8.18.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the reading of the New York Times for Monday,
August eighteenth, twenty twenty five. As a reminder, Radio I
is a reading service intended for people who are blind
or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
printed material. Your reader for today is Mary Fullington. We'll
start today's reading with the Merriam Webster word of the day,

(00:22):
which is ostentatious. Ostentatious is an adjective spelled O s
T E N t A t I o U. S.
Ostentatious describes someone or something that displays wealth, knowledge, power,

(00:48):
et cetera in a way that is meant to attract attention, admiration,
or envy. Things that are ostentatious tend to stand out
as overly elaborate or conspicuous. Here's an example. The resort
town is famous for its extravagantly expensive summer homes, which

(01:11):
some tourists view as impressive and others merely ostentatious. The
word of the day ostentatious. Now we will read the
headlines from the front page of today's print edition of
The New York Times. European leaders to join Zelenski for

(01:34):
a meeting with Trump after the Trump Putin summit. European
leaders said they would accompany President Voladimir Zelensky of Ukraine
to the White House on Monday. Ukraine wighs Trump's offer
of security guarantees with caution. President Trump offered security guarantees

(01:55):
to deter future Russian aggression, but the offer was vague,
prompting Kiev to seek clarity. Ukrainians fleeing Russia's attacks say
the Alaska summit was an insult. Evacuees at a shelter
in eastern Ukraine reacted angrily to talk that land has

(02:17):
that has long been theirs could be given to Russia
in exchange for peace. The trauma of childhood in Gaza.
Over the past two years, tens of thousands of children
in the territory have been killed, wounded, or orphaned. Childhood

(02:37):
as they once knew it has ceased to exist. First article.
European leaders to join Zelenski for meeting with Trump After
the Trump Putin summit, European leaders said they would accompany
President of Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine to the White House
on Monday. By Constant Mahew and Anjerlie. European leaders said

(03:04):
on Sunday that they would join President of Voladimir Zelensky
of Ukraine when he meets with President Trump on Monday
at the White House as they strive to show solidarity
against Russia and avoid being sidelined in peace talks. Quote.
Our goal tomorrow is to present a unified front between
Europeans and Ukrainians. President Emmanuel Macron of France told reporters, quote,

(03:30):
I don't believe Peutin wants peace. I believe he wants
Ukraine's capitulation. Mister Macron will be one of at least
six European leaders, including Prime Minister Keers Starmer of Britain
and President Alexander Steube of Fendland, two of mister Trump's
favored counterparts, traveling to Washington. The trip highlights the continent's

(03:56):
effort to smooth relations between mister Trump and mister Zelensky,
whose last White House meeting in February descended into a
public clash. European leaders have spent months cultivating ties with
mister Trump to strengthen their hand in pressing Ukraine's case,
while also coaching mister Zelensky on how to better engage

(04:17):
with mister Trump. On Sunday, the Europeans and other partners
met online and in person with mister Zelensky to prepare
for the meeting in Washington. We'll give a few good
pieces of advice. Chancellor Friederic Meyers of Germany told the
German television broadcaster z d F ahead of the meeting.

(04:39):
He will also join the Washington meeting along with Prime
Minister Georgia Meloney of Italy, NATO's Secretary General Mark Root,
and Ursula Vonderlean, the president of the European Union's Executive arm.
Mister Trump will first meet with mistersiz Zelensky. They are

(05:01):
then scheduled to join a working lunch and a larger
meeting with the other European leaders. According to European officials
familiar with the preparations for the day, the meeting will
come three days after talks in Alaska between mister Trump
and President Vladimir V Putin of Russia ended inconclusively but

(05:22):
fueled concerns in Europe that mister Trump's thinking may have
tilted toward Russia's position. After their summit, mister Trump sided
with the Russian president in calling for a direct peace
agreement that would quite likely see Ukraine seed unconquered territory
to Russia rather than securing a ceasefire first negotiations Instead

(05:43):
of an immediate ceasefire would give Russia time to exploit
its battlefield advantage to seize territory before any front lines
are settled. Mister Trump claimed that mister Zelensky and European
leaders had agreed on the point, but the group had
instead called for refusing to discuss peace terms until a

(06:03):
ceasefire was in place. Russia has long pushed for a
direct peace deal that would address a range of issues
and impose onerous demands on Ukraine, including territorial concessions. Mister
Trump's about face sent Ukrainian European officials scrambling to coordinate
their positions before pressing their case together to him. They

(06:27):
seemed careful not to antagonize mister Trump, issuing statements that
did not ask him to reverse course, but also did
not echo his claim that peace talks were preferable to
a ceasefire. Speaking at a news conference in Brussels on Sundays,
Vonderlayand said the term ceasefire was not quote so important,

(06:50):
and that what mattered was to end the fighting, whether
we call it a ceasefire or it's a peace deal,
stop the killings. Alongside her, mister Zelensky said he agreed
on the terminology, but he added that it was impossible
to negotiate under the pressure of weapons or if hostilities

