Trump Reaches Contentious New Nuclear Deal, and A.I. Models Go Rogue

0:00This podcast is supported by BetterHelp. Have you ever had so many tabs open that your computer starts slowing down? Life can feel like that too. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report found that 74 % of Americans believe society still discourages asking for help. Therapy can help you sort through what's taking up space and quietly affecting you. With BetterHelp, connect with a licensed therapist online and switch anytime. Maybe it's time to close a few tabs. Visit BetterHelp.com slash New York Times to get started. From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, July 22nd.

0:39Here's what we're covering.

0:44U.S. officials tell the Times that the Trump administration plans to announce a broad new nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that's highly controversial. Under the agreement, which will be formally announced and signed today, Saudi Arabia will be able to move towards a civilian nuclear energy program. In exchange, American officials estimate that the U.S. nuclear industry, which makes reactors that are sold abroad, will get billions of dollars. The deal could also serve to shore up U.S.-Saudi relations, which have been strained by the war with Iran. While this kind of nuclear agreement has been talked about for years, it's faced opposition from some U.S.

1:25lawmakers and from Israeli officials, who worry that Saudi Arabia could eventually develop nuclear weapons. The new U.S.-Saudi agreement will have to be reviewed by Congress. It will likely get through, but it's expected to spark a fierce debate given how many concessions President Trump gave Saudi Arabia to secure the deal. That includes opening the door for Saudi Arabia to potentially enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel on its own soil. as well as terms that could limit inspections of future nuclear sites there, the kind of inspections that would determine if the country was diverting that fuel to build nuclear weapons.

2:02For the U.S., it's a retreat from the kinds of restrictions pushed by previous administrations during similar nuclear negotiations. The Times has learned that the agreement also includes two secret documents known as side letters. The Trump administration is expected to argue that they contain proprietary business information and deal with sensitive national security issues. But some members of Congress may not be willing to vote for the agreement until those letters are made public.

2:37Do you have a new estimate about what the war has cost us so far in this, the fifth month of the first year of this war in Iran? Senator, the estimate we have as of today is$37.5 billion. In a Senate hearing yesterday, lawmakers questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the price tag of the ongoing war. It comes as the Pentagon is requesting as much as$70 billion in emergency military spending, in part to cover the cost of the conflict. Why this kind of spending is needed is because of the gross negligence and neglect of the Biden administration inside our department. Hegseth railed against how the previous administration ran the Pentagon and said the new funding is needed for, quote, modernization, given how drone warfare has reshaped the battlefield.

3:22The problem is not a lack of money, but poor planning. So I'll be blunt. The truth is your request does not make a lot of sense. Senate Democrats, however, expressed doubts about the ask, saying Hegseth hasn't provided a sufficient explanation for why the military needs the funds. In his comments, Hegseth also used the war in Iran as justification for an increase in overall Pentagon spending. The Department of Defense is asking Congress to approve an unprecedented$1.5 trillion defense budget, which is a more than 50 percent increase in one year.

4:00Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani released a video last night calling on the federal government to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. He is responsible for the killing of more than 73 ,000 people, for the maiming of tens of thousands of children. Netanyahu is expected to visit New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly. And when Mamdani was campaigning for mayor, he said he would order New York City police to arrest the Israeli leader after the ICC issued a warrant for him for war crimes in Gaza.

4:41In his new video, Mamdani said he's now determined, after consulting with city lawyers, that New York doesn't have the authority to do that, but he said that the federal government should take him into custody. There appears to be no chance of that. The U.S. is not a member of the ICC, and President Trump said this week that Netanyahu would not be arrested in the U.S., quote, in any way, shape, or form. In response to Mamdani's statement, Israel's ambassador to the U.N. accused the mayor of spreading what he called Hamas propaganda. Israel's conduct in Gaza has been described as genocide by human rights groups and two separate United Nations commissions.

5:19Israel has rejected those findings.

5:26the tech giant open ai the company behind chat gpt has announced that two of its artificial intelligence models recently went rogue it happened during testing the models were designed to root out cyber security vulnerabilities something more and more companies have been working on to evaluate them opening i built what's known as a sandbox a virtual environment that's supposed to basically wall off the powerful models from the rest of the internet. But according to the company, the models found a vulnerability that allowed them to escape the sandbox, connect to the internet, and then hack into a digital library of AI technology that's popular among developers.

6:07The models likely inferred that the library could hold clues about how to successfully pass the evaluation. You can think of it like students figuring out how to break into a teacher's desk to get the answers to a test. AI companies have been warning that this kind of sci-fi-like scenario could be coming, with models getting around safeguards and guardrails. It also underscores how AI models have become able to find holes in computer networks faster than security experts can patch them. In a statement, the CEO of the digital library that was hacked said, This incident, possibly the first of its kind, proves a point we've long believed.

6:47AI safety won't be solved by any single company working in secret. For its part, OpenAI said it was working with the library to fix the issues that led to the attack and that it was, quote, implementing strict controls.

7:06And finally. What am I looking at? There are two camps of people on the internet right now. You either know exactly what I mean when I say Jimothy has become a sensation. Do you think he will go down in history? Oh, yeah. He'll be around for a long time. Or you're wondering, what is Jimothy? You have the strangest body, buddy. Holy cow. This month, videos on social media showed a bizarre little creature prowling the streets of Seattle. It's a raccoon with a spinal condition that gives it a squished, rounded look. What happened to its tail? It's like if you tried to draw a raccoon and you were not good at drawing.

7:45People had been seeing the creature around the neighborhood for a while, but the woman who posted the most popular video this month dubbed it Jimothy, and things took off from there. People are now getting Jimothy tattoos, there's a mural, the Seattle Mariners and Budweiser have paid homage, and a member of Seattle's city council said she's going to put forward a proclamation to, quote, commemorate Jimothy Summer. One veterinary expert told the Times, Jimothy likely has short spine syndrome, an extremely rare congenital deformity, and that it's surprising to see an animal with that condition thriving in the wild.

8:23She said the best thing for Jimothy and everybody is for people to keep a safe distance, like with all raccoons. Good reminder. As for why people can't get enough of the fuzzy phenomenon, One Seattle resident told The Times that Jimothy is essentially a round little bundle of resilience. And with everything going on in the world right now, quote, he's a story of surviving when things maybe aren't quite right. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.