← The Headlines
The Headlines
The Expanding Fallout From the Epstein Files, and Jesse Jackson Dies at 84
00:08:51
Plus, drones at the Olympics.
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Transcript14 lines
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From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, February 17th. Here's what we're covering. Today. Nuclear talks between the US And Iran will kick off, and tensions are high as both countries have been flexing their military power.
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I think they want to make a deal. I don't think they want the consequences of not making a deal. They want to make a deal.
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President Trump, who has sent what he's called an armada to the Middle east, has threatened airstrikes if Iran doesn't give up its nuclear ambitions.
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I hope they're going to be more reasonable.
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Iran, for its part, held live military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, a narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the ocean. Analysts say it was an apparent show of force meant to demonstrate that Iran would be willing to go as far as closing the strait, which which is a key shipping lane for oil and gas if it needed leverage. Last year, US And Iranian officials tried to negotiate a deal around nuclear facilities, but that was unsuccessful, and the US Joined an Israeli attack on Iran, sending stealth bombers to strike those nuclear sites. This time, Iranian officials have said they're willing to discuss their nuclear program but will not budge on some of Trump's other demands, like that they stop supporting militant groups in the region. Foreign. The Times has learned that the Trump administration secretly deported nine people to Cameroon last month, even though none of them are from the central African country. Several of the migrants told the Times they didn't know they were being sent there until they were chained, handcuffed and put on a deportation flight out of Louisiana. One man who had lived in the U S for 15 years, said they were dropped in Cameroon, quote, unquote, like UPS packages. Nearly all of the migrants had been granted court orders preventing them from being deported to their home countries because they said they were escaping war or persecution. For the Trump administration, sending them to Cameroon appears to be a kind of workaround. Since being deported there, most of them have been held in a compound and told they can't leave unless they agree to go back to their original countries. It's part of an increasingly common strategy by the White House to arrange third country deportation agreements. According to a recent Senate investigation, the US has paid upwards of $40 million to arrange these kinds of deals, sending people to countries like El Salvador and Equatorial guinea, even if they are not from there. Critics have said the administration is using the arrangements to get around court orders, with one former ICE official from the Biden administration calling the practice, quote, flatly illegal. Officials from Cameroon and the State Department declined to comment.
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My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.
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The civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has died at 84 years old.
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The Democratic Party must send them a sick that we care.
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He was one of the most influential figures in the push for civil rights in the US for decades. He was part of Martin Luther King Jr. S inner circle and was there when King was assassinated in 1968. Jackson then became a household name of his own, running for president TWICE in the 1980s, the first black candidate to become a serious contender in a national contest.
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We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive.
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Keep Hope Alive gave galvanizing speeches at national Democratic conventions, articulating a vision for the party that drew in people of color and others who'd been marginalized, and he remained active as recently as 2021, when he was 79 years old, he was among protesters arrested in D.C. while speaking out against voting restrictions that were being pushed by Republicans. Over the years, Jackson also faced some personal controversies. Critics accused him of trying to seize the spotlight after King's death, and at one point he was caught on an open mic making derisive comments about Barack Obama. His full political ambitions were never fully realized, but some historians credit Jackson with paving the way after the voting gains of the 60s to the eventual election of the country's first black president. One historian said, quote, you're not going to get a Nobel Prize for what Jesse Jackson did, but it took a lot of talent, initiative, energy, imagination and charisma, and he had those in full supply. From Manhattan to Norway, from Hollywood to Dubai. The Times has been covering the escalating fallout from the release of the Epstein files, as a growing list of prominent people are facing scrutiny for their connections to the convicted sex offender in just the past week, the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs, who was a former White House counsel in the Obama administration, resigned from her position after the extent of her relationship with Epstein became clear. She was mentioned in more than 10,000 of the documents, calling Epstein sweetie and Uncle Jeffrey and advising him on how to respond to questions about his sex crimes. In exchange, Epstein showered her with luxury gifts. In Norway, the former prime minister was charged with gross corruption and had several of his properties searched over accusations that he might have received gifts from Epstein. In the Middle east, the head of a giant logistics firm resigned after the files showed that he was close with Epstein for years. After Epstein was convicted in 2013, he sent Epstein a thank you note referencing a, quote, fresh 100% female Russian. my yacht. And at a different point, Epstein wrote to him, quote, I loved the torture video. And in another resignation just yesterday, the billionaire Thomas Pritzker stepped down from his role as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation. In 2018, Epstein asked Pritzker to help his girlfriend, Karina Schuliak, arrange a trip to Southeast Asia, with Schuliak chiming in to say she was, quote, going to try to find a new girlfriend for Jeffrey. Pritzker responded with a smiley face emoji and at Columbia University, two people affiliated with the dental college have been punished for bypassing the normal admissions process to help Schuliak, Epstein's girlfriend, get into the program. She had initially been rejected, but after Epstein said he was considering a donation to the school, several influential people there moved to get her admitted. Columbia says it's identified over $200,000 in donations from what it called entities related to Epstein and said it would be donating that amount to groups that support survivors of sexual abuse and human trafficking.
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And finally, but now, look at him go.
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At the Winter Games this year, the soundtrack isn't just cheering fans and breathless announcers. It's the high pitched whine of. Drones never had a medal. John. In this event, the tiny buzzing machines with all their cameras are racing down slopes behind alpine skiers, tracking speed skaters around rinks and bringing viewers at home up close, first person views of the Olympic action. It can feel like you're right over the athlete's shoulder. Drones made their debut more than a decade ago at the Winter Games in Russia. But now they're everywhere, controlled by pilots in a little white tent off to the side of the finish line. Sometimes small crowds gather there to watch the drones stick their landings. One of the main drone pilots at the game said his team had done test runs with every athlete before the game started, so the Olympians could get used to that. Apparently, they are able to decline drone footage if they're worried about being distracted while they're competing. But one spectator told the Times that, at least for her, the drone footage has given her a new appreciation for some of the events, providing way more detail on what used to just look like a blurry spandex blob racing by, she said, quote, I think skeleton would be a bit boring without the drones. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.