(07:13):
continued during pursuit of a direct peace deal. So it's
necessary to cease fire and work quickly on a final deal,
mister Zelensky said, adding that negotiations should be based on
the current front lines. After the news conference, mister Zelensky
joined a virtual meeting of the so called Coalition of

(07:35):
the Willing, a group of European countries prepared to help
safeguard and eventual peace, including in some cases by sending
troops to Ukraine soil after the conflict ends. After the meeting,
mister Macron, who took part in it, said European leaders
would ask mister Trump how far he would go in

(07:55):
backing security guarantees for Ukraine. Such troop deployed could be
part of security guarantees for Ukraine that mister Trump called
for as part of a peace deal. On Sunday, Marco Rubio,
the U S Secretary of State and acting National Security Advisor,
said on Fox News that European leaders involved in talks

(08:17):
with Ukraine would play an important role in discussions of
long term security guarantees intended to deter future Russian incursions.
Obtaining robust security guarantees for Ukraine is in Europe's interest.
Several European leaders have warned that if mister Putin is

(08:37):
not stopped in Ukraine, he could ultimately try to take
European territory by force. Alexander Kraev, the director of the
North America Program at the Kiev Research Group Ukrainian Prison,
said in an interview this past week that for Europe quote,
the idea is to present Ukrainian security and defense issues

(09:01):
as a European security and defense issue. Mister Macron echoed
that thinking on Sunday, saying he and other European leaders
were not heading to Washington quote just to accompany President Zelensky.
We are going there to defend the interests of the Europeans,
he said. Next article, Ukraine wigs Trump's offer of security

(09:27):
guarantees with caution. President Trump offered security guarantees to deter
future Russian aggression, but the offer was vague, prompting Kiev
to seek clarity amid the setbacks for Ukraine from President
Trump's meeting in Alaska with President Vladimir vie Putin of Russia,

(09:49):
Officials in Kiev found one glimmer of hope. They seized
on a US proposal to include security guarantees for Ukraine
designed to deter or future Russian aggression in a potential
piece deal. Mister Trump conveyed the proposal to President Vladimir
Zelensky of Ukraine in a call early Saturday after the meeting.

(10:14):
It would enlist Kiev's Western partners to guarantee Ukraine's defense
against new Russian attacks. Crucially, mister Trump indicated that the
United States was ready to participate in such guarantees, a
shift from his earlier position that Ukraine's post war security
should be left solely to Europe. Quote. This is a

(10:38):
significant change, mister Zelensky said on Sunday during a news
conference in Brussels. Quote it's important that America agrees to
work with Europe to provide security guarantees for Ukraine. European
leaders met virtually Sunday afternoon to discuss the aftermath of
the Alaska summit, including potential security guaranteans. In a show

(11:01):
of support for Ukraine. Six European leaders, including Prime Minister
Keir Starmer of Britain, announced that they would join mister
Lensky when he meets with mister Trump on Monday in Washington.
While the specifics of the U S proposal remain unclear,
mister Trump said mister Putin agreed that Ukraine should have

(11:21):
strong security guarantees after a settlement, though not under NATO.
Two senior European officials who were briefed on the call
have said American troops might participate. Mister Trump told the Europeans,
should mister Trump's proposal come to fruition, it would mark
a win for Ukraine, which has long sought post war

(11:44):
security guarantees to prevent a future Russian invasion, but has
so far received little beyond vague commitments. But mister Zelensky
warned on Sunday that quote there are no details how
it will work and what America's role will be, what
Europe's role will be, stressing that the proposals still needed

(12:08):
to be worked out. Quote we need security to work
in practice, he said. An official briefed on mister Trump's
call to mister Zelensky said the Ukrainian leader would aim
to seek clarity on potential security guarantees when he visits
Washington on Monday. He will also seek answers on mister

(12:29):
Trump's unexpected shift away from pursuing a ceasefire to instead
call for a peace deal that would be likely to
see Ukraine seed unconquered territory to Russia. Several Ukrainian lawmakers
cautioned that they remained confused about what exactly mister Trump
had in mind and what mister Pewtin may have agreed

(12:50):
to in Alaska. The officials expressed worries that mister Trump
may have misread what Moscow would be willing to accept
and overstated his own proposal to Ukraine. White House officials
did not immediately reply to a question about those concerns.
Prime Minister Georgia Maloney of Italy said that in his

(13:13):
call with mister Zelensky and European leaders, mister Trump had
drawn on her earlier idea of guarantees modeled on Article
five of the NATO Pact, which stipulates that an attack
on one ally would be defended as an attack on all.
While Ukraine would not join NATO under such guarantees, its

(13:34):
Western allies would abide by quote a collective security clause
that would allow Ukraine to benefit from the support of
all its partners, including the United States, ready to take
action if his attacked again, Miss Maloney said in a
statement after the call. Ursula vanderleyand the head of the

