--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, September 5th. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A Times investigation has found that back in 2019, the U.S. military tried to carry out a top-secret mission in North Korea that quickly fell apart. SEAL Team 6, the same unit that was sent in to kill Osama bin Laden, was dispatched to the shores of North Korea to plant an electronic device that would let the U.S. intercept Kim Jong-un's communications.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the time, the reclusive dictator and President Trump were engaged in high-level nuclear talks. Putting American troops on North Korean soil was incredibly risky. If detected, it could have sunk the negotiations or escalated into a conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It was so risky, it required the president's direct approval. When the SEALs arrived, they expected an empty beach. But a North Korean boat appeared.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Afraid that they'd been spotted, the SEALs opened fire, killing everyone on board. Evidence suggests they were likely civilians diving for shellfish.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The SEALs then retreated, without planting the listening device. U.S. officials told The Times it was unclear if North Korea ever pieced together what happened or who was responsible.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Details of the operation remain classified, and it's never been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. The first Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, and that lack of notification may have violated the law.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The White House declined to comment. For the full investigation, go to nytimes.com.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This morning, the latest jobs report will come out, offering an update on the state of the labor market. The report is generally considered to be a key economic indicator of how things are going, and never really stirred up much controversy until last month.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: When that report came out, it showed an unexpectedly weak labor market, and President Trump fired the head of the agency that produces the data, calling it rigged.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Economists across the political spectrum criticized the decision, saying it could undermine trust in the numbers. Today's report will now be the first since the firing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And for the moment, economists and statistics experts The Times spoke with said there haven't been any big process changes that could cast doubt on its accuracy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump's new pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a conservative economist and Trump loyalist, is not in place yet. He still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Instead, a deputy BLS commissioner is in charge, who's run the bureau twice before. Also, a lot of the report is highly automated, relying on data provided by companies themselves.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Still, like every jobs report, economists say to take today's with a grain of salt. The data routinely gets revised after the initial publication.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, three quick updates from Washington. Congress is back in session this week, and the lawmakers are staring down a key deadline.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Unless they can reach some sort of spending deal, federal funding is set to run out on September 30th, at which point the government will shut down.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Republican and Democratic leaders have conceded they need to reach some sort of temporary measure to keep that from happening But at the moment it unclear what that could even look like given how far apart the parties are on key issues with Republicans pushing for deep cuts and Democrats resisting.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Democrats also say they're concerned that even if they do reach a spending deal, the Trump administration may simply continue to cancel funding it doesn't agree with, even after Congress approves it.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Also, President Trump is set to sign an executive order today renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So it used to be called the Department of War. And it had a stronger sound. And as you know, we won World War I, we won World War II.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He floated the idea last week, saying he wanted to restore the name the agency had when it was first founded by George Washington.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It was changed to defense after World War II. The switch now underscores how the president is trying to project a more aggressive image of the U.S. military.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Despite the order, it's unclear if Trump alone can change the name. Congress was previously the one to do that, though the president said last week, quote, I'm sure Congress will go along if we need that.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Though he added, I don't think we even need that. And a federal appeals court has delivered the latest legal twist for the migrant detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A lower court ruled last month that the detention center, which sits in the middle of the Florida Everglades, had to be dismantled because it had not undergone a federal environmental review.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But in a two-to-one decision yesterday, the appeals court overturned that, saying the facility can stay open.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Both of the judges in the majority were appointed by Trump. They found that because the state of Florida operates the facility, it was not subject to certain federal rules.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The decision comes as other Republican-led states have set up their own migrant detention centers with matching alliterative branding. Nebraska is opening the Cornhusker Clink, and Indiana, the Speedway Slammer.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The administration has played up the catchy names on social media, though some critics have said they find the jokey approach to mass deportation insensitive and cruel.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Have you ever noticed how some models stay young and slim even in their 50s or 60s? On social media, there's been a surge in videos recently of prominent doctors promoting health and wellness products that seem a little too good to be true.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The secret lies in vitamin B12 with beetroot. The problem? The doctors are real, but the videos are fake.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Scammers are using AI tools to craft videos that make it look and sound like real medical professionals are offering these endorsements.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So you can imagine my complete shock, horror, disbelief when I find that somebody has deep faked me. Dr. Gemma Newman, a physician in Britain who's written books on nutrition, posted a warning on her Instagram recently about the fake videos of her that are circulating.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Other ads out there show another doctor, an endocrinologist from California who's written a lot about obesity, hawking something called liquid pearls for weight loss.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He didn't even know about the ads until The Times asked him about them. While there have always been wellness scams and snake oil products out there, experts say that faking real doctors is especially nefarious because it undermines all the things people are told about how to spot misinformation.