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

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I'm Tracy Mumford, today's Wednesday, July 22nd.

Here's what we're covering.

U.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. lawmakers and from Israeli officials, who were 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 over some of the 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 kinds of inspections that would determine if fuel was being diverted to weapons projects. For 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. Do you have a new estimate about what the or his cost is 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 Higgseth 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. Higgseth 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.

“The problem is not a lack of money, but poor planning. So I'll be blunt that the truth is your request does not make a lot of sense.”

Senate Democrats, however, expressed doubts about the ask saying Higgseth hasn't provided a sufficient explanation for why the military needs the funds. In his comments, Higgseth also used the war in Iran as justification for an increase in overall Pentagon spending. Department of Defense is asking Congress to approve an unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget, which is a 50% increase year over year. Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City or is any other war criminal at large. New York City mayors, Warren Mombani 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 is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people. Netanyahu is expected to visit New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly. And when Mombani was campaigning for mayor, he said he would order New York City police to arrest the Israeli leader after the ISTC issued a warrant for him for war crimes in Gaza. In his new video, Mombani 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 US is not a member of the ISTC and President Trump said this week that Netanyahu would not be arrested in the US quote in any way shape or form. In response to Mombani's statement, Israel's ambassador to the UN accuses the mayor of spreading what he called Hamas propaganda.

The tech giant OpenAI, the company behind chatGPT, 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 AI 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. The 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 quote, "This incident possibly the first of its kind proves a point we've long believed."

“AI 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."

And finally, "You have the strangest body buddy, Holy cow."

There are two camps of people on the internet right now. Do you think he will go down in history? Oh yeah, he'll be around for a long time. You either know exactly what I mean when I say "Jimmythe has become a sensation." "What am I looking at?"

Or you're wondering, "What is "Jimmythe?"

What happened to its tail?"

“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. It's like if you tried to draw a raccoon and you were not good at drawing, people had been seeing the creature around the neighborhood for a while, but the woman who posted the most popular video this month dubbed it "Jimmythe" and things took off from there. Turns out, she's actually a marketing specialist, very apt.

People are now getting "Jimmythe" 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 "Jimmythe Summer." One veterinary expert told the Times,

"Jimmythe likely has short spine syndrome in extremely rare congenital deformity, and that it's surprising to see an animal with that condition thriving in the wild."

“She said the best thing for "Jimmythe" 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 little phenomenon, one Seattle resident told the Times that "Jimmythe" 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 may be aren't quite right." Those are the headlines. Today on the Daily, how President Trump's immigration crackdown is making it harder to tackle America's housing crisis. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Tracy Mumford, we'll be back tomorrow.