8.22.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the reading of the New York Times for Friday,
August twenty two, twenty twenty five. As a reminder, RADIOI
is a reading service intended for people who are blind
or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read

(00:21):
printed material. Your reader for today is KP. Holder. We'll
start today's reading with the Merriam Webster Word of the day.
The word of the day for August twenty two is apathy.
What it means, Apathy refers either to a lack of

(00:43):
feeling or emotion, or to a lack of interest or concern.
For example, though the girl's expression communicated apathy, Gina knew
her daughter was actually very pleased at having won the
poetry prize. While the previous mayor's administration responded to the

(01:07):
community's needs with little more than apathy, City Hall under
the new leadership is making real changes. Apathy in context,
I find myself shrugging a lot more and answering that
seems true and saying the exact same thing to the

(01:28):
opposing argument. I've found myself concerned about my apparent apathy
and disinterest in picking fights. On the flip side, I'm
an easier person to be around by Mary Andrew in
How to Be a Living Thing, Meditations on an intuitive Oysters,

(01:52):
hopeful doves, and Being a Human in the World twenty
twenty five Did you Know? Oh? Once More? Without feeling?
While it's siblings antipathy, sympathy, and empathy refer to often
strong emotions, whether tender or terrible, apathy is unconcerned with

(02:18):
all that, whether one is feeling blase, indifferent, or, to
use a more recent coinage, meth apathy is the perfect
word for such a lack of passion. At the root
of apathy and its kin is pathos, a Greek word

(02:38):
meaning experience, misfortune, or emotion, which led first to the
adjective apathis not suffering without passion or feeling impassive, and
then the noun apithia before passing through Latin and Middle

(02:58):
French on its way to end English. The prefix a
in both means without the other. Aforementioned Pathos descendants are
of course supplied with their own prefixes that give clues
to their respective meanings. Anti for opposite, sim for at

(03:22):
the same time, and em for in or within. Now
we will read the front page headlines from today's edition
of The New York Times New York Court rejects five
hundred million dollar judgment in Trump's fraud case. Rest of

(03:44):
the ruling is still under review. Next news analysis yawning
gap over Ukraine. Kremlin still demands what Kiev won't give. Next,
Menendez case raises hope of second chances. Justice activists argue

(04:09):
for clients without famous names. Next, bribe charges turn on
money and a TV rule. Next. James Dobson nineteen thirty
six to twenty twenty five ardent leader who animated religious right. Next,

(04:33):
Romania's national treasure becomes its terror. Brown bears run wild
as habitat dwindles. The first article in Today's New York
Times is headlined New York Court rejects five hundred million
dollars judgment in Trump's fraud case. Rest of the ruling

(04:58):
is still under review. By ben protests and Jonah Bromwich.
A divided New York Appeals Court on Thursday throughout a
half billion dollar judgment against President Trump, eliminating an enormous
financial burden while preserving the fraud case against him. A

(05:24):
remarkable turn in the battle between the President and one
of his fiercest foes. One of the judges, Peter Moulton
concluded that while mister Trump had done harm in inflating
the value of his properties and other assets, it was

(05:47):
not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half
billion dollar award to the state. But the decision to
eliminate the pennal was a rare point of agreement among
the five judge panel, whose lengthy ruling otherwise reflected deep discord.

(06:12):
While the court effectively upheld the fraud judgment against the president,
several of the justices raised major questions about the case,
which was decided by a state trial judge last year.
A primary goal of their decision was to allow mister

(06:34):
Trump to move to New York's highest court, giving him
another opportunity to challenge the finding that he was a fraudster.
Despite the complexities, Thursday's ruling handed mister Trump a financial
victory and a measure of legal validation. It represented a

(06:58):
setback for New York's Attorney General, Letitia James, who is
one of the President's foremost adversaries and a target of
his wide ranging retribution campaign. Case had been a career
defining victory after she campaigned promising to bring mister Trump

(07:22):
to justice. Mister Trump responded on social media Thursday, declaring
victory and praising the court for having quote the courage
to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful decision. He added
that the case had been quote a political witch hunt

(07:46):
in a business sense. Mister Trump's company, the Trump Organization,
released a statement saying the case was brought out of
political malice for the president and that the ruling unanimously
derails the effort to destroy his business. Still, the decision

(08:08):
fell short of a full vindication. In denying mister Trump's
bid to throw out the case, the court kept in
place the ruling that he had committed fraud, an ignominious
distinction for a sitting American president. Miss James, in a statement,

