9.2.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New York Times for September second, twenty twenty five. As
a reminder, radioized of 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 Patrick
le Lucas. We'll start today's reading with the Merriam Webster
word of the day, which is carp. To carp is
to complain in an annoying way carp. Now we will

(00:23):
read the front page headlines from today's edition. Gun seizures
in Washington create duality in Blitz on science, experts warn
of an autocratic tilt, Cartel's wield arsenal of war. January
sixth Riders give pardons now seek more after her son's
fentanyl death, seeking solitude than justice now the first article

(00:47):
Gun seizures in Washington create duality. Crack down as Trump
eases arms policies by Glenn Thrush. The Trump's administration's crack
down on crime in Washington has been propelled in part
by an aggressive of clampdown on guns, with city and
federal officials confists skating around one hundred and fifty weapons
since the President declared a crime emergency in the Capitol

(01:07):
three weeks ago. Quote I'm pleased to report another one
hundred and five arrests have been made and twelve illegal
guns taken off the streets of Washington, DC. Quote, Attorney
General Pambondi wrote on social media on Thursday. It was
part of her near daily tallly of gun seizures and
effort spearheaded by Jeanine Piro, the U S Attorney for
the District of Columbia. Under almost any other president, heralding

(01:30):
a gun sweep would not be notable, but the shift
toward gun enforcement and publicizing the aggressive street sweeps marx
and abrupt disparture departure for an administration that has courted
Second Amendment maximalists and sharply downgraded federal firearms enforcement. President
Trump's political appointees rolled back Biden era regulations and diverted
officials assigned to weapons cases to immigration raids. The White

(01:52):
House has also approved steep cuts to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,
and Explosives, and installed disengaged, inexperienced leaders to oversee its
increasingly marginalized workforce. While these moves have not exposed major
political divisions, they have caused some easiness pardoning caused some
uneasiness among gun right supporters, who are concerned that law

(02:13):
and order officials like miss Piro, who was once supported
restrictions on assault rifles, will create a chilling effect on
le gun owners in the district and in the surrounding area.
Quote it sends a message we don't like inte, said
Luis Valdez, the Florida director of Gun Owners of America,
an influential gun rights group that has pushed for the
repeal of most federal gun laws. It is not clear

(02:33):
how many of the guns confiscated by the city's Metropolitan
Police Department or federal law enforcement agencies have resulted in prosecutions,
or how many cases were later dropped. In at least
one case, Miss Pierro's office withdrew firearms charges against a
person found to possess two guns after the search was
determined to have possibly violated Fourth Amendment protections against legal
search and seizure. What is clear, however, is that gun

(02:55):
cases are a central component of the federal government's push
into Washington. York Times review of about one thousand arrests
suggests that only a slight increase in the overall number
of arrests compared with the period before the surge, but
pointed to a major increase in federal firearms prosecutions. Since
entering the office, mister Trump's team has taken steps to
roll back many Biden administration regulations intended to expand criminal

(03:17):
background checks for gun purchasers and reduce the availability of
deadly homemade firearms and accessories that convert semi automatic firearms
into machine guns. To say that the ATF, responsible for
enforcing the nation's gun laws and tracing guns used in crimes,
has been an afterthought, would be an understatement. Mister Trump
has not yet appointed a permanent director, and he tapped

(03:37):
the current Army secretary for the job in April after
the FBI director, Kash Pitel, told associates he had no
interest in filling the position. Earlier this year, the White
House floated a plan to merge the ATF with Drug
Enforcement Administration, another small and besieged law enforcement agency tucked
inside the Justice Department. It appears to be going nowhere.
In June, the Justice Department quietly issued a plan to

(03:59):
slash by two thirds the number of inspectors who monitor
federally licensed gun dealers, sharply limiting the government's already crimped
capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals. The
department plans to eliminate five hundred and forty one of
the estimated eight hundred investigators responsible for determining whether federally
licensed dealers are following federal laws and regulations intended to
keep guns away from traffickers, straw purchasers, criminals, and those

(04:22):
who have found to have severe mental illness. Many agents
in the ATF's already understaffed field offices have been assigned
to provide support for immigration enforcement actions across the country,
which has reduced the bureau's capacity to bring gun cases.
According to several federal law enforcement officials who spoke on
the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, those same
officials are now expressing measured hope that the emphasis on

(04:44):
investigating gun crime in Washington will lead to similar initiatives
in their cities. And even with all those challenges, productive
collaborations between law local law enforcement and the federal authorities,
often in the form of gang, drug and Gun Trafficking
Task Force, are proceeding without fanfare, quietly churning out does
of arrests and prosecutions. Miss Pierro, for her part, has
dismissed suggestions that Justice Department cuts would affect her work,

(05:06):
recently telling a reporter who asked about proposed reductions to
criminal justice programs to quote unquote stop it. A Trump
loyalist and former Fox News co host, Miss Piro has
grown increasingly conservative over the years. She was part of
a generation of law and order Republicans in the Northeast
in the nineteen nineties, led by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the
mayor of New York at the time, who promoted aggressive

(05:27):
policing policies. During an aerwind, violent crime rates were far
higher than they are now. An element of that strategy
was an emphasis on increasing police head counts and visibility.
It also used minor infractions broken tail likes or illegal
tinting on cars, drinking alcohol from open containers, the whiff
of marijuana smoke as justification to conduct searches for drugs, cash,
and weapons. Then as now, Miss Piro, the longtime Westchester

(05:49):
County District Attorney, supported as aggressive enforcement of the firearm laws,
data sharing between state and local partners, expanding background checks,
and the National band on assault weapons. Positions. Once acceptable
to the Republican Party and now anathema to many gun groups. Quote.
I believe in the Second Amendment strongly in quote she
said in two thousand and four. Quote, but there is
no legitimate purpose in possessing an assault weapon other than

(06:12):
to kill as many people as quickly as possible. In
miss Pierre backtracked over the years as her party lurched
right word on guns, and last month she announced that
her office would no longer seek felony charges for possession
of rifles or shotguns, a policy ship that was supplauded
by gun rights groups. The move came at the urging
of the White House officials, according to a person familiar
with the situation. Moreover, it appears to be more politically

(06:33):
symbolic than consequential from a law enforcement perspective. City police
officers are still free to prosecute offenders found to possess
unregistered long guns, and about ninety five percent of the
firearms seized in the Capitol are handguns, according to an
analysis of ATF data by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom
focus on gun violence and our next article, Historians see
autocratic playbook in Trump's attacks on science, Authoritarians have long

(06:56):
feared and suppressed science as a rival for social influence.
Expert seed President Trump as borrowing some of their tactics.
By William J. Broad, the war on science began four
centuries ago when the Roman Catholic Church outlawed books that
reimagined the heavens. Subsequent regime shot or jailed thousands of scientists. Today,
in places such as China and Hungary, a less fearsome

(07:17):
type of strong man relies on budget cuts, intimidation, and
high tech surveillance to cow scientists into submission. Then there
is President Trump, who voters last year decisively returned to
the White House. His blitz on science stands out because
America's labs and their discoveries powered the nation's rise in
the last century and now foster its global influence. Just
last week, mister Trump fired the newly confirmed director of

(07:38):
the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Her lawyer said
the move spoke to quote the silencing of experts in
the dangerous politicized station of science in rapid bursts. Mister
Trump has also laid off large teams of scientists, pulled
the plug on thousands of research projects, and proposed deep
spending cuts for new studies. If his proposed forty four
billion dollar cut to next year's budget is enacted, it

(07:59):
will prom the largest drop in federal support for science
since World War II, when scientists and Washington began their partnership. Few,
if any, analysts, see mister Trump as a stalin who
crushed science, or even as a direct analog to this
era's strongman leaders. But this assault on researchers and their
institutions is so deep that historians and other experts see
similarities to the playbook employed by autocratic regimes to curb science.