(13:54):
European Commission, said during the Brussels news conference on Sunday
that mister Trump had shown a quote willingness to contribute
to Article five like security guarantees for Ukraine. The idea,
while appealing to the Ukrainians, has left them questioning its

(14:16):
viability given Russia's strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine,
through which it would receive the defense guarantees enshrined in
Article five. Why would Moscow agree to see Kiev benefit
from guarantees that are the same in all but name.
And if Moscow agreed to strong security guarantees outside NATO,

(14:41):
as suggested by mister Trump, would that imply it considers
those guarantees ineffective without the Alliance's backing and therefore not
a real deterrent. Alexander Moresco, chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee in the Ukrainian Parliament, said Miss Maloney's idea was

(15:05):
quote too vague and left room for multiple interpretations that
did not necessarily guarantee that Ukraine's allies would immediately come
to its defense if Russia were ever invade again. Solomiya Bobrovska,
a member of the Ukrainian Parliament's Defense and Intelligence Committee,

(15:29):
said that miss Maloney's idea could be interpreted only as
a commitment to provide more financial aid to Ukraine or
to send additional ammunition. Ukraine does not want to sign
another Budapest Memorandum, a pledge signed in nineteen ninety four
that was meant to protect the country after it gained

(15:50):
independence but clearly failed. Under that accord, Ukraine agreed to
give Russia back old Soviet nuclear weapons in exchange for
security guarantees from Russia, the United States, and Britain, but
the agreement did not detail those guarantees and included no

(16:10):
promise of military assistance in the event of an attack.
Ukrainian officials say the lack of specificity gave Russia free
reign to attack their country, as it did starting in
twenty fourteen. In order to avoid the fate of the
Budapest Memorandum, these guarantees must be legally binding and also

(16:33):
provide for specific steps and an algorithm of actions by
the guaranteurs in the event of repeated aggression against Ukraine.
Yehor Tchernev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament's Defense
and Intelligence Committee, said in a text message, one concrete

(16:54):
guarantee that Ukraine has been seeking is the presence of
Western troops on the ground, an idea that mister Trump
appeared to entertain despite previously opposing Ukraine's European allies have
already made headway in that direction. In the spring, a
group of countries including France, Britain and Germany, formed a

(17:17):
quote coalition of the willing to help safeguard and eventual
space and eventual peace. Some of the countries have said
that to do so, they would be willing to send
troops to Ukrainian soil after the conflict ends, but the
contours of that force have not been ironed out, and
details of who is willing to do what remain scarce.

(17:40):
The coalition met on Sunday afternoon to co ordinate ahead
of the White House summit. After the meeting, President Emmanuel
Macron of France, one of the participants, said several European
countries were ready to send troops to Ukraine in a
post war settlement, though not in areas near the frozen
front line. Mister Macron added that European leaders would ask

(18:03):
mister Trump how far he would back security guarantees for Ukraine. Quote.
That's what we need to discuss with the Americans. Who
is willing to do what he said? Quote. If we
are weak to day with Russia, he added, we are
preparing for the conflicts of tomorrow. Next article. Ukrainians fleeing

(18:30):
Russia's attacks say the Alaska summit was an insult. Evacuees
at a shelter in eastern Ukraine reacted angrily to talk
that land that has long been theirs could be given
to Russia in exchange for peace. By Kim Barker and
Alexandra Mieklsten, the children's author had violence in her heart.

(18:55):
Valentina Shevchenko sixty nine, recently fled the home where she
had lived for twenty one years, a home now threatened
by a new Russian offensive, and she was angry about
the meeting in Alaska that was taking place between President
Trump and President Vladimir V Putin of Russia. Quote it's
not right that the presidents of two other countries discuss

(19:18):
our fate without us, said miss Shevchenko, who clasped like
Talisman's two poetry books she had written one was called
a Wonderful Adventure. While sitting on the edge of her
bed in a shelter, she added that she would like
to beat the two leaders with a wooden stick or
even a shovel. Quote this is insane, she said. Here

(19:43):
there is war rivers of blood, and they are making
some kind of deal, while the much bally whose summit
appeared to be more of a show of amiable backslapping
than tough negotiating. By Saturday, it had become clear that
mister Putin and mister Trump had discussed proposal that would
be very hard for Ukraine to swallow. In a post

(20:05):
on social media, mister Trump reversed his support of Ukraine's
position that a ceasefire must precede any peace negotiations, and
in an interview with the Fox News host Sean Hannity,
he said that he and mister Putin had largely agreed
to a territorial swap and security guarantees to end the war.
European officials said that mister Putin was demanding all of

(20:28):
the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, including land still held
by Ukrainian forces half a world away. People who had
recently fled the fighting in that region for a shelter
near the city of Pavlorode said the whole summit felt
like an insult. The fact that President Vladimirvi's Volodimir Zelensky