(08:28):
said that the court had affirmed the well supported finding
of the trial court. Donald Trump, his company, and two
of his children are liable for fraud. Miss James, who
pledged to appeal, filed the case against mister Trump and
his family real estate business in twenty twenty two, accusing

(08:54):
them of inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loan terms.
After a month's long trial, the judge overseeing the case
ruled last year that mister Trump was liable for conspiring
to commit fraud, denting the mogul image that had enabled

(09:17):
his political rise. Thursday's ruling came almost a year after
the five judges from the Appellate Division for the First
Department heard oral arguments, a delay that reflected the legal
and political complexities of a case against a sitting president. Ultimately,

(09:41):
the case was so divisive that the judges failed to
form a true majority. Justice Moulton's opinion upholding the case
and wiping out the financial penalties received one additional vote
from the presiding Justice, Diane Renwick. Another judge, David Friedman,

(10:05):
who had been skeptical of the accusations for years, wanted
to throw the case out entirely, believing Miss James had
lacked the power to bring it. Two other judges, John
Higgott and Lynette Rosato, concluded that Miss James had the
authority to file the case, but wanted to provide mister

(10:27):
Trump a new trial. Arguing that a remarkable situation has
necessitated a remarkable solution, they agreed to let the fraud
judgment stand so that the case could move to a
higher appeals court. They wrote that they did so after
much consideration with great reluctance. The four justices who formed

(10:52):
the reluctant majority were appointed by Democratic governors. Justice Friedman
was appointed by Governor Joe George Pataki, a Republican. In
his own lengthy opinion, Justice Friedman pointed out that he
and two other judges a majority, had believed the judgment

(11:13):
against mister Trump should be thrown out, but the trio
could not agree on an effective remedy, allowing the judgment
to stand for now. Justice Friedman also blasted Miss James
for comments she made while running for office in twenty eighteen.

(11:34):
She had pledged to investigate mister Trump, calling his presidency
illegitimate and saying she would join with other attorneys general
in seeking to remove him from the White House. Even
the judges more sympathetic to the Attorney general's case agreed

(11:55):
that criticism was merited, though they noted that they had
already considered mister Trump's claims of political persecution and rejected
them from the beginning. The case infuriated mister Trump, who
has sought revenge against Miss James since retaking the White

(12:15):
House in January. His Justice Department has opened a criminal
investigation into her personal real estate transactions and a civil
rights inquiry into her office for its conduct in investigating
mister Trump. A lawyer from Miss James, Abby D. Lowell,

(12:36):
has called the allegations baseless, and it is unclear how
far either investigation has progressed, but this month a Justice
Department official and Trump activist Ed Martin was put in
charge of the real estate case. Last week, mister Martin

(12:57):
appeared outside Miss jams james Brooklyn home and posed for pictures,
a stark violation of Justice Department rules. As mister Trump's
administration has pursued Miss James, his lawyers have been pushing
for his judgment to be overturned. In the appeal, they

(13:21):
argued that the roughly four hundred and fifty million dollar judgment,
which before Thursday's ruling set at more than five hundred
and twenty million dollars with interest, was excessive, given that
his lenders never lost money, and that the Attorney General's
office was meddling in private transactions. In Thursday's decision, Justice

(13:47):
Molton agreed that the punishment outstripped the wrongdoing. He concluded
that it was an excessive fine barred under the Constitution.
He rejected a new trial, however, saying that it is
difficult to imagine that a trial could proceed while one
of the principal defendants and the central witness is President

(14:12):
of the United States. Justice Moulton also wrote that the
evidence clearly demonstrated liability, highlighting volumes of evidence against mister Trump,
his two sons who run the family business, and some
of the company's top executives. The ruling maintained the result

(14:33):
of the case that put mister Trump's fantastical claims of
wealth on trial, but the judge's various disagreements reinforced the
importance of any future decision in New York's highest court,
the Court of Appeals. When the state judge Arthur f

(14:55):
Ingern imposed the half billion dollar judgment in February of
last year, the eye popping sum appeared to represent an
existential threat to the Trump organization. Mister Trump's company struggled
for weeks to line up a bond that would allow

(15:16):
him to appeal the judgment without paying the state. When
mister Trump came up short, the Attorney General's office appeared
poised to freeze some of mister Trump's bank accounts until
the appeals court allowed him to post a smaller bond.

