A Cyberattack on U.S. Water Systems, and the Growing Threat of Falling Space Junk

0:00I'm Dani Blum. I'm a health reporter at The New York Times. We're bombarded with claims about how to live better and feel better. It's really hard to separate fact from fiction. I am scouring the science, speaking with leading experts, making sure that everything I write is rigorously researched, reported, and that I can back it up. When the science isn't clear, sometimes that is the story. That's a level of nuance and depth you're not going to get just floating around the Internet. And it's what you get when you subscribe to The New York Times.

0:33From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, July 31st. Here's what we're covering.

0:44To start, two quick updates from the Middle East. Yesterday, President Trump announced that in Gaza, Hamas has agreed to begin laying down its weapons. Trump said that the militant group reached the agreement in talks with the Board of Peace, the organization that Trump established after Hamas and Israel reached a ceasefire last October. The board is charged with overseeing the ceasefire, resolving the long-running war, and managing the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Talks involving the board, Hamas, and Israel had been deadlocked, with a major sticking point being Hamas's refusal to disarm.

1:22It's something Israel has insisted on, but Hamas is viewed as the equivalent of total surrender. Now, though, Trump and the board say there's been a breakthrough and that there's a detailed roadmap for that disarmament. But it's not clear if Hamas or Israel have signed off on the plan. There was no immediate comment from either side. While last year's ceasefire brought down the temperature in Gaza somewhat, the Gaza Health Ministry says more than a thousand people have been killed there since it was signed, as Israel has continued its military operations and expanded its area of control. Also, the Times has learned that investigators think Iran was behind a widespread cyber attack in the U.S.

2:05this week. During the attack, which was centered on Minnesota, hackers went after the infrastructure used to manage and monitor city water systems. There are no indications that any water was made unsafe to drink, but some local officials had to use manual workarounds to try and keep their systems running. People familiar with the investigation into the attack told The Times that while they haven't definitively linked it to Iran, the breach has the hallmarks of an operation by Iranian hackers. That includes the fact that it appeared to be focused on causing disruption rather than something like a ransomware attack for financial gain.

2:44Since the U.S. began its war on Iran back in February, Iran has targeted the U.S. with an increasing barrage of cyber attacks, ranging from one that temporarily shut down a major medical equipment supplier to one that released emails and photos stolen from a personal account of Kash Patel, the FBI director.

3:14In Spain, the government has mobilized its military in response to a sudden surge of migrants trying to cross into a Spanish enclave on the tip of North Africa. Yesterday, thousands of migrants rushed border fences or jumped into the ocean, trying to swim to Ceuta, a small peninsula on the edge of Morocco, just across from mainland Spain. The scenes have been dramatic, with huge crowds of young men scrambling up the rocky shoreline, some of them falling to their knees to kiss Spanish soil. We don't have a good life in Morocco. That's why we get to swim into here. It's a bad life. As one of just two tiny land borders between the European Union and Africa, the territory has become a key entry point for migrants trying to make it to the EU.

4:02But Spanish officials called this frenzied rush of people over the past 24 hours unprecedented and unsafe. At least 18 people have now died. Analysts say it's not clear what set off the surge. Some suggested that Morocco might have been involved. It's had diplomatic tensions with Spain recently. Others, especially on the far right, blamed the Spanish government, pointing to its new plan to give undocumented immigrants already living in the country a path to legal status. The leader of one right-wing party in Spain accused the government of inviting the migrants. He also alleged, without evidence, that they were criminals, rapists, and potential left-wing voters, echoing an increasingly sharp anti-immigrant rhetoric that's spreading in politics across Europe and around the world.

4:59In the Democratic Republic of Congo, This is the fastest growing Ebola outbreak ever recorded. The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Ebola is still spreading there at an alarming rate. I'm not in a position to tell you that we have total control of this outbreak today. More than 1 ,500 people have now died in the roughly three months since this outbreak was declared. It took 10 months to hit that toll in the last major outbreak. There are no existing vaccines for the virus, and while clinical trials of possible treatments are now underway, there have been major challenges getting the outbreak under control.

5:40It was caught late, and cuts to U.S. foreign aid have hamstrung the response. Plus, efforts at contact tracing have also fallen short because of a lack of health care personnel, and the fact that armed conflict in the region has displaced millions of people.

6:02Two years ago, a fiery hunk of metal streaked through the sky over a village in Kenya, and it hit the ground with an enormous boom, crashing right into a patch of farmland. When people gathered around it, they found a giant glowing ring lodged in the dirt. It had come from a rocket, and it was supposed to have burned up on its way back down to Earth. Officials called it an isolated event, but that's not exactly the case. More space debris is raining down on Earth than ever before, whether it's the piece of old hardware from the International Space Station that hit a Florida home, or part of a SpaceX rocket that landed near a mall in Poland.

