The Headlines - Hacking Hits the 2024 Race, and a Pivotal Week for Gaza

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Plus, a cheery au revoir to the Paris Olympics.   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:The Hacking of Presidential Campaigns Begins, With the Usual Fog of Motives, by David E. Sanger and Michael GoldHarris Leads Trump in Three Key States, Times/Siena Polls Find, by Lisa Lerer and Ruth IgielnikThe U.S. and Arab Mediators Prepare to Present a ‘Final’ Proposal for a Cease-Fire in Gaza, by Isabel KershnerParis, Uncharacteristically Giddy, Bids Au Revoir to the Olympics, by Catherine Porter

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracey Mumford. Today's Monday, August 12th. Here's what we're covering. Hacking has hit the 2024 presidential race. And this year, it's not Russia, but Iran making the first significant move. Microsoft released a report saying a group run by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps has hacked into the account of a former senior advisor to a presidential campaign. It said the group then used its access to send phishing messages to try and get into the campaign's accounts and databases. Microsoft didn't identify the target, but Donald Trump declared this weekend that it was his campaign. It's unclear what, if anything, the Iranian group was able to achieve. But investigators say there's little doubt Iran wants Trump to lose.

When he was president, he withdrew the U.S. from a landmark nuclear deal, reimposed sanctions, and ordered the killing of a top commander of the Revolutionary Guard. Ahead of the 2016 election, Russian hackers broke into the email accounts of top Democratic officials and leaked troves of communications. But this year, cybersecurity experts say Russia has been hanging back, instead trying to interfere with the Olympics

and undermine support for Ukraine. As the 2024 campaign continues, new polls from The Times and Siena College show that Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump in three crucial battleground states. Harris is ahead in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan by four percentage points. It's a dramatic reversal for the Democrats. When President Biden was the candidate, he was either trailing or tied with Trump in those states.

Still, the results show some vulnerabilities for Harris. More voters say Trump has a clear vision for the country than she does, and more trust him to handle the economy and immigration, issues that remain central to the race. The Israeli military has ordered civilians to evacuate from part of the humanitarian zone that it set up in southern Gaza, saying it's planning to target, quote, embedded terrorist infrastructure there. It's the latest time Israel has shrunk the boundaries of the humanitarian zone, and many civilians in Gaza say there's nowhere left that's safe for them to go.

On Saturday, Israel struck a school being used as a shelter, saying Hamas fighters were running a command center there. The local Gaza health authorities put the death toll at around 100. Israel's disputing that and saying that it used very precise munitions and that it knows of 19 militants who were eliminated there. This is the kind of thing that is still happening. Israel is still, you know, continuing with the campaign. Isabel Kirshner covers the war in Gaza for The Times. They said over the weekend they'd struck about 30 Hamas targets all over the strip. And the military and the political leaders are all saying that actually keeping up the military pressure on Hamas in Gaza is the way to create conditions for a ceasefire.

So that is not letting up. Ceasefire talks are supposed to resume this week. The U.S., Egypt and Qatar have demanded that negotiators meet on Thursday to work toward a final proposal. Israel has said it will be there. It's unclear if Hamas will participate. Meanwhile, Isabel says Israel is still braced for major attacks on its own territory, after Iran vowed to retaliate for the back-to-back assassinations of leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah two weeks ago. There's just this great uncertainty. Everybody's on standby.

People are not really in a major panic, but certainly aware. I think most people by now have probably stocked up with bottled water. We don't know if the electricity could go out. You know, we've been told to store food for a few days and generally to go about routine, but at the same time be aware

that the situation could change very, very quickly. More than 70,000 on hand to celebrate these 2024 games. After 19 days of competition, time to close it out in style. In Paris last night, the Olympics came to a close. The U.S. is going home with the biggest haul of medals, 126. China came in second with 91 medals, while Britain and France nearly tied for third. The closing ceremonies were one last chance for Paris to show off with acrobats,

a floating piano, and fireworks. It feels so sad to have the flame go out but Paris will shine so brightly after this immense competition. France is feeling proud, very happy, ecstatic, really. It's been really striking to me as someone living in France how the euphoria of the Games has bled into optimism for the future there. Times international correspondent Catherine Porter has been covering the Paris

Games, which cost almost $5 billion to pull off. So historically, many of the Olympic Games have been synonymous with white elephants, big buildings that don't necessarily get used well afterwards, and bloated overspending. But from the beginning, I will say the organizers promised that was not the case. They said there would be a legacy and this would be a success, not just for the world and the athletes, but for Parisians. They promised to clean the River Seine, and so far they've done that. They promised to be the greenest games of all time, to cut emissions by half and make the way of getting to the events public transport mostly and bikes. And they lay

down a ton of bike paths, open a new subway. So they did that. They promised to build almost nothing except for in Saint-Denis, which is a sprawling suburb of Paris made up of about 40 different cities. It is the poorest or among the poorest, the most heavily populated by new immigrants, the youngest and the most overlooked generally. And yet there is where they built the aquatic center. They built many new bridges. And going around that region now, speaking to people there, many people I spoke to were not just enjoying the games, but saw that there would be a legacy for them. I was amazed at how many said that they finally felt part of France. As the Olympics in Paris wrapped up, the spotlight immediately turned to the next host of the Summer Games, Los Angeles. Take it, Tom.

In an over-the-top, straight-out-of-Hollywood-and-very-American stunt, Tom Cruise rappelled into the stadium to pick up the Olympic flag before racing away on a motorcycle, full Mission Impossible style. The journey to America begins. Let's go! But the clock is already ticking for L.A., in particular for its audacious plan to make the Olympics there car-free. Yes, that was L.A. and car-free in the same sentence. City officials are planning to expand the city's subway,

borrow almost 3,000 buses, and clear whole freeway lanes to make room for public transit. But a lot of the work hasn't even started yet, and traffic's gone up in recent years. Still, L.A. has a few high-profile chances to test its transit systems before the torch arrives. It's hosting some of the World Cup matches in 2026 and the Super Bowl in 2027. That means there is plenty of time for someone to help Tom Cruise find his bus stop. Those are the headlines.

Today on The Daily, Times reporter Jonathan Swan on how Kamala Harris entering the race has thrown Donald Trump's campaign into disarray. You can listen on the Times audio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracey Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.