--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): From the New York Times, it's the headlines. Today is Wednesday, September 4th. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Linda Sun: (audio clip not available, assumed to be a guest) Federal prosecutors have indicted a former New York official they claim used her position to benefit China. I worked in state government for 14 years, including for Governors Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul. I was once Hochul's deputy chief of staff.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Linda, what do you have to say to the allegations?
--:-- Linda Sun: (audio clip not available, assumed to be a guest) I'm not aware of any allegations. I'm not aware of any wrongdoing on my part.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Prosecutors allege that during your career, you were working as a Chinese agent. They say you influenced messaging, like making sure state officials didn't publicly mention the persecution of the Uyghurs, an ethnic group in China.
--:-- Linda Sun: (audio clip not available, assumed to be a guest) I'm not aware of any involvement in the persecution of the Uyghurs.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): They say you also provided unauthorized invitations to Chinese officials to make it easier for them to travel to the U.S. Many of the allegations center on China's disputed claim over Taiwan.
--:-- Linda Sun: (audio clip not available, assumed to be a guest) I'm not aware of any involvement in China's disputed claim over Taiwan.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Sun allegedly kept Taiwanese officials from having access to the governor's office. For example, when Cuomo was invited by Taiwanese officials to a banquet, Sun did not forward the invite and told a Chinese government official that she, quote, blocked it, according to the indictment.
--:-- Linda Sun: (audio clip not available, assumed to be a guest) I'm not aware of any involvement in blocking the invitation.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): In return, the FBI says your husband's businesses got millions of dollars, and the couple used the money to buy homes in Long Island and Hawaii, as well as a new Ferrari. The alleged benefits even included multiple deliveries of Nanjing-style salted ducks sent to your parents.
--:-- Linda Sun: (audio clip not available, assumed to be a guest) I'm not aware of any involvement in receiving the benefits.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Sun faces 10 counts of visa fraud, money laundering, and other crimes. Your husband, Chris Hu, is also indicted for money laundering. Both pleaded not guilty.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): The charges are the latest in the Justice Department's initiative to stop the Chinese government's attempts to secretly wield influence in the U.S. In the last year, authorities have pursued at least three other cases against people accused of spying or carrying out other acts on China's behalf, including running a secret police station in lower Manhattan that targeted Chinese dissidents.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): For Donald Trump, one of his efforts to avoid consequences for his conviction in the Hush Money case hit a wall yesterday. Trump was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying records to cover up payments made to Stormy Daniels.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): It was a state criminal case prosecuted in New York, and Trump's legal team has been trying a long-shot effort to move it to federal court in hopes of getting his verdict overturned.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): But a judge rejected that yesterday and turned down Trump's claim that the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity applied to the case.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): The Supreme Court ruling gave former presidents some protection for official acts. But the judge wrote that, quote, hush money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Sentencing in the case is scheduled for September 18, though the original trial judge is currently weighing a request from Trump to delay it until after the election.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Trump faces a potential sentence of probation up to four years in prison.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): In Ukraine, President Vladimir Zelensky is shaking up his cabinet in the biggest change to his government since Russia invaded.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Half a dozen senior officials have offered to resign, including the country's foreign minister. The shuffle comes at a challenging moment for Ukraine.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Russia has scaled up its missile and drone attacks in recent weeks. Yesterday, more than 50 people were killed in a strike on a military academy in the city of Poltava, one of the deadliest strikes of the war so far.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Andrew Kramer covers Ukraine for The Times. When we heard the news of this strike, we drove out to Poltava, which is east of Kiev, and arrived late in the evening.
--:-- Andrew Kramer: There were floodlights and exhausted firefighters were pulling rubble from the building that had been hit and searching for victims of the attack.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): The work stopped every 15 minutes or so while they listened for any possible yells for help from survivors who might be under the rubble.
--:-- Andrew Kramer: It been a brutal week for Ukraine with large missile strikes. And this is all going on against a backdrop of a very precarious situation on the front line with Russia pushing forward in eastern Ukraine and Ukraine having captured land inside of Russia, fighting to hold on to it.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): So there's a sense that the war has become more active in the last month or so.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): In Gaza, the emergency effort to vaccinate children against polio is going better than expected, according to the World Health Organization.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Since Sunday, more than 160,000 kids have been vaccinated, a significant portion of the 640,000 that health workers hope to eventually reach.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): The WHO has arranged for Israel and Hamas to pause fighting in certain areas at certain times of day to allow families to reach vaccination sites safely.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): The effort comes as there's been a surge in infectious diseases like polio in Gaza, accelerated by the destruction of health care facilities and unsanitary conditions.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): And finally, so the teleoperator is laying down with a mouse. They're laying down those little breadcrumbs.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): In cities like San Francisco, Phoenix, and Las Vegas, so-called robot taxis have hit the streets in recent years.
--:-- Cade Metz: But Times tech reporter Cade Metz has found that the driverless cars aren't always as autonomous as they seem.
--:-- Cade Metz: So they can lay down the breadcrumbs, but then there are other controls here. Escalate, go slow, pull over. Those are also buttons that the teleoperators are...
--:-- Cade Metz: I visited a command center in California run by the company Zooks, a self-driving car company owned by Amazon, where human operators stand by to remotely help robot taxis get out of complex situations on the road.
--:-- Cade Metz: Let's say there's a construction zone that wasn't there the day before. Let's say an emergency vehicle like an ambulance or a fire truck approaches.
--:-- Cade Metz: The cars in those situations may not know what to do and in those cases they send an alert to a remote technician who then sees what the car is seeing through its sensors.
--:-- Cade Metz: These technicians can essentially guide the car, give it a new path to take around that fire truck or ambulance or construction zone.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): It's not something that the major car companies, including Waymo and Cruise, have been open about over the years.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): They gave the impression that these cars were completely autonomous. They gave that impression because it helped them raise the enormous amounts of money needed to build this technology.
--:-- Cade Metz: But now, as these cars are beginning to be deployed, the companies are starting to describe this process in detail.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Now, there are parts of this operation that the companies are still reluctant to talk about.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): We don't know how many people are employed in these command centers across all those companies.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): We don't know how much money is spent on them, it's still an open question as to whether these robo-taxi services make financial sense.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): In order for these robo-taxi services to be financially viable, you want to take the driver out of the car and take away the cost of that driver.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): But if that cost is then duplicated with other humans helping these cars, these types of services don't necessarily make financial sense.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, how the federal government is fighting to control the technology that keeps AI running.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): You can listen on The Times audio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Host (Tracy Mumford): I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
