club one with
many members in Australia, where the vast majority of the

(25:53):
population lives near the coast. The country regularly reports more
human shark in campters than any other except for the
United States. Last year, forty seven unprovoked shark bites were
reported world War worldwide, four of them fatal. Mister Pearson

(26:15):
affable every man with the sun baked hue of a
lifelong surfer joined those rarefied ranks. In twenty eleven, during
an afternoon surf at his local beach at Crowdy Head,
a few hours up the coast from Sydney, a bull
shark sank its teeth into his brand new surfboard and

(26:36):
his left arm, including the wrist and the hand. His
buddies pulled him out of the water and tried to
slow the catastrophic bleeding with a tourniquet using his surfboard leash.
Lying on a beachside picnic table, he cracked jokes and
admired the sunset while waiting for a helicopter to arrive,
thinking it was not such a bad day to die.

(27:00):
Emerged from surgery, he was ecstatic to see that his
arm had not been amputated. Once the blur of the
first weeks was over, though, a quiet new reality set in.
There were long days alone, addled by painkillers, and fraught
nights during which scenes from the fatal day replayed in

(27:22):
his dreams. He could not turn to the one place
where he'd always sought solace, the ocean. Quote. The shark
decided to upturn that basket where I've been hiding everything
my whole life, he said. I thought I was doing
really well until I wasn't. During this time in the hospital,

(27:48):
he met a young woman about his daughter's age, who
had been bitten a week before he was. He was
amazed at the instant connection they felt. Mister Pearson began
reaching out to every shark attack survivor he could get
in touch with, calling hospitals, asking journalists to put him
in touch, talking to local government officials who worked on

(28:11):
shark safety. He started calling survivors regularly on his commute,
sometimes driving for hours to meet them in person. When
he realized there was no place where they could share
their experiences and exchange information and advice, he thought, quote,

(28:32):
let's become that group that just supports people. His first
idea for a name, Australian's Shark Attack Survivors and Friends
was a mouthful fight club. Came up as a joke
in a late night conversation over beers and wine. It
was snappier. Most discussions of human shark encounters are accompanied

(28:57):
by the caveat that they are exceedingly rare. People are
more likely to be killed by beastings or lightning strikes
and getting bitten by another human is far more common,
but there's a flip side to that. If you do
have a run in with a shark, very few people

(29:18):
know what you're going through. Missus Craney is a lifelong
swimmer and diver who as a child doodled dolphins in
every text book and daydreamed about becoming a mermaid. She
was living on a boat off Australia's Eastern coast working
on a film crew for a series about the Coral

(29:38):
Sea when a quick swim with a colleague to look
for sea turtles ended with the bite. Not long after
speaking with mister Pearson on the phone, she introduced herself
on the bike club Facebook page. Quote, Hi, my name's
Annika and I was just bitten by a bull shark
in Far North, Queensland, she recalled, writing I was bitten

(30:01):
on the left leg and I've got this damage, deep
and superficial peronial nerve damage. Three tendons severed, dented to
be a bone, and a tooth shattered in my bone.
Her nerve pain was harrowing. Quote, it feels like you're

(30:21):
being electrocuted, or like you've got red ants biting you
all over your skin. But psychologically she thought she was
one of the lucky ones. Many survivors never go back
into the ocean. Some can't even bear to face it,
sitting at the beach with their backs toward the water.

(30:42):
But within a couple of months, Miss Craney was back
in swimming and diving. She went to work as a
skipper for a boat charter company. A little more than
a year after her attack, while surfing with mister Pearson
and his partner, Debby Manette, she dove under a wave
and saw a crystal clear a shark with its mouth

(31:05):
a gape, hurtling toward her. Quote. I blinked and it disappeared.
She said. It had been a hallucination, vividly imprinted into
her brain. Quote I burst into tears and called out
for them, she said. I said, I need to get out.

(31:25):
I need to get out. At work, she began hearing
phantom cries for help or people yelling shark. She had
to give up the job. At night, the image of
the approaching shark would play on a loop in her mind.
On those nights, she would turn to the bike club
page to see if anyone was awake. Someone she could

(31:47):
talk to. There always was. Quote the mental hurt becomes
louder when you feel alone, but when you can relate
to other people, you don't. She said. It's honestly life saving.

