--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, October 3rd. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In a confidential notice sent to Congress this week, President Trump said he decided that the U.S. is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels that he's designated as terrorist groups. The Times obtained a copy of the notice, which refers to suspected drug smugglers working for cartels as, quote, unlawful combatants, as if they were soldiers on a battlefield.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The notice fills in some of the administration's rationale for why its recent strikes on boats from Venezuela were legal and not murder. Last month, the U.S. military blew up three boats, killing 17 people. In an armed conflict, as defined by international law, a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters, even when they pose no threat.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But Jeffrey Korn, who was formerly the U.S. Army's senior advisor for law of war issues, told the Times that the actions of the cartels do not meet the standard Trump is citing for an armed conflict. Essentially, selling a dangerous product like drugs is different from staging an attack.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And he described the president's move as an abuse that crossed a major legal line. Previously, the administration called the strikes self-defense, saying the boats were smuggling drugs and stressing that tens of thousands of Americans die annually from overdoses.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The surge of overdose deaths in recent years, however, has been driven by fentanyl, which drug trafficking experts say comes from Mexico, not South America. Now, two more quick updates out of Washington.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Well, there could be firings, and that's their fault. And it could also be other things. I mean, we could cut projects that they wanted, favorite projects, and they'd be permanently cut. President Trump is continuing his threats to slash what he called Democrat agencies in the wake of the government shutdown.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump wrote on social media, quote, I can't believe the radical left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity, as his administration has terminated funding for projects in states with Democratic governors and senators.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Still, Democrats showed little sign of budging from their demands. In exchange for helping Republicans pass any kind of stopgap measure to reopen the government, they want to reverse cuts to Medicaid and extend subsidies for health insurance for millions of Americans.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Senate is due back at the Capitol today. And this week, the Food and Drug Administration approved a generic version of the abortion pill, Mifepristone.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The decision will expand the supply of the medication at a time when groups opposed to abortion have been pressuring the Trump administration to restrict access to abortion pills.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the moment, nearly two-thirds of abortions in the country are carried out with medication. And access to abortion pills, especially through telehealth appointments, is a major reason that the number of abortions has not decreased nationwide since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Some anti-abortion advocates have condemned the FDA's decision and said they would urge the administration to take action, including banning the delivery of such medications through the mail.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: On Yom Kippur, the holiest day for the Jewish community, a vile individual committed a terrorist attack that attacked Jews because they are Jews.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In Manchester, England, two people are dead and several were injured after a man rammed his car into people outside a synagogue and went on a stabbing spree.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Authorities said that the responding officers accidentally shot and killed one of the victims. They also killed the attacker.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Police identified the man who carried out the assault as a British citizen of Syrian descent who emigrated to the UK as a young child.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They said he was wearing a vest that resembled an explosive device, though later investigators said it was not capable of causing any explosion.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Three other people have also been arrested on suspicion of helping plan or commission the assault.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After the attack, authorities stepped up security at other Jewish cultural and religious sites across the country as people gathered for Yom Kippur.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In the nearly two years since the Hamas-led attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, Britain has seen a rise in anti-Semitic incidents.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged that yesterday, saying, quote, We must be clear, it is a hatred that is rising once again, and Britain must defeat it once again.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleagues and I have been playing around with Sora, and what we found is that it's very easy to use.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The videos are incredibly realistic, and that raises the concern that it could become a breeding ground for disinformation.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleague Tiffany Hsu has been trying out a new app that uses artificial intelligence to generate videos. It's called Sora, and it's out in limited release this week from OpenAI.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Just for disclosure, the New York Times has sued OpenAI over copyright infringement.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Tiffany says that Sora looks and feels a lot like TikTok. You can scroll endlessly. You can follow friends.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But with Sora, you can easily churn out video after video of anything you can possibly imagine, like you ballroom dancing with your dog or shooting lasers out of your eyes.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Almost anything, anyway. OpenAI says it has put some safeguards in place so users can't make deep fakes of political leaders or some famous people.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The company also says it won't generate videos of graphic violence.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Even still, Tiffany says experts have concerns about how quickly this could fill the internet with even more misleading content.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Some of the scenes that we managed to produce out of thin air involved an attack on a city street or examples of ballot fraud.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There were other videos that showed satanic rituals, that showed a protest, that showed famous people who are dead. Scenes of war, scenes of crimes.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: To be clear, none of these things ever happened. They were purely generated by artificial intelligence.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Soar is not the only app that can do this. There's VO3 from Google. There's Grok, the chatbot that Elon Musk owns.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But what experts are noticing is that these tools are getting easier to access. They're getting easier to use. The quality is getting much more convincing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And so disinformation experts are concerned that people are not going to be able to tell fact from fiction, that their trust in the truth, which is already fraying quite a bit, is going to deteriorate further.