(20:51):
of Ukraine was not invited. The fact that mister Trump
had treated mister Putin like a friend instead of a
man under U S sanctions who is a wonted war
criminal in Europe, The fact that the world was now
talking about Ukraine permanently giving up land to Russia for peace.
It was all too much. Quote I hate Peutin, said

(21:15):
Katerna Tcherninko, sixty five, who has been bedridden since a
stroke about four years ago paralyzed her left side. She
had been rescued on Thursday, carried down from her second
floor apartment in the city of Dobropilia, which had been
battered by the new Russian offensive, and brought to the

(21:35):
shelter with her son and family friends. Quote how can
he do this for so long? She said, killing civilians
while they sleep. This isn't war, it's murder. Tromp doesn't understand.
It hasn't touched him. If he had lived through this,
he wouldn't say what he says. Any land swap could

(21:57):
involve the homes of both Miss Chernenko and Miss Shevchenko, who,
like most people at the shelter, had fled from the
Donetsk region, which makes up a large part of the Dnbas.
Russia now occupies almost twenty percent of Ukraine, including about
three quarters of Donetsk, almost all of the adjacent Luhansk region,

(22:19):
and the entire Crimean Peninsula. Miss Tchernenko moved to Dobropilia
when she was about twenty two. She was given an
apartment there under the Soviet regime because of her work
at a sparkling water factory. She learned to do basic
home repairs and repeatedly revamped her apartment, which stands in
the shadow of a large walnut tree, most recently putting

(22:42):
up pink wallpaper dotted with blue flowers. She raised three
sons there. Her oldest died of a brain tumor. She
rarely talks to her youngest son, who moved to Russia
to be near her ex husband. Her middle son, SARAHI
I calturin forty, came home to care for his mother

(23:04):
after her stroke. He bought her a modern stove, a
washing machine, a TV, and a refrigerator as tall as
the ceiling. Both said they would never give up their land.
When asked how it felt to leave home, Miss Calturan
gestured as if tears were rolling down his face. Quote,

(23:26):
that's where my childhood was, that's where my school is.
I don't want to leave, he said. Everything still there,
my mother's photos, my brother's photos, old ones from the
nineteen eighties, with my mother young and beautiful. His mother
was lying in a small room for disabled elderly refugees,

(23:47):
using her bedpan, one of the few things she had
brought from home, in front of strangers. At one point,
the whump of a Russian missile could be heard hitting
about fifty miles away. Neither mister Kelcherin nor his mother reacted.
Most of those at the shelter had fled with a

(24:07):
few bags of clothes or even less. They left behind
their photo albums, their judo certificates, their winter coats, their lives.
Some packed in only twenty minutes, some prepared for hours.
Miss Shevchenko, the children's poet, and her partner tried to
bring fifteen bags of clothes and food, but after their

(24:31):
bus picked up more people, they had to leave ten
bags near a gas station. Still, she carried her son's
guitar in the military. His code name was Maestro for
his musical talents. They spoke of their homes in the
present tents as if they would return momentarily. Quote we

(24:53):
can hear terrible sounds, such awful noises, and I just
sit there scared, said Helena Koleischuk, seventy, who lived in
the town of Beelozersk in Donetsk for most of her life.
Quote I pray, then boom, everything shakes, everything explodes, sometimes

(25:14):
its guided bombs, sometimes missiles flying. The city is destroyed.
Everything is in ruins, banks, the post office, pharmacies, everything
is closed. On Friday, Miss Kohleischuk and her family decided
to come to the shelter. They arrived shortly before mister
Trump and mister Putin met. This makeshift shelter was set

(25:39):
up in a former Soviet Hall of Culture, beds with
sheets featuring famous vacation sites and saying quote around the world,
and full of tourists were jammed into all available spaces.
Rows of brown chairs sat unoccupied in the back, an
empty audience for all the room and lives. Almost two thousand,

(26:03):
two hundred people had come through the shelter in the
previous week, since Russia intensified its offensive trying to capture
more of eastern Dunetsk before the summit. The people who
fled were the holdouts, the ones who had lasted through
years of fighting. The shelter had been intended to move
people through quickly, to register them and send them on

(26:26):
to other cities, and then somehow they were supposed to
restart their lives. Miss Shevchenko had seen her life whittled away.
She used to be an accountant before moving to a
village called Oleksandrivka in Donetsk. She lived in the servants
quarters of a rich professor's weekend home, taking care of

(26:47):
the garden and the house and writing children's books. Her boyfriend,
he refused to marry her because he said she was
too troublesome, owned his own ramshackle house nearby. Often they
stayed together. The professor died of natural causes, his family
moved to France. The main house was bombed her boyfriend's

(27:11):
house was split in two. The servant's house was destroyed.
The couple moved into the summer terrace of the ruined
main house, basically a covered porch, patching up holes from shrapnel.
A missile here hit near by last fall, setting the
forest and a nearby village a flame. The village once

