The Full Belmonte, 11/3/2023
FTX founder Bankman-Fried convicted of fraud
READ FULL STORY at USA Today
“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in Israel. He says he's working on protecting civilians in Gaza caught in the crossfire of Israel's war with Hamas. More than 1,400 people in Israel were killed nearly four weeks ago when Hamas attacked, taking more than 200 hostages. Since then, more than 9,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials.
Israel Defense Forces/AP
Blinken is calling for a ‘humanitarian pause’ in the fighting, not a cease-fire, NPR's Michele Kelemen says on Up First. That's because Blinken says Israel has a right to defend themselves against Hamas, which is still firing rockets into the country. Blinken has also been concerned about Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.” [NPR]
House approves nearly $14.5 billion in military aid for Israel
“The House of Representatives approved more than $14 billion in Israel aid Thursday afternoon setting up House Speaker Mike Johnson’s first major legislative clash with the Senate and White House. President Joe Biden had requested Congress pass a broad national security funding bill that includes money for Ukraine and U.S. border security. Johnson’s bill only includes assistance for Israel - a clear opening salvo from the newly-crowned speaker as he seeks to extract conservative policy wins with a narrow GOP majority.” Read more at USA Today
U.S. House Majority Mike Johnson (R-LA) leaves after a news briefing at the U.S. Capitol on November 2, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong, Getty Images
Trump fraud trial
“Former President Donald Trump's son Eric Trump will be back on the stand today to continue to testify in the New York civil fraud case against him, the Trump family and their business. On Thursday, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were questioned separately about their knowledge of and involvement with the former president's financial statements. They are accused of knowingly participating in a scheme to inflate their father's net worth to obtain financial benefits like better loan and insurance policy terms. On the stand, Donald Trump Jr. repeatedly said he relied on his accountants and was not involved with the preparations of financial statements for his father, even though he signed them as a trustee of his trust.” [CNN]
Banned chemicals
“The FDA on Thursday proposed a nationwide ban on brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, as an additive in food. The potentially harmful ingredient found in at least 90 products — mostly sodas — is used as an emulsifier in citrus-flavored beverages to keep the flavoring from separating and floating to the top. BVO is also commonly used in flame retardants and has been linked to health hazards including nervous system damage and headaches. The FDA's decision comes after California banned the ingredient in October by passing the California Food Safety Act, the first state law in the US to ban the controversial chemical. The additive is already banned in Europe and Japan.” [CNN]
Tuberville staffer asks anti-abortion groups to float primaries against certain Republicans
“Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s spokesperson asked anti-abortion groups to ‘make clear’ GOP senators risk primary challenges if they support an effort to overcome his military holds over a Pentagon abortion policy, according to an email obtained by POLITICO.
It’s a rare move for senators to float primaries against their own party members, and rarer still for staffers to do so.”
Read the latest at POLITICO
Senate confirms first woman to lead the Navy despite Tuberville blocks
“The Senate on Thursday confirmed the first woman to lead the U.S. Navy despite Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., continuing his blockade of over 300 military promotions. The upper chamber confirmed Admiral Lisa Franchetti as the new chief of naval operations and the first woman to hold a seat on the Join Chiefs of Staff. The confirmation comes less than 24 hours after several of Tuberville's Republican colleagues took to the Senate floor for five hours to urge him to lift the holds. The Alabama senator is protesting a Pentagon abortion policy that pays troops for travel to obtain abortions.” Read more at USA Today
Senate Armed Services hearing to examine the nomination of Admiral Lisa Franchetti, United States Navy, for reappointment to the grade of admiral and to be Chief of Naval Operations, Department of Defense. on Sept. 14, 2023 in Washington, D.C..
