This Friday episode of The Headlines covers the Trump administration's growing involvement in the midterm elections, including federal grand jury subpoenas to election officials in California and a Justice Department probe into an alleged Democratic ballot-stacking effort in Alaska. It also examines the Pentagon's leak hunt, which led to the firing of a top Army general who denied sharing classified information, and the uncertain aftermath of Israel's election, where neither Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor the opposition reached a majority.
The show closes with a profile of Carl Bushby, a former paratrooper nearing the end of a 28-year walk around the world, and a news quiz.
In this episode Tracy Mumford
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From the New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Friday, October 30th. Here's what we're covering. With four days to go until the midterms, the Trump administration has stepped up its attempts to intervene in the elections. The most high-profile efforts are playing out in California and Alaska. In California, the administration has been trying to block the state from counting the votes of some 20,000 people it claims are likely non-citizens, though studies have found that kind of fraud is very rare.
A federal judge, resoundingly, rejected that effort, but Justice Department officials have also suggested they would investigate and prosecute local election officials who do not meet their demands to set aside ballots. Now, The Times has learned, the DOJ has issued federal grand jury subpoenas to some election officials. At least two of those who were subpoenaed work at the Los Angeles County Registrar's Office, and the registrar issued a statement calling the subpoenas "intimidation."
Similar claims about a flood of illegal voters have recently fallen apart under scrutiny. Last month, election officials in Nevada said they examined a list, provided by the Department of Homeland Security, of about 200 supposed non-citizens who had been improperly registered to vote, and they found that every person on the list was a lawful citizen. And in Alaska, the Justice Department has issued dozens of subpoenas to people believed to be connected to a Democratic effort to stack the state's Senate ballot, according to officials familiar with the investigation.
The move came after The Times published reporting that operatives aligned with Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola were involved in recruiting a candidate with the same name as the Republican incumbent, Dan Sullivan, to try and siphon off votes. Ballot stacking is an age-old practice that's been used by both parties for decades. And this year, Republicans also used ballot stacking in Alaska, trying to prop up Democratic candidates in the Senate primary to siphon votes from Peltola.
The practice is generally considered legal if misleading. At President Trump's direction, the Justice Department has already filed a lawsuit trying to block Alaska from certifying the results if the Republican incumbent narrowly loses. Legal experts tell The Times the suit does not have a good chance of succeeding. At the Pentagon, there's been a highly unusual campaign underway to hunt for leaks.
Access to confidential and secret information is a sacred trust, and those who betray that trust will be met with the full force of the law.
After news reports emerged about how much the war with Iran has diminished the U.S. weapons stockpile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused those sharing information of betraying the U.S.
Leaked information risks lives.
Government investigators then subjected dozens of military staffers, including top-ranking officials, to polygraph tests, a move that's unprecedented in modern U.S. history. Now Hegseth has fired a top Army general after accusing him of sharing classified information with the media related to Iran and Russia. The Pentagon did not offer any details or proof in support of those allegations, aside from a statement saying that Lieutenant General Brett Silvia failed three polygraph exams.
Those exams are generally viewed as unreliable, to the point that they're not admissible as evidence at a court-martial. Two officials told The Times that during the investigation, Silvia denied sharing any sensitive or classified information. The general had been serving on the joint staff as the Director of Strategy, playing an essential role in coordinating military plans in Ukraine, Iran, and around the world, and his dismissal shocked and angered many senior Army officers. Under Hegseth's leadership, senior officials tell The Times that there's an atmosphere of deep distrust and paranoia inside the Pentagon.
In all, Hegseth has dismissed or sidelined more than 80 generals or admirals, and in most cases, they were fired without ever being told the reason. In Israel, the final vote count for this week's election was released early this morning, and it confirmed that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right coalition nor the main opposition bloc won enough votes to form a government on its own.
That means the country is in for weeks of political jockeying and uncertainty, and it will all come down to basic math. For the country's parliamentary system, the goal is to get to 61 seats for an outright majority. Netanyahu and his hard-right allies have 53; the opposition bloc, led by Godi Eisenkotz, got 48. A number of scenarios about what will happen now have been floated. Eisenkotz could seek an alliance with Arab parties, but that's likely to be a no-go for some in his bloc.
Or he could even join forces with Netanyahu in a potential unity government, though Eisenkotz ran a fierce campaign against Netanyahu, saying the prime minister was pushing Israel toward authoritarianism and destroying its international standing. At a certain point, if no one can maneuver to form a government, new elections will be held, but many in the country want to avoid that. Israel was effectively paralyzed by that kind of political deadlock between 2019 and 2022, when voters went to the polls five times.
And finally.
I don't think I ever really imagined what it would be like to get home, because it was just, there was so much in front of you.
After 28 years and 31,000 miles, Carl Bushby is almost done walking across the globe.
I always felt like I had something to prove, and the way I was going to prove it was going out and by doing something so dumb that people won't even think of it, doing something on that scale. So I think that was my hold my beer.
Yeah.
I'll show you.
He did not think it would take him this long, but there were a few complications. The former paratrooper in the British Army started his trip in 1998 at the southernmost tip of South America. He had about 500 bucks and a glorified push cart, and he just started walking, crossing through some of the world's harshest climates, which he described to my colleague Jonathan Wolfe recently in an interview along his route.
And it feels like it's one miracle after another. I mean, getting across the Bering Strait, getting out of the jaws of the FSB in Russia, not going to jail, was a freaking miracle. So there's a lot of luck involved in doing this.