(15:37):
The court also did not force mister Trump to pay
the penalty while he appealed the case. Much has changed
since then, when mister Trump was still facing criminal indictments
as he tried to reclaim the White House. Not only
did he win re election, a victory that effectively eliminated

(15:59):
his criminal cases, but he has recently reaped a windfall
from his personal business ventures. His foray into cryptocurrency has
been particularly profitable, adding billions of dollars in paper value
to his net worth and removing any real threat to

(16:20):
his financial stability. The civil fraud trial stemming from Miss
James lawsuit was not decided by a jury. Instead, the
power belonged to Justice Ingern, who found, after months of
testimony that mister Trump had lied to lenders about the

(16:41):
value of his properties. The judge sought to clawback his
ill gotten profits and interest savings. The judge also delivered
a sweeping array of punishments, including barring mister Trump for
three years from serving in top rolls at any New
York company, including portions of his own Trump organization. He

(17:06):
banned mister Trump's adult sons for two years. The appeals
court while eliminating the financial penalties gave those other punishments
the greenlight. One of Justice Ingren's punishments that had already begun.
The installation of an independent monitor for the Trump Organization's

(17:28):
business practices, is expected to continue as well. Thursday's ruling
adds to mister Trump's recent string of personal legal victories.
His election win in November effectively ended the two federal
cases against him, and another is delayed indefinitely. The only

(17:50):
case that made it to trial, thirty four felony charges
in New York stemming from mister Trump's cover up of
a sex scandal, concluded without prison time. The president was
convicted but has appealed Miss James civil fraud case centered

(18:11):
on the rough and tumble industry where Trump made his
name New York real estate. None of his legal troubles
seemed to enrage mister Trump quite like the fraud case,
which portrayed his boast of billion dollar valuations as works
of fiction. At trial, the Attorney General's office presented reams

(18:36):
of spreadsheets and other documents, including annual financial statements mister
Trump submitted to banks. Miss James lawyers showed that mister
Trump's company had ignored appraisals and manipulated numbers to inflate
the value of golf resorts, office buildings, and a park

(18:58):
Avenue residential hour. The most obvious exaggeration was the size
of mister Trump's triplex in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Mister Trump routinely valued it as if it were thirty
thousand square feet, when in fact it was only ten thousand,

(19:20):
nine hundred and ninety six square feet. The Trump Organization's
quote false and misleading statements end quote inflated mister Trump's
net worth by up to two point two billion dollars
a year. The Attorney General's Office said the trial often
devolved into chaos, with Justice Ingern struggling to keep control.

(19:44):
He was indulgent of both sides, saying that his primary
goal was not to be overturned. Ultimately, he slammed mister
Trump and his associates for failing to acknowledge even obvious
errors on the financial statements. Their complete lack of contrition

(20:06):
and remorse borders on pathological justice, to Ingern wrote in
February last year. Last summer, mister Trump appealed the four
hundred and fifty million dollar judgment. His lawyers argued that
the judge had overcounted damages and miscalculated profits. They also

(20:29):
emphasized that mister Trump's lenders benefited he never missed a payment.
They noted there were no victims and no losses. The
appeal read adding that if mister Trump's actions constituted fraud,
then that word has no meaning and the Attorney General's
power to seize and destroy private businesses is boundless. Four

(20:53):
of the five judges rejected that argument, but their decision
on Thursday was characterized by disagreements large and small. Their
conclusions may be revisited if the Court of Appeals takes
up the case. Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in

(21:14):
the New York region for The Times. He has focused
on political influence and its effect on the rule of
law in the area's federal and state courts. Ben Protests
is an investigative reporter at The Times covering President Trump.
The next article in Today's New York Times is titled

(21:36):
news analysis Yawning gap over Ukraine. Kremlin still demands what
Kiev won't give by Steven Erlanger and Antone Tronowsky. To
hear the Trump administration tell it the diplomatic flurry of
recent days produced breakthrough after breakthrough in Vladimir Putin of

(22:01):
Russia was supposedly ready for an imminent meeting with President
Vladimir Zelenski of Ukraine. The Kremlin had purportedly accepted Western
security guarantees for Ukraine, effectively as strong as NATO protection.