Jack Gruber-USA TODAY
Indiana Court Reprimands AG Over Fox News Abortion Remarks
“Indiana’s Supreme Court on Thursday issued a public reprimand to the state’s Republican attorney general over comments he made during a Fox News appearance. After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, Indiana OB/GYN Dr. Caitlin Bernardtold the Indianapolis Star that she’d helped a 10-year-old girl from Ohio terminate her pregnancy (Ohio law at the time prohibited abortions after six weeks). In July, after the girl’s rapist was arrested, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita went on Fox News and accused Bernard of being an ‘abortion activist acting as a doctor with a history of failing to report.’ The Indiana Supreme Court’s disciplinary commission found that Rokita ‘engaged in attorney misconduct’ during the interview and said he violated professional conduct rules with his statements that materially prejudiced an adjudicative hearing and had no ‘substantial purpose other than to embarrass or burden the physician.’ Rokita was additionally fined $250.” [Daily Beast]
Read it at Associated Press
The F.B.I. searched the home of Mayor Eric Adams’s fund-raising chief, who is deeply entwined in efforts to advance the mayor’s agenda.
“Agents searched the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs on Thursday, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Ms. Suggs is an essential cog in Mr. Adams’s fund-raising machine, which has already raised more than $2.5 million for his 2025 re-election campaign.”
Read more at Washington Post
Ex-Memphis officer pleads guilty to violating Tyre Nichols’s civil rights. He is the first officer convicted in the fatal beating.
“Desmond Mills Jr. faces up to 15 years in prison. Nichols, 29, was severely beaten by several officers for about three minutes on Jan. 7 in an incident that was captured on surveillance video and police body cameras, reigniting national outrage about police misconduct. Nichols died three days later, and federal authorities indicted five former officers in September of violating his civil rights. The men also face state second-degree murder charges.”
Read more at Washington Post
When Libs of TikTok tweets, threats increasingly follow
“A slew of bomb threats at U.S. hospitals, schools, libraries and other more public spaces have shared a common link: The victim of each threat had been targeted in the days before by the enormously popular conservative social media channel Libs of TikTok. In almost every case, the perpetrator of the threat is unknown. But whoever is making the threats, the posts show a clear pattern. USA TODAY has confirmed dozens of bomb threats, death threats and other harassment after Libs of TikTok’s posts since February 2022, based on exclusive new research from the progressive analysis group Media Matters for America.” Read more at USA Today
Chaya Raichik, creator of Libs of TikTok, created the account to “raise awareness about the situation in America,” she told USA TODAY.
Jack Gruber, Jack Gruber-USA TODAY
“These days, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy can barely disguise his frustration.
The weather is turning, the political mood is souring and the grinding counter-offensive may stall in spite of Ukraine’s insistence it will fight through the winter.
The Israel-Hamas conflict has diverted the world’s attention, and with the hard-right Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives, Ukraine can no longer assume the American military aid it relies on will keep coming, even with President Joe Biden’s assurances to the contrary. He’s got a reelection to fight, and supporting Ukraine is not the top concern for US voters.
In an interview with TIME magazine, Zelenskiy acknowledged: ‘Of course we lose out from the events in the Middle East.” Meanwhile, in one of his nightly addresses he complained how “the modern world quickly gets accustomed to success.’
A year ago, Ukraine’s spirited counterattack had won praise. Criticism of its current efforts as underwhelming clearly sting.
The US war machine is starting to be spread thin on two fronts. Ukraine is falling behind on artillery shells, the Europeans are unlikely to be able to step up while Russia is reportedly getting ammunition supplies from North Korea.
In public, leaders will keep saying how they stand by Ukraine, but the pledges are starting to ring hollow. A pair of notorious Russian pranksters tricked Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni into a phone call where she said Western allies are tired of the conflict.
‘I see that there is a lot of fatigue, I have to say the truth, from all the sides,’ she said in an audio recording from mid-September that was released online. ‘We’re nearing the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out.’
That’s a cruel truth for Zelenskiy to face but that is now out in the open.— Flavia Krause-Jackson [Bloomberg]
Meloni and Zelenskiy at the Chigi Palace in Rome on May 13. Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg
Bibi's blame game
Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Noam Moskowitz/picture alliance via Getty Images
“The unwillingness of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take any responsibility for Israel's massive security failures in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack is fueling calls for him to resign after the war, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.
Why it matters: Netanyahu is the only senior Israeli official who hasn't admitted any fault — a strategy that's sparking a fierce public backlash, and sending the prime minister's already tenuous support into free fall.