(32:07):
Earlier this year, at the tail end of Australia's summer,
mister Pearson went to Bondi Beach in Sydney to meet
with Andrew Phipps Newman, who was bitten by a shark
in the Galopagos Islands in twenty sixteen. Bondi's pristine sand
and water were brimming with sunbathers, swimmers and surfers. Mister

(32:30):
Phipps Newman found himself constantly scanning the waters for dark shadows.
He was in Sydney on a business trip from Britain,
and mister Pearson and Miss Manette had driven four hours
south to see him. It was the first time the
men had met in person, but they immediately embraced in

(32:50):
a bear hug. Another bike club member, a young woman
who was attacked last year, briefly stopped by to say hello. Quote,
you're both leg people, Mister Pearson told them. Quote you
just have an affinity. There's a warmth, there's an understanding,
said mister Phipps Newman, who had met only one other

(33:12):
survivor in person before back home in Britain through bike club.
Mister fitz Newman had been reeling from his husband's unexpected
death when he joined the Galopagos snorkeling excursion on which
he was bitten. When he felt the powerful force pulling
him down, he thought a fellow tourist was playing a joke. Instinctively,

(33:35):
he punched the shark in the nose twice and it
let him go. In that moment, he said, for the
first time in months of wallowing and grief, he felt
a strong will to live. He had stayed away from
the ocean in the seven years since. On this day,
though at mister Pearson's urging, mister Phipps Newman took his

(33:55):
socks off and waded briefly into the water up to
his shins. Bike club members often accompany one another for
their first return to the ocean, or for a swim
or a surf to mark the anniversary of their attack.
Mister Pearson has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of club members injuries,

(34:18):
and he connects people who he thinks will benefit from
speaking with each other, almost like a sponsor in a
recovery group. He put Miss Craney's father in touch with
an American whose daughter had also been attacked. The two men,
both of whom joined bike club, had suffered from nightmares,
fear of the ocean, and a paralyzing dread for their daughters.

(34:41):
A few club members are people who lost relatives to
shark encounters, reminders to the others of how easily their
stories could have ended differently. Some of those members have
asked survivors about the pain they suffered, wanting to know
what their loved ones final moments were like. Mister Pearson
said he assured them that in the first twenty minutes

(35:04):
of the experience, with adrenaline coursing through his body, he
felt absolutely nothing. Last month, Miss Craney marked the fifth
anniversary of her attack. She is back in the water,
swimming and diving. She recently moved from Sydney back to Cairns,

(35:25):
near the site of her bite, to be closer to
the ocean she loves. She is also starting a business
teaching diving to people who struggle with trauma. On her
drive up, she stayed with mister Pearson and Miss Manette
at their home in Coopernook. They went for a quick
swim at Crowdy Head where mister Pearson was attacked, near

(35:49):
where she is hallucinated. She peeled off socks that featured
cartoon sharks and on the souls the words bite me.
Look out at the waves. He surfed for five decades.
Mister Pearson said that his attack, more than fourteen years later,
still colored his every encounter with the ocean. I used

(36:12):
to stare at the waves thinking of how I would
ride each one, he said. Now each surf is tinged
with fear, but he swallows it and paddles out several
days a week. How long does an attack stay with you?
A few years ago, mister Pearson got a call from

(36:33):
a staff member at a nursing home who asked if
he would meet with a resident in his eighties. The man,
who had Alzheimer's was experiencing night terrors that seemed to
stem from his experience with a shark. The man had
been attacked in nineteen fifty five. Mister Pearson visited him twice,

(36:55):
listening to his story as he does for new members
of bike club, even though though the man couldn't remember
mister Pearson's name. On the second visit, He recounted the
details of his attack as if it had just happened.
Their chats seemed to bring the man peace, and his
nights were calmer after that. For mister Pearson, that's what

(37:19):
it's all about. What he has lost in his uncomplicated
love for the ocean, he has gained in profound connections
with hundreds of people around the world. You get to
make a difference, he said. We share this thing. Next article.
Cannabis poisonings are rising, mostly among kids. As products like

