Good morning. It is October 9. It is a sunny, chilly morning in New York City, appropriate for the season, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host. Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The New York Times did get the major late day news onto the front of its print edition and big two columns, wide all caps, headline, “ISRAEL AND HAMAS HAVE ELUSIVE DEAL ON GAZA HOSTAGES / An Exchange for Palestinian Prisoners — Trump Says Troops Will Pull Back.” Donald Trump can't be happy to only be in this subhead. 

Bloomberg has a story about Norway bracing for retaliation in the apparently likely event that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee declines to award Trump this year's prize later this week. Bloomberg writes that the committee says it made its decision on Monday. “Nominations for the 2025 prize,” Bloomberg writes closed on January 31 shortly after Trump's return to the White House. However, President Barack Obama famously got the prize in 2009 just months into the start of his presidency. Norway,” the story continues, “is currently in negotiations with the US for a trade deal, hoping for a reduction of a 15% tariff on its shipments to the US. Another worry,” the story says, “is Norway's $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest. About 40% of its investments are in the US, and there has been some concern that Trump might target the fund.” 

Apologies for steering the spotlight to Trump, as he would have wanted, back to the actual news story. “After months of deadlock,” The Times writes, “Israel and Hamas reached an agreement for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a long awaited breakthrough that could point toward an end to the two year war in Gaza. President Trump, who helped broker the deal, announced on social media on Wednesday night that both sides had agreed to the first phase of his plan, including that Israel would pull back their troops to an agreed upon line. Qatar, one of the countries helping negotiate and Hamas also indicated in statements that the deal would allow for the entry of aid into Gaza.” Publishing on the print deadline, the Times wrote “while Israel and Hamas had agreed to an exchange, It was still not clear whether the war in Gaza would end. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has demanded that Hamas disarm, which the militant group has publicly rejected. Statements on the deal from Hamas, Israel, Mr. Trump, and Qatar made no mention of Hamas' arms, and Israel in its initial statements, did not mention a troop pullback.” 

In the Times's live updates on the agreement, some of those points seem to have been addressed. “The Israeli cabinet is reportedly being convened to approve the agreement, and, the Times writes “Shosh Bedrosian, a government spokeswoman, said that a full ceasefire in Gaza would go into effect 24 hours after the cabinet endorses the deal. After that, Hamas will have 72 hours to return all of our hostages, Ms Bedrosian said. Israeli forces,” the update continues, “will withdraw to an agreed upon line in Gaza that will leave the Israeli military in control of about 53% of the territory, she added. The Israeli military said that it was preparing to lead the operation for the hostages return and to transition to adjusted deployment lines soon.” 

Other points seem very much unresolved, the Times writes, “but the initial agreement addresses only a few of the 20 points in a plan Mr. Trump proposed last month, and some of the most difficult issues between Israel and Hamas appear to have been left to a future phase of negotiations. Those include who would rule post war Gaza, and whether, to what degree, and how Hamas would lay down its weapons.” 

The rest of the top of the Times front page is a big photograph in bright red tones of sparklers going off in the night in Syria around a man holding a huge bouquet of flowers, pointing the reader to a story on page A12 about how the Syrian Government is as the caption says, “encouraging celebrants to use sparklers and flares to replace sometimes deadly gunfire.” 

Below that, the final story above the fold has the headline “Far Outside the U.S., Kirk’s Memory Has Become a Political Tool /  Public Tribute in Peru by a Mayor Seeking Trump’s Help.” The story pretty heavily contradicts the headline, in that it documents that in Lima there really isn't any such thing as the memory of Charlie Kirk. Even more so than in the United States, people have little to no idea of who the guy was, or why politicians would make a fuss over him. The story is a dispatch from an event at which poor evangelical Christians from the outskirts of Lima, “lured into the city,” the Times writes “with a free ride, free lunch and free ticket to a city water park had. Heard there would be a memorial for an evangelical Christian like them. He was murdered in the United States for his beliefs. They were told, though few knew his name, many others,” the Times writes “were more confused. ‘Who's Charlie Kirk?’ Asked Milagros Garcia 56 sitting on the grass with a plate of chicken on Saturday at the Charlie Kirk memorial in Lima. ‘I’ve never seen him,’ she added, when shown the events flyer, a photo of Mr. Kirk in front of the Peruvian and American flags, three women around her concurred. Like Ms Garcia,” the story continues, “many attendees said they thought they were there for a rally for Lima's Mayor Rafael López Aliaga, a right wing politician widely known as ‘Porky,’ who is one of the leading candidates to be Peru's next president. They weren't entirely wrong.” The story then goes on to say that Lopez Aliaga “announced the Kirk memorial at a far right conference in Madrid last month and billed it as the only government backed tribute to Mr. Kirk in Latin America.” If it's the only rally, then not only is the “Kirk's memory” part of the headline false, so is the “has become” part. Later on, the story says “Mr. Lopez Aliaga said in an interview in Lima City Hall last week that he had never heard of Mr. Kirk before his death.” Whatever the event was, it was not a sign that the global canonization of Charlie Kirk is underway. 

