Israel Steps Up West Bank Raids, and Trump’s Arlington Incident

from The New York Times it's the headlines I'm Tracy Mumford today's Thursday August 29th here's what we're [Music] covering Israel's widescale raid in the West Bank this week appears to be the largest in over a year hundreds of troops went into the occupied territory targeting what the Israeli military said are militant strongholds in many past raids Israel has gone into these places and left within a number of hours but we're now speaking more than 24 hours since the start of this raid and the Israeli forces are still on the ground Adam rasgon covers Israel for the times he says that while much of the focus in the last year has been on Gaza Israel has also been conducting near daily raids in the West Bank hundreds of Palestinians there have been killed and thousands have been arrested on suspicion of being involved with armed groups Israel sees this as a operation focused on rooting out militancy in parts of the West Bank whereas much of the Palestinian population sees it as a raid that's upending their lives and forcing them to huddle in their homes we spoke to many people on the ground and they spoke about hunkering down in their homes fears of snipers on roofs nearby at least individuals that we spoke to hadn't been outside for the entirety of the day yesterday an Israeli military spokesman said yesterday that the operation in the West Bank is in its quote first stages so far it's been concentrated in the cities of Janine and taram Israeli officials claim that more than 150 attacks against Israelis have originated from those areas in the past year the family of a military veteran buried at Arlington National Cemetery has expressed concern that Donald Trump's campaign filmed footage at his grave without permission Trump visited the cemetery in Virginia on Monday for a wreath laying ceremony honoring American troops killed in a bombing in Afghanistan in 2021 the family of a marine killed in that incident granted permission to film and take photos but the family of a veteran buried next to him Master Sergeant Andrew Mar casano did not photos and videos of Trump's visit to the graves were published to Trump's Tik Tok account and online including a photo of trump giving a thumbs up to the camera with marcano's grave clearly visible a few feet away Marano sister told the times she supports the family of the Marine who did Grant permission but said the cemetery told her Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to Arlington's rules according to Arlington officials filming and taking photos at the graves for political purposes violates federal law a cemetery employee tried to stop Trump's team from taking photos and clashed with his staffers according to three military officials members of Trump's campaign later publicly insulted the employee calling her a Despicable individual she's declined to press charges related to the altercation military officials say it's because she's worried about retaliation from Trump's supporters it's unclear if the department of defense will pursue a legal claim related to the [Music] photos tonight kamla Harris will give her first major interview since starting her campaign for the presidency it'll be a joint appearance with her running mate Tim Walls the question of if and when she do an interview has been hanging over her campaign she hasn't really interacted with reporters in unscripted settings since jumping into the race last month and her critics especially Trump have repeatedly asked why she hasn't opened herself up to questions the interview will be taped this afternoon in air on CNN at 9:00 p.m. Eastern President Biden's plan to wipe out student loan debt for millions of Americans hit another roadblock yesterday when the Supreme Court upheld a temporary pause on the save program the program is one of the newer peacemeal efforts by the Biden administr ation to forgive student loans after his initial broad push to cancel $400 billion in debt was struck down by the court last year save would have cut required monthly payments in half for many borrowers and offered a faster path to erase some of the debt completely but a group of republican-led states have been trying to block the effort arguing that the plan is too expensive and that it should have been approved by Congress for now the 8 million borrowers enrolled and save will stay in limbo their repayments have been paused and they're not being charged interest while the fight over the program continues in court yesterday in California lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a new law regulating artificial intelligence since many of the biggest AI companies are based in the state the legislation could effectively set a national standard for regulating the technology among other requirements the bill mandates safety testing of AI Tech before it can be released to the public requires companies to have a way to quickly shut down a system like an off switch and lets the state Sue companies if their Tech causes serious harm like Mass property damage or death the bill has created Waring camps of those who support it and those who oppose it Cecilia Kong covers AI policy for the times and has been reporting on the intense disagreements in the state State about whether the bill should be signed into law those who support it include technology leaders like Elon Musk as well as civil society groups and academics such as Jeffrey Hinton who is known as the one of the Godfathers of AI they say that the technology is so dangerous and potentially has the ability to cause so much harm that Regulators need to step up now and create guard rails for the technology then you have those who oppose it which include companies like open AI meta and Google who say it's way too early in the progress of artificial intelligence to try to put straps of regulation on how the technology is created and that creating such regulations can impede Innovation and also really deter and hurt the US's lead on the development of artificial intelligence globally now all of these parties are are trying to pressure the governor of California Gavin nuum to either sign it or veto it he has a month to do so and he has so far not shown his [Music] hand and finally the night sky in Paris France approaching midnight there lit up with The Cauldron once again today in France the 2024 par Olympic Games kick off more than 4,000 athletes are set to compete in front of the Eiffel Tower Versailles and other iconic sites that were the backdrop of the Olympic Games earlier this summer The paralympic competitions started in Rome in 1960 athletes are sorted according to how much their disabilities affect their performance they then compete against others in their same category this year there will be 22 individual and team sports there's wheelchair tennis Paras swimming and blind football Americans would call it blind soccer the players rely entirely on their hearing and fans are asked to stay completely quiet so the athletes can detect the sound of the ball as it moves around the field there are also Paro Olympic events that don't have an equivalent in the Olympics like bachia a relative of the lawn bowling game Bachi according to the reigning men's champion of the sport Bacha is quote tactical aggressive and Cutthroat the paralympic games will run until September 8th those are the headlines today on the daily if you feel like you are being asked to leave a tip more than ever before you are right the story of how tipping took over you can listen on the times audio app or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Tracy Mumford we'll be back tomorrow [Music]