In the weeks after the Hamas attack, Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, military intelligence chief Aharon Haliva and other senior IDF commanders publicly acknowledged the security failures and took responsibility.
Ronen Bar, director of the Shin Bet intelligence agency, did the same. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also took responsibility, as did his predecessor, Benny Gantz, and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, who served for just one year.
Netanyahu has said several times since Oct. 7 that there'll be an investigation after the war. He stressed that all of Israel's top leaders, including him, will have to answer tough questions.
But at a news conference last week, Netanyahu was asked three times by reporters whether he shared responsibility for the failures of Israeli intelligence and defense agencies to prevent or quickly stop the attack. He dodged the questions, refusing to take responsibility.
Netanyahu said he's responsible for one thing now: winning the war.
State of play: Netanyahu's political situation appears dire. In recent polls, 70% to 80% of Israelis said they expect him to step down after the war.
Polls also indicate his Likud party has been significantly weakened.
The big picture: The Hamas attack followed 10 months of political crisis in Israel over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan, which tore apart Israeli society and weakened its economy and military.
Netanyahu was warned several times by Gallant and by the heads of the nation's intelligence services that Israel's enemies saw the internal crisis as an opportunity to attack Israel.
Netanyahu saw these warnings as politically motivated.
When Netanyahu was asked about the warnings during last week's news conference, he rejected the premise and declined to answer.
Several hours later, at 1 a.m. local time, he said on social media that he didn't receive any early warning of the Oct. 7 attack, and blamed the heads of the security services for the failures.
‘All the security chiefs, including the heads of military intelligence and Shin Bet, estimated that Hamas is deterred and wants to reach understandings. This was told several times to me by all the intelligence community up until the war broke out,’ Netanyahu posted on X.
After intense pressure — including from within his own government — Netanyahu deleted the post later that morning, apologized for it, and said he backed the heads of the security services.
Bibi holds a news conference in Tel Aviv last Saturday. Photo: Abir Sultan/Pool via AP
According to several Israeli press reports, the social media post was a result of pressure from Netanyahu's wife, Sara, and his son, Yair, who resides in Miami and hasn't returned to Israel since the war broke out, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.
Israeli news outlet Walla said Sara Netanyahu ordered the prime minister's aides to scan the transcripts of past Security Cabinet meetings and prepare a list of quotes from the heads of the security services who said Hamas wasn't interested in a war.
The prime minister's office denied any involvement by Sara and Yair Netanyahu in Netanyahu's decisions or actions.
Flashback: Netanyahu, 74, is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history, serving six terms that total more than 16 years. For years, he took pride in his security credentials and said he wanted history to remember him as a protector of Israel.
Several months after a war in Gaza ended in 2009, Netanyahu returned to power for his second term, promising to topple Hamas' rule in the enclave.
But he quickly abandoned that promise and, instead, led a policy of trying to contain Hamas through deterrence and temporary ceasefire understandings between rounds of fighting.
What to watch: Netanyahu's rivals and allies expect him to announce a commission to investigate the security failures immediately after the war ends.
An inquiry could buy time for Netanyahu to mobilize his allies for a long and messy blame game — which could allow him to hold onto power.” [Axios]
Fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah carrying out a training exercise this year in southern Lebanon.
PHOTO: HASSAN AMMAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Russian paramilitary group Wagner plans to provide an air-defense system to Hezbollah, U.S. officials say, citing intelligence.