Below the fold in the middle of the page, the headline is “Man Arrested In Connection To L.A. Blaze. Federal authorities in Los Angeles said on Wednesday,” the Times writes, “that they had arrested a 29 year old man who appeared to be obsessed with fire, in connection with the wildfire that devastated the wealthy coastal enclave of Pacific Palisades in January, officials said the man, Jonathan Rinderknecht of Melbourne, Florida, had intentionally set a fire on New Year's Day on a hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. That small Blaze rekindled disastrously a week later, into the Palisades fire, killing 12 people and destroying 6,837 structures, most of them homes. Prosecutors say his phone put him at the scene of the fire, and that he'd filmed videos of it.” In addition to the detailed phone tracking information, this also sounds like a powerful entry in what seems certain to be a new genre of apparent self implication through ChatGPT. The Times writes “He had been fixated on fire for months, prosecutors said. Six months before, he had prompted ChatGPT on his phone to produce a ‘dystopian’ painting of a burning forest and victims fleeing toward ‘hundreds of thousands of people in poverty’ who were “trying to get past a gigantic gate with a big dollar sign on it,” the federal complaint read, quoting the ChatGPT prompt. ‘On the other side of the gate and the entire wall is a conglomerate of the richest people,’ the prompt added. ‘They are chilling, watching the world burn.’” 

The complaint also alleges that while he was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher reporting the fire, he typed a question into a ChatGPT app on his iPhone, asking if a person would be at fault if they were smoking a cigarette and a fire erupted. “Yes,” ChatGPT replied. He did report the fire, though, and the firefighters came and seemed to put it out. The Los Angeles Times, in its story about the indictment, writes “Los Angeles Fire officials already under scrutiny for their failure to pre deploy engines to the Palisades fire are now facing questions about why they didn't fully extinguish the flames from the initial fire before hurricane force winds blew into the area and fanned an ember buried within the roots of dense vegetation. ‘This affidavit puts the responsibility on the fire department, said Ed Nordscog,’ former head of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department's arson unit, ‘there needs to be a commission examining why this rekindled fire was allowed to reignite.’ He added, ‘the arsonist set the first fire, but the fire department proactively has a duty to do certain things.’” The story goes on to say, “LAFD officials declined to detail whether they conducted thermal imaging of the area, which agencies frequently perform to find hot spots when there is no visible light or in heavy smog or mist.” 

Back in the New York Times, inside the paper, the International section has four full pages of quotes from people in Gaza packaged under the headline, “Two years of bombings, starvation and misery in Gaza's own words.” 

Down at the bottom of page, a seven, there's the news that Colombia now says that in the most recent US military massacre in the Caribbean, the target of the unprovoked attack was a boat from Colombia. “President Gustavo Petro of Colombia said Wednesday,” the Times writes “that his government believed one of the boats recently bombed by the United States in its campaign against alleged drug traffickers had been carrying Columbian citizens. ‘A new war zone has opened up: The Caribbean,’ Mr. Petro wrote on X. ‘Signs show that the last boat bombed was Colombian with Colombian citizens inside. I hope their families come forward and file a complaint.’”


Above that, in more unaccountable government murder from above, the headline is in “Myanmar junta bombs a festival / Many deaths. Myanmar's military junta bombed a Buddhist festival this week,” the Times writes, “killing at least two dozen people and injuring dozens more, according to a witness and the country's civilian government in exile, they said a manned paraglider with a motor dropped a bomb on Monday evening on the festival, which doubled as a protest against the junta. A second witness also reported that a paraglider had carried out the strike.” 