(08:22):
For instance, despots over the ages devised a lopsided way
of funding science that punished blue sky thinkers and promoted
gadget makers. Mister Trump's science policies, experts say, follow that approach.
He hails Silicon valleys wizards of tech, but undermines the
basic research that thrives on free thought and sows the
seat of not only Nobel prizes, but trillion dollar industries. Quote.

(08:44):
Despots want science that has practical results in quote, said
Paul R. Jofsuvsen, an emeritith professor of history at Colby
College and author of a book on totalitarian science. Quote
They're afraid that basic knowledge will expose their false claims.
In quote. The president's backers deny any sugect that he
engages in autocratic moves or has autocratic anhibitions. Mister Trump

(09:04):
quote is a threat to bureaucracy, not democracy. In quote,
said Paul Dan's, the architect of Project twenty twenty five,
the right wing blueprint for mister Trump's presidency. Quote, he
has an extremely high regard for science. In quote. The
ultimate target, according to the President and his supporters, is
not science, but rather the role experts play in generating
the red tape that hobbles the nation's economy, and they
say the research enterprise itself. They note that Project twenty

(09:27):
twenty five called for the dismantling of the administrative state.
Mister Trump himself insists that overall he wants to save science.
His defenders argue that he is cutting bloated budgets to
restore public trust in science and sparkle golden age of discovery.
Defenders of the postwar order to concede that federal science
management could be improved, But the Trump and cure is,
they add, far worse than any disease. They dismiss his

(09:49):
recent moves and pronouncements as little more than pretexts for
what they see as repressive tactics inspired by contemporary autocrats. Quote.
Trump did not invent this playbook. In quote, said Thomas Countrymen,
a career diplomat for thirty six years who served as
Assistant Secretary of State for International Security in the Obama administration.
Quote it dependent on the squelching of all independent centers
of thought, and that includes universities, law firms, and scientists.

(10:13):
In quote, Analysts say authoritarians and their students' fear science
in part because of its feats unlocking the universe, ending plague,
saving millions of lives can form bonds of public trusts
that rival or exceed their own. Quote. Science is a
source of social power in quote, said Daniel Triesman, a
political scienceist at the University of California, Los Angeles. Quote
it always poses a potential threat. Uote threatened or not.

(10:36):
Mister Trump as long scorned experts as overrated, and has
stated that he prefers to rely on common sense and
gut instincts. Quote the experts are terrible. In quote, he
told the crowded a twenty sixteen rally in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Quote,
look at the mess we're in with all these experts
that we have in quote. If analysts differ on the
reasons for mister Trump's attack on science, they agree that
his actions could affect America's long standing role as the

(10:57):
world leader in scientific discovery, either strengthen it or conceivably
ending it. Will the nation continued to set the global
standard for science breakthroughs. The lead times for science products
can run to years and decades, so the practical impacts
of mister Trump's actions will most likely become clear only
after Leive's office. For the United States, a time of
new uncertainty is expected. The Church from the start modern

(11:20):
science faced repression. The backdrop was doctrine. The Roman Catholic
Church long held that humans sat at the center of
the universe, as the stars, planets, and Sun move overhead
in never ending tributes. Not so, argued Nicholas Copernicus, a
Polish astronomer. In fifteen forty three he laid out evidence
showing that the Earth and its planets revolve around the Sun.
News of his book, four hundred pages long and rich

(11:41):
in diagrams, move slowly across Europe. The Church in time
decided to show its displeasure. In sixteen hundred, it had
Giordano Bruno, an advocate of Copernicus's heliocentric theory, burned at
the stake. To fight the heresy, the Church in sixteen
sixteen put the Copernican Tract on its list of prohibited books.
Undeterned Galileo, Undeterred Galileo, and Italian Astronomer in sixteen thirty

(12:05):
two publish his great work Dialogue concerning the Two Chief
World Systems. It backed Copernicus. Galileo's trial by the Roman
Inquisition in sixteen thirty three was a turning point in
Western history. The spectacle of the elderly thinker being forced
under threat of torture to recant came to symbolize the
Church's hostility to open inquiry. Even so, Rome proceeded to
adapt churches and cathedrals to serve as solar observatories, which

(12:28):
let the church improve the calendar and better fix the
date of Easter. The research also gave credence to the
Copernican view. Nevertheless, Rome kept its heliocentric ban in place
for centuries. The Catholic Church's double standard crushing blue sky
science while enjoying the practical benefits became a favorite tactic
of monarchs, despots, and modern autocrats. Today, the two categories

(12:48):
of exploratory work are known as basic and applied science.
The latter can include development, engineering, and technology. By nature,
basic studies, though risky, tend to yield the most important discoveries.
The lopsided approach let rulers curb freethought that threatened their
authority while promoting technological spin offs of applied science that
could empower their regimes. For instance, they backed research in

(13:10):
celestial navigation, which let fleets of tall ships sail the
globe to found colonial empires, even enlightened despots such as
Catherine the Great in eighteenth century Russia, while promoting science
and progress, retained absolute power and suppressed ideas they saw
as challenging their rule the state. The dictators of the
twentieth century turned the suppression of basic science and the

(13:30):
promotion of applied research into super weapons of social control.
Upon taking power in nineteen thirty three, Hitler redefined German
science to include the idea that arians represent the master race.
Quote if science cannot do without Jews, he equipped, quote,
we will have to do without science in quote. Hundreds
of Jewish scientists were dismissed and many fled the country.

(13:52):
Regime dogma guided them remaining scientists. The idea was that
nationalistic science was the only true science. Before the war,
Germany led the world in such as triumphs of the intellect,
as relatively theory and quantum mechanics. Nazi science ended the
Blue Sky breakthroughs. Even so, the regime's tight grip on
the German economy let it produce many innovations of applied
science that empowered Hitler's military, including V two rockets, jet engines,

(14:15):
machine encryption, and synthetic fuels. The deadliest attacks on basic
science came from Stalin, the Soviet dictator. In the nineteen
thirty he eight thousands of scientists shot or consigned to
slave labor. In addition, he echoed the Nazi push for
ideological purity by elevating scientists who forcefully backed Marxism. Trophium Lisinko,

(14:36):
an agronomius who dominated Soviet biological studies between nineteen thirty
five and nineteen sixty five, used his influence with Stalin
to reject modern genetics as official policy. The results crippled
Soviet agriculture and contributed to famines that killed millions of people.
Like other despots, Stalin also backed applied science for regime building.