“This comes amid broader concerns that Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese militia may open up a northern front against Israel, which is fighting Hamas in Gaza. The Russian Embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council declined to comment. The U.S. has positioned an aircraft carrier in the Eastern Mediterranean to try to deter Hezbollah and Iran. Separately, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his deputies are speaking with their counterparts in Arab states about plans for governing Gaza after Israel finishes its main military operations there, according to people familiar with the early stage conversations. In Washington, the House is set to vote today on Republicans’ $14.3 billion Israel aid proposal, kicking off a legislative fight complicated by growing disagreements about assistance for Ukraine and securing the U.S. border.” [Wall Street Journal]
“Biden urged Israel and Hamas to ‘pause’ fighting in order to allow time to free hostages held in the Gaza Strip, while stopping short of supporting a full ceasefire. Progressive groups, as well as Muslim and Arab Americans, have criticized the US president over his support for Israel’s campaign against Hamas that has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths in the Palestinian territory.” [Bloomberg]
Evacuees pass through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt yesterday. Photographer: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
“President Emmanuel Macron plans to strengthen France’s arsenal of strategic tools to protect vulnerable firms against foreign buyers with deep pockets, particularly from the US and China. The finance ministry said the government will lower the threshold for triggering a review and extend the number of protected areas to include critical raw materials, as well as French units of foreign companies.” [Bloomberg]
“The US and China are set to hold rare nuclear arms control talks next week amid growing concerns over Beijing’s accelerated push to build up its arsenal of atomic weapons, a US administration official says. The discussions will take place ahead of Biden’s planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in less than two weeks.” [Bloomberg]
“The rhetoric coming out of Washington and Beijing contains a lot of ‘either you’re with us or against us’ kind of talk, but not everyone is picking sides. A deep dive into trade and investment data highlights five nations straddling the new geopolitical fault lines: Vietnam, Poland, Mexico, Morocco and Indonesia.” [Bloomberg]
“Europe’s worst construction crisis in decades has families seeing their dream of building their own home collapse. Residential building has tumbled as costs soar, while sluggish bureaucracies and increasingly stringent energy-efficiency regulations add to the headwinds. With housing already tight, the situation threatens to weigh on economic growth and further stoke political tensions.” [Bloomberg]
“Latin America’s leftist leaders are reevaluating their relations with Israel over its offensive in the Gaza Strip, highlighting the diplomatic risks posed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to eradicate Hamas.” [Bloomberg]
“Ugandan activists demonstrating against a $4 billion oil pipeline have been threatened and detained as President Yoweri Museveni’s administration scrutinizes non-governmental organizations, Human Rights Watch said.” [Bloomberg]
Forging Ahead
Palestinians check destruction in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Nov. 1.AFP via Getty Images
“Israeli forces broke through Hamas’s front lines near Gaza City as part of their nearly weeklong incursion into the Gaza Strip, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Wednesday. Hamas and allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants temporarily retreated into Gaza’s underground tunnel network after Israeli troops repelled their mortar rounds and hit-and-run attacks. Israel’s land, sea, and air offensive is far from over, though, as IDF soldiers and tanks struggle to gain a secure foothold in the territory.
Israel’s latest moves followed an IDF strike on Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Wednesday, its second such attack in two days. According to the IDF, the strike killed Muhammad Asar, who led Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said ‘dozens’ of Palestinians were killed or wounded in the assault, adding to the roughly 50 civilians killed and 150 others wounded in Tuesday’s camp strike. The first camp strike also killed Ibrahim Biari, a Hamas commander who Israel said helped orchestrate the Oct. 7 attack.
As Israel ramped up its offensive, a second convoy of foreign nationals evacuated the region on Thursday. Almost 600 foreigners, including 400 U.S. citizens, left Gaza on Thursday through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing. This was the second convoy to leave the war-torn area after ambulances transported more than 300 foreign nationals and around 80 critically wounded Palestinians out of Gaza on Wednesday.
After being confronted by a protester calling for a cease-fire during a campaign rally in Minneapolis on Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden advocated a ‘pause’ in fighting to help rescue hostages and deliver aid to Gaza. And on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departed Washington for Israel, where he will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. He will then travel to Jordan to meet with top officials there.
The discussions in both countries are expected to focus on numerous issues, including securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and other militants, protecting civilians, getting more aid into Gaza, preventing the conflict from spilling over into the rest of the region, and planning for an end game in Gaza once the war is over. The talks will likely also address Jordan’s decision on Wednesday to recall its ambassador to Israel. This will be Blinken’s second trip to the region since the Israel-Hamas war began. He will be accompanied on the first leg of the trip by the newly confirmed U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, who will stay in the country to begin his assignment.” [Foreign Policy]
“Testing limits. Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on Thursday, signaling another drop in U.S.-Russian relations. The Cold War-era policy bans all nuclear explosions. The Kremlin argued that de-ratification places Russia on more equal footing with U.S. foreign policy, as Washington signed but never ratified the treaty.