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: To verify an endorsement you might think to look up the doctor name at which point you see that they a real person with real credentials but you might still not know the ad was fake.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meta which owns Facebook where many of the ads appeared began taking some of them down after The Times asked about them.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The company said, quote, we know that there will be examples of things we may miss, and said it was rolling out new efforts to detect impersonations of public figures.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally... Of course I'm wearing Armani. It's Armani. Of course it's Armani, baby. It's Armani, baby.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Giorgio Armani, who built a billion-dollar empire on fashion, fragrances, and luxury goods, died yesterday at 91 years old.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Born outside Milan, his career in fashion happened somewhat by accident. He first studied medicine, inspired by the doctors who treated him after he was badly burned as a kid in World War II when a mine detonated near his home.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He later served in the Army and worked as a photographer, before his eye as a stylist got him a top job in menswear with no formal fashion training.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman says one of Armani's biggest legacies is how he transformed the simple suit.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: When he arrived on the scene in the late 70s, You know, everyone thought that to show you were the boss, you had to wear very constraining, very constructed suits.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And he created something that proved that you could look confident and feel kind of liberated at the same time.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Vanessa says Armani stripped out the traditional shoulder pads and the stiff canvas lining and gave suits a softer silhouette that became the look for both men and women.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: She says Armani also fundamentally changed the world of fashion by turning the red carpet into essentially a runway.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He was one of the first designers to send clothes to celebrities to wear at events. Actors had essentially dressed themselves and often ended up on the wrong side of the fashion police.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And he transformed that entire equation. I mean, you literally cannot think of a red carpet or an award show without thinking of a dozen people dressed in Armani.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He's become essentially synonymous with red carpet. Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But if you would like to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around. It's coming up just after these credits.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This show is made by Will Jarvis, Jessica Metzger, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Jake Lucas, Zoe Murphy, Katie O'Brien, and Paula Schumann.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, time for the quiz. Every week, we ask you a few questions about stories The Times has been covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Can you answer them all? First up. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Chinese President Xi Jinping for a massive military parade in Beijing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The two world leaders were filmed walking together, looking very friendly and making small talk.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And a hot mic actually caught what they were chatting about. Your question, what were Putin and Xi discussing?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: If you speak Mandarin, you have a little bit of an advantage here. A little hint, the topic is something that the two leaders who are both in their 70s and who have both suggested they want to stay in power for a long time would be very interested in.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The answer Human immortality Apparently Xi suggested humans might soon be able to live to 150 And Putin said that if people could just get constant organ transplants they could live forever
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Notably, one of Russia's big state-owned companies said last year that it was developing technology to, quote, print human organs.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: OK, next question. This weekend, the Pope is set to canonize the first millennial saint, Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager who died of leukemia in 2006.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So Carlo's a saint and he's also a teenage kid. What was his favorite video game? He loved very much video games. He did.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In an interview with a Catholic YouTube channel, Carlo's mother said he was drawn to religion as a young child. He even created a website devoted to listing religious miracles.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Your question. Given his tech savviness, some Roman Catholics are already calling Carlo the patron saint of what?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The answer? The patron saint of the Internet. Carlo's rise to sainthood has actually happened at lightning speed compared to other saints.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In past centuries, it took an average of more than 260 years between death and canonization. In Carlo's case, it took just 19.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And last one here. This week, a whole bunch of iconic movie props went up for auction in Los Angeles.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Bidding is still open if you have a few extra million dollars lying around. That is how much some of these props are expected to go for.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: We're going to play you the sound of some of these priceless items from their big movie moments. Can you guess what is up for sale?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: First one, you've got this. I believe in you. the answer if you said lightsaber I will give it to you it is darth vader's lightsaber specifically the item does have a little bit of wear and tear some scratches and dents but that's what happens when you battle your own son and cut his hand off okay
--:-- Tracy Mumford: next one a little harder listen closely think archaeology. The answer? That is Indiana Jones' whip.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The one they're auctioning off is an eight-foot-long strip of leather seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And last one, a little tricky, I will admit. We're going to go back to sci-fi here. I am just a figment of your imagination. Damn what a gullible breeze.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The answer? It's that little device from Men in Black that Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith use to wipe people's memories. Technically called a neuralyzer.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Apparently this one up for auction is still functional. By that, I mean it lights up when you press some of the buttons. Don't get too excited here.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: okay that is it for the news quiz if you want to tell us how you did what you think about the quiz you can always email us at the headlines at nytimes.com the show will be back on monday