(14:57):
The results included the atomic bomb and Sputnik, the world's
first artificial satellite. The new authoritarians in this century, a
new kind of ruler arose. Gone with the gulags and
the firing squads. The new autocratics, forsaking military garb for
designer suits, relied on subtle threats, budget cuts, and high
tech surveillance to curb science. Doctor Trisman, the UCLA professor,

(15:19):
joined with Sergei Guriev, dean of the London Business School,
to write a twenty twenty three book on the new
generation spin dictators, argues that the media savvy strongmen have
recast authoritarian rule for the digital age. Quote they don't
want to be controlled by scientists in quote, doctor Triesman said, quote,
they want to control them. In quote. He noted that
the new authoritarians, like the old, relied on applied science

(15:42):
to bolster the legitimacy of their regimes. Quote. Dictators needed
to fuel economic growth to make satellites and missiles, to
obtain new surveillance technologies. In quote, he said, quote, they
want their own science, not someone else's. They don't want
to be lectured by liberals on inconvenient truths about the
environment or healthcare. In quote, his case, studies look at
leaders like Jaier bolsan Naro of Brazil, ch Zinping of China,

(16:06):
Vladimir Putin of Russian and Victor Orbahan of Hungary. Mister
Trump and his backers quote do occasionally let slip their
view of things that these regimes are not that bad
in quote, said doctor Josephson of Colby College, whose own
book on totalitarian science details many of the crackdowns in Brazil.
Mister Bolsonaro, as president from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three,

(16:26):
slashed the federal research budget, throwing thousands of scientists into limbo.
In China, mister Ji's rise to power in twenty twelve
led to online censors, televised confessions, and the repression of
arrest of populations such as the yur Geers. His science
investments applied over basic studies. In a recent report, China
ranked last globally in the funding of basic research, lagging

(16:48):
behind not only the United States but such comparatively small
countries as Israel, Switzerland and Taiwan. In Russia, mister Putin,
who first assumed the presidency in two thousand, has created
what experts consider a police state in which agents falsely
arrest scientists on charges of treason and closely monitor their
contacts with foreigners. The climate of fear encourages self censorship.

(17:09):
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty two led to
a mass exodus of scientists. At the same time, Moscow
has used applied science as a stealthy weapon of social control.
New tools of digital surveillance aided its crackdowns on the
war opponents. In Hungary, mister Orban since twenty ten has
worked to undo free thought and institutional autonomy, typically through intermediaries.

(17:30):
In twenty eighteen, he had gender studies removed from the
country's lists of accredited subjects. The next year, he sees
control of the forty research institutes of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences. In twenty twenty one, he took over eleven universities.
Mister Trump befriended mister Orban three times during the year
of his successful campaign to return to the White House.
In March, July and December, he hosted mister Orban at

(17:50):
his mar Lago estate in Florida. On social media, mister
Trump praised him as a quote smart, strong, and compassionate
leader of a wonderful country, hungary, great job, the Trump Blitz.
In his first term as president, mister Trump sought to
crush federal science, but Congress often reversed his proposed funding cuts.
In his second term, mister Trump's first target was expert guidance.

(18:13):
Over decades, federal laws gave scientific advisory bodies the power
to oversee regulatory agencies, and such oversights slowly spread to
the government as a whole. In essence, science in Washington
became administrative allies. On February nineteenth, weeks after taking office,
mister Trump signed an executive order that called for the
downsizing and elimination of the advisory panels. The order effected
panels that oversaw vaccines, astrophysics, fisheries, mathematics, space, the geosciences,

(18:38):
the environment, and artificial intelligence. Next, in March, amid budget
cuts and growing protests by scientists, mister Trump unveiled an
overall science policy that echoed the autocrats in emphasizing technological
spin offs such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. In
a public letter, the President called for securing the nation's
status quote as the unrivaled world leader in critical and
emerging technologies. Then, in May, the administration made public it's

(19:02):
proposed cuts to next year's federal science budget. Independent experts
found that the category basic research would fall to thirty
billion dollars from forty five billion dollars, a drop of
roughly thirty four percent. On the shopping block ware studies
focusing on nursing, clean energy, climate change, air in water quality,
chemical safety, minority health disparities, green aviation, the global carbon cycle,

(19:24):
the atmosphere of Mars, the planet Jupiter, and the boundary
in outer space where the Solar System meets the cosmos,
among other subjects. Quote the cuts are justified in quote,
said Terence Keeley, a scholar at the Cato Institute, a
libertarian think tank. Decades of lavish funding have dulled America's
exploratory edge, he argued. Finally, later in May, mister Trump
laid out his reform agenda. It called for a quote

(19:44):
unquote gold standard that would revitalize science research, but critics,
including Nobel Laureate, saw it as paving the way for
state controlled science. Officially, the job of defending mister Trump's
agenda falls to his science advisor, Michael Prestissos. He has
no degrees in science or engineering, but held keytechis anology,
and military posts during mister Trump's first term and helped
speed the rise of artificial intelligence. Over weeks, multiple requests

(20:07):
for an interview with mister Kratzitzios were mayto officials in
the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Possible
dates were discussed, but mister Kratsizios was never available. In
the end, his office issued a brief statement that hailed
mister Trump for quot reinvigorating a system in which diminishing
returns and stagnation have been the status quote for decades. Quote.
Critics see mister Trump's backers either as blind the ubiquity

(20:29):
of the authoritarian parallels in Playbook, or as trying to
give the White House political cover. In a recent essay,
doctor Josephson of Colby College cast mister Trump's access brazenly totalitarian.
He cited the firing of thousands of scientists and the
support of the anti vaccine propaganda, and the elevation of
unequalified officials to science management. Quote Trump once said he

(20:52):
one of the generals that Hitler had In quote, doctor
Josephson wrote, quote, He's certainly working on getting the science
that Hitler and Stalin had. In quote, doctor Triisman UCLA
said that despite mister Trump's war on science in the
federal bureaucracy, he saw reason for hope. He said, democracies
often have quote politicians like Trump who would like to
remove all constraints on their power. The difference between them

(21:12):
and the successful ones like mister Obam isn't so much
in their approach, but in the level of resistance they encounter.
In quote, mister Trisman and said the critics of mister
Trump might prevail. His own belief, he added, quote, is
that the many forces of civil society will continue to
constrain him. And now our next article with drones and IED's,
Mexico's cartels adopt arms of modern war under pressure from

(21:35):
the government and each other. Some of Mexico's most powerful
criminal groups are amassing homemade mortars, land mines, rocket propelled grenades,
and bomber drones. By Paulina Villegas, the explosions began before dawn,
shaking the ground and rattling windows. In the darkness with them,
residents said, came the telltale buzz of drones. Quote, we
knew the devil was coming in quote said Anna, a

(21:57):
mother of six, who grabbed her children and ran as
gunmen moved into due battle. Weeks later, her town still
bore scars. Holes were blasted into roofs where drones had
dropped bombs. Craters scaped where land minest exploded, spent fifty
caliber shelves glinted in the dirt. The clash was not
in a war zone of Ukraine or the Middle East,
and the combatants did not belong to any army. They

