The Headlines - All Eyes on Gaza Cease-Fire Talks, and Kennedy Explores a Cabinet Job

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Plus, a scourge of “deepfake” Elon Musk scams.   Tune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. On Today’s Episode:In Gaza, Israel’s Military Has Reached the End of the Line, U.S. Officials Say, by Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Adam RasgonColumbia President Resigns After Months of Turmoil on Campus, by Alan Blinder and Sharon OttermanKennedy Sought a Meeting With Harris to Discuss a Cabinet Post, by Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Reid J. EpsteinW.H.O. Declares Global Emergency Over New Mpox Outbreak, by Apoorva MandavilliHow ‘Deepfake Elon Musk’ Became the Internet’s Biggest Scammer, by Stuart A. Thompson

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, August 15th. Here's what we're covering. Today in Doha, the capital of Qatar, negotiators are meeting to discuss a potential ceasefire in Gaza, and many world leaders have put the pressure on. President Joe Biden, as well as the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, pushed for the meeting today, saying there was no more time to waste and no excuse for any delays from either Israel or Hamas. Israel has sent negotiators. Hamas has not, but throughout the war,

the group has relied on Qatar and Egypt to relay its proposals. Despite the pressure, there's little hope of a breakthrough today. The two sides have been negotiating for months, and they're deadlocked on several issues. As the talks get underway, the Times has learned U.S. officials think Israel's military has reached the end of what it can accomplish on the battlefield.

American officials are warning that Israel is now in a whack-a-mole strategy. Julian Barnes covers international intelligence for The Times. They're going after small groups of Hamas fighters that pop up here and there. And each of those strikes has diminishing returns. There are fewer fighters being killed, more civilians being killed. And this has the U.S. worried. Now, U.S. officials believe that Hamas can be degraded, Hamas can be weakened, and it has been. It is no longer

able to mount a terror attack like it did on October 7th. But the U.S. has learned through many years of counterterrorism that you cannot destroy a terror organization. You can only diminish it. In New York, the president of Columbia University, Manoush Shafiq, resigned last night after months of criticism and uproar over pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Under her tenure, Columbia became the epicenter of student protests against the war in Gaza, and she faced both accusations that she let anti-Semitism go unchecked and backlash for calling in police to break up the demonstrations. She's now the third leader of an Ivy League school to step down in the last year amid the protests

and multiple congressional hearings about anti-Semitism. With less than three weeks before classes start at Columbia, Shafiq's departure has caught a lot of people there off guard. The university's board had repeatedly said they stood behind her, and the campus has been quiet this summer. Still, Shafiq said in her announcement that the last year had taken a considerable toll on her family and that she thought the best way for Columbia to move forward would be without her. Columbia's campus is still largely closed to the public. It has not been nearly as welcoming and as open of an atmosphere as it has historically been. Alan Blinder covers education for The Times.

Columbia, like a lot of schools around the country, is bracing for the possibility of more protest. They aren't quite sure what the fall will bring between the war still going. They're not quite sure how the presidential election will inflame tensions. So a lot of schools are bracing for what, you know, could be a pretty long semester. And now Columbia is going to be doing it, having changed leadership really close to the start of the semester. Columbia announced that Dr. Katrina Armstrong, who's led Columbia's medical school, will serve as interim president. Faced with dropping poll numbers and a struggle to raise cash,

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems to be looking for off-ramps from his presidential campaign. The Times has learned that Kennedy has repeatedly reached out to Kamala Harris's team, hoping to make a deal, an endorsement of her campaign, in exchange for the promise of a cabinet post if she wins the election. Harris has so far not engaged. Kennedy has also approached Donald Trump. Last month, the Washington Post reported that Kennedy talked with Trump about a possible cabinet job in his administration, potentially focused on public health. Trump has encouraged Kennedy to drop out of the race. Recent polls have shown Kennedy potentially pulling more

voters away from him than from Harris. Today, the emergency committee met and advised me that, in its view, the situation constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. The World Health Organization has declared MPOCS a global health emergency. The deadly virus, formerly known as monkeypox, has rapidly spread in Africa, reaching 13 countries. The infection can cause fevers spread in Africa, reaching 13 countries. The infection can cause fevers, respiratory symptoms, and rashes. And this is the second time in three years that the WHO has designated it a global emergency. An outbreak in 2022 spread to more than 100 countries, mostly affected gay and bisexual men.

This year, it appears to be more deadly, and women and children are most at risk. So far, the infections have been concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has reported over 15,000 cases and more than 500 deaths. The Congo has already approved the use of two vaccines to try and slow the spread, but so far it hasn't launched an immunization plan. And finally, for as long as the internet has been around, there have been online scams. But in the past year, one particular type of scam has taken off, using one particularly well-known man to lure people in. At Tesla, we are always thinking about how to make your life better and more interesting. And today we are implementing another such idea,

a unique crypto giveaway that allows you to double your wealth. So-called deep fakes of Elon Musk have been pouring into social media feeds, claiming to promote cryptocurrency or cutting-edge investment schemes. All you need to do is scan the QR code and make a deposit. And while there are fake videos of other prominent businessmen like Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos, Musk pops up way more often in these deep fakes, which have been supercharged by a new generation of AI tools that make it easier than ever to clone celebrity voices and manipulate videos. The ads are based off of real clips of Musk giving an interview or a speech. There's really just one last piece of the system that needs to be a neural net.

Then, in as little as 10 minutes, scammers, based mostly in India, Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, can change the audio and tweak the video to make it look like Musk's mouth is moving in sync with their new script. Our artificial intelligence-based platform with a staggering 96% success rate makes trading decisions faster than any Wall Street analyst. Experts say that Musk's global fan base of crypto enthusiasts and anti-establishment types are perfect targets for the scams. And social media platforms are struggling to take the ads down as fast as they're being posted.

One victim of the scam was an 82-year-old retiree in Texas. He said a video of Musk that he saw on Facebook was so convincing he could have picked him out of a lineup. And he ended up losing nearly $700,000 before the company he thought he was dealing with seemed to disappear off the internet. In total, experts say people have lost billions to fake Elon Musk and other AI-powered scams.

Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a Supreme Court ruling earlier this summer opened the door for cities and states to crack down on homeless encampments. A look at how that's playing out now in California. You can listen on The Times audio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracey Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.