How Netanyahu Prolonged the Gaza War, and the F.B.I.’s Loyalty Test

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

I'm Tracy Mumford.

Today is Friday, July 11th.

Here's what we're covering.

A new investigation from the Times just out this morning traces how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has prolonged the war in Gaza to stay in power.

We talked to more than 110 officials in Israel, the U.S., across the Arab world.

We got a hold of meeting notes, war plans, messages between officials.

And overall, we found a pattern of behavior that shows how, even as Netanyahu has maintained that he's prioritizing Israel's national interest,

what he has also often done at key moments is to prioritize his own political standing.

Patrick Kingsley is the Times Jerusalem bureau chief.

He says, after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, Netanyahu was incredibly vulnerable politically.

The Times found he'd ignored repeated warnings that summer that Israel's enemies, including Hamas, might be planning an attack.

It was damning information that could have turned the country against him.

But Netanyahu moved to change the narrative.

He blamed Israel's security chiefs instead.

Patrick says that was the first hint of what Netanyahu was willing to do to preserve his position as the country's leader, and that that effort has continued.

Netanyahu has stayed in power by allying himself with Israel's far right.

These are ministers and parties that want Israel to take the most aggressive stance possible to Hamas.

Some of them want to push out all the Palestinians and see Israel take full control of the territory.

At one crucial point last year, for example, Netanyahu had even agreed to a compromise that could have halted the war.

But he folded, he reversed course following an explosive cabinet meeting in which a Keyfar-right minister threatened to collapse Netanyahu's government.

And that moment reflects calculations that we found he made repeatedly over the last year and a half, and which is still among the factors driving his decisions about what will happen in Gaza.

Netanyahu's office has declined multiple requests for comment.

But in a statement yesterday, the prime minister said the war had dragged on because of the complexity of the battlefield in Gaza and what he framed as the need to definitively defeat Hamas.

You can find the full investigation at nytimes.com.

In California, tensions are escalating around President Trump's drastic crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Yesterday, authorities carrying out an immigration raid on a cannabis farm near Camarillo fired tear gas as they clashed with protesters who blocked the road.

Oh my, oh, they're literally taking someone, they're trying to, oh my God.

And in San Francisco this week, demonstrators confronted masked agents outside a federal courthouse as they put a handcuffed detainee into an unmarked van.

Wow, someone's hanging off the car.

Oh my God.

The van then drove off as a protester clung to the hood before dropping onto the street.

The incidents marked the latest flare-ups between protesters and federal agents in California, which has become a key target in the administration's push to deport undocumented immigrants.

Meanwhile, increasingly aggressive tactics by immigration agents around the country have been criticized by Democratic lawmakers, some of whom say they're especially concerned that the agents are concealing their identities.

Authorities have frequently been covering their faces with masks and balaclavas as they carry out raids and make arrests.

The Department of Homeland Security says they're trying to protect themselves from being doxxed and harassed.

But critics say that without knowing officers' identities, it's impossible to hold anyone accountable.

Some lawmakers are now looking to ban authorities from wearing face masks in most cases.

Now, three quick updates from Washington.

The Times Times has learned that at the FBI, the agency has significantly stepped up its use of polygraph tests on its own agents.

The lie detection screenings are widely used at national security agencies for things like background checks, but the FBI has been increasingly using them to test for loyalty and to try to root out anyone who may have spoken to the media.

Multiple senior officials have been asked during screenings if they've ever said anything negative about FBI Director Cash Patel.

Former Bureau officials told the Times the aggressive new use of polygraphs is politically charged and highly inappropriate, with one saying, quote, an FBI employee's loyalty is to the Constitution, not to the director.

The FBI declined to comment.

Also, the Justice Department is demanding confidential patient information from more than 20 doctors and hospitals that provide gender-related treatment to minors.

It's not immediately clear which hospitals and doctors they've targeted with subpoenas or if the providers will release any information, but the move underscores the coordinated effort between the White House and federal law enforcement to roll back transgender medical care.

At least two hospitals in LA and Pittsburgh have recently shut down their youth gender clinics altogether, citing pressure from the administration.

And.

What keeps you up at night?

I would say the state of our democracy.

At a public speaking event yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson made brief but striking comments about how she sees the U.S.

right now.

I am really very interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government.

During the court's most recent term, the liberal justice wrote an unusually large number of opinions that included sharp criticism of her conservative colleagues' rulings.

She's claimed that the court placed its thumb on the scale in favor of President Trump and that it's endangered American democracy.

One law professor told the Times that in Jackson's written opinions, she appeared to be trying to sound a public alarm about how the court's been ruling, saying,

She's breaking the fourth wall, speaking beyond the court.

On Thursday, the computer chip giant NVIDIA made Wall Street history.

It became the first public company ever to be valued at $4 trillion.

This is a real changing of the guard in the business landscape.

Ever since 2011, one company and one company alone has dominated the top of the stock market, and that is Apple.

But what we're seeing here with NVIDIA is a transition to a new age of computing, and that is the age of AI.

Tripp Mickel covers Silicon Valley for the Times.

He says the company has been able to pull off its meteoric rise because it controls more than 80% of the market for the chips that are the backbone of AI systems.

What we've seen in recent months is a real conviction among investors that AI is here to stay and that it has the potential, like NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Wong, has talked about for

many years now to bring forward an economic transformation that rivals the Industrial Revolution.