(37:44):
weed gummies proliferate. More children and teens are suffering symptoms,
including seizures and life threatening breathing problems. By Danielle Ivory,
Julie Tait, and Megan Touhey. Amy Enox was texting with
other parents, all wondering why their Central Ohio elementary school

(38:08):
had gone into lockdown. When the school called, several fourth graders,
including miss Enoch's daughter, had eaten marijuana gummies and were
being taken to the hospital with racing pulses, nausea, and hallucinations.
A classmate had found the gummies at home and mistaken
them for Easter candy. Miss Enox recalled hyperventilating that spring

(38:33):
day three years ago. I was scared to death, she said,
her voice breaking. It was shock and panic. As legalization
and commercialization of cannabis have spread across the United States,
making marijuana edibles more readily available, the number of cannabis
related incidents reported to poison control centers has sharply increased,

(38:58):
from about nine hundred thirty cases in two thousand and
nine to more than twenty two thousand last year. Data
from America's Poison Center's shows of those, more than thirteen
thousand caused documented negative effects and were classified by the
organization as non lethal poisonings. These numbers are almost certainly

(39:22):
an undercount, public health officials say, because hospitals are not
required to report such cases. More than seventy five percent
of the poisonings last year involved children or teenagers. Quote.
I definitely have seen floridly psychotic two year olds just
waiting for the marijuana to leave their system because they

(39:45):
got into someone's gummies, said doctor Shamika Virella Dixon, a
pediatrician at Atrium Health Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina.
To better understand the right in cases, the New York
Times examined data from the national poison Centers, surveyed regional centers,

(40:06):
and more than two hundred doctors, reviewed court records, and
interviewed physicians and public health experts. The Times identified dozens
of children across the country who had consumed cannabis products
from stashes belonging to relatives or friends and were hospitalized
with paranoia, vomiting, or other symptoms of poisoning. In most

(40:32):
instances of cannabis exposure, the physical effects were not severe,
according to the poison control data, but a growing number
of poisonings have led to breathing problems or other life
threatening consequences. In two thousand nine, just ten such cases
were reported to poison centers. Last year, there were more

(40:54):
than six hundred and twenty, a vast majority of them
children or teens. More than one hundred required ventilators. Doctor
Robert Hendrickson, an emergency physician and professor at Work and
Health and Science University, said that in recent years he
has treated more patience for cannabis poisoning, including a toddler

(41:16):
who ended up in the ICU after eating a cannabis cookie. Quote.
The child had a seizure and then was put on
a ventilator and had several more seizures. He said four
deaths since two thousand nine have been judged by America's
Poison Centers as likely caused by cannabis poisoning. One involved

(41:38):
a child or teen and was accidental. The other deaths
involved intentional misuse or abuse. The organization said data from
twenty twenty four has yet to be finalized. Each year,
tens of millions of Americans used cannabis, most without problems,

(42:00):
but in interviews emergency physicians, pediatricians, toxicologists, and other doctors
express concern about the growing public perception that THCHC, the
intoxicating component in cannabis, is completely safe. As cannabis products proliferate,
including those with hempdry THHC that is legal in many

(42:24):
states where marijuana isn't, adults can unwittingly expose children to risk.
Most of the reported cannabis exposures last year were deemed unintentional. Quote.
We're seeing a lot of accidental overdoses just because of
the packaging, said doctor Stephen Sandlich, a pediatric emergency physician

(42:46):
and assistant professor at Penn State. He said he had
intubated several children who had ingested cannabis cannabis products at
the hospital in central Ohio. In twenty twenty two, miss
Enox arrived to find her fourth grade daughter hallucinating. Her
eyes were rolled back in her head and she was

(43:07):
completely out of it. Miss Enoch said the girl was
convinced that the school was infested with aliens and that
she had superpowers. Her mother recalled her classmate had found
the gummies, each containing fifty milligrams of THHC at home
in a kitchen cabinet. They belonged to the girl's father,

(43:29):
who later pleaded guilty to inducing panic and obstructing official
business and no contest to drug possession. He was given
probation and ordered to pay a fine and restitution. At
least thirty eight cannabis related poisoning cases have led to
charges filed against parents and other caregivers. The Times found.

