This is H.
reporter who's watched with a lot of alarm as our profession has shrunk in recent years. Normally, this is why I'd ask you to subscribe to The Times. But today, I'm encouraging you to support any news organization that's dedicated to original reporting. Whether that's
“your local newspaper, a national paper, or The New York Times, what matters most is that”
you subscribe to a real news organization doing firsthand fact-based reporting. And if you already do, thank you. From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumpford. Today's Friday, March 20th.
Here's what we're covering.
The War with Iran is nearly at the three-week mark, and in a quick round-up of what to know, President Trump is not ruling out putting U.S. troops on the ground. He said he doesn't currently have plans for that, but he also said this week that he's "not afraid" to deploy forces in Iran if needed. Then, on the energy crisis front, in the coming days, we may un-sanction the Iranian oil that's on the water, it's about 140 million barrels.
“Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said that the administration plans to remove sanctions”
on oil from Iran. That would reverse years of U.S. policy. It reflects the White House's desperation to bring down prices, and effectively encourages Iran to sell more oil, even while it's at war, with the U.S. And, at the Pentagon. It takes money to kill bad guys, so we're going back to Congress and it folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future.
The Defense Department is asking for $200 billion to continue funding the war, a significant
sum adding to the costs of an already divisive campaign. Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth acknowledged an oppressed conference that the number could change. Right now, it amounts to nearly a quarter of the entire annual defense budget, and it's already raising some
“eyebrows from moderate Republicans in Congress who will need to back the request to get it”
through. Meanwhile, as the war in Iran continues, there's one group that's watching what's happening out there with interest. There are a number of Silicon Valley companies that made really early bets on defense technology. And now, with this growing conflict across the region,
they're seeing those bets really pay off. My colleague, sheer Franco, covers the tech industry,
where some of the biggest names have become some of the Pentagon's biggest new partners. It used to be the talking about defense and defense technology was really unpopular in Silicon Valley. You had employees at Google who protested against their company working with the Department of Defense. They held up their motto of "do no evil" as an example of why their company should not be getting into the business of war. Those optics really changed a couple
years ago when you had everyone from these really sort of mammoth companies like Google and Meta and OpenAI to very small startups suddenly pivot into defense technology. Some of these companies were suddenly striking deals for hundreds of millions to billions of dollars to build everything from weapon systems to software for the U.S. government. You had poundier for instance, a data analytics company, which is now built a system called Project Maven, which helps the U.S. government
pick targets for air strikes. You had companies like Google and OpenAI using their AI technology to help generals in the field. And you had projects like the one led by the former chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, which are now building counter-drone systems that are being used in Iran by U.S. assets defending against Iranian drones. And there's even more money to be made on the table. Trump allocated over a trillion dollars in defense spending and a lot of that is expected
to go to the kinds of new defense technology that Silicon Valley wants to make. In Romania, a new investigation from the times has uncovered details about a real estate deal, President Trump's family business is pursuing that has yet to be announced. Unlike other projects, the Trump organization is working on in places like Bali and the Maldives. This one's in Transylvania, not a well-known glamorous tourist destination. The site is semi-abandoned, and it is
alongside a military base, as well as several enormous landfills that are among the region's largest. You could smell the stench. There were packs of wild dogs wandering. It felt like an unusual place to envision a luxury apartment complex in golf course. Rebecca Ruiz, an investigative reporter
At the times, recently traveled to the site.
list of foreign developments. It's not exactly clear why the Trump organization has chosen
“this particular place to build a project, but President Trump is popular in Romania. A gallop”
poll last year found that more than half the country felt favorably about the job that he's doing in the United States, making Romania a bit of an outlier among EU countries. And this is a continuation
of a pattern that we've seen in his second term, which is that the Trump organization, the president's
family real estate business, is traveling the globe, seeking to strike deals in places that he is popular. You can find the full investigation and see photos from the plan to site at nytimes.com. Over the past few years, in the middle-class suburbs of cities like Houston, Chicago, Las Vegas, a bunch of businesses where you can donate plasma for cash have been popping up. Plasma centers have traditionally been clustered in low-income neighborhoods, but they're increasingly opening up
next to an orange theory fitness or a Charles Schwab. The times recently went to a few of the new
“spots in Texas, where people who said they never thought they'd be selling their plasma were waiting”
in long lines. A tech worker in his 30s, a six grade special ed teacher, a night shift nurse, most of them said they go to the clinic twice a week, the maximum allowed under FDA regulations. It reflects how cash strapped many middle-income Americans are feeling. The $70 they can get selling plasma can help with groceries and gas. One researcher who studies the industry and has been a consultant for it told the times that plasma centers act as a kind of quote "shadow safety net,"
a way to earn money on the side, just like driving for Uber or Lyft. Overall, the US actually provides around 70% of the world's plasma, which gets used in products that treat conditions like bleeding disorders and liver disease. The practice really established itself in the US,
turning into a multi-billion-dollar industry, because it's one of only about a dozen countries
“that allows payment for plasma. Something the world health organization has discouraged.”