(22:17):
were criminal groups armed with military grade weapons and fighting
just a few hundred miles from the US border. In
Mexico's western state of Mikohakan, some of Mexico's most formidable
cartels are locked in a vicious arms race on multiple fronts.
On one side, they are battling the Mexican government, which
is under intense pressure from the United States to crack
down on the dread of trade. But they are also

(22:39):
fighting one another for territory and resources, leaving a deadly
toll among their members and the civilians caught in between.
Now President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to began using
military force against certain drug cartels designated as terrorist groups.
The directive has infuriated Mexico's leaders, who have rejected the
idea of US forces on Mexican soil. But despite their
disagreement about what actions to take, officials and security analysts

(23:02):
in both countries agree that the cartels are amassing new
levels of firepower, transforming some groups into fully fledged pair
military forces. Drug smallgirlers and cart held gunmen no longer
wheeled just handguns or automatic rifles, officials and experts say,
but also claymore land mines, rocket propelled grenades, mortars built
from gas tank tubes, and armored trucks mounted with heavy

(23:23):
machine guns. They are bearing improvised explosive devices to kill
their rivals, and modifying drones brought online to make attack
drones loaded with toxic chemicals and bombs. Quote. We cannot
continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs
in quote Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an
interview with EWTN Catholic Television Network last month. Quote they

(23:44):
have weaponry that looks like what terrorists in some case
armies have quote Mexican officials say that most of the
military grade weapons that powerful groups have acquired originated in
the United States, and then up to half a million
firearms are also smuggled south each year. The officials say
that criminals all so reverse engineer weapons, sometimes three D
printing parts to build them. Nowhere are the consequences of

(24:05):
this varied and growing arsenal starker than in the rugged
hills of Tierra Caliente and mik Ohaquan, a swath of
fertile farmland and blush mountains that has become a strategic
corridor for drug cultivization. The battle for control there between
rival groups in treading the including the Knights Templar, La Familia, Mikoaquan,
and the group with the most military power, the La

(24:28):
Jalisco New Generation Cartel, has pushed the fight into a new,
more brutal era, a war transformed. Like other armed groups
around the world, the cartels combined old and new weapons
to deadly effect. Drones circle Overhead and Mikahakuan, while roads
and footpaths used by soldiers and civilians alike are seated
with IEDs. Over the past two years, the state has

(24:50):
recorded more mine explosions than anywhere else in Mexico, a
chilling marker of the drug wars. Evolution. Experts say caught
between the shifting front lines of gangs and security forces
are dozens of arming villages their limit and avocado trucks
tucked deeply in the hills. Many have no phone service,
effectively leaving them to defend for themselves. An of the
mother in the attacked town, El Guayabo, gave only her

(25:12):
first name for fear of retribution by criminals. When fighting nears,
most residents flee, sometimes for weeks or months. Some never
return at all, leaving towns deserted. In nearly two years,
more than two thousand people have been displaced. Rights groups
say those are stay risk being trapped in the crossfire.
In the past five months alone, at least ten civilians,
including a fourteen year old boy, have been killed by

(25:33):
hidden explosives while tending crops are walking to school, According
to Julio Franco, an adviser with the Human Security Observatory,
a group tracking violence. Security analysts and the Mexican officials
say the cartels began to militarize in the mid two thousands,
when Lozetas a group formed by former army members, brought
battlefield discipline and cryptic communications and heavy weaponry to organized crime.

(25:55):
As Lozetas acquired more of a military arsenal, so did
its rivals trying to compete. Mexico's security forces, too, responded
with ever more sophisticated equipment and tactics. The United States
has also brought its own technology to bear, including by
recently using drones that hunt for fentanyl labs. In twenty fifteen,
a sign of the transformation underway became evident when the

(26:16):
cartel gunmen in Jalisco State brought down a Mexican Army
helicopter with a rocket propelled grenade launcher, killing six soldiers.
It was the first time a criminal group had destroyed
a military aircraft in Mexico. By twenty twenty two, Mexican
military intelligence reported that criminal groups were routinely deploying IEDs, drones,
and new tactics. Quote we are witnessing the latest phase

(26:38):
of the war, a move toward paramilitary style tactics and
capabilities in quote sed Alexi Chavez, a security analyst who
has advised the Mexican Army just as drones cheap and easy,
to modify have proliferated in the battlefields of Ukraine. They're
used by cartels for surveillance and precision. Bombing has served
drastically in recent years. According to government officials, security experts,

(26:58):
and analysts. Drones allow criminals quote to attack rivals or
security forces with far greater precision in quote than the
crewe bombs they once relied on, said Vonda Fell Bob Brown,
an expert on non state armed groups at the Brookings Institution,
with quote. With drones, the cartels have gained the ability
to strike deep into enemy territory to hit targets that

(27:19):
would have been unreachable before. In quotes, she said, to
prepare for heightened pressure from the Trump administration, criminal groups
also started importing scanners to detect government drones and hiring
more people with experience using and tracking the aircraft, cartel
operatives have said in recent interviews with The New York Times.
As another step, the operatives said they increased arms shipments
from the United States eighteen officers thousands of bombs. Facing

(27:43):
these new threats, Mexican police have often found themselves badly outcome. Quote.
They've been a step ahead of us for years in quote,
said Alfredo Ortega, a former state official security chief who
stepped down last year. Quote, they have unlimited resources and
access to weapons and technology. Are local forces simply don't.
They came at us with Barrett fifty caliber semi automatic
rifles and our local police forces don't even have anything

(28:06):
close to that to counter the threat. Mister Ortega in
twenty twenty three formed a specialized anti bomb unit of
police officers, many with military backgrounds, led by Captain Carlos
Carlos Gomez, a former army officer and expert in explosive
ordnance disposal. In one operation last year, Captain Gomez stumbled
on sprawling compounds that functioned as assembly plants. He said

(28:28):
inside workers had welded makeshift armour onto vehicles, fashioned homemade explosives,
and built and improvised mortars from gas tank tubes, packing
them with explosives. His unit of eighteen members is severely
outmatched by the scale of the threat it faces. He says.
Even Mexico's military lacks mind resistant ambush protected vehicles known
as mr aps, like those developed by the United States

(28:50):
to shield troops from IED's in Iraq and Afghanistan, as
improvised explosives become a hallmark of insurgencies. Militaries around the
world adopted the armored vehicles to save lives. Mexico has not,
Captain Gomez said. In July, Captain Gomez and his men
responded to a farmer's call about a possible roadside bomb.
After they arrived, they found an entire cartel complex nearby

(29:11):
and discovered two hundred and fifty eight improvised explosive devices,
disarming each over fourteen hours in the sweltering heat. The
next morning, their convoy was ambushed by gunmen, said Captain Gomez,
who had a bullet tear through his hand and left
a long swollen scar. In the past two years alone,
he said, the team has seized more than two thousand
IEDs and homemade bombs meant to be used with drones

(29:31):
or simple mortars. Most are rudimentary contraptions. Casings are commonly
made from plastic bottles, cut drain pipes, and even fire extinguishers.
The devices are fitted with steel, glass and plastic fins
to stabilize the bombs in flight. Inside they packed homemade
gunpowder and ammonium nitrate, fuel oil and explosive often used
in mining and construction. Quote, These artifacts can deliver a

