Plus, a look at Ukraine's invasion of Russia and what it means

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Hey everyone—

ICYMI, the Paris 2024 Olympics ended with a grand finale Sunday that was almost as epic as the games themselves. Intact with strobe lights & smoke, a golden voyager, mummies, and a person who played piano while hanging vertically in the air — the closing ceremony was a nod to ancient Greece, where the first Olympic Games were held in 1896.

The cherry on top: the athletes storming the stage to celebrate with a mosh pit… oh, and Tom Cruise jumping off the stadium roof. LA 2028, the ball is in your court now.

Final Medal Standings: The United States and China are each taking home 40 gold medals, marking the first Summer Olympics in history to end in a tie. Team USA is leaving Paris with 126 overall medals, the most of any country and the most for Americans in 40 years.

Breakdancing also made history (and some controversy) at the Olympics… and we might never see it again. It was featured as an optional sport for the first time at the Paris 2024 games. Los Angeles will not be featuring it in 2028, and instead will debut flag football and squash for the first time ever. LA will also bring cricket back to the Olympics (for the first time since 1900!), along with baseball, softball, and lacrosse.

Mosheh & Courtney

PS: Don’t forget to refer friends & family to subscribe to the Mo Newsletter… you could get free Mo News merch — DETAILS at the bottom of this newsletter!

📌 TRUMP CAMPAIGN SAYS IRAN HACKED ITS EMAILS

On Saturday, the Trump campaign said it had been hacked, with some private campaign material stolen and leaked to Politico and other media outlets. It comes as top U.S. intelligence officials are warning that Iran, China and Russia are attempting to interfere in the 2024 election and sow chaos this fall.

THE BREACH
Earlier this summer, documents belonging to the Trump campaign were “obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” said Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman.

The Trump campaign confirmed the breach after Politico published a report on Saturday afternoon saying the outlet had been “receiving emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump’s operation since late July.”
It is not yet clear exactly how much information the hackers obtained, or how damaging any of it could be to Trump.
The Trump campaign didn’t provide direct evidence that Iran was behind the attack, but cited a Microsoft report from Friday that said Iranian hackers had targeted a “high ranking official” in the U.S. Presidential campaign.

LEAKED DETAILS
On July 22, Politico began receiving emails from an anonymous AOL account. The sender only identified itself as “Robert.” According to Politico, when asked how they obtained the documents, the person responded in part: “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from.” Despite that, Politico says it confirmed the information being sent to them was accurate.

Among the internal files leaked:

Vetting of Trump’s running mate JD Vance, including highlighting potential vulnerabilities
Research into Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was also on Trump’s VP shortlist
The sender told Politico they had obtained both internal campaign documents and Trump’s legal/court documents

2016 ELECTION INTERFERENCE
In 2016, election interference dominated much of the Presidential news cycle when Russia hacked top Democratic Party officials, resulting in the leak of damaging emails about the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. “Someone is running the 2016 playbook,” said Chris Krebs, a cybersecurity expert who ran the DHS cyber wing in the Trump administration.

“CHAOS IS THE POINT”
The main goal for US adversaries is usually to fuel paranoia and distrust in the election. “The chaos is the point,” said Krebs. But last month, U.S. spy agencies said Iran was specifically looking to harm Trump’s presidential campaign, fearing his return to power would cause trouble for the regime.

The outcome of the 2024 election will have major consequences globally, so U.S. officials have been bracing for foreign interference from these bad actors.
Adversaries could use information from a Presidential campaign to gain insight into what that future administration might look like, or help change the result.

MEDIA’S ROLE IN REPORTING
The media capitalized on the salaciousness of the hacking effort against Hillary Clinton, and the Special Counsel investigation that followed. The media will face a lot of hard decisions on how it plans to report on this hack, and potentially more to come, ahead of the 2024 election.

Social media platforms also had a mixed track record in 2016: How they handle foreign interference this election cycle will be critical.

📌 UKRAINE’S SURPRISE INVASION OF RUSSIA

For the first time since the war began in February 2022, Ukraine invaded Russia last week — an embarrassing blow to the Kremlin which was caught off guard and is struggling to defend against the attack.