(43:53):
Miss Enoch said that in the aftermath of the incident,
her daughter felt unsafe at school and was afraid to
go to sleep at night. Now, three years later, she
has recovered physically, but the quote mental scar remains. Her
mother said the memories are still there. The toxicity of
cannabis depends largely on the potency of the product and

(44:16):
the size of the person. A high enough dose of
THHC can be so sedating that a person's tongue blocks
his windpipe, or it can trigger a seizure that requires intubation,
But in general, an adult would have to consume a
very large amount of cannabis to get that ill. Doctor
said it might take hundreds or even thousands of milligrams

(44:39):
of THHC to cause severe side effects in a one
hundred and fifty pounds adult, but far less in a child.
Quote It can be just devastating to watch a child
in that state, said doctor Lauren Murphy, an emergency physician
and medical toxologist at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. The

(45:01):
city's Poison Control Center, said cases involving young children had
become almost a daily occurrence, including some who had breathing
problems or fell into a coma. Generally, doctor said, people
recover within days if they are treated effectively, but the
symptoms and the memory of them can be frightening. About

(45:24):
three years ago, at a shop in Florida that sold
treats both with and without THHC, Rebecca Villarial's three year
old son Emilio, picked out a cake pop labeled kid friendly.
She said he ate it and soon fell asleep. Then
she recalled he woke up screaming. The toddler appeared to

(45:46):
be hallucinating, shrieking about spiders in his throat. His family
rushed to the hospital and soon learned that the cake
pop had been incorrectly labeled and contained one hundred milligrams
of THHC. Stayed for several hours, trembling and unable to
do much more than sleep or steer into space. He

(46:07):
recovered the next day, but the family was badly shaken.
Though most of the documented poisonings involved children, adults, particularly
older adults or not immune, a study published last year
found that after Canada legalized the sale of cannabis, the
number of emergency room visits among people's eight people ages

(46:30):
sixty five and older shut up. The lead researcher on
the study said older adults may be prone to overdose
for a variety of reasons, including slowing metabolisms, potential interactions
with medications, and far greater potency than the marijuana of
their youth. Most states have potency limits for THHC edibles,

(46:53):
but many physicians said the caps were too high. Often
one hundred milligrams per package. At least one dame in
state Michigan allows foods with two hundred milligrams, and doctors
and public health officials have criticized packaging and marketing that
might appeal to children. Cannabis lobbyists in some states have

(47:16):
resisted additional restrictions, warning lawmakers that this could send consumers
to the illegal market and deprive states of tax revenue.
As public health advocates have sought more protections, they have
been up against an industry that sometimes downplays or rejects
evidence of harm, and some existing rules are vague or

(47:38):
unevenly enforced. Doctor Hendrickson served on a committee about a
decade ago that helped set Oregons limit to fifty milligrams
per package. He said it was meant to protect children.
Even if a child managed to eat the whole package,
the effects were less likely to be life threatening. In

(47:59):
twenty five, twenty two, the limit in Oregon doubled for
a toddler. Doctor Hendrickson said that could mean quote the
difference between being really sleepy and spending the night in
the er and being on a ventilator next article. In

(48:22):
election cases, Supreme Court keeps removing guardrails. The Justices, having
effectively blessed partisan jerrymandering, may be poised to eliminate the
remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act. By Adam Liptick,
reporting from Washington. If Republicans succeed in pulling off an

(48:43):
aggressively partisan jerrymander of congressional districts in Texas, they will
owe the Supreme Court a debt of gratitude. In the
two decades Chief Justice John G. Roberts Junior has led
the Supreme Court, the Justices have reshaped American elections, not
just by letting state lawmakers like those in Texas, draw

(49:03):
voting maps warped by politics, but also by gutting the
Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five and amplifying the
role of money in politics. Developments in recent weeks signaled
that some members of the Court think there is more
work to be done in removing legal guard rails governing elections.