(27:34):
had three hundred people. After she and her boyfriend fled,
Miss Shevchenko said, nine people remain. If mister Pewtin wanted
this land so much, and other regions like Kharkiv and Zaparigia,
why did he destroy everything in his path? Miss Shavchenko wondered,

(27:56):
Maybe for mineral resources, maybe to proval point. Regardless, she said,
mister Putin did not want peace. Quote, this is our land.
Misshevchenko said, not an inch of it can be given away.
Give him just a slice and he'll say, I want Kharkiv,

(28:17):
I'll take the Zabarija region. He wants all of Ukraine
and won't stop. We must not agree. We will fight
to the end because we are Ukrainians. That's the only way.
We have no other choice. Next article The trauma of
childhood and Gaza. Over the past two years, tens of

(28:37):
thousands of children in the territory have been killed, wounded,
or orphaned. Childhood as they once knew it has ceased
to exist. By Patrick Kingsley and Bilaalshebert. To numb the
traumas of wartime Gaza, Rama Abu Abed twelve a game

(29:00):
with her friends. They asked one another, what did you
eat before the war? What did your home look like
before the war? What would you wear if you had
new clothes? For Rama, who recounted these details in an
interview alongside her mother, Heba, the answers are often less

(29:22):
soothing than tragic. She hasn't eaten meat in months, her
parents said. Her home in southern Gaza has been flattened.
Satellite imagery shows her clothes are mostly under the rubble.
The beach where her parents occasionally took her as a

(29:42):
treat before the war, has become her full time home.
Rama now lives in a storehouse for fishing equipment with
her parents and four siblings, who share the space with
several displaced families. She usually eats one meal a day,

(30:02):
often lentils or pasta, Her parents said, trying to remember
what good food looked like. Rama plays with the wet sand,
shaping it into imaginary meals. If some one gave me
a choice between crayons and bread, Rama said, I would

(30:25):
choose the bread. After twenty two months of war, childhood
in Gaza hardly exists. There are about one point one
million children in the territory, and nearly all require mental
health or psychosocial support. According to research by the United Nations,

(30:46):
Most of them have been out of school for nearly
two years after Israel's eleven week blockade on food. This year,
all children younger than five or at risk of acute malnutrition.
The UN said Israel's military operation, which began after the

(31:06):
Hamas led attack on southern Israel on October seventh, twenty
twenty three, has killed more than eighteen thousand Palestinians under
the age of eighteen. According to the Gazen health authorities,
who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, about two
thirds of them did not reach their teenage years. A

(31:28):
New York Times investigation last year found that since the
stort of the start of the war, the Israeli military
has significantly loosened safeguards meant to protect civilians, including children.
Quote normal markers of childhood or gone, replaced by hunger, fear,

(31:50):
and awe consuming trauma, said James Elder, a spokesman for
UNISEF who has regularly visited Gaza throughout the war. Quote,
this war is being raged as if childhood itself has
no place in Gaza. The Israeli military has said that
it tries to minimize harm to all civilians, including children,

(32:14):
and blamed Hamas militants for hiding among them, sometimes alongside
their own families. Soldiers with the Israel Defense Forces have
reported seeing children used as lookouts by Palestinian militant groups,
which also kidnapped and killed children on October seventh to

(32:34):
twenty twenty three. Quote, intentional harm to civilians and especially
to children is strictly prohibited and completely contrary to both
international law and the binding orders of the I d F,
the military said in a statement. As Rama flicked recently
through pre war photos on a cell phone, she stopped

(32:57):
at an image of herself at an ice cream parlor.
I just stared at it, she said. I felt like
I didn't recognize those days. Life for Rama, like that
of many children in Gaza, has become one of hunger.
Israel has limited food supplies to the enclaves since the

(33:21):
earliest days of the war, and the situation has worsened
since March, when Israel began its blockade. In late May,
Israel allowed some food back into the territory, using private
contractors to distribute the food from a few sites, but
for families like Ramas, that did not solve the problem.

(33:44):
Reaching the sites is dangerous and exhausting, in part because
they were built behind Israeli military lines, far from where
most people live. Hundreds have been shot and killed by
Israeli soldiers as they try to reach the sites, and
those who get there unscathed often find the food has

(34:06):
already been taken. Israel says its soldiers have fired quote
warning shots at people who have strayed from designated access
routes toward Israel toward Israeli military lines. Reaching the sites
is a process that favors the fittest. Rama's father, nid

(34:28):
Al l abu Ahbed, forty two, has often been knocked
over during the rush toward the sites, and he was
once nearly shot. According to Rama's mother, Hibbah abu Abed,
thirty two, because he rarely manages to secure a box
of food. Miss Abu Abed added, her husband is regularly

(34:49):
forced to gather lentle grains or bits of broken pasta
that have spilled onto the ground. Quote he picks them up,
I clean them and I rints them again and again
to remove the sand or dust. Miss Abu Abed said.
Then I cooked them for the children. That's our meal

