Trump’s Name in the Epstein Files, and Rare Protests in Ukraine

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From the New York Times, it's the headlines.

I'm Tracy Mumford.

Today's Thursday, July 24th.

Here's what we're covering.

The Times has learned that in May, Attorney General Pam Bondi met with President Trump for a briefing about the Jeffrey Epstein case and told him that his name appears in the files.

It's not clear how often his name's in there or in what context, and no law enforcement agency has accused Trump of any wrongdoing related to Epstein.

But the president explicitly denied Bondi had told him about this when he was asked by reporters.

a wide range of tips and leads, and the materials that are gathered can include mentions of people extraneous to the allegations.

But the question of why Trump isn't releasing the files has dogged the White House for weeks, and the president's been trying to quiet a furious backlash from some of his base who've accused the administration of being part of a cover-up.

Meanwhile, Trump's main attempt to head off that uproar has hit a legal roadblock.

The president had asked Bondi to get the grand jury transcripts in the Epstein case unsealed, but the secrecy of those kinds of documents is heavily guarded in order to shield any victims.

And yesterday, a federal judge denied the request.

She wrote that the court's hands were tied by laws forbidding the release of those kinds of transcripts except in narrow circumstances.

Now, two more quick updates on the Trump administration.

Columbia University has agreed to pay a $200 million fine to the U.S.

government to settle allegations that it failed to do enough to protect Jewish students.

The administration had opened more than half a dozen civil rights investigations into the university and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, some of which will now be restored.

Columbia's president said she felt the deal was tough, but that it preserves the university's independence when it comes to who it admits and what it teaches, areas the administration had previously demanded a say in.

For the White House, it's a milestone agreement as it cracks down on elite universities.

Colombia is the first to settle with the government, and administration officials say they want it to be a template for other deals.

Also, America is the country that started the AI race.

And as President of the United States, I'm here today to declare that America is going to win it.

President Trump laid out a new AI action plan on Wednesday, signing executive orders that he said would speed up the advancement of artificial intelligence in the U.S.

Earlier this year, Trump rolled back AI safeguards the Biden administration had put in place.

Now he's clearing the way for the mass expansion of data centers that power the technology by fast-tracking the permit process.

Trump also suggested that the government will be putting pressure on companies over the content of their AI tools.

Some conservatives have accused tech companies of developing AI models with a baked-in liberal bias.

In Ukraine this week,

there are thousands of young people mainly in a square in central Kyiv.

It's the first mass protest of the war.

My colleague Mark Santora has been on the ground as people took to the streets for a rare demonstration against President Vlodymir Zelensky's government.

Veto the law.

Public criticism of Zelensky has been almost taboo since Russia's invasion as a kind of show of solidarity.

But his party recently pushed legislation that would weaken the country's anti-corruption institutions.

Many of the demonstrators consider it part of a crackdown on voices who have grown critical of the government.

On Tuesday, Zelensky signed the bill into law, though just 24 hours later, after the public outcry, he reversed course and said he would keep the anti-corruption safeguards in place.

Those institutions have been at the center of Ukraine's long-standing fight against corruption.

They were created about a decade ago, after Ukraine's former president was forced out of office amid mass protests over corruption in his administration.

And finally, start walking.

Start walking 10,000 steps every single day.

And I promise you, for decades, there's been one exercise metric that people have treated almost like fitness gospel.

I walk for as long as it takes me to reach 10,000 steps.

The 10,000 steps rule basically dictated that that is how far you need to walk each day to stay healthy.

And millions of people have diligently, even obsessively, tracked their step count to meet it.

But new research is calling that number into question.

An analysis published this week in the medical journal The Lancet Public Health pulled together data from over 50 studies to see what step counts mean for cardiovascular health, diabetes, cancer, dementia, sleep.

They found that actually walking about 7,000 steps a day helps reduce the risk of many health issues.

Above that, the benefits pretty much level out.

One of the lead authors of the study said there was never really any evidence in the first place that 10,000 was the sweet spot, saying, quote, it's just just a really big random number that people throw out there.

In fact, the goal originated as a kind of marketing gimmick.

Back in the 1960s, a Japanese company was mass-producing pedometers.

The name of the product translated to 10,000 steps meter, and the number just stuck.

Those are the headlines.

Today on the daily, a look at the most high-profile effort to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza and how it's devolved into deadly chaos.

That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Tracy Mumford.

We'll be back tomorrow.