HOW IT UNFOLDED
Early Tuesday, hundreds of Ukrainian troops — backed by tanks and protected by air defenses — charged the Kursk region of Russia, overwhelming a small number of troops guarding Russia’s western border with Ukraine. President Zelensky addressed the invasion for the first time yesterday, confirming his military is conducting an offensive inside Russia’s Kursk region. “Russia brought the war to our land, and it should feel what it has done.”

Dozens of Russian soldiers were taken captive by Ukraine’s troops. Zelensky expressed “special gratitude” to those soldiers who are “replenishing the exchange fund” — AKA, soldiers he can use to negotiate a prisoner swap and help free his Ukrainian soldiers in Russian captivity.

UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK
This could prove to be a major turning point in the war: Ukraine has been under relentless Russian attack for months (2,000 cross border attacks), and this surprise attack is an opportunity to change the war dynamic, force Russian troops to leave Ukraine to defend their own country, and lead to the taking of some Russian land to use in a swap in future peace talks.

Estimates say Ukraine was able to push between 6 miles and 12 miles deep into the region — the farthest it has advanced inside Russia in 2 ½ years of war.
A CNN analysis said that by Friday, Russia had lost control of about 100 square miles of territory, including a natural gas transit hub that Russia uses to supply Europe with significant amounts of natural gas. By way of comparison, Russian currently occupies 40,000 square miles of Ukraine (or 20% of the country).

WILL THE STRATEGY PAY OFF?
Ukraine’s army had to be willing to take a huge risk in going up against Russia’s much larger, more experienced army. Capitalizing on the element of surprise — a new attack strategy for Ukraine — might offer Zelensky a few additional advantages:

Negotiations: This style attack is designed to put pressure on Russia, in hopes that it will come to the table on a peace deal.
Defense: It cracks Putin’s narrative that his army is invincible and support for Ukraine is useless.
Optics: It proves Ukraine still has the energy and determination to continue fighting, which is important for support from its allies in a drawn-out war.

⏳ SPEED READ

🚨NATION

📌 Kamala Harris copies Trump campaign promise to end taxes on tip income (AXIOS)

📌 Trump falsely claims Kamala Harris crowds are AI-generated (FORBES)

📌 Biden says he would have been “distraction” if he stayed in the presidential race (DEADLINE)

📌 Utah’s famed ‘double arch’ collapses (KSL TV)

📌 “It’s mayhem”: California Governor Gavin Newsom’s order to remove homeless encampments stirs anger (NBC)

🌎 AROUND THE WORLD

📌 Cancer doctors among those killed in Brazil plane crash (BBC)

📌 Hamas says it will not participate in ceasefire talks (AXIOS)

📌 US offers Venezuela’s Maduro amnesty to try to get him to give up power (WSJ)

📌 Shirtless man climbs Eiffel Tower before Olympic closing ceremony, prompting evacuations (ABC)

📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH

📌 Bank of America says it doesn’t see a recession on the horizon (THE HILL)

📌 Former Youtube CEO and early Google Exec Susan Wojcicki dies at age 56 . (CNBC)

📌 Delta hit with class action lawsuit by fliers (MASHABLE)

📌 Millennials can’t afford housing even with six-figure income (BUSINESS INSIDER)

🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

📌 Deadpool & Wolverine tops $1 billion at box office (CNBC)

📌The Reynolds-Lively household dominates the box office, recreating a family edition of “Barbenheimer” with Deadpool and It Ends With Us (AP)

📌 Hollywood icons of the past are coming back in AI voice cloning deals (CNBC)

📌 Some of the funniest reactions to the Olympics Closing Ceremony (THE WRAP)

🗓 ON THIS DAY: AUGUST 12

1939: “The Wizard of Oz” has its world premiere at the Strand Theater in Oconomowoc, Wis.
1966: John Lennon apologizes for saying that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” after protests from christians.
1981: IBM released its first personal computer
1990: Fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovers three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota, which was a part of a 65 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, the largest-ever discovered, later dubbed Sue.
1994: Rednex release the iconic song 'Cotton Eye Joe'