(35:09):
once a day if we're lucky. Rama's younger sister, Rital, too,
is just learning to talk. The process of seeking aid
looms so large in Ritahal's life that it even dominates
her limited vocabulary. Quote where's your dad? Rital was asked

(35:33):
on a recent afternoon bye by aid. She replied. While
some food is available in the markets, it has often
been unaffordable for families like Ramas. Her parents, like the
vast majority of Gosins, have no work. Though food prices
have dropped in recent days after a rise in deliveries,

(35:54):
they are still astronomically high. On August thirteenth, according to
the Gaza Chamber of Commerce and Industry, flower costs more
than ten times its pre war price. Rama helps her
family survive by fetching water. She stands in line every
day with several empty plastic containers, waiting for a water

(36:17):
truck sent by an aid group. The process lasts for
hours in the hot sun, often until the afternoon. People
often push past her, knowing she can do little to
stop them. To alleviate the food crisis, which drew global condemnation,
Israel recently loosened restrictions on UN food convoys and permitted

(36:38):
foreign air forces to drop to air drop aid packages
over Gaza. When Rama gazes up at those planes, she said,
she wishes one would fly her family to a safer place. Quote.
I imagine riding on it like a hot air balloon,
going to a country with no war, just food. School

(37:03):
and twice, she said hala Abu hilal ten pretends to
be a teacher to keep her four younger sisters entertained.
She stands up in their tent and recites things she
remembers from school, sometimes simple math equations, sometimes the alphabet
quote two plus four equals she calls six. They reply.

(37:30):
In today's Gayza, this game of make believe is as
close as most children get to school. Some ninety five
percent of schools have been damaged in the fighting, leaving
most children without education for nearly two academic years. According
to UN data, Many schools have been turned into displacement camps.
Israel has regularly struck them, saying that Hamas's leaders have

(37:54):
used them as cover. Hala's school, like her home, is inaccessible.
She is from Rufa, Kaza's southernmost city, which has largely
been flattened. She and her family fled their home last
year and now live in a displacement camp close to
a beach miles to the north. In this camp, there

(38:17):
is currently no school, according to Holla's mother, Sana Abu Hilo.
For a few months, volunteers in the camp ran a
makeshift classroom, teaching ad hoc classes in a tent, but
that system ended when the last truce collapsed in March.
Miss Habou Hilal said the UN tries to provide basic

(38:40):
teaching via an online portal. Some teachers also send educational
materials to parents via What's App, but for families like Hallas,
the internet is often inaccessible. It's hard to connect for
prolonged periods to the phone network, and phone batteries run

(39:01):
out quickly. Miss Abu Hilal has a phone with a
broken screen that barely responds to her touch. Instead, Miss
Abu Hilial tries to teach the children herself. Recently, she
did Arabic grammar with Halla, simple geometry with Bisan six,

(39:22):
and the alphabet with Dema five. But the sisters have
lost four semesters of learning, while Bisan, who should have
started school this year, has never received formal education. Their sister, Tala, eight,
seems most affected by the lack of classes. With no

(39:42):
school to attend, Tala whiles away the day inventing games,
some of which are disturbingly warped by the violets that
surrounds her. Once her mother recalled, Tala picked up a
stone and said to her sisters, I'll throw this stone,
pretend and it's an F sixteen missile. Then she hurled

(40:03):
it at a tent. Before the war, Miss Abuhilal said
Tala was the star of her class and sometimes got
up in the middle of the night to cram for tests.
Quote I wanted to be a doctor, Tala said in
an interview alongside her mother. I wanted my daddy to
build a hospital for me. I wanted to treat everyone

(40:25):
for free. My daddy is in heaven now. Their father,
Ashraf Abu Hilal, a former janitor, tried to return to
their home last August, seeking to retrieve some goods that
he could sell for food. According to miss Abu Hilal,
he never returned. A day later, his brother spotted him

(40:47):
lying dead in a nearby street. Miss Abuhilal said near
by gunfire prevented the brother from reaching Ashraf's body or
discerning how he had died. Miss Abu Hilal added, by
the time they could reach the street safely months later,
little was left of the body, she said. The Israeli

(41:08):
military said it was unaware of the episode. I hear
how other kids call their dads and their dad's reply,
Miss Abu Hulal recalled Halla, telling her, I wish Baba
could answer me to On one page of his note book,
Sajid al galban ten has drawn a picture of his

(41:33):
mother and father at their old home in Khan Yunis
in southern kaza. On another page, there is a drawing
of his mother taking him to a vegetable stand. This
is the closest Sajid can get to a hug from
his parents. His father, Mohammed and mother Shiren were killed

(41:55):
in a strike that also destroyed their home in the
third week of the war. In twenty twenty three, The
Israeli military said the house had been used for terror
purposes and declined to comment on whether mister Algaban was
the target. One of Sajid's surviving ants, Amani Abu Salah,