While donating plasma is considered safe, there's been little research on the long-term effects of frequent plasma donations. And finally, a buzzy new horror novel was supposed to come out this spring. Shigeru, it's a revenge story about a woman held hostage by a man she meets on the internet. The UK edition has been out for months, but yesterday the publisher, Hachette,
announced the whole thing has been dropped over claims it was written with the help of AI.
This appears to be the first commercial novel from a major publishing house to be pulled
over evidence of AI use. Many early readers had posted about their suspicions online, pointing to non-sensical metaphors and repetitive bits. The times talked to a publishing industry consultant who ran the book through three different AI detection programs, and all three found text likely to be at least partly generated by AI. Certain odd phrases like, "I press the phone to my lips, the screen cool and unyielding." The author has denied using AI herself, saying that someone
she hired to help her edit the story. Did it? The situation has underscored how unprepared the bookworld is to deal with the rise of this technology. Most publishing contracts require authors to affirm their work is original, but few companies have measures or safeguards in place to make sure it actually is. As one publishing consultant told the times, AI bleeding into books is "not merely inevitable," we're in the midst of it. Those are the headlines. If you'd like to
play the Friday news quiz, it is just after these credits. The show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Kiddifa, John Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford, original theme by Dan Powell, special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Jenny Gross, Miles McKinley, so we Murphy, Paula Schuman, and Chris Wood. Now, time for the quiz. Every week, we ask you a few questions about stories the time has been covering. Can you get them all? First up, as the US and Israel continue to
pummel Iran, Iran is continued to hit back at American allies in the region. To help fend off those attacks, several hundred military specialists have flown to the Middle East, because they have specific experience defending against Iranian-made weapons, even though their country is not nearby. Your question, "What country are the experts coming from?" The answer? What is happening around Iran today is not a faraway war for us?
Ukraine.
its president, Vladimir Zelensky, said this week that almost a dozen countries in the Middle East have asked
“for help from Ukrainians, who've built up years of experience fighting off drones from Russia.”
Many of those drones were actually made by Russia's close ally, Iran. Next up, say you noticed the smell, but you had no idea what it was. This week, the time has been covering how an ambitious advertising campaign and one of London's
busiest transit hubs isn't going all that well. A major food brand started spritzing out a sweet
aroma every few seconds in a tube station, as a promotion for one of its treats. "I hate it. I thought it was a smell of stale ure?" "Your question? What smell were they going for?" "Hint." It was not stale urine. The answer? "Chocolate." The company magnum, famous for its ice cream bars, is trying to promote some new milk chocolate treat. And some people did think it smelled good, but the ad got so many complaints.
Magnum came out and said it was toning down the "Chocolatey wafed."
This isn't the first time a scented ad campaign has run into backlash.
A dairy lobbying group in California once tried to get people to buy more milk by making bus shelters in San Francisco, smell like chocolate chip cookies. That got scrapped the next day. And last question. People have been noticing that in recent months, several members of the Trump administration have been photographed wearing something that doesn't seem to be fitting quite
right. It happened a Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy,
“and Vice President J.D. Vance. What are they wearing that's maybe a size too big?”
The answer? "Sick is a wonderful, but I don't want my cabinet members wearing sneakers, so I'll get them a pair of shoes. It's a gift from Donald Trump." "It's their shoes. Representative for the footwear company floor shine told the Times that a White House assistant has ordered dozens of pairs of the company's $145 black dress shoes." "Well, now they look all spiffy and nice."
But the Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump sometimes just guesses people sizes, which seems to have left some room for error.
“That's it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did our email is the headlines at”
nytimes.com. I'm Tracy Mumford, the show will be back on Monday.