(22:22):
Ukraine was said to be willing to give up huge
swaths of territory, at least for now, to end the war.
But nearly a week after what mister Trump hailed as
a groundbreaking US Russia summit in Alaska, none of these
things have panned out, and the problem of ending Russia's

(22:43):
invasion of Ukraine looks no less intractable. Neither a ceasefire
nor a peace settlement looks any closer, and Russia continues
to pound Ukraine and its citizens with fear barrages of
missiles and drones. Both sides may be considering concessions behind

(23:08):
closed doors that they are not yet ready to acknowledge
in public. European leaders believe that they have mister Trump's
ear after their unusual group visit to the White House
on Monday and his commitment to some sort of post
settlement security assurances for Ukraine. Mister Zelenski survived another White

(23:34):
House meeting without humiliation, and he sounded guardedly upbeat about
the direction of the talks in comments to reporters on Wednesday. Still,
the gulf between Moscow and Kiev's positions remains huge, and
that reality is crashing into the expectations set by the

(23:58):
White House for Anne peace. Here's a breakdown of the
key issues that separate Russia and Ukraine territory. Before meeting
with mister Putin in Alaska, mister Trump said a peace
deal between Ukraine and Russia would involve some swapping of

(24:19):
territories to the betterment of both. It quickly became clear
that mister Putin, convinced that he was winning the war,
was demanding a swap tilted sharply in his favor. He
wants Ukraine to give up the more than two thousand,
five hundred square miles of territory it still controls in

(24:45):
the part of eastern Ukraine known as the Dnbas, the
region where mister Putin claimed falsely that Ukraine was conducting
a genocide of Russian speakers. Return analysts believe Russia might
be prepared to return six hundred and sixty square miles

(25:08):
it holds in parts of Ukraine that mister Putin has
not claimed as part of Russia and that are less
core to the Kremlin's narrative about the war, and that
may not be all. Russia will seek Ukraine's legal recognition
of Russian sovereignty over at least the Donbas and Crimea,

(25:33):
said Dmitri Trennan, a security specialist at the Higher School
of Economics in Moscow. Russia annexed the peninsula of Crimea
in twenty fourteen, followed by four more regions of Ukraine
in twenty twenty two that it didn't fully control, in

(25:55):
moves that even most of its closest allies have not
wrecked recognized. Mister Zolensky has repeated multiple times that Ukraine
will not see the Ukrainian controlled part of the Dambas
to Russia, and he has made it clear that Ukraine
will not recognize Russian sovereignty over any Ukrainian land. Legally,

(26:22):
we do not recognize the occupation, mister Zelensky told reporters
on Wednesday. He has not entirely ruled out territorial exchanges,
but he has also not specified what those could be.
He told reporters last week that this was quote a

(26:43):
very complex issue that cannot be separated from end quote
the question of how Ukraine's security was ensured after a
peace deal. Security guarantees. Secretary Area of State Marco Rubio
is meeting with European officials on Thursday to discuss security

(27:07):
guarantees for Ukraine if a peace settlement is ever reached,
but there is considerable debate about what such guarantees really
assurances might involve, and whether Russia would have a veto
over Western plans as part of its demands for a

(27:29):
final settlement. Suggestions from the White House Envoy Steve Whitcoff
that mister Putin had agreed to a NATO like security
guarantee for Ukraine from the West following the war have
been sharply rejected by Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei the Lavrov,

(27:52):
But the decision here, as ever, will lie with mister
Putin if the negotiators get that far. Britain and France
are leading the so called Coalition of the Willing Countries
that have been examining options for security guarantees outside NATO

(28:13):
given opposition by mister Putin and mister Trump, they are
working on a quote reassurance force of some Western troops,
perhaps fifteen thousand, to be based in western Ukraine, far
from the front lines, to support an enhanced and re

(28:33):
equipped Ukrainian military of nine hundred thousand troops. But where
those foreign troops would come from, and how they would
be protected, with what equipment, and for how long, let
alone how much it would all cost are unanswered questions.
Some leaders have suggested an Article five like commitment, a

(28:59):
reference to NATO's principle that an attack against one is
an attack against all, but analysts consider that ambiguous or
even fanciful, given the difficulty of creating binding ties from scratch.
NATO's commitment to collective defense has been backed up by

(29:22):
seventy years of joint exercises and deployments, intelligence sharing, joint planning,
contingency plans, and crucially, American power. Mister Trump has ruled
out putting American troops in Ukraine, while American intelligence assets

(29:44):
and air power may be useful without a clear commitment
that the United States will come militarily to the aid
of its allies if things go badly in Ukraine. These
guarantees are argued Eric Ciarramella, a Russia and intelligence expert

(30:06):
at the Carnegie Endowment. Mister Ciarramella said he was reminded
of his little sister who had asked for a hot
dog without the red thing in it. Bread is fine,
but if you don't have a hot dog in it,
it's not a hot dog anymore. He said, sell Article
five without a commitment of US military intervention or the

(30:29):
intervention of these European military powers, I fundamentally don't understand
what it is summits. Mister Trump has said that the
next step in the process should be a meeting between
mister Putin and mister Zolensky, followed perhaps by a meeting
of all three men. He has suggested that mister Putin

(30:52):
has agreed to meet with mister Zelenski, but the Kremlin
has poured ice water on that idea, mister Lavrov saying
that such meetings should be carefully prepared step by step,
and that talks among more senior representatives might take place first.

