Good morning. The Rev. Jesse Jackson has died at 84. Negotiators from the U.S. and Iran are meeting in Switzerland to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. And talks on ending the war in Ukraine are happening, but hopes for a breakthrough are low. I’m going to start today, though, with a story some readers think we should start with every day: the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The big digIt’s hard to imagine a more difficult reporting project. For the past couple of weeks, dozens of Times journalists have been making their way through the three million pages in the latest collection of Epstein files released by the Justice Department, along with 180,000 images and 2,000 videos. To date they’ve examined only a small percentage of what’s there — much of it uncorroborated, fragmented or redacted. Many months, maybe years, of work are ahead of them as they dredge the documents for information they can verify and publish. Readers have questions about that. How is The Times searching the files? What’s the objective of the search? Do we use artificial intelligence to assist with our reporting? What do we publish and, as important, what do we not publish? Patrick Healy, an assistant managing editor who oversees The Times’s journalistic standards, talked with four of the journalists who are working on the Epstein files to kick around those questions. Here’s some of what he learned. What’s in the files. Receipts, basically: emails, text messages, bank records, witness statements, multimedia files. “We almost never get a chance to see the investigative materials underlying any case,” said Kirsten Danis, our Investigations editor. “Reporters always wish we had subpoena power. In this case, it was like we did.” How the team searches the files. Printed out, the Epstein files could be stacked to the height of the Empire State Building. You’d spend a lifetime reading them. So journalists started with search terms: Clinton, Trump, Duke of York, Gates. Steve Eder, an investigative reporter who has been on the Epstein story on and off for the past six years, worked with his colleagues to make a list of terms. Then they used those queries to scour the files for news. They’ve added new search terms every day. Artificial intelligence helps. The technology allowed the team to build tools to parse the Epstein files in just a couple of days. “That would normally take engineering teams weeks to build,” said Dylan Freedman, an editor on our A.I. projects team. And Andrew Chavez, a newsroom engineer, helped with “semantic search,” which lets journalists hunt for concepts rather than matching exact language in a document. But A.I. isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s really bad at news judgment, Dylan said: “A.I. can be sloppy and make mistakes that are inexcusable in journalism. It’s super industrious but not super intelligent.” What they’re looking for. Evidence of how Epstein went about doing what he did — and how he got away with so much for so long. Evidence of who funded his activities. Evidence of the people he sought out. The files have not delivered clear proof of blackmail, at least from what the team has seen, Steve said, but “they give us a fuller picture of how Epstein interacted with powerful people and how he seemed to see value in claiming to know things about them.” On President Trump. “We found a document that investigators had pulled together last summer summarizing more than a dozen tips they had received about Trump and Epstein, including sexual abuse,” Kirsten said. “But the tips were unverified and had no dates or names, so we couldn’t report them out ourselves, at least not right away.” It turned out to be one of the more challenging aspects of the story, Steve added. “We’ve tried to strike a balance of reporting thoroughly, explaining the existence of these tips and claims, describing what we are seeing, while also not going too far into the realm of unverified or unverifiable accounts,” he said. He acknowledged how frustrating that can be to readers who are exploring the files themselves or reading about those claims elsewhere. That frustration is real. Patrick said that many readers think The Times should be reporting even more on the Epstein files. Some are adamant that the files prove Trump is guilty of horrible crimes. He asked Kirsten about that. Her answer serves as a terrific explanation of how The Times stays independent: Trump has a troubling history with women, including being found liable for sexual abuse, and so I understand the instinct on the part of some readers to assume that similar allegations should be treated as if they are likely true. But we work differently. We don’t make assumptions; we need to verify, which often means painstaking work that can take time. More on the Epstein files
Now, let’s see what else is happening in the world.
Women’s hockey: The U.S. women advanced to the gold medal game after shutting out Sweden 5-0, and Canada won a 2-1 victory over Switzerland in its semifinal match. On Thursday, Team U.S.A. and Team Canada will play for gold for the seventh time. Bobsled: Elana Meyers Taylor, the most decorated female athlete in the sport’s history, won her first Olympic gold with a victory in the monobob. Skiing: Eileen Gu of China came in second in the freeski big air competition, winning her fifth Olympic medal. Megan Oldham of Canada took the gold.
Politics
Immigration
Around the World
Indonesia: A military spokesman said the country would send thousands of troops to Gaza as part of a Board of Peace initiative. Hungary: In Budapest, the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Trump was “deeply committed” to the success of the authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban. Ukraine: Trump repeatedly promised that he would end the war in Ukraine in one day. But by most measures, the war has grown worse for Ukrainians since he returned to the White House. Other Big Stories
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose impassioned oratory and populist vision of a “rainbow coalition” of the poor and forgotten made him the nation’s most influential Black figure in the years between the civil rights crusades of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the election of Barack Obama, died this morning. He was 84. Jackson never achieved either the commanding moral stature of Dr. King or the ultimate political triumph attained by Obama. But his ideas remain central to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and have inspired groups like Black Lives Matter. Read his obituary. And see his life in pictures.
As the White House asserts more control over federal funds, Congress needs new ways to check the executive branch, Aziz Z. Huq and Vanessa Williamson write. Here is a column by Thomas B. Edsall on how Trump is his own worst enemy. Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.
The buzz from Milan: Some Olympics fans are cheering for the pilots of the Games’ omnipresent drones. Going viral: A 15-second video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise created with A.I. has Hollywood spooked. Back off! Aggressive male tortoises on a Balkan island are causing females to walk off a cliff. Your pick: The most-clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about tips for controlling your blood pressure.
9— That’s how many people the French authorities have arrested as part of an investigation into a ticket scam that |