On page A21, The Times turns its attention to local politics. “Cuomo calls for rebuilding Rikers Island and keeping the jails open,” is the headline, a perfect Andrew Cuomo story in which the disgraced former governor declares he's going to ignore the law and reinvest in a comprehensive, practical and moral failure, because it seems amenable to pandering and fear mongering. “Former Governor Andrew M Cuomo,” the Times writes “announced a proposal on Wednesday to scrap the plan to close the Rikers Island jail complex, saying he would rebuild the jails and not relocate detainees to new borough based jail facilities. Mr. Cuomo, who was running for mayor of New York City as a third party candidate, said he would convert the four borough based sites into affordable housing projects and remake Rikers into a modern, humane correctional campus. ‘We can and must do both things at once, close Rikers as we know it and rebuild it the right way,’ Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. The city,’” the Times writes “‘is required by law to close the notoriously troubled jail complex by August 2027 and replace it with four borough based facilities. The jail complex,” the story goes on to say “has been plagued by violence, dysfunction and death. 12 people have died in city jails this year, including a man being held at Rikers Island who apparently suffered a seizure last month. In May, a federal judge ordered that an outside official be appointed to oversee operations on Rikers. Mr. Cuomo,” the story says, “wants to demolish the current facilities on the island and replace them one at a time, comparing the approach to his rebuilding of LaGuardia Airport in Queens as governor.” The times being the Times, the story goes on to say “the proposal to keep Rikers open may help Mr. Cuomo, who trails czar and Mamdani in recent polls, attract support from moderate and conservative voters who oppose closing the complex and are concerned about crime.” 

In case that speculation about Cuomo's silent base of support waiting to rise up wasn't quite enough, the story below that is “Mamdani faults Hamas, but also Israel, as Cuomo says he stands with Jews. As New Yorkers memorialized the second anniversary of the Hamas led attacks in Israel on October 7, the day also served as a political backdrop to the New York City Mayor's race,” the Times writes “the attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza have affected the race, with other candidates frequently criticizing Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and frontrunner, over his staunch criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians and its military campaign.” Has the war in Gaza affected the race? It was used as an attack line against Mamdani by Cuomo and by debate moderators in the Democratic primary, but it didn't seem to hurt his campaign very much. “On Tuesday,” the Times writes, “Mr. Mamdani issued a statement that condemned both the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust and the subsequent invasion, which has devastated Gaza. ‘Two years ago today, Hamas carried out a horrific war crime,’ Mr. Mamdani said, calling for the return of the Israeli hostages still held captive, Mr. Mamdani then criticized Israel for waging a genocidal war that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians. He attacked the American government for being complicit, and reiterated his view that Israel's occupation and apartheid in Gaza must end.” For criticism of that statement, the Times comes up with a complaint from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then the Times writes, “though Mr. Mamdani acknowledged the mounting death toll in Gaza in his statement, his principal challenger, former Governor Andrew M Cuomo, did not, In his own statement, Mr. Cuomo used the anniversary to again cast himself as a vigorous defender of Israel who was best equipped to represent Jewish New Yorkers. ‘To the Jewish people, I stand with you. I mourn with you, and I will forever be by your side in the fight against evil and anti semitism in all forms,’ Mr. Cuomo wrote on social media.” The story then writes about Mamdani attending a vigil hosted by Israelis for peace. “Mr. Cuomo's campaign,” the Times writes “had said that he planned to attend an event on Tuesday marking the anniversary of the Hamas attacks and honoring the victims. Though a spokesman did not provide more details.” If you press on until you get to the 22nd paragraph of the 27 paragraph story the Times does finally write “Recent polls suggest that Mr. Mamdani is winning the support of a substantial portion of Jewish New York.” The paper then gives space to the news that “on Sunday, Mr. Cuomo once again attacked Mr. Mamdani for his initial refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the Intifada,’ which some see as a call for violence against Jews. Mr. Mamdani has said that he does not use the phrase and would discourage its use.” 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The indignity morning podcast is edited by Joe MACLEOD. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Scocca-Ho. You the listeners. Keep us going through your paid subscriptions to indignity and your tips. Keep sending those along if you're able, and if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again tomorrow. You.