(31:13):
The Alaska summit was called suddenly, without the months of
lower level negotiations that would typically proceed an encounter between
the leaders of two adversarial nations. Mister Putin regards mister
Zolensky as illegitimate and Ukraine itself as artificial. The two

(31:36):
leaders last met in person in December twenty nineteen, in
a format that included President Emmanuel Macrone of France and
the Chancellor of Germany at the time, Angela Merkle. There
they had a short bilateral meeting, their only such encounter.

(31:58):
Mister Zolensky, as public embraced the idea of a meeting
with mister Putin in part to keep mister Trump happy
and to put the onus for refusal on mister Putin.
It's a sort of gambit to show that it's Vladimir
Putin who doesn't want peace, said Andrew s Weiss, director

(32:21):
of studies and a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment.
The reality is Putin won't meet Zelensky unless he's there
to surrender to Russia, he said. At the same time,
if mister Trump is prepared to press mister Putin and
again threaten further economic sanctions or increased military supplies to Ukraine,

(32:47):
mister Putin may agree to any number of meetings, but
whether that leads to a peace settlement is not a given.
Mister Trump admitted ruefully to Fox News after the White
House meeting that this war quote is the one that
is the most difficult, and I thought it would be
an easy one. Ceasepire. Here, mister Trump has changed his mind.

(33:14):
He had been pushing for an immediate cease fire and
an end to the killing from the very start, after
initial opposition from mister Zelenski because he believed it would
benefit Russia. The Ukrainian leader embraced the idea, saying a
ceasefire was necessary before any negotiations on territory. But mister

(33:40):
Putin has resisted, first demanding to be seated the rest
of the Dawn Bass as a precondition. At the Alaska summit,
mister Putin convinced mister Trump to go instead for a
peace treaty first before a ceaspire, allowing Russia to continue

(34:00):
to bomb Ukraine and Russian troops to advance slowly and
with many casualties toward the quarter of Donetsk they do
not yet occupy. Mister Zalinski, along with European leaders, is
signaling that he still wants a ceasepire during any negotiations,

(34:22):
but mister Trump remains unconvinced. Constant Mahut contributed reporting for
this story from Kiev, Ukraine. Stephen Erlanger is the chief
diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He
has reported from over one hundred and twenty countries, including Thailand, France, Israel,

(34:49):
Germany and the former Soviet Union. Anton Trunowski is the
Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia,
Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The next article
in Today's New York Times is titled Menendez case Raises

(35:13):
hope of second chances. Justice activists argue for clients without
famous names by Tim Orango. For years, Schandrika m Kelso
has worked with Lyle and Eric Menendez in prison as
they became leaders in non violence workshops, meditation groups, and

(35:38):
a hospice program for older ailing inmates at R. J.
Donovan Correction Facility near San Diego. She heard the gossip
on the yards at the prison. This year, as the
brother's case returned to the public spotlight, propelled by two
news shows on Netflix and social media campaigns by young people,

(36:05):
Governor Gavin Newsom said he would consider clemency and a
judge in Los Angeles reduced their sentence of life without parole,
giving them an immediate chance at freedom. Many inmates have
been envious, Miss Kelso said, as they learned that the

(36:25):
governor was weighing in on the brother's life sentences. That's
not something that's lost on the other inmates who also
got life. But she also hears another sentiment, Hey, if
they go home, I have hope that I'll go home. Indeed,
while the case has played out as a reckoning with

(36:48):
culture and politics of the nineteen nineties, the eras tough
on crime policies, the media obsession with celebrity, and added
tudes about sexual abuse, it has also raised a fundamental
moral question who deserves a second chance. Many observers, fellow inmates,

(37:13):
and participants in the case believe that while celebrity has
certainly worked to the advantage of the brothers, their case
may end up helping other inmates who are not well
known and have not benefited from celebrities, supporters and media attention.

