--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, January 16th. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Last-minute disputes have come up surrounding the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Israel's cabinet has yet to meet to formally ratify it. And this morning, the office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of reneging on the agreement before it's even been put in place. But a senior Hamas official says the group is committed to it.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Negotiators from Israel and Hamas agreed to the terms yesterday, after 15 months of war. And news of the agreement set off celebrations in the streets of Gaza. In Israel, families of the remaining hostages held out hope that the deal would mean their loved ones are returned soon.
--:-- [Audio of a person speaking in the background, not clearly audible]
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's like a roller coaster. I'm not breathing right now. We don't know if they're on the list, if they're alive. We actually don't know anything, so it's scary.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Hamas-led attack that set the war in motion on October 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people in Israel. The Israeli bombings and raids that followed killed some 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza and destroyed much of the territory. The fighting is now set to stop Sunday for the first phase of a multi-step truce.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The deal's largely what the Biden administration pushed months ago. Officials say pressure from the White House and from the incoming Trump administration helped push it over the finish line.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I think the general atmosphere, the phrase I hear most is people are just holding their breath. There's a lot of hope, but obviously a lot of trepidation as well, because so much can go wrong.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Isabel Kirshner has been covering the negotiations. She got access to a draft of the ceasefire agreement. She says the first phase of the deal is relatively straightforward. Over the next six weeks, Israeli troops will pull back away from populated areas in Gaza. Hamas will release 33 hostages.
--:-- Isabel Kirshner: But it will take a lot more negotiations to continue the truce. The next six weeks is supposed to take us into this second phase of the deal when the rest of the hostages are supposed to be released. And that is extremely loosely worded how you transition from phase one to phase two and is indeed yet to be negotiated.
--:-- Isabel Kirshner: There has to be a negotiation which will deal with the key fundamental stumbling block that we've had all along, which is the idea of moving from a temporary ceasefire to a permanent cessation of hostilities, or in other words, an end of the war.
--:-- Isabel Kirshner: So essentially, the biggest obstacles and problems still remain to be resolved.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, The Gazans that I spoke to were thrilled that the fighting was coming to a halt, at least for a short while. My colleague Aaron Boxerman has been on the phone with people in Gaza who are trying to figure out what the deal will mean for life there.
--:-- Aaron Boxerman: The agreement calls for a surge of humanitarian aid, and it will allow many Palestinians to return to parts of Gaza they were forced to leave. One woman described mixed feelings. She was, of course, happy that the fighting might be coming to an end. But she wondered whether she had any future with her family and devastated Gaza, whether Gaza would ever be rebuilt and what their lives would look like.
--:-- Aaron Boxerman: Another person I spoke to believes his home in northern Gaza was destroyed, that he has nowhere to go back to with his family. He also wondered who would control Gaza when the dust settles. If the war is ending, which it might be, would Hamas remain the most powerful force there?
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This will be my final address to you from the American people from the Oval Office, from this desk as president. Last night, President Biden addressed the nation in his farewell speech from the White House.
--:-- Peter Baker: And my colleague Peter Baker, the Times Chief White House Correspondent, was covering the event.
--:-- Peter Baker: President Biden didn't talk very much about the accomplishments he feels quite proud of, including his bringing the country out of the pandemic and rebuilding the economy and managing the war in Ukraine and so forth.
--:-- Peter Baker: Instead of that, he issued a particularly striking warning against an oligarchy that he sees emerging. is taking control, he argues, of the country. And of course, that's a reference to Elon Musk and others in the billionaire circle of Donald Trump, who in Biden's way of thinking are promoting their own interests over those of the public.
--:-- Peter Baker: By branding the incoming Trump circle as an oligarchy, Biden is going straight at the tension at the heart of the emerging White House. Are they really populists intent on shaking up the government to benefit working people or just billionaire disruptors out to enrich themselves.
--:-- Peter Baker: Now it's your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the face. I love America. You love it too. And in the end, he wraps up by saying, it's up to you to hold him accountable and to make sure that he follows the values and the standards that America has come to know over these last two and a half centuries.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Five, four. Early this morning in Cape Canaveral, Florida, lift off. Jeff Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, launched its first rocket into orbit. It's called New Glenn. It's taller than the Empire State Building.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: One minute into play. The launch marks the start of a new chapter in the private space race, as Bezos tries to catch up with Elon Musk and his company, SpaceX.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: SpaceX is currently launching more than two rockets a week on average. To try and match that, Bezos has poured billions of dollars of his own money into Blue Origin. And he left his position as the CEO of Amazon in 2023 in part to focus on this.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today's liftoff wasn't flawless. The rocket booster which was supposed to touch down on a floating barge crashed instead. But if Blue Origin starts making regular launches, it could shake up SpaceX's lock on the market.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Right now, NASA, the Pentagon, and commercial companies have few options other than SpaceX for getting things like satellites into space.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, last year, Kendrick Lamar and Drake dominated the Billboard charts by dropping deeply personal diss tracks about each other, one after the other.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I said it, I know that you're mad. I've emptied a clip over Friendly or Jazz. You mentioned my seed and I deal with his dad. I gotta go bad. I gotta go bad.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, the rap battle has turned into a legal battle. On Wednesday, Drake sued Universal Music Group, the record label that represents both of the artists, for defamation and harassment.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The lawsuit centers on the song many considered to be Lamar's winning blow over Drake. They not like us. They not like us. The track, Not Like Us, calls Drake and his crew certified pedophiles. It's been streamed more than a billion times.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I hear you like I'm young. You better not ever go to cell block one. Drake's lawyers say the song put his reputation and life at risk by hiding, quote, dangerous lyrics behind a catchy beat.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The album art for Not Like Us featured a photo of Drake's home, dotted with red markers, meant to show it was full of registered sex offenders. Drake's lawsuit points out there was then a shooting at his house, and other people tried to trespass on the property.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In a statement, Universal Music Group dismissed Drake's claim that the company valued profits over his safety, and accused him of trying to, quote, weaponize the legal process to silence an artist's creative expression.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The lawsuit may only drive more interest in the song. It's up for Song of the Year at the Grammys next month, and Lamar is headlining the Super Bowl the week after.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, Times-Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley on what the ceasefire could mean for the Middle East. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