Bushby did take some breaks, sometimes out of necessity, like if he was deported or waylaid by war or the pandemic, but in those cases, he always picked up right where he'd left off. And now, after traversing South America, North America, Asia, Europe, and swimming across the English Channel, he's due to show up back at his mom's house in whole England on Monday, if things go according to plan. It'll be a long-overdue family reunion.
When Bushby started his journey, his son was 8 years old. Now he's 36, and Bushby's got a granddaughter he's never met. The World Walker said he wrestled with what it's meant for him to be away this long, but he hoped the journey would make his son, who's come to see him along the route, proud. Now, with the end in sight, when asked how he feels about finishing his walk, Bushby said it will be a little bittersweet.
My, you know, purpose for living is about to abruptly end. It's been half my life, and every now and then I remember that. So there's some apprehension there, I think, as we go forward. It's going to be a big day on my arrival, and I'm not sure how I'm going to feel the next morning. I know that much.
Those are The Headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around, it's just after these credits. And if you are not a Times subscriber yet, The Times just made it so all of our midterms coverage is free through the election. We're talking poll trackers, the latest updates, analysis, all of it. You can download The Times app now to access it. The Headlines is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Khadifah, Jake Lucas, Yann Stuart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell.
Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Sam Dolnick, Miles McKinley, Alyssa Moxley, Zoe Murphy, and Chris Wood. Now time for the quiz. Every week we ask you a few questions about stories The Times is covering. Can you get them all? First up.
It's good to be back in Detroit.
In the very final stretch of campaigning before the midterms, former President Barack Obama has been out on the trail, stumping for Democrats in key races, and he has not been shy about criticizing President Trump.
The guy is building a ballroom that is bigger than the White House, paved over the Rose Garden.
In particular, Obama took aim at all of the renovations Trump has been up to, joking that the White House now looks like if a chain restaurant was opened by a certain former world leader, whose name we've dinged out here.
I mean, he's got the White House looking like opened a cheesecake factory.
Your question: who was Obama talking about there? The answer.
He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory. It's just gold everywhere.
Saddam Hussein, the former authoritarian leader of Iraq who also loved gold. Now, Trump's allies, meanwhile, have been pushing back on this joke. And in that vein, here's a bonus question for you.
Hi, Mr. Secretary. Some interesting lunch choice today. What did you order?
One of Trump's cabinet members even then went to the cheesecake factory to try and call out Obama as elitist for joking about the hallowed institution. Which cabinet member was it? Do you know? It was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
I have what I always had, the French-dipped cheeseburger.
Moving on to the next question, also about the midterms. By the time this is all over next week, campaigns and political groups will have spent almost $4 billion on advertising for House and Senate races, according to a Times analysis of media spending. More than a quarter of that is being spent on just three Senate races. Can you name which three states all that money has been going toward?
Coming in at number three is Michigan. The second most ad spending has been happening in Texas. And the most money has gone to ads for the Senate race in Ohio. There, Republican Senator John Husted is defending his seat against Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Almost $500 million has been spent on ads in that race alone. And last question. A major American city has been looking for a new voice, specifically an authentic voice to welcome people at the airport. More than 5,000 people sent in auditions to be the one to record all of those greetings and announcements for travelers. And the finalists range from, like, maybe a little hint of an accent to a real thick one.
Based off some quick samples, which we'll play for you here, can you name which city's airport is searching for a new voice?
Welcome to International Airport.
Front door to the capital of heart, hustle, and hometown pride.
This city runs on iced coffee, raw ambition.
And unbelievable team spirit. So let's go.
Do you know it yet? Because I think you're about to.
Whether you're grabbing a lobster roll by the Harbor, waiting in line for a cannoli in the north end.
Name that city. The answer: Boston.
We're wicked glad you're here.
The winner of the competition to be the new voice of Logan International Airport will be announced next week after Massachusetts residents were encouraged to vote online. And notably, there is no cash prize for winning, just the chance to be a star. OK, now we are shoehorning one more quiz question in here from news that came in late yesterday. I'm going to play a quick clip of someone whose voice you have almost certainly heard, but probably never in his thick hometown accent.
I was sitting by us and last evening, my mother and father were off, because they'd heard that we owed Nant Susanna. Well, laid up in bed with a cough.
Who was that? That's the actor Patrick Stewart doing a little Yorkshire dialect for an interview with Wired magazine. It is a northern England accent he worked hard to lose as he made his way into theater and TV and movies, charming the world as Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek and many other roles. Stewart died yesterday at 86, and as part of his legacy, he is credited with entering a genre best known for kind of swashbuckling space cowboys and turning Captain Picard into a role where he drank tea and quoted Shakespeare, essentially reinventing what a sci-fi hero could be.
That's it for this week's News Quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, our email is theheadlines@nytimes.com. I'm Tracy Mumford. Have a good weekend, and we will be back on Monday.
Plus, the Friday news quiz. Here’s what we’re covering:Republicans Ramp Up Investigation Into Democratic Plan to Pack Alaska’s Ballot, by Kellen Browning, Anna Griffin and Glenn ThrushJustice Dept. Pressures California With Expanded Election Investigation, by Devlin Barrett and Shawn HublerHegseth Fires General He Accused of Leaking Information to the News Media, by Greg JaffeFinal Vote Results in Israel Set Up Weeks of Uncertainty About Who Will Govern, by Leo Sands, Johnatan Reiss and Ephrat LivniAfter 28 Years Walking Across the Globe, He’s Almost Home, by Jonathan Wolfe
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