(37:33):
There are thousands of people like Lyle and Eric who
don't have the celebrity, don't have the personality, and don't
have the good fortune of supportive family to lift their
case up. Said Michael Romano, one of their lawyers. Mister
Romano was an unlikely addition to the brother's legal team,

(37:54):
not that he didn't believe the brothers, who murdered their
parents more than three decades ago in their Beverly Hills mansion,
had been in prison long enough. But mister Romano has
devoted his career to representing people serving life sentences for
lesser crimes under California's three strikes law, seeking to persuade

(38:18):
courts to reconsider their sentences. Most of his clients are
poor and black or Latino, yet many, like the Menendez brothers,
suffered from childhood sexual abuse or other trauma. Among his
clients is a man who was living in a facility

(38:39):
for homeless veterans and who was raped as a child
and is serving twenty eight years to life for attacking
another veteran with his cane. Another is serving forty five
years to life for accosting a man on a street
and attempting to steal his wallet and phone before the

(38:59):
man ran away. Yet another is a man serving forty
three years to life who stole four bottles of vodka
from a liquor store and yelled a threat so during
a prison visit with the Menendez brothers, mister Romano broke
her to deal. If they ever walked free, they would

(39:20):
speak out on behalf of other inmates who are not famous.
I want them to say when they walk out of
prison and there are hundreds of microphones in front of them,
to say, we are grateful, but there are thousands of
others behind us, said mister Romano, who teaches at Stanford

(39:40):
Law School and runs its Three Strikes project. The brothers
are now as close to freedom as they have ever been.
Their original sentences of life without the possibility of parole
were reduced this year, making them eligible for parole. They

(40:00):
will have their first parole hearings this week, Eric on
Thursday and Lyle on Friday. Even if they are denied
parole on their first try, as a majority of inmates
are Eric fifty four and Lyle fifty seven could seek
parole again in three years, and there is another legal path.

(40:25):
The brothers' lawyers are arguing for a new trial based
on new evidence that they were sexually molested by their father,
Jose Menendez. The question of second chances is one California
policymakers have been grappling with since a Supreme Court decision

(40:47):
in twenty eleven ordered the state to reduce the population
of its overcrowded prisons. In response, the state has passed
several measures allowing court to reconsider old sentences. California led
in mass incarceration in its building up its prison and

(41:09):
jail populations, and now is leading the way out, said
Tom Nauzowitz, the legal director of the California Committee on
Revision of the Penal Code, a state agency. Still, of
the thousands of people who have been released under the
new laws, very few, if any, were serving life without

(41:32):
parole for a double murder. In many cases, the law
was used to aid people who had committed lesser crimes
that ended up being the third strike that resulted in
a life sentence. That the Menendez brothers, with their double
murder convictions might be granted parole under scores how their

(41:54):
celebrity has helped them, but the case has already had
a major impact on the justice system. Governor Newsom is
making changes to the clemency process that is likely to
lead to more opportunities to be released for those serving
life without parole if they can demonstrate that they have

(42:17):
been rehabilitated Under current practice, an inmate must find a
way to get on the governor's radar, a process critics
say is opaque and often based on political connections. If
the governor decides to grant clemency, the Board of Parole

(42:38):
is asked to weigh in and produce a risk assessment.
Under the proposed new guidelines, the process would begin with
the board, which would consider a wide range of older
inmates who have served long sentences, like the Menendez brothers.
It would then bring to the govern the cases the

(43:01):
Board recommends for early release. The Menendez case returned to
the courts just as California vastly expanded the number of
inmates eligible to seek resentencing. Last year, a new law
went into a fact that gives judges the independent authority

(43:22):
to review virtually every conviction. Almost everybody in prison is
eligible for reconsideration, mister Romano said. So far, the number
of people resentenced under that law are minuscule, he said,
but the eligibility is enormous. The biggest problem for many

(43:44):
inmates is getting noticed. Without a popular podcast or a
hit Netflix show to propel their cases, the only option
for many is to fill out by hand a form
available in prison libraries and send the form to a judge.
The vast majority of petitions are denied. One place where

(44:08):
they are welcome is the fourth floor of the courthouse
in Long Beach. There, Judge Daniel J. Lowenthal of Los
Angeles Superior Court has become perhaps the most visible judicial
proponent of resentencing. Last year, he received a handwritten plea

(44:29):
from Ernesto Marillo, a former gang member serving a sentence
of one hundred and ten years to life for a
two thousand and eight shooting in which a six year
old boy was wounded. In his note to the court,
mister Marillo wrote that in prison he had learned to
process my childhood trauma and to identify the root cause

