It’s Monday, August 24. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Bill Barr on the Democrats’ antisemitism denial. Kara Kennedy on why moms are filming themselves throwing ice at bathtubs. Robert Wright on AI’s real threat. And much more.
But first: The data that should’ve been front page news—but wasn’t.
Almost exactly a year ago to the day, my colleagues and I uncovered in The Free Press that a dozen of the most viral images presented as evidence of famine in Gaza in fact showed children with unrelated medical issues, including cystic fibrosis and autoimmune conditions.
The investigation earned me death threats, calls for me to be tried at The Hague, and jabs by a high-profile comedian on national TV—despite the fact that we’ve had to issue exactly zero corrections on our story. That wasn’t the case for three of the news organizations that had run the images, which either updated or corrected their work because of what we reported.
Our point was simply to tell readers that if there was a famine in Gaza, photographs of these children were not evidence of it.
What is indisputable today is that there is currently no famine in Gaza. That is the major finding from a UNICEF-led team that recently produced the most comprehensive and robust nutrition survey of Gaza since the war began. It found that, less than a year after a famine was declared in Gaza, the territory has one of the lowest malnutrition rates in the region. A recovery that swift is not just “miraculous,” in the words of a malnutrition researcher I spoke with—it raises questions in and of itself. Questions like: How can a war-torn territory go from famine to showing some of the lowest rates of child malnutrition in the region in less than a year?
In my report today, I investigate that question, its implications, and what it means for the debate over the official decision to classify a famine in Gaza to still be raging 12 months on.
—Olivia Reingold
Last week, the Pentagon fired the editor, publisher, and a star correspondent of Stars and Stripes, the newspaper that has served American service members since the Civil War. The firings, which came just days after the paper published a story on the suffering of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, suggest that the top brass wants to turn the publication into nothing more than a mouthpiece for the department. Read our editorial on the purge, and why our service men and women deserve better.
Moms are filming themselves sobbing while holding their babies, throwing ice in bathtubs, and declaring solidarity with Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother on trial for killing her three young children. If you are asking yourself what on earth is happening in the internet’s “momosphere,” Kara Kennedy is here to explain it all.
Last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin launched an investigation into what he calls the Justice Department’s “sham investigation” of antisemitism at elite universities. In our pages today, former attorney general William Barr accuses Raskin of “rewriting history.” Read Barr on what’s really going on at America’s top schools, and what might be behind Raskin’s politically convenient change of heart.
What if the real threat from AI isn’t that the machine might turn on us, but that it will cause us to turn on each other? That’s the provocative question author and journalist Robert Wright tackles in his new book, “The God Test.” He sits down with Coleman Hughes on the latest episode of “Conversations with Coleman” to debate his unsettling doomsday thesis, and much more.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
Pakistan’s army chief is set to visit Tehran today for talks with Iranian leaders on ending the war with the U.S. as the Trump administration prepares to unveil what officials have called “the toughest sanctions in history” against Iran. Tehran has vowed to respond militarily if the sanctions move forward as it continues to strangle oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. hit Canada with 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion worth of goods Saturday after negotiations collapsed after a round of failed negotiations. Prime Minister Mark Carney promised that his government will institute retaliatory tariffs after Labor Day, while President Donald Trump fired back on social media writing that Canada wanted “the benefits of being a State, without being one.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky rejected calls for elections yesterday, warning that holding a vote now would be like “a tsunami” that could fracture the country. His remarks came days after his recently fired defense minister demanded Ukrainians be given the chance to go to the polls, in a rare challenge to the president’s grip on power.
Israel’s Mossad chief and Syria’s foreign minister met Sunday in an attempt to defuse tensions after Israel bombed a Syrian airbase last week, which it framed as a preemptive move against a feared Turkish military presence. Syria said it had no intention of allowing Turkish forces to operate there.
An 18-year-old wielding a sword went on a rampage at a school in Sweden on Friday, killing one student and leaving two others in serious condition. The suspect was taken into custody at the scene and no motive has been established.
A rapidly spreading wildfire in Nevada forced 14,000 Reno-area homes to evacuate on Sunday, with the blaze reaching the edge of the University of Nevada campus after scorching more than 10,500 acres. Governor Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency as thousands of residents lost power and major highways were shut down.
TikTok agreed to pay $400 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit alleging the platform violated children’s privacy laws by collecting personal data from users under 13 without parental consent and failing to delete their accounts when parents requested it. The settlement is the latest sign of growing pressure on social media companies over child safety, with Meta currently on trial over similar allegations.
A Chinese-built humanoid robot beat Usain Bolt’s 100-meter world record at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, clocking 9.39 seconds at a five-day competition that tests robots across 51 events. Elsewhere on the field, competitors caught fire and broke apart mid-competition.
“at a five-day competition that tests robots across 51 events. Elsewhere on the field, competitors caught fire and broke apart mid-competition.”
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For a second I thought this was about how Republican candidates are going to perform in the midterms because of the Iran War.
“TikTok agreed to pay $400 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit alleging the platform violated children’s privacy laws by collecting personal data from users under 13 without parental consent and failing to delete their accounts when parents requested it.”
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So the unelected government that tracks intimate details on every single child in the country through our network of government schools is suing websites that keep track of which videos they think are funny?