(42:17):
said Sajid's father had no links to militant groups. It
was not possible to verify either assertion. Sajid survived the
attack unscathed, but his sister Almah now twelve, and brother Abdallah,
now eight, suffered head injuries. According to video of the
aftermath and their surviving relatives, Almah was later evacuated to

(42:41):
Turkey for treatment. Relatives told The Times, for nearly two years,
Sajid and Abdallah were cared for by another aunt. Then
in July, that aunt was killed in a strike on
a nearby tent that also wounded the boys. According to
miss Abu Salah, the surviving aunt, now they live in

(43:01):
another tent with miss Abu Sallah and her three children.
The boy's skin is still scarred by the shrapnel from
the second strike. Abdullah has scars on his stomach and shoulder,
Sajid on his foot and back. The Israeli military confirmed
the attack, saying it was aimed at Hamas militants. The

(43:24):
brothers are among at least forty thousand children who have
lost at least one parent since the start of the war,
according to statistics published by the Palestinian Authority in the
West Bank, which employs thousands of officials in Gaza. The
children live in an encampment that local volunteers have created

(43:45):
mainly to care for those orphaned in the war. In
this camp alone, there are roughly one thousand, two hundred orphans,
according to the camp administrators. With no parents and a
younger brother to care for, Sajied is suspended between childhood
and premature adulthood. Sometimes he draws childish pictures in his

(44:08):
note book, where he plays marbles and hide and seek
with other children in the camp, but he is also
increasingly trying to support his aunt in keeping their makeshift
household together. According to Miss Abdusoah, he sweeps the tent
each morning. He lines up for hours in the heat

(44:30):
to fetch water. He fixes the tent poles when they collapse.
He makes kites from scrap material and sells them for
pocket change that he saves to buy food for himself
and Abdullah. I'm the man now, Saji told his aunt,
She said, I'll go by what we need. Recently, Sajed,

(44:54):
remembering how his father kept a rifle at home, said
he wanted to help guard the AID convoy that bring
food into Gaza. He also offered to make the perilous
journey to the aid distribution sites, despite the risk of
getting shot by soldiers or crushed by the crowds. Quote,
how would you do that, Miss Abusola remembered, asking him,

(45:17):
I'll do it just like the men do, Sajid replied.
She said, Yet, sometimes Sajid just wants to be a child.
He misses the sweets he ate before the war. He said,
he misses being with his mother in their kitchen. He
misses going to the park with his father. Quote why

(45:37):
do all kids now have to wait in line for water?
Sadjied asked, I just want to go home to go
to school, he said, I just want the war to stop.
Next article where DC crime is bad, residents questioned Trump's motives.
The president might have found allies in southeast Wahishington, where

(46:00):
violent crime has long vexed residents, but when he described
the city as disgusting with roving mobs, his remarks left
those looking for help cold. By Clyde McGrady in the
Congress Heights neighborhood in the southeast corner of Washington, d C.

(46:24):
Where there have been several murders and more than a
dozen robberies so far this year. Residents have greeted President
Trump's promise of liberation from crime with a mix of skepticism, suspicion,
and outright derision. It's not that they don't believe crime
is a problem in the nation's capital. They know it is.

(46:46):
They just don't believe the president cares, at least not
about them. If they did, they ask why are residents
hearing of federal agents roving the wider areas of Sixteenth
Street Northwest but less so in their large black neighborhood.
Why are National Guard members posing with tourists at the
Washington Monument quote. If Trump is genuinely concerned about safety

(47:11):
of DC residents, I would see National Guard in my neighborhood,
said Karen Lake, sixty two, a lawyer who has lived
in Congress Heights since twenty seventeen, in the far eastern
corner of the Diamond Shape district. I'm not seeing it,
and I don't expect to see it. I don't think
Trump is bringing in the National Guard to protect black

(47:32):
babies in Southeast Mister Trump might have found a more
sympathetic audience in the distant southeastern quadrant of the city,
far away from the National Mall, the White House, or
the restaurants and clubs of Sixteenth Street and Fourteenth Street,
where a young employee of the Department of Government Efficiency

(47:52):
recently was beaten in an assault that raised the city's
criminal profile to presidential level. In neighborhoods such as Congress
Heights and Washington Highlands where the District of Columbia abbutz
Prince Georgia's County Maryland, the city's black working class struggles
with the twin challenges that have diminished the ranks of

(48:15):
what once was when Washington still had a majority black population,
affectionately called Chocolate City. There's crime, for sure, but also gentrification,
driving black residents into suburban Maryland and Virginia. In Ward eight,
where Congress Heights is found, there have been thirty eight

(48:37):
homicides this year, according to data from the District of
Columbia government. That's almost ten times as many as Ward two,
where the National Mall is located. But when mister Trump
on Monday described the district as dirty and disgusting, menaced
by roving mobs of wild youth. He offended some of

(48:58):
the some who otherwise might have been more receptive to
his law and order pitch. Quote. I know that we're
not those things, said le Greg Harrison, who lives in
Congress Heights and says he is supportive of more law
enforcement so long as black residents aren't the target. I

(49:19):
know we have a beautiful city. Mister Trump did not
mention Congress Heights by name, but residents say they are
well aware of the community's crime statistics and the challenges
their neighborhood faces. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said
that federal law enforcement agents had increased their presence in
all of the city's neighborhoods, including those in Ward eight.