(44:54):
of all my negative, warped beliefs and actions. Judge Lowenthal,
after reviewing the thousands of pages of mister Marillo's prison file,
scheduled a hearing and released him. What mister Marillo has
shown this court is that people can transform, that people

(45:15):
who commit terrible acts are not irredeemable, and he has
shown that he is worthy of re entering society. Judge
Lowenthal said he has reduced the sentences for several people
and released them, and he has pushed for state resources

(45:35):
to set up dedicated resentencing courts. Judge Lowenthal set a
case like the Menindez brothers is important because it helps
generate public support for the notion that even those who
commit the most heinous of crimes can find redemption. The public,

(45:56):
I think sees these individuals as men who are close
to sixty years old, who have spent close to four
decades in prison, and I think, by all measures, are
not a threat to public safety, he said. Mister Romano
hopes the Menendez case will provide judges with permission to say, oh,

(46:22):
no matter how notorious the case, no matter how gruesome
the crime, it makes sense to go back and revisit
these defendants and see if the sentences should be adjusted already,
even before the parole board makes a decision about the
brother's fate. Mister Newsom has been publicly wrestling with the

(46:46):
celebrity factor. Notoriety works in both ways, mister Newsom said
recently on his podcast in a discussion with the Hollywood
showrunner Ryan Murphy, whose Netflix series last year Monsters the
Lyle and Eric Menindez story helped galvanize public support for

(47:09):
the brothers. It works absolutely for you, but it is
a sword used against you. At the same time, the
governor continued, there are a lot of other people in
prison that don't get any attention. They don't even get
in front of the parole board. They don't have advocates,

(47:31):
they don't have Kim Kardashian making phone calls. That leaves
mister Newsom with a lot to weigh. It's trying to
balance all that. Tim Orango is a correspondent covering national news.
He is based in Los Angeles. The next article in

(47:52):
The New York Times is titled romanias National treasure becomes
its terror. Brown bears run wild as habitat Dwindles by
Rukmini Calamachi. The intruder emerged from the thick forest just

(48:13):
before dawn on June twenty and approached the entrance of
the luxury resort. The break in took twenty three seconds.
The suspect weighed around four hundred pounds. His motive Honey,
the bear, captured by security footage that morning, used its
paw to pry open the sliding glass door of the

(48:37):
Grand Hotel Balvangnos before squeezing its shoulders into the lobby
as a terrified employee sprinted away. It headed to the
breakfast buffet and ate all the packets of honey. It
was one of three bear intrusions in June at the

(48:57):
four Star Hotel, which set on a mountain side in
Romania's Carpathian Range. Another bear entered the resort spa and
downed a three liter jug of massage oil, while a
third opened a door into a hotel hallway and chased
away a housekeeper. Romania's relationship with its bears has come undone.

(49:23):
The brown bear, the Ursus arctos, is one of the
country's national treasures, interwoven into its mythology. Villagers still host
annual bear dances, a ritual that goes back to pre
Christian times, when people believe the animals staved off misfortune.

(49:44):
Romania's brutal communist dictator, Nikolai Chichescu, would flaunt his power
by ordering aids to lure bears from the forest with food,
then shooting them in a macaw display of machismo. For years,
tourists flocked to the Carpathian forest hoping to catch a

(50:07):
glimpse of one. But if it used to be that
people came to Romania to see the bears. These days,
it's the bears who are coming to see the people.
A confluence of factors, including a twenty sixteen hunting moratorium
and a spate of housing development that has shrunk their

(50:29):
natural habitat, has led to more bears and more conflicts
with humans. Today, there are between ten thousand and thirteen
thousand brown bears roaming free in Romania, according to government data,
the most of any European country besides Russia, and three

(50:51):
to four times what the country's Ministry of the Environment
deems sustainable. According to spokesmen Mihaid Dragon, the animals, which
can weigh as much as nine hundred pounds and stand
as tall as a doorway, are leaving the forests to
roam highways where billboards warn visitors not to feed them,

(51:17):
and venturing into villages and small towns to raid garbage
bins and attack what gets in their way. Boy Scout
troops no longer camp in the region. Shepherds say their
flocks are regularly ravaged. Farmers are afraid to plow their fields.
Miles of electric fences have been rolled out around villages

(51:42):
as residents try to protect their families and their homes
as children. We grew up going into the forest to
collect raspberries and mushrooms. Never once was this a problem,
said Luran Schevardi fifty eight, the owner of a Balvanno's resort.