6:45Last year, the U.S. Space Force issued alerts for more than 800 objects entering the Earth's atmosphere, up from about 100 a decade before. It all stems from the fact that governments and companies around the world are launching way more stuff, and some of it's coming back down. Much of the debris incinerates or splashes into the ocean, but when that doesn't happen, it plummets to the ground without any way to accurately predict where it will land. For now, it's super unlikely someone will get hit. Your odds of being struck by lightning are higher. But those odds are shifting as more things are launched.

7:23SpaceX, for example, has more than 10 ,000 satellites in orbit right now and has applied to launch a million more. There is a patchwork of some regulation governing rocket launches on one side and satellites in orbit on the other. But the regulation is no match for the pace of development in space. Salaam Ghebrekhedin is an investigative reporter at The Times. She says the UN, for example, has some guidelines and agreements that are relevant to space junk, but some of those are from the Cold War era and aren't designed for the moment we're in now. Some of the experts that I spoke to suggested one solution, compelling every government and every company that launches satellites to make sure that they're all made of material that will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere if the satellite returns back.

8:14But right now, there are no rules, no regulations compelling anyone to do that. And the problem is only going to get worse as more and more satellites are being launched into space.

8:34And finally, FIFA, just weeks after the biggest, most lucrative World Cup ever, now has countries threatening to boycott the next one because of a highly controversial new business strategy. This week, the association, which is a nonprofit, announced that it has plans to spin off a new commercial venture that would run the World Cup and would be sold in part to private investors. Among those involved in the proposal is Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The plan would potentially bring in billions of dollars, some of which, FIFA says, would be paid out to member countries.

9:14This follows on the heels of other major efforts by FIFA's president, Gianni Infantino, to capitalize on the world's most popular sport, like introducing a dynamic pricing system at this year's World Cup that sent some tickets soaring to$100 ,000 each. But the new proposal has a lot of FIFA's member countries saying Infantino has gone too far. The Soccer Confederation of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, said it rejected his plan. And yesterday, members of the European Soccer Confederation voted to boycott all future World Cups if the proposal goes through. The group said in a statement that the tournament, quote, cannot be treated as an investment product, and that, quote, some things are simply too important to sell.

10:06Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around. It's just after these credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Kadifa, Jake Lucas, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford. Original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Sam Dolnik, Miles McKinley, and Zoe Murphy.

10:28Now, time for the quiz. Every week, we ask you a few questions about stories The Times has been covering. Can you get them all? Here we go.

10:39This week, there were warnings about a very rare kind of weather phenomenon. It only occurs in specific conditions, but officials were sounding the alarm because it can be extremely dangerous. It's called a pyrocumulonimbus. Do you know what that phenomenon is? What is a pyrocumulonimbus?

11:04The answer? These are more than just clouds. The most powerful fire clouds can create their own weather systems. It basically means fire cloud, and it's the name for a giant thunderstorm that forms over an intense heat source, like a volcano, or in this case, a wildfire. France has been dealing with this recently because of the intense fires there, and it was the first time a pyrocumulonimbus was recorded in the country. The fire clouds are dangerous because they can generate intense winds that fan flames and spread burning embers. Notably, the giant clouds almost never bring rain.

11:47Next question. Well, this has been deemed the ultimate long-haul flight called Project Sunrise because you get to watch two sunrises in one flight. This week, a major airline announced it's one step closer to launching what will be the world's longest commercial flight, a leg-cramping middle seat nightmare of 22 hours in the air. The route is expected to debut next year. Your question, which two cities will it connect with no stops? A little hint here, and I'm going to use cartoon terms because you will have a lot of viewing time up there. you'd be going from the land of tea? Oh, yes, please. Over to Are you ready to go down to the beach?

12:34Have you sunscreened? Oh, no. The answer? The flight will connect London to Sydney, Australia. Qantas Airlines just completed a successful test flight using a customized plane with an extra 5 ,000-gallon fuel tank. Part of the preparation includes trying to figure out how to not make it miserable up there for everybody. They've been putting fewer seats in the plane, for example, so you can stretch out. And they've also been looking at what to do about jet lag. One potential plan, apparently, is to put more chili in the breakfast they serve you on board. Wake you right up with some spice in your airplane food.

13:17And last question. Recently, a film score has been getting a lot of buzz for how evocative it is, a kind of haunting, beautiful music people can't get out of their heads. To get that sound, the composer relied in part on bringing back an ancient instrument, the aulos.

13:39Your question, what film was this music composed for?

13:52The answer? The Odyssey. They used the sound of the aulos to evoke the dangerous allure of the sirens out at sea. The instrument used to be everywhere if you were in ancient Greece. It's kind of like a double-barreled oboe. You have to use circular breathing to play it, and it looks kind of like you stuck two chopsticks in your mouth to impersonate a walrus. The effect is not super dignified. Legend has it the goddess Athena actually created the aulos, but then threw the instrument away when she realized how ridiculous she looked playing it.

14:31That's it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, our email is theheadlines at nytimes.com. I'm Tracy Mumford. The show will be back on Monday. Thank you.