(29:53):
blast almost the same as a factory made bomb, Captain
Gomez said, pointing at a display of dozens of improvised
bombs deactivated by his unit. Quote, and they're always experimenting,
always finding new ways to cause more harm. Quote. In
one recent discovery in June, he said his unit found
a forty millimeter grenade modified for drone delivery, the first
of its kind documented in Mexico. Cartels are also increasingly

(30:16):
making chemical bombs, the authorities say, loading drones with compounds
like aluminium phosphide, a toxic pexticide that can trigger hypoxia
and circulatory failure, as well as other pesticides and poisons.
In April, a cartel dropped such bombs on three towns
in southeastern Micho Kwan, where residents told local news outlets
they felt itching, burning skin, and in some cases a

(30:37):
feeling of suffocation. Mister Ortegas said the surgeon drones and
IDs coincided with the arrival of Colombian Nationals, formal soldiers
recruited to train cartel fighters. In only seven months, the
state authorities have arrested fifty three foreigners accused of having
links to organize crime, among them Colombians and twenty two Venezuelians.
The Mexican government, under pressure from mister Trump, has an

(31:00):
aggressive crackdown, deploying thousands of troops to states like Milkon,
but officials have also blamed the United States for fueling
the violence by manufacturing the guns that wind up in
cartel hands. President Claudia shine Bomb of Mexico seid in
March that any real strategy against organized crimes should begin
by cutting off access to quote high powered military use
weapons in quote. She said that seventy percent of those

(31:21):
in Mexico came from the United States. The government has
pursued two lawsuits against American gun makers, accusing them of
sending an iron river of weapons into cartel hands. The
US Supreme Court unanimously rejected one of those suits, ruling
the legislation shields gunmakers from liability in certain cases. The
US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives set in
a statement that it works quote closely with both domestic

(31:43):
and international law enforcement partners to counter illegal firearms trafficking
in quote. The agency recently noted that the cartel's use
of a range of weapons including the Barrett eighty two
to fifty caliber semi automatic rifle, a gun designed to
pierce light vehicles and fortified positions. It is often used
by snipers. The cartels themselves frequently flaunt their weapons, with gunmen,

(32:04):
posting videos and photographs online or in WhatsApps groups. In
one recent image, a squad in military style uniforms bearing
the Jalisco Cartel insignia cradled weapons including a Browning imp
to fifty caliber heavy machine gun. A battlefield stable for
the US Army and militaries worldwide. The weapons leave a
path of destruction in their wake. Pablo Fajardo, a resident

(32:25):
of El Guayabo, recently returned to find his two bedroom
home a charred ruin holes in its roof from bomber drones.
Quote fear and sadness that's all I feel in quote,
he said. Quote all the effort and work I put
into building my little house and it was destroyed in
a matter of days. Quote And our next started goal
already pardoned by Trump. January sixth, Riders pushed for compensation.

(32:46):
One of the Riders lawyers wants to create a panel
that would decide on financial damages for what the riders
believe were unfair prosecutions by alan fewer. The rioters who
attacked the Capitol on January sixth, twenty twenty one secured
as shocking double vicy this year, President Trump granted them
clemency for their crimes on his first day back in
the White House, and in the months that followed, he
allowed the Justice Department to purge many the federal agents

(33:09):
and prosecutors who sought to hold them accountable. But even
though the President has given the rioters their freedom and
has taken steps towards satisfying their desire for retribution, they
are asking for more. In the past several weeks, the
rioters and their lawyers have pushed the Trump administration to
pay them restitution for what they believe are unfair prosecutions.
On Thursday, one of the lawyers, Mark McCloskey, said during

(33:29):
a public meeting on social media, that he had recently
met with top officials of the Justice Department and pitched
them on a plan to create a special panel that
would dole out financial damasage damages to the rioters, much
like the arrangement of a special master to award money
to the victims. On September eleventh, two thousand and one
terrorist attacks. The panel, which mister McClaskey called a quote
volunteer non judicial resolution committee in quote, would consider rioters

(33:52):
to cases individually, he said, then assigned them sums according
to harms they had purportedly suffered at the hands of
federal government. Kcloski said that he wanted the panel to
be overseen by Jeanine Piro, who runs the federal Prosecutor's
office in Washington that took the lead in filing charges
against Neelie sixteen hundred rioters who joined in the Capitol attack. Quote.
The only thing I can do as your lawyer in

(34:13):
quote he's told the writers who were at the online
meeting quote is to turn your losses into dollar bills
in quote. Neither Miss Pierro nor, a spokesman for the
Dement Justice Department, responded on Sunday to messages seeking common
on mister mccloskey's plan, and it remains unclear how seriously
top administrative officials are taking it. Still, the proposal represents
a serious escalation of the efforts to rewrite the history

(34:33):
of January sixth. If accepted, it would effectively designate members
of the mob whose Capital break in upset the lawful
transfer of presidential power, as victims of the government and
deserving of reparations. Mister McCloskey, who rose to prominence five
years ago after he appointed an AR fifteen style rifle
at social justice protesters outside his home in Saint Louis,
has been leading the efforts to a secure restitution for

(34:55):
the rioters since at least March, when he announced that
he and another lawyer, Peter Tickton, a former class made
in long time alley of mister Trump's, were planning to
sue the government. The men originally said that they were
intending to bring claims that the people who were prosecuted
for taking part in the Capitol attack had been mistreated
by federal agencies like the Justice Department in the Bureau
of Prisons. In May, many of the writers to cart

(35:16):
when mister Trump's Justice Department agreed to pay nearly five
million dollars to settle a separate legal action, a wrongful
death lawsuit that was brought during the Biden administration by
the family of Ashley Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who
was fatally shot by the police when she was in
a crowd that was trying to break onto the House
floor on January sixth. The settlement raised hopes that the
Department might look with favor on other lawsuits filed by

(35:36):
the writers themselves, but late last month those hopes were
tempered after Department lawyers formally opposed a lawsuit that was
brought in June by five members of the Proud Boys
who were charged with sedition in connection with January sixth.
The lawsuit claimed that federal officials had subjected them to
quote unquote political persecution as quote unquote allies of President Trump.
During the online meeting last week, mister McCloskey acknowledged that

(35:59):
he and mister Tikas had also run into quote unquote
significant difficulties in pursuing legal action on behalf of the rioters.
He acknowledged that there would be problems following through on
his initial plan to filecases under the Federal Torque Claims Act,
which allows individuals to sue the government for injuries caused
by federal employees. He also said it could be challenging
to overcome the two year statute of limitations on bringing

(36:20):
torque claims against the government for things that happened nearly
five years ago, but mister McCloskey assured the riders that
they had allies inside mister Trump's Justice Department. Chief among them,
he said, was Ed Martin, who runs the so called
Weaponization Working Group, a body that was created to investigate
those investigated January sixth. Then other people whom mister Trump
perceives to be his enemies. Quote, He's one hundred percent

(36:41):
on our side in quote mister mclaughy said of mister Martin.
Mister Trump's gran of clemency to the January sixth defendants
was one of the most remarkable uses of presidential mercy
in modern history. But also remarkable is the extent to
which many of the rioters have remained unsatisfied by the measure,
as well as by the subsequent filings and the motions
of more than two dozen federal prosecutors and FBI agents

(37:02):
who were working on capital riot cases. On Saturday, for example,
Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, who was
freed by mister Trump from a twenty two year prison
term stemming from January sixth, posted what amounted to a
list of demands the administration in a social media message.
Among the things, he called for were compensation for the
writers quote for their suffering and that of their families
in quote, and the firing of quote unquote everyone involved

(37:23):
in the riot cases. Quote. If this isn't done, we
will all hang together, mister Tario wrote on Sunday. Another writer,
Ryan McNichols, a former marine who was sentenced to the
more than five years in prison for joining a crowd
that shoved at officers in a tunnel outside the Capitol,
doubled down on his attacks against the police in a
post on social media. Quote I'd do it again given

(37:43):
the same situation. In quote, mister Nichols said, quote, they
attacked Americans and killed innocent protesters in quote. He added
that quote we should have dragged foes through the streets
in quote. Four people in the mob died on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, including miss Babbitt. Two died by natural
causes and another from an overdose. Five officers died in
the days and weeks following the attack, including two suicides.