(52:03):
Now there is no one left who has the courage
to go. For a long time we were against shooting
the bears, but in the last two to three years
we've arrived at what is in fact an impossible situation.
In the nine years since the hunting ban was imposed,

(52:24):
two hundred and sixty four people have been attacked by bears,
around twenty eight per year. Before that, the average was eleven.
Fatalities are also rising. Twenty people have been killed since
twenty sixteen, according to a report by the National Institute

(52:46):
for Research and Development in Forestry. Still, politicians and ecologists
disagree on how to reduce the danger. Some officials, especially
in rural counties, are demanding an end to the hunting band.
Conservationists argue that the problem is caused by humans, including

(53:08):
tour guides who lead people right to the bears. At
the Balvannos resort, there is now a night patrol armed
with a gun that fires pepper pellets. The hotel's electric
bikes sit in a shed unused, one of several investments
that have gone to waste. Guests routinely ask whether it

(53:31):
is safe to bring their children. This isn't Winnie the Pooh,
said Susannah Teglas, managing partner at Balvano's, and mister Zavardi's wife.
They're charming and also incredibly dangerous. Andros Neustor, a farmer
in the village of Settua, no longer goes into his

(53:55):
fields alone or on foot. On the morning of August
twenty third, twenty twenty four, mister Newstur set off with
his seventeen year old daughter in a horse drawn cart
to cut hay for their livestock. They were about to
cross a small brook when the horse suddenly froze. Thinking

(54:17):
the animal was spooked by the water, mister Newstor got
down to lete it across. That's when his daughter screamed.
He spun around and stared directly into a bear's gaping maw.
What happened next might belong to myth a battle between
man and beast that is as improbable as the image

(54:39):
of Saint Michael slaying the demon that hangs above mister
Neistor's bed. If it weren't for his medical records and
the unprintable images of his disfigured face. I remember having
enough time to notice that his teeth were each at
least three to four centimeters long, said mister Nistour fifty two.

(55:03):
The bear bit off half his face. His vocal cords
were severed so he couldn't scream. He fell back into
the brook, and the bear stepped on his chest, leaving
a scar on his abdomen and ribcage. He was saved
by his sheep dog, who charged the bear and scared

(55:24):
it away. Unable to see, mister Nistour fumbled in the
air until he found his horse and let the animal
lead him to the asphalt in Setatua, a small village
that sits in the bend of the Carpathian Range. The
people who helped him, including his daughter, who survived the attack,

(55:45):
called one one two, the Romanian equivalent of nine one one,
and he was rushed to a hospital, where he spent
months intubated as doctors rebuilt his face. Calls to one
ioio to report a sighting or an attack have ballooned
from around seventeen fifty in twenty twenty to more than

(56:09):
seven thousand and five hundred in twenty twenty three. This year,
there have already been five thousand calls, according to the
government agency that runs the hotline. After a forty eight
year old Italian motorcyclist was killed this summer, TV crews
descended on the mountain pass where the attack occurred. There

(56:33):
was no such coverage of mister Nistour's attack. The Times
interviewed five people or their families who had been disfigured
by bears, and three said they received no media coverage
at all. The reason, they said is that the majority
of victims are farmers and shepherds. We are the little people's,

(56:54):
said Maria Gorja Jakob, sixty four, whose son survived a
bit mauling in the village of Angelousi. They have reluctantly
come to a conclusion that many here struggle to articulate
the bear needs to be killed. What we need to

(57:14):
do is what every other country does, says Levante Porsault,
the former forestry advisor to Romania's Minister of the Environment,
who help draft a series of emergency measures. Basically, we
need to be allowed to shoot them. Ecologists disagree, pointing

(57:35):
out that it is humans who have encroached on the
bear's habitat with real estate developments, and that it is
humans who continue to attract them with food. Advertisements for
guided tours often feature images of bears which can now
be regularly found along one of the main mountain roads,

(57:58):
hoping for a snack. There's no silver bullet, said Christian
Remus Pop, the Wildlife Practice Coordinator for the World Wildlife
Funds Romania office, who says the fragmentation of the bear
habitat caused them to come closer and closer to human communities.

(58:21):
We must end this article here due to time constraints.
This concludes the reading of The New York Times for today.
Your reader for today has been KP Holder. If you
have any questions, comments, or suggestions concerning this program, please
feel free to call us at area code eight five

(58:46):
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