(49:24):
There are now signs that Court is considering striking down
or severely constraining the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act,
a towering achievement of the civil rights movement that has
protected the rights of minority voters since it was enacted
sixty years ago last week. Taken together, the Court's actions

(49:46):
and election cases in recent years have shown great tolerance
for partisan gamesmanship and great skepticism about federal laws on
campaign spending and minority rights. The Court's rulings have been
of a peace with its conservative wings jurisprudential commitments, giving
states leeway in many realms, insisting on an expansive interpretation

(50:10):
of the First Amendment, and casting a skeptical eye on
government racial classifications. At bottom, the Court's election law decisions
seem aimed at dismantling decisions of the famously liberal Court
led by Chief Justice Earl Warren in nineteen fifty three
to nineteen sixty nine. In his memoirs, Chief Justice Warren

(50:34):
described decisions establishing the equality of each citizen's vote as
his court's most important achievements that made them more important
in his view, even than Brown versus Board of Education,
which ordered the desegregation of public schools. Richard L. Hasen,

(50:55):
a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles,
said the Roberts Court may be moving in the opposite direction.
Quote at least some of the conservative justices on the
court seem ready to turn the clock back to the
early nineteen sixties, he said, when courts imposed very little
constraints on the most blatant power grabs, and before Congress

(51:17):
exercised its constitutional powers to protect voting rights. President Trump's
effort to create five additional Republican House seats in Texas,
for instance, is possible in part thanks to a twenty
nineteen Supreme Court decision that said federal courts have no
role to play in assessing the constitutionality of voting maps

(51:40):
distorted by politics. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority
in that five to four decision Rucho Versus Common Cause,
acknowledged that quote excessive partisanship in districting leads to results
that reasonably seem unjust. Indeed, quoting an earlier decision, he

(52:03):
said that drawing voting districts to give the party in
power lopsided advantages was quote incompatible with democratic principles. But
in a telling statement reflecting his view of the judicial
role in protecting voters, the Chief Justice wrote that federal

(52:24):
courts were powerless to address this grave problem partisan jerry
mandering claims, He wrote, present political questions beyond the reach
of the federal courts. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said
the court had betrayed its most fundamental commitment to protect democracy.

(52:51):
These gerrymanders enabled politicians to entrench themselves in office as
against voter preferences. They promoted partisanship above respect for the
popular will. They encouraged a politics of polarization and dysfunction.

(53:12):
If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably
damage our system of government. The Rucho decision was part
of a larger trend, said Derek T. Muller, a law
professor at Notre Dame. These developments reflect a federal judiciary
increasingly unwilling to engage in judicial review of the political process,

(53:36):
he said, and political actors, in response, are flexing the
new power they have. The drama in Texas, spurred by
mister Trump's desire to bolster Republican chances of retaining control
of the House in next year's midterm elections, caused Democratic
lawmakers to leave the state in a bid to stall

(53:56):
the plan. The controversy also shows signs of a growing
of growing into a national fight, with Republican and Democratic
led state legislatures hatching plans to redraw House maps for
partisan advantage. We tell ourselves this story that every two years,
voters go into the voting booth and pick their member

(54:17):
of the House of Representatives. Pamela Carlin, a law professor
at Stanford and a former Justice Department official and Democratic administrations,
said on a podcast last week, quote and right now,
it's the other way around. The politicians are going into
a room and picking their voters. Writing for the majority.

(54:39):
In the Rucho case, Chief Justice Roberts said that state
courts and independent redistricting redistricting commissions still have a role
to play in addressing partisan gerrymandering at the federal level.
Though what remained after Rucho was mostly a part of
the Voting Rights Act, it was concerned with discrimination agains

(55:00):
it's minority voters, and not with partisanship, though race and
political affiliations are often hard to untangle. For nearly fifty years,
the central provision of the law imposed federal supervision on
states with a history of discrimination, requiring advance approval from
the Justice Department or a federal court for all sorts

(55:21):
of changes to voting procedures. The Court effectively eliminated that
part of the law its section five in twenty thirteen
in Shelby County versus Holder by a five to four
vote that led to a wave of measures making it
harder to vote. This concludes the reading of The New

(55:42):
York Times for today. Your reader has been Mary Fullington.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this reading,
please do not hesitate to contact RADIOI and now please
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