(38:04):
One rioter Shane Jenkins, who was sentenced eighty four months
in prison for assaulting an officer and shattering a window
at the Capitol with a tomahawk. On January sixth, spoke
during the online meeting and captured the spirit of loss
and disillusionment that many of the pardoned defendants seemed to feel.
Mister Jenkins compared the Rioters to the biblical story of
the Israelites who were enslaved and then released by God
from bondage in Egypt, only to roam for decades through

(38:25):
the desert. Quote through Trump guard, God pardons us and
set us free. Right in quote, mister Jenkins said, quote, well,
then what did they do? They wanted around the desert
for forty years, and I don't think very many of
them got to see the promised land quote quote I
just feel quote in quote, he went on, quote like,
that's kind of where we are right now in quote.

(38:45):
In our next goal, there was a death. A mother
fights for justice in the age of fentanyl. After she
lost her son to an overdose, Serena Fallon went on
a quest to hold someone accountable for his death by
Michael Corkory. Don't come downstairs, the police told her, you
don't want to see him this way. Serena Fallon did
as the officer said and stayed upstairs while her son
lay dead on the basement floor. For bay Bridge, Brooklyn home. Connor,

(39:09):
twenty five, had returned the night before from Florida, where
he had recently attended a drug rehab program. After showering
and getting ready for bed, he slumped over into his suitcase.
Serena and her husband Doug found him in the morning
and called nine one one. The police, suspecting a fentanyl overdose,
urged her to stay away from Connor while they worked.
At one point, a detective walked through the house, she said,
but left without leaving his card. Connor lay on the

(39:31):
floor for six hours before the medical examiner was ready
to take his body away. The whole time, she paced upstairs,
calling and texting family, but mostly unsure of what to do.
Quote I think of myself harshly that day. In quote
she wrote in a letter to a judge years later.
Quote I wonder why did not fight the police an
emas to let me put a pillow under my son's
head and cover him with a blanket. Why didn't I
sit with him all those hours? My final act as

(39:53):
a mother? And I was in shock, and I was
a useless mother. In quote. The sun had begun to
set on April twelfth, twenty twenty two, as Connor wa
was wheeled out of the basement in a body bag
with a tag effix to his toe quote my son
and the baby and our family In quote, Serena wrote,
quote was being taken out, labeled like garbage in a bag.
In quote, it cannot end like this, she later thought.
She believed this wasn't just a case of the tragic

(40:15):
consequences of addiction. This was a crime, she was certain,
and she was determined to have someone punished for it.
Serena Fallon is the mother of one of more than
seventy three thousand Americans who died of an overose from
fentanyl or some other form of synthetic opioids in twenty
twenty two. According to the Sinners for Disease Control and Prevention,
it was the deadliest year of the fentanyl epidemic so far.

(40:35):
It can be difficult for the police and prosecutors to
find evidence tying a drug dealer to a specific overdose,
but Serena was driven to hold someone accountable for her
son's death. I met Serena and Doug Hawk, Connor's stepfather
in late twenty twenty three. Over the course of a year,
I interviewed them at their home, attending court hearings and
reviewed the many court documents, including numerous letters they and
others wrote to a federal judge pleading for justice for Connor.

(40:58):
During that time, Serena kept her emotions in check and
stayed later so focused on her goal, but the pain
was never far below the surface. Quote there is a
saying in quote she wrote to the judge. Quote and
mother is only as happy as her sad as child.
Quote and now I understand what that means. Quote an
alphabet's soup of disorders. As a boy growing up in
Queens and Brooklyn, Connor bar was kind and courteous. He

(41:22):
once rescued a stray dog tied up at a skate
park and an emaciated cat on the street. He kept
a prayer table in his bedroom. Raised Catholic, Connor once
told his parents when he was young that he was
interested in becoming a priest after reaching purity, though he
became brooding and violent. His legs would sometimes shake with
anxiety and anger. He preferred gray, rainy weather over sunshine.

(41:42):
Doctors diagnosed Connor with an quote alphabet soup of disorders
in quote, as Serena put it, intermittent explosive oppositionally defiant,
attention deficit. By sixteen, Connor had been hospitalized three times
for psychiatric issues. He went to therapists in New York
and a therapeutic boy school in Oregon. One thing remained constant.

(42:03):
Connor refused to take the medicine he was prescribed. At
some point he came to believe psychiatric medicine could hurt him,
and he never let go of the idea. Serena said
she tried everything to get Connor to take his bills
and hiding them in ice creamer smoothies. Quote. We've been
tried putting it in his mouth and watching him swallow
the medication with water in quote, she told the judge
at one hearing. But he preferred to self medicate, first

(42:24):
in middle school with marijuana and then with many different drugs,
including opioids. Hoping again and again to give Connor a
fresh start, Serena and Doug moved the family to Connecticut
and later to Charlotte, North Carolina, but he struggled in
those communities too. When he turned twenty, Connor was admitted
to his first rehab program in Florida. He was discharged
after a month for breaking a door. Quote Connor knew
that that was how you got to go home and

(42:46):
quote Doug told me. Serena, who for many years investigated
medical medicaid fraud for the state of New York, and Doug,
who recently retired from a job in finance, had the
means to help Connor. They invested tens of thousands of
dollars in the hope that he could get better, sending
him to at least ten in patient rehab programs and
thirteen sober living houses in Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi.
When he wasn't cycling through treatment, Connor lived in the

(43:08):
furnished basement of his parents' house in Bay Ridge. Once.
Serena kicked Connor out when his behavior came too disruptive.
Quote you're getting all this advice from people saying you
have to show tough love. You have to put them
out in quote, Serena said, Quote Connor just hung out
on the front steps and riding the doorbell all day long.
I realized this is a psychiatric problem. You can't tough

(43:29):
your love way out of psychiatric problem. Quote. A tense
homecoming after Connor died, Serena was eager for the police
to start an investigation, but almost a week passed and
she hadn't heard from anyone. On Easter Sunday, five days
after Connor's death, Serena sought help from Justice Justin Brannon,
a Democrat representing Bayridge on the city Council. He got
back to her right away, assuring her that the case