(49:43):
In parts of the Ward, she said, arrests have been
made in connection with illegal guns and drugs, as well
as murder, cruelty to the elderly, and other offenses. Quote.
President Trump is committed to making DC safe again for
all residents, she said in a written statement. On a humid,

(50:04):
overcast afternoon in Washington this week, Hungry patrons, mostly black,
pulled up to the retail space known as Sycamore and Oak,
which mister Harrison helped bring to Congress Heights. They grabbed
a bike from black owned restaurants and discussed what they
called mister Trump's takeover of their city. Among the residents

(50:26):
of Congress Heights and other neighborhoods of Southeast Washington, the
apparent new order has been met with the sense of
both incredulity and inevitability. Despite the area's challenges, residents say
they take pride in their neighborhood and their city and
feel disrespected by the president's portrayal. They feel both unseen

(50:48):
and misunderstood, their challenges reduced to crime statistics, their children
cast as threats, and their culture caricatured. They don't reject
safety measures outright. Gerald Walker, a thirty eight year old
Congress Heights resident, said federal intervention was quote definitely needed,

(51:08):
the National Guard, the FBI, a federalized District of Columbia
Police force quote the more the better. But many said
they were by no means seeking out additional federal involvement
in their neighborhoods, and some said they resented being treated
as political pinatas in a larger national narrative. It has

(51:30):
quote nothing to do with crime in d C, said
Ronnie McLeod, sixty eight, a retired bus driver in lifelong
Washingtonia who lives in Congress Heights. Crime is already down.
It's got something to do with something else, he said.
Most of all, many Congress Heights residents say they do

(51:51):
not trust mister Trump's motives. Quote. He's very out of
touch with DC people in general, said Michel Lee, forty two,
who lives in southeast Washington. He may know the political
culture of the city, may even have a passing understanding
of the ritzier parts of town, she said. Miss Lee,

(52:13):
seeming to address the president personally, added, you have no
idea what an actual resident of d C does goes through.
It's not the first time a violent crime against a
young white political staffer has prompted outrage from the federal government.
In nineteen ninety two, an aid to Senator Richard Shelby

(52:34):
of Alabama was murdered on Capitol Hill. In the aftermath,
mister Shelby forced a referendum to restore the death penalty
in Washington. The initiative was overwhelmingly rejected by voters. Some
residents of Southeast described the president's decision to declare a
crime emergency and federalize the Metropolitan Police Department for a

(53:00):
thirty day period as a power grab or a way
to appease affluent white Washingtonians who were anxious about crime.
Any extension would have to be granted by Congress. Some
residents saw the move as a sly way to further
gentrify what is left of affordable Washington by striking fear

(53:22):
and residence of low income neighborhoods that federalized police officers
will harass them or worse. The city has already shown
more interest in developing luxury condominiums than in building community
recreation centers for children, said Jimmy Jenkins, thirty five, who
grew up in Congress Heights. Many black residents are not

(53:44):
benefiting from the city's growth, he said, and if conditions
don't change, black people will no longer be a significant
part of the city's future. Now mister Trump is pushing
aside the city's black leadership and bringing in federal truths quote.
They're definitely aiming to push more black people out, said

(54:05):
Tyree Jones, thirty who works in Congress Heights. Sally Adopo,
a member of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission that represents parts
of Congress Heights, was not surprised that residents were drawing
connections between crime, federalized law enforcement, and gentrification. Quote, it's
becoming harder to live in this specific community as it

(54:28):
continues to get developed. He said. It's all wrapped up together.
You really can't separate any of these things. Like opponents
of mister Trump on national cable talk shows and social media,
residents of Southeast Washington said the president's message of law
and order was undermined when he pardoned even the most

(54:49):
violent assailants who attacked police officers during the attack on
the Capitol in January. On January sixth, twenty twenty one.
They also brought up his own c menality and raise
the possibility that he was deploying forces in Washington to
distract from the Jeffrey Epstein's scandal. But the residents of

(55:10):
Southeast Washington have taken the president's moves personally. Mister Trump,
they said, is using them. Older residents remember a time
when crime was much worse. Quote, I grew up in
the town in the nineties, when we were quote unquote
the murder capital for almost ten years, said mister Harrison forty.

(55:32):
I wouldn't call what we have a state of emergency,
he said. Still, any deployment of extra enforcement must be
done with sensitivity for black citizens. He added, this concludes
the reading of the New York Times for today. Your
reader has been Mary Fullington. If you have any questions
or need further information regarding Radio I, please do not

(55:56):
hesitate to call us now. Please stay tuned for further
programming from Radio I.