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: We talked to one professor who also runs a company whose sole purpose is to spot fabricated images who told us that honestly, it's hard for him even to figure out what's real and what's fake to spot the difference between reality and artificial intelligence.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Finally, Taylor Swift's 12th album dropped today, The Life of a Showgirl.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The pop juggernaut, whose era's tour wrapped up as the most profitable ever in history, continues to be prolific.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: All the time you've spent on me, it's honestly wild. Counting both her new releases and her re-recordings and all the bonus tracks, she has now put out nearly 200 new songs in the last five years.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In the past, Swift has notoriously mined her personal life for the lyrics, with fans guessing which song is a reference to which past relationship and who wronged her.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Times pop music critic John Caramonica says on this album, she still has plenty of targets.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Given how it has rolled out, you might think, huh, this is the engagement album. This is the love album.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And yes, when you are listening to the first few songs on this album, this is a woman in love who wants to share those feelings.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But as you get deeper into the record, and it is, I should say, a very good album, what you hear is Taylor bringing other chapters of her life to a close.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those might be romantic chapters. They might be business chapters. They might be interpersonal chapters.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There's a fair amount of score settling on this record, a sort of surprising amount.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But my takeaway at the end is she's tying up a lot of loose ends because she sees a bright future and she wants to go in that direction.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For John's full review of the album, go to nytimes.com.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. If you want to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around. It's just after these credits.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This show is made by Will Jarvis, Jessica Metzger, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Susan Lee, Jake Lucas, Zoe Murphy, Katie O'Brien, Paula Schumann, and Jill Taylor.
--:-- 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? Okay, first up. So, Mr. President, here we are. It looks like we're going to have a shutdown.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The government shutdown is now in its third day. Hundreds of thousands of workers are likely to be furloughed.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And others who've been designated as essential, like air traffic controllers and federal law enforcement agents, they have to keep working.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They'll get back pay, but not until later. Your question. During a shutdown, do federal lawmakers, so senators and representatives, get paid?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The answer? Yes, lawmakers still get a paycheck, though this time, like in past shutdowns, some have said they plan to donate their salary or try and forego getting paid.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There have even been efforts in years past to change the law so that senators and reps do not get paid during a shutdown.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But those efforts haven't gone anywhere. OK, next question.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This job is life or death. Standards must be met.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gathered hundreds of military commanders for a meeting in Virginia, where he criticized the Pentagon for what he called lax standards on troops' physical fitness and grooming.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And that's why today at My Direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A lot of his comments were about one particular part of troops' appearance. We'll play it for you here.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: No more long hair. The era of rampant and ridiculous s*** is done.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: What did Hegseth say will no longer be tolerated in the military?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The answer? No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Hegseth said beards are out. Secretary Hegseth made an edict about no more beardos in the military.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After the event, a reporter asked the notably bearded J.D. Vance about the news.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I didn't see that particular comment. I thought Pete gave a hell of a sudden.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He said when he was a Marine, he did not have a beard, but quote, I am now the vice president, so I get to do what I want to do.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: OK, last question.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This week, the NFL announced that Bad Bunny will headline next year's Super Bowl halftime show.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Latin superstar, who is one of the most streamed artists on Earth, is just the latest big name act to get this gig.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But the Super Bowl has not always featured pop stars and celebrities.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Originally, the halftime show featured a lot of marching bands, drill teams, dancers, and some creative entertainment.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm going to describe four Super Bowl halftime shows. All of these happened except one.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Can you pick out which one is fake?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A, a Disney-themed show complete with Mickey Mouse marching out to It's a Small World After All.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: B, a reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg, complete with fake soldiers playing dead on the field.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: C, an Indiana Jones-themed performance featuring Tony Bennett.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And D, a salute to the Winter Olympics with figure skaters performing on ice set up on the field.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So again, that is It's a Small World, Gettysburg reenactment, Indiana Jones tribute, and live figure skaters.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The answer? B. They did not reenact Gettysburg.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But that is not to say that they never did a reenactment. In 1970, the halftime show was a reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans from the War of 1812.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: When the smoke cleared, the British had lost 1,975 men killed.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The show included real antique cannons, though after some cannon-related injuries at another NFL game just months later, the league really cut back on antique weaponry.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That is it for the news quiz.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Our email, as always, is theheadlines at nytimes.com.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: If you want to send us your score or challenge a friend, share the quiz with them.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: See how they do. I'm Tracy Mumford.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The headlines will be back on Monday, hosted by my colleague Will Jarvis.
