The Headlines - New Details in the Trump Shooting Plot, and Sean Combs Arrested

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Plus, the boom in Ozempic dupes.   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:Secret Service Admits Not Searching Golf Course Perimeter, Drawing New Scrutiny, by Kate KellyOhio Governor Sending State Police to Springfield After Rash of Bomb Scares, by Miriam JordanHamas Is Surviving War With Israel. Now It Hopes to Thrive in Gaza Again, by Adam RasgonSean Combs Arrested in Manhattan After Grand Jury Indictment, by Ben Sisario and Julia JacobsThe Weight Loss Hacks That Claim to Work Like Ozempic, by Dani Blum

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, September 17th. Here's what we're covering. As former President Trump was moving through the Fifth Fairway, the agent saw the subject armed with what he perceived to be a rifle and immediately discharged his firearm. The subject, who did not have line of sight to the

former president, fled the scene. He did not fire or get off any shots. The Secret Service has provided new details about the apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump at his golf course on Sunday, fueling new questions about the agency's ability to do its job. Cell phone records show that the suspect got to the golf course in the middle of the night and stayed there undetected for almost 12 hours before he was spotted hiding in the bushes with a rifle. At a press conference yesterday afternoon, the acting director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, admitted agents did not search the perimeter of the course before Trump started golfing. Still, Roe defended the agency's methods as, quote, effective. The agent's hypervigilance and the detailed swift action was textbook.

And I commend them and our partners for an exemplary response in keeping former President Trump safe. Other law enforcement officials, meanwhile, including former Secret Service agents, are raising concerns. One 26-year veteran of the agency told The Times the question on his mind is, was this just luck that you caught this guy, or did you have the appropriate mechanisms in place? The Secret Service has been under intense scrutiny since it failed to prevent the assassination attempt on Trump in July. After that attack, it did reassign some agents from President Biden's advance team to protect Trump. But Roe said yesterday that the agency's facing what he called

a heightened threat environment, and he needs Congress to approve more funding for personnel and overtime pay. The agency's been understaffed for years. Today on The Daily, details about the suspect from the golf course who's currently in custody in Florida, and a look at how this year's presidential race is playing out in a new era of political violence. The governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, has deployed state troopers to the town of Springfield to try and reassure the community after dozens of bomb threats have come pouring in against schools, hospitals, and city offices. Springfield has been at the center of a political firestorm

since Donald Trump amplified a false rumor during the debate about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating pets. In the last week, daily life has been upended there, with schools evacuated, children sheltering at home, and Haitian residents worried about being targeted. DeWine, a Republican, said that investigators have determined that many of the threats are coming from overseas. He said they're being made by, quote, those who want to fuel the current discord surrounding Springfield. Times reporter Adam Rasgon, who's been covering the war in Gaza, recently sat down in Qatar for an interview with a top leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashal. Mashal is someone who has rarely spoken to the Western media, and especially since the start of the war. And this was a rare opportunity

to go in and ask questions of one of the most senior officials in the group. Adam met with Mashal at his home in the suburbs of Doha, where a flat-screen TV was playing images of Gaza in the background as they spoke for more than two hours. Despite all the devastation and destruction in Gaza, coming out of this meeting, I was left with the impression that Hamas is quite confident with the position it's in. In the early days of the war, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and President Biden spoke of Hamas's elimination. Today, President Biden and other American leaders are talking about the need for a ceasefire with Hamas. And for Mashal, this is an implicit recognition of Hamas. It has made them feel confident about their future in Gaza.

It was also clear in sitting with Mashal that Hamas was not willing to rush into a ceasefire at any price and that they were going to hold out for their key demands, which are a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. At one point in the interview, I asked him about criticisms from Palestinians in Gaza who have accused Hamas of giving Israel an excuse to wage a massive bombing campaign that has reduced cities to rubble. And he dismissed those criticisms. But, you know, I still sort of pressed him, asking, the situation in Gaza has become much worse than before October 7th, and Palestinians have experienced immense suffering. But he said it was a price that

Palestinians must pay for freedom. The hip-hop mogul Sean Combs was arrested last night in New York City after months of escalating investigations and lawsuits over alleged sexual assault and misconduct. He was at the Manhattan Hotel where he had been awaiting an expected indictment against him, and we learned that a grand jury in New York had indeed indicted him. Times reporter Julia Jacobs has been covering the investigations into Combs, also known as Diddy or Puff Daddy. We know through Mr. Combs' lawyers that he expects the charges to be racketeering and sex trafficking. We don't at this point have any more details on what's in the indictment.

The U.S. Attorney's Office expects it to be unsealed, so we should have plenty more information then. Combs was held overnight and is expected to be arraigned today. He spent the last year under increasing scrutiny since his former girlfriend, the singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. He settled that suit but then faced eight more from other women. Combs vehemently denied all the allegations, but his tone of defiance shifted after hotel surveillance footage emerged showing him dragging and kicking Cassie back in 2016. This spring, federal agents raided his homes in L.A. and Miami Beach.

Prosecutors have also been quietly delivering subpoenas to witnesses for months, building their case. Combs' legal team says he's a, quote, innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court. And finally, an endless stream of weight loss products has been around for decades. Tablets, powders, shakes, teas, etc. But in the era of Ozempic, they've taken on a new life. Companies and influencers are now pushing products they say can offer the same dramatic kind of results without a prescription, basically ozempic dupes, as they're called online. And notably, some of them are using the same language as the medication. Their branding talks about GLP-1, a gut hormone that helps you feel full.

Drugs like ozempic simulate that hormone to suppress appetite. They're using a lot of the language that was once pretty obscure and turning it into marketing buzzwords. Like, nobody knew what GLP-1 was a few years ago if you weren't a doctor or a drug maker. Dani Blume covers health trends for The Times. She says the latest product in the mix comes from the reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian, whose supplement company LEMI is releasing a new supplement called GLP-1 Daily. People might shell out and think that they are getting something that is maybe even close to an actual GLP-1 medication. And there just isn't evidence right now that this supplement or any other could even come close to the kinds of results that people see when they take actual name brand Ozempic. And I think this just really speaks to where we are at this point in the Ozempic era, which is that the language around

these drugs, even really technical jargon, has seeped into our daily conversation. And these drugs are so top of mind for people. There's so much demand for them that we're seeing entire cottage industries spring up trying to chase any possible spillover effect or profit from just how popular these drugs are. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford.

We'll be back tomorrow.