M.L.K. Files Released, and Troops Are Withdrawing From California

0:00Shawn Hubler:If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Hi, Shawn Evans from Hot Ones here. With YouTube Premium, I get ad-free videos, offline downloads, background play, and so much more. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime.

0:17Glenn Thrush:From The New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, July 22nd. Here's what we're covering.

0:28Glenn Thrush:The Trump administration released a massive collection of documents related to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday,

0:37Hurubie Meko:posting more than a quarter million pages to the National Archives website. The document dump came as President Trump and White House officials have been trying to divert attention from demands to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The administration framed the release of the King Files as an act of transparency.

0:55Annie Karni:I was part of a team of reporters who went through all the records and talked to historians to try to figure out the significance of it all. And the big takeaway is it doesn't seem like there's very much there.

1:07Hurubie Meko:My colleague Rick Rojas says many of the pages are almost impossible to read because they're so old or because of how they were digitized. There are news clippings, tips from the public, and some random details about King's killer, James Earl Ray, including how he took dance classes and pulled aliases from James Bond novels.

1:28Annie Karni:What wasn't included is something that historians and others who've been following this history have been waiting years for, which are the FBI wiretaps and other findings from government surveillance into Dr. King. These tapes and transcripts, which are under seal until 2027, could reveal more about Dr. King's personal life, including extramarital affairs and other behavior that might be seen now as scandalous. But it could also just show the intensity with which federal investigators probed into his life and tried to use whatever they could as leverage in their campaign to derail him and the broader civil rights movement.

2:10Hurubie Meko:While running for office, Trump vowed to release files related to King's assassination, as well as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy. Their deaths have all long been the subject of conspiracy theories. In March, the administration released the JFK files. They also contained almost no new information about his death.

2:36Meanwhile.

2:37Malcolm-Jamal Warner:So here's what I would say about the Epstein files. There is no daylight between the House Republicans, the House and the president on maximum transparency.

2:46Hurubie Meko:House Speaker Mike Johnson now says that lawmakers will not vote this summer on a resolution calling for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. It's a retreat from his position just last week that the material must be made public.

3:00Malcolm-Jamal Warner:It's a very delicate subject, but we should we should put everything out there and let the people decide it. I mean, the White House.

3:06Hurubie Meko:Those comments made on a podcast marked a rare break between Johnson and the president. Now, though, Johnson's moving on, as President Trump has urged his followers to do. Trump seemed to appease his hard-right base somewhat by calling for the release of selections of grand jury testimony related to Epstein. But it's unclear if that will completely satisfy their calls for transparency.

3:34Hurubie Meko:In Kentucky, a federal judge sentenced a former Louisville police officer to nearly three years in prison on Monday for his role in the death of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was killed during a botched drug raid back in 2020 when police burst into her apartment in the middle of the night. Her death fueled national outrage and protests over police violence against Black Americans. The former officer, Brett Hankison, shot 10 rounds through Taylor's window during the raid, though she was killed by other officers at the scene. He faced up to life in prison after being convicted of violating her civil rights, but the Trump administration urged the judge last week to sentence Hankison to just one day, signaling that the Justice Department is dropping its push to address racial disparities in policing.

4:21Hurubie Meko:I don't think it was a fair sentencing, but it was a start. Outside the courthouse, Taylor's mother said she was grateful that the judge, a Trump appointee, rejected the administration's request.

4:34Jonah E. Bromwich:We could have walked away with nothing according to what they recommended. So I'm just grateful for my friends.

4:40Hurubie Meko:Hankison was the only officer to be charged for his actions the night of the raid, though a federal report later found that the Louisville Police Department had shown a pattern of discriminating against Black residents, as well as other abusive behavior.

5:00Glenn Thrush:The Trump administration is scaling back the military presence in Los Angeles,

5:05Hurubie Meko:announcing yesterday that it's withdrawing 700 Marines who were sent there as part of a larger military response after protests broke out over the president's immigration crackdown. Since June, the troops have mostly stood guard outside federal office buildings and accompanied immigration agents during raids. The Pentagon framed the operation, which cost an estimated$134 million, as a success, saying the troops prevented civil unrest. L.A.'s mayor, however, compared the deployment of the Marines, along with thousands of National Guard soldiers, to a, quote, armed occupation. She and state officials have called for them all to be pulled back.

5:45Hurubie Meko:Members of the National Guard deployed to L.A. told The Times that morale has been low. Re-enlistment rates have plummeted, and several soldiers were reassigned after raising objections to the mission.

6:08Glenn Thrush:There's been a new turn in the case of Eitan Pates, the six-year-old boy whose disappearance four decades ago changed how generations of American children were raised.

6:18Rick Rojas:I think that I was probably in the bathroom shaving when time went out the door.

6:24Glenn Thrush:On May 25th, 1979, Eitan headed off to school, as his father described later to ABC News. The bus stop was less than two blocks from their house in Manhattan.

6:35Rick Rojas:At some point in every parent's life, they send their children to school alone. Did we do it too early? Obviously we did.

6:42Glenn Thrush:When Eitan disappeared, it triggered a frantic search.

6:45Hurubie Meko:His picture went up on everything from billboards to milk cartons, and the story became a cautionary tale for parents across the country, who started limiting where their kids could go alone. His body was never found. More than three decades later, police arrested Pedro Hernandez, who worked at a bodega near the Pates family home. Though there was no scientific evidence linking Hernandez to the crime, after seven hours of police questioning, he confessed to killing Eitan. On Monday, however, a federal appeals court found that the original trial judge had minimized the fact that police didn't read Hernandez his Miranda rights before that initial confession and threw out his conviction.

7:26Hurubie Meko:Lawyers for Hernandez, who's been in prison for 13 years, have argued that he had a history of severe mental illness and psychotic hallucinations and that the confession was false. The appeals court said that now a new trial must be held within a reasonable period of time or Hernandez must be released.

7:48Glenn Thrush:And finally, Malcolm Jamal Warner, who millions of Americans watched grow up on TV as Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has died at 54.

7:58Hurubie Meko:He drowned in Costa Rica after apparently being swept away by a strong current. Back in the 1980s...

8:04Eric Schmitt:How do you expect to get into college with grades like this?

8:08Jonah E. Bromwich:No problem. See, I'm not going to college.

8:12Eric Schmitt:Damn right.

8:13Hurubie Meko:Warner nabbed the role of Theo on The Cosby Show after a nationwide search, and he worked on the sitcom from age 13 to 21 as it captured the everyday life of an upper-middle-class Black family. The show was celebrated as an overdue corrective against negative stereotypes on TV, a legacy that Warner stood by, even after the show's star, Bill Cosby, faced allegations of sexual assault.

8:38Eric Schmitt:You'll always be Theo Huxtable, right? Sure, yeah. I mean, that show holds such an importance because it really changed the scope of how Black America and white America and the world, for that matter, saw Black people.

8:56Hurubie Meko:Warner went on to work on dozens of other TV shows and films, including doing voice work on The Magic School Bus and acting in the medical drama The Resident. He also performed as a bass player and wrote poetry. He earned a Grammy Award and another nomination for his spoken word performances, telling Billboard magazine, quote, I recognized with poetry and music that I had a different voice. There were things I wanted to express that I could not as an actor, adding, it was another avenue of expression that my soul needs.

9:31Glenn Thrush:Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, the Trump administration originally tried to thwart China's work in developing AI, why it's now reversed course and is helping the country compete. That's next in The New York Times audio app, where you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.