(43:49):
would receive the attention it deserved. Detective James Harkins of
the Narcotics Borough Brooklyn South arrived at the family's home
a few days later. Sirena and Doug recounted for the
detective what happened the night died. As Connor was returning
home from Florida, Serena got a phone alert from her bank.
He had stopped in at atm at a seven eleven
somewhere in Brooklyn and withdrawn one hundred dollars. She felt
almost certain that he had taken the money out to

(44:11):
buy drugs. When Connor's taxi pulled up to the house,
Serena started to confront him about the money, but decided
to stand down until morning. She was tired and just
relieved to have him home. Doug set the house alarm
and they all turned it in for the night. They
told Detective Harkins that the records that could be helpful
to him like a receipt from the ATM Connor used,
and a list of phone numbers from Connor's phone, including

(44:31):
one he texted regularly that night. Experience had taught detective Harkins,
who now works on a violent gang task force, that
it was hard to build one of those fatal overdose cases.
Then again, it was unusual for him to have this
type of evidence. Quote. They gave us a lot to
work with. End quote he told me the hierarchy of dying.
In the weeks after Connor died, Serena went dark. She

(44:51):
resigned from her job with no explanation and made Doug
turn in her badge so she wouldn't have to face
her coworkers. When they texted, called, and left messages, she
didn't respond. This was concerning behavior from someone like Serena.
Her colleagues had always been close to her. She confided
in them about Connor's struggles and helped them with her theirs.
Serena was also a union leader in her office, handling

(45:12):
grievances and advocating for the staff. Suddenly, it was as
if there was no room in her life for anything
but loss. When I asked her about cutting off her friends,
she said, quote, I couldn't be helpful to them anymore. Quote.
To cope with her grief, she attended a support group
for parents who had lost children. At one meeting, she
sat next to a man whose twelve year old daughter
had died of cancer. She felt out of place. Quote

(45:33):
there is a hierarchy of dying, and I'm very aware
that drug overdoses are at the bottom end. Quote, she said.
A once committed Catholic, she found her faith no longer
comfort her. Instead, she visited a psychic medium to see
whether Connor would come through. He didn't quote I know
it's insane in quote she wrote the judge quote, I
just want to know there is a better place than
he is there. Doug didn't know how to help Serena.

(45:54):
He brought her a book about grief. Her mother and
sister urged her return to work and engage with the
world again. One night, when Doug was asleep, Serena searched
for the words fentanyl and families on Facebook and discovered
other parents who had lost children to overdoses. Some had
found their dead child in their bedroom. Others didn't know
for months that their child had died because the child
was homeless. Serena described these online groups as a wilderness

(46:17):
of pain, where devastated parents searched aimlessly, unable to make
sense of the deaths. For her, there was no solace
in these Facebook groups, but they gave her a sense
of the scale of fentanyl problem and the anger festering
among tens of thousands of families across the country who
felt overlooked. Quote you would read it over and over again.
We were told who sold my kid the drugs? But
detective didn't do anything in quote the drug dealer. About

(46:40):
five months after Connor died, the police made an arrest.
Caleb Apollinaris, who was twenty five at the time, was
charged with selling fentanyl to Connor. Mister a Polinaris, by
all accounts, was a low level dealer from Brooklyn who
struggled with hero and addiction himself. He went by the
name Kappa. The police said Connor had texted him from
the train on his way home from Florida, be up

(47:00):
for me, bro please In quote, Connor had said, quote
I got you a hundred percent In quote, mister of
Polinaris responded. Prosecutors said the tax exchange showed that Connor
thought he was buying eighty dollars worth of heroin, it
turned out to contain fentanyl, The police said. A video
from the taxi that Connor took from Penn Station to
Brooklyn recorded him pulling up to an apartment building in
Bay Ridge and making an exchange with mister Polinaris outside.

(47:23):
Back inside the taxi, the video shows Connor raising a
small oot envelope to his nose, snorting a substance, and
then throwing an empty bag out the window. The evidence
Serena and dug gave the police had proven invaluable. After
tracking down the location of the at M that Connor used,
detective Harkins was able to pull video footage from the
seven eleven showing Connor's taxi. The detective then located the
taxi and reviewed its video footage from that night. The

(47:46):
arrest gave Serena hope. She assumed that mister Polinaris would
be compelled to give up his source and that the
police would work their way up the fentanyl food chain
to arrest the major deal poisoning New York. Quote. I
thought he would lead to a bigger fish. In quote,
she told me there was a death. Serena and Doug
attended every hearing, even the ones that lasted only a
few minutes. Serena studied mister Apollinaris in his tan jail uniform.

(48:07):
He sat next to his lawyer and smiled in a gesture
to his parents, who were also in the court room.
It infuriated her that this seemed relatively at ease. At
one hearing, mister Paulinaris's father and mother pleaded with the
judge st let their son out un bailed so he
could undergo drug treatment. His parents said that they tried
to get him into rehab before but didn't succeed. Quote
the enemy in this courtman is not him. In quote.

(48:28):
His father, Moses Apollinaris, told the judge the quote the
enemy is drug use. The enemy is drug edition in quote.
When it was Serena's time to speak, her grief boiled
over addictions, said did not absolve mister Polinaris of responsibility.
Quote there was a death in quote, she said, as
she turned to look at his father. Shouting Now, she added,
quote even though the Apollinarist farmerly family doesn't recognize that

(48:49):
their son killed our son in quote, quote he didn't.
In quote. Moses Apollinaris shot back, quote he absolutely did.
In quote, Serena said. One of the marshal's guarding the
defendant whispered into his radio, calling for more officers into
the court room. The judge pleaded for calm quote excuse me,
I think we need to be less personal in quote.
In the end, the judge denied bail, and soon after

(49:11):
mister Paulinaris decided to plead guilty to selling fentanel to Connor.
The prosecutor stopped short of charging him with a more
serious crime of distribution of fentanyl resulting in death, which
carries a maximum twenty year sentence. The sentencing would be
in November twenty twenty four. After the plea deal was made,
Serena emailed her former colleagues and told them why she
advantaged quote I am sorry that I fell apart in quote,

(49:32):
she wrote. She urged them to write letters to the
judge asking for a tough sentence for mister Paulinaris. She
also posted a petition online asking for a harsh penalty.
More than seventeen hundred people from across the country signed
in support, and many of them shared their own stories
of loss. Quote we have to put these people in
prison in quote wrote one mother. Quote no more losing
our babies, quote wrote another. Deciding on punishment, many of

(49:55):
Serena's former colleagues took the day off to be with
her in the packed Brooklyn court room on the day
of the sentencing. Mister Paulinaris' family sat on one side
of the courtroom, Serena and Doug's family on the other.
As part of the plead deal, mister Paulinaris's lawyer and
the prosecutors agreed to recommend a range of possible prison
terms from eleven to fourteen years. His court appointed lawyer,
Michael Schneider, pleaded for a shorter sentence. He pointed out

(50:18):
that the dealer who sold the fentanel that killed Michael K. Williams,
the celebrated actor in the television series The Wire, had
many prior convictions but received only a ten year sentence.
Mister Polinaris, by contrast, had a less extensive criminal history.
The year before Connor's death, mister Poulinaris had been arrested
for leaving his young daughter unsupervised after his lawyer said
he took the box owne and passed on in a