And if that proves to be true, no one who is an investor in Wall Street wants to miss out on the opportunity to be a beneficiary of that.

And finally, the Sonoran desert toad used to be able to just go about its business in the wilds of Mexico, hopping around, eating bugs, living its best toad life, until about a decade ago.

You all may not know about this, but there are actually psychoactive toads out there.

Suddenly, the toad's superpower was headline news.

A flood of coverage focused on the psychedelic compound that it secretes as a defense mechanism.

Even though scientists had known about it since the 60s, it became a new obsession for people looking to get high.

It was the most intensely profound experience I've ever had in my life to just get shot up into the center of existence and merge with the creator.

And it sounds nuts, right?

False narratives sprung up about how toad medicine was an ancient indigenous practice in the Sonoran desert, though there's no evidence to support that.

Self-described shamans and new age healers started selling the drug, offering ceremonies around it.

Toad churches began popping up in California, Texas, Minnesota.

People in Mexico began trapping the toads en masse, keeping them in buckets to sell to foreigners.

It's gotten to the point that new research shows populations of the species are in steep decline.

One expert in psychedelic research told the Times, quote, in just over a decade, we've put this species at risk of extinction in the name of healing and expansion of consciousness.

The same substance the toads secrete is also available in synthetic form.

So some drug experts point out that those chasing a psychedelic high could just look elsewhere and leave the toads alone.

Those are the headlines.

But stick around, we've got the Friday news quiz for you after the credits.

Today on the daily, how Republicans' efforts to cut funding for PBS and NPR could hit stations in conservative parts of the country.

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

This show is made by Will Jarvis, Jessica Metzger, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford.

Original theme by Dan Powell.

Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Jake Lucas, Zoe Murphy, Katie O'Brien, and Paula Schumann.

Now for the quiz.

We've got questions about a few stories the Times has covered this week.

Can you answer them all?

First up.

At the White House on Tuesday,

I just want to say we have a fantastic cabinet.

Every one of them is a star in my book.

And if they're not, I'll let you know about it.

President Trump held a cabinet meeting surrounded by his top advisors.

And during the meeting, he openly criticized another world leader.

He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.

Which world leader did Trump accuse of being dishonest?

Give you a moment.

Okay, the answer?

Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This was a notable turnaround from how Trump has talked about the Russian leader in the past when he's called him pretty smart.

But Trump has been getting increasingly frustrated with Putin lately for not going along with Trump's calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Also at the meeting.

And I picked it all myself.

I'm very proud of it.

Just going to sneak a bonus question in here.

Trump found time for it, so we will too.

The president spent more than 10 minutes talking about White House decor and where he picked up some of the items.

So as president, you have the power.

If I go into the State Department or Department of Commerce or Treasury, if I see anything that I like, I'm allowed to take it.

What item did Trump brag about taking from Marco Rubio in the State Department?

Okay, the answer?

I see this gorgeous clock, grandfather clock.

Trump said he nabbed a clock that he spotted when he was talking to Rubio and had that moved to the cabinet room instead.

That's his contribution to the cabinet room.

But it's, by the way, it's an incredible clock.

Okay, next question.

We have some very exciting news to announce: that TSA will no longer require travelers to remove their shoes when they go through our security checkpoints.

As of this week, everybody can keep their shoes on at the airport.

And Secretary of Homeland Security Christy Noam alluded to more changes to airport security that could be coming down the line as the department evaluates, quote, every rule.

Some people are already wondering if the limit on liquids could be next.

The 3.4-ounce rule has stymied a lot of people from getting different things through security and left some wondering what actually qualifies as a liquid.

It got to the point where the TSA had to publicly weigh in substance by substance.

So here's the question for you: true or false?

According to the TSA, peanut butter butter is a liquid.

The answer

is true.

Peanut butter is officially considered a liquid because the TSA said it's spreadable.

Quote: If you can spill it, spray it, spread it, pump it, or pour it, it's a liquid.

And last question:

It's a bird.

Hey, buddy.

It's a plane.

I've heard.

It is another superhero reboot.

The adventures of Superman.

The latest iteration of Superman is now in theaters.

For almost like a hundred years now, the comic book hero has been featured in radio specials, TV shows, movies.

He's been played by everyone from Christopher Reeve to Channing Tatum in a little tiny cameo.

But there is one famous actor who was supposed to take the main role in a Superman movie.

I like it.

I'm starting to get attached to this length.

What do you think?

The movie had a title, a director, a big budget.

The actor, you're hearing him now, even got as far as trying on a custom-made Superman suit before the project got canceled.

Yeah, I mean, you were saying it'll feel a little looser the more I wear it.

Yeah.

Who was that actor?

This is Greg.

Look at that.

The answer?

It's Nicholas Cage.

Project was called Superman Lives, and it got scrapped before filming started.

It was going to be directed by Tim Burton, so it just, it would have had a certain vibe.

The new Superman is played by David Kornsweat, who the Times once wrote has, quote, arctic blue eyes and dimples deep enough to serve martinis in.

So, cheers.

All right, that is it for the news quiz.

If you want to tell us how you did or what you think about the quiz, you can always email us at theheadlines at nytimes.com.

The show will be back on Monday.