(50:38):
public bathroom. Mister Schneider said that in a letter to
the judge, they understood the unquote family's cries for justice
for a maximum sentence quote, but vengeance, mister Schneider wrote,
quote is not justice. In quote. Mister Polinaris told the
judge that over his lifetime he had been stabbed, shot at,
and attacked with a machete. He said that in jail
he had become free of opioids for the first time

(50:59):
in a decade, and then he was sorry for the
pain he caused Connor's family. Quote Judge, I am not
asking you to set me free and quote mister Pollinaris said, quote,
but I'm asking you to believe in the person I
can and well become in quote. In the end, mister
Polinaris did not disclose his supplier, which Serena In, one
of her colleagues, who spoke at the sentencing, said should
have been requirement of any plea deal. Moses of Paulinaris

(51:20):
and his son would have been put himself in his
family in danger if he had divulged the source of
the drugs he sold. Quote to have done so would
have been, in fact a death warrant in quote. The
father wrote to the judge. Chief Judge Margot K. Brody
of the Brooklyn Federal Court sent her duty was to
impose a sentence that was quote sufficient but not greater
than necessary. Quote a former federal prosecutor who had been
nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama. Judge Brody

(51:43):
decided on a fourteen year sentence at the high end
of the range and the plea deal. Mister Paulinaris slauched
in his chair and nodded repeatedly, as if something had
just dawned on him. Quote unquote love you, he said
loudly to his family as the marshals escorted him out.
Serena and Doug were stunned. They had hoped an expect
that mister Paulinaris would face the sentence closer to twenty years.
They said, the intricacies of the plea room were never

(52:05):
fully explained to them, and the deal was too lenient.
Quote he got off easy in quote, Serena told me.
The Polinaris family was also shocked that their son was
sentenced to fourteen years, which seemed to them harsh because
he had no attention of harming Connor. Quote. I know
their loss is real in quote, mister Paulinarius's father wrote
to the chief judge after the sentencing quote, but our
loss is just as real. Quote. In a statement, a

(52:27):
spokesman for the US Attorney's office said, it quote recognizes
the deep pain suffered in quote by Connor's family and
quote so many others have lost loved ones. Quote. Our
mission is always to do justice based on the law
and the evidence. In quote. During the sentencing hearing, Serena
said it was important that she talked to Connor quote
because he cannot speak for himself. Quote. He loved history.

(52:48):
He was fascinated by other countries and collected flags and
money from around the world. He hated math. He loved
a neat and clean bedroom. In quote. Serena said that
after staying away from Connor's body for hours on the
day he died, finally went downstairs to see him. He
was lying on the cold tile floor. Quote. I hugged
and kissed him one final time in our home. In quote,
she said the courtroom was silent as she spoke. Judge

(53:10):
Brody addressed Serena, praising her support for Conna. Connor threw
as many a rehab stance and hospitalizations and finally her
quest for quote justice from this tragic overdose quote quote
he quote fought hard to live and to find his
way through as many challenges, Judge Brodie said of Connor,
and it was clear, the Chief Judge said, quote that
he never fought alone in quote article. Putin finds a

(53:32):
growing embrace on the global stage. Eurasian leaders eagerly meet
the Russian leader at a summit this week, as President
Trump has helped ease his isolation over the war in
Ukraine by Paul's Sun. When Vladimir V. Putin attended the
annual summit of Eurasia's main political and security organization three
years ago, the Russian president seemed isolated and on the ropes.

(53:52):
China's leader raised concerns about mister Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
India's prime minister pointedly declared, quote today's era is not
of war in quote. Other heads of state left the
Russian counterpart idling alone ahead of meetings, and on the
battlefield in Ukraine, Moscow's troops were collapsing in a retreat. Now,
mister Putin's future fortunes have changed, and so as the world.

(54:12):
Nowhere was that more parent in recent days than in Tenjin, China,
where leaders from member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
the Eurasian Security Grouping met on Monday, alongside heads of
states from other countries. Mister Putin used the stage to
publicly blame the West for the war in Ukraine. He
gleefully held hands with Prime Minister Narinda Modi of India
and erupted and laughs as the pair joined in the

(54:34):
huddle with the Chinese leader Jijin Ping. Leaders from Iran, Nepal, Naji, Katstan,
Turkey and Vietnam glad handed mister Putin in private meetings
with that ran past midnight. Quote. It felt like the
war was accepted in certain ways in quote, said Maria Repnikova,
a professor of global communication at Georgia State University who
studies China and Russia. Quote it's life back to business

(54:56):
in the war was not even present. Quote. Ukraine's Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, in a statement, called it quote unquote
surprising that the summit's final Communica made no mention of quote.
The largest war of aggression in Europe since World War
II in quote, despite referring to quote a number of
other wars, terrorist attacks, and events in the world. The
elephant in the room was President Trump, who has helped

(55:16):
him end mister Putin's isolation by both welcoming to US
soil for the first time in a decade and by
clashing with leaders from Brazil, India, and South Africa, pushing
them closer to mister Putin. Mister Trump's relationship with mister
Moody has unraveled as New Delhi has resisted pressure from
Washington to credit the USh leader with ending the military
conflict between India and Pakistan. Mister Trump has piled tariffs

(55:36):
on India in response, singling out New Delhi for buying
Russian oil. The message mister Mody seemed to be sending,
after spending fifty minutes chatting in mister Putin's private limousine
and warmly embracing the Russian leader in public, was that
India had other options. Since the early days of the
war in Ukraine, Russia has tended to its diplomatic relations
with nations outside the West, especially China, India, and Turkey,

(55:56):
lifelines from Moscow's war time economy. Not only that Russia
endured three and a half years of difficult war and
is still on its feet and still pushing forward. But
Russia's diplomacy has been quite skilled in quote, said Michael Kimmage,
director of the Washington based Keenan Institute, which focuses on Eurasia. Quote,
Russia has built a network of relationships that matter to
the Russian economy, that legitimize the Putine system, and that

(56:18):
make the war's impact on Russia smaller than it perhaps
otherwise would be. In quote, he said, Still, the warm
reception for mister Putin has only done so far. Relations
between many European countries and Moscow remain in a deep freeze,
tempering partners of Russia that rely on trade with Europe.
Many have stopped short of recognizing Russia's territorial claims are
backing its war overtly. But mister Trump's disruptive trade wars

(56:39):
and mercurial foreign policy have created an opening as mister
Putin and mister g present themselves as more stable potential partners. Quote.
The Chinese argument, which the Russians are happy to join,
is that the US is a source of disorder. In quote,
mister Kimmage said, quote, it's not just a meme or
an argument now in quote. The meeting in Tangent will
be followed by China's commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of

(56:59):
the Japan surrendered during World War II. Mister Putin is
staying for the events, which will include a military parade
on Wednesday, akin to the one Moscow stage in May,
the commemorated victory over Germany and was intended by mister Gi.
During a meeting between the two leaders in Beijing on Tuesday,
mister Putin said that the Russian Sun China relations were
at an unprecedented level quote unquote, despite mister Putin's entreaties abroad.

(57:21):
Part Way through this concludes the reading of The New
York Times Today. Your reader today has been Patrick Lee Lucas.
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