Although Putin’s decision has more symbolic than practical impacts, it leaves only one nuclear weapons pact between the two nations in place: New START. This strains already growing nuclear saber-rattling as Moscow tests new nuclear ballistic missiles to threaten Ukraine and as Washington releases a report warning of underinvestment in its own nuclear arsenal.”[Foreign Policy]
“Chinese force posture. Taiwanese officials said on Wednesday that the military had detected 43 Chinese warplanes and seven naval vessels near the island within the last 24 hours. Nearly 90 percent of the planes crossed the Taiwan Strait’s so-called median line, which does not have legal status but is recognized by much of the international community as an unofficial barrier between the two nations. Taipei’s defense ministry quickly deployed fighter jets and ships armed with missile systems to guard against a potential assault.
In recent months, China has stepped up incursions into Taiwan’s airspace and exclusive economic zone. Beijing argues that these operations are military drills used to deter foreign intervention. But regional experts fear that Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacificindicates efforts to counter Western hegemony and possibly invade the island in the near future. China does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation.” [Foreign Policy]
“Expelling Afghans. Pakistani authorities arrested dozens of Afghans living illegally in the country on Wednesday after a deadline for them to leave expired. According to caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti, 64 Afghan nationals were detained and deported as part of Islamabad’s efforts to crack down on undocumented foreigners in the country, including 1.7 million Afghans.
‘Afghans have become scapegoats as Pakistan weathers both one of its worst economic crises in years and a major resurgence of terrorism by the Afghanistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan,’ FP’s Michael Kugelman argued in this week’s South Asia Brief.
Top rights activists as well as U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres have criticized the unprecedented expulsion.” [Foreign Policy]
November 3, 2023
Good morning. We’re covering the evidence on the Gaza hospital explosion
The site of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.Shadi Al-Tabatibi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Four legs of a stool
“Last month, a few days after the explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, I walked you through the debate over who was responsible. At the time, there wasn’t much evidence that outsiders could assess on their own. The dispute revolved around competing claims from Israel and Hamas.
But more evidence has since emerged. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain it.
The hospital explosion is important in its own right: It was the biggest news story in the world for days and sparked protests across the Middle East. The explosion also has a larger significance: It offers clues about how to judge the claims about civilian casualties that are central to Hamas’s war message.
My colleague Julian Barnes, who covers intelligence from Washington, describes the explosion evidence as falling into four categories — akin to four legs of a stool. Let’s look at each of them:
1. Videos of the air
The most complicated part of the evidence involves the various cameras that captured the sky above Gaza on the night of Oct. 17.
The Associated Press, CNN and The Wall Street Journal each analyzed one set of footage and concluded that a malfunctioning rocket from Gaza — presumably from Palestinian fighters — caused the explosion. Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials have made the same argument.
But an examination by The New York Times’s Visual Investigations team exposed flaws in the footage analysis. Times reporters used additional cameras to conclude that the projectile actually came from Israel — and did not land near the hospital, which means it couldn’t have caused the explosion. At least two independent analysts, as well as The Washington Post, agree.
The Post’s analysis also explains that a separate video does show a barrage of rockets from Gaza, headed toward the hospital, just before the explosion. One of them could have been “a stray rocket launched by a Palestinian armed group,” The Post wrote. The Times analysis notes that Palestinian and Israeli forces were each firing weapons in the area around the time of the explosion.
Bottom line: The video evidence remains murky.
Near Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
2. Videos of the ground
Israeli airstrikes tend to leave fingerprints. The bombs typically weigh 2,000 pounds and create huge craters. Shrapnel is extensive. Buildings are destroyed.
None of these descriptions fit the hospital explosion, according to videos and photos. The hole in the ground resembles a large pothole. Cars are burned out, not flattened. Nearby buildings show little structural damage, and there is little shrapnel. ‘The damage is too light to be from a 2,000-pound bomb,’ Julian says.
This pattern doesn’t prove the explosion’s source was Palestinian; Israel does use smaller munitions, such as howitzer shells. But the explosion appears consistent with the rockets that Palestinian groups were launching toward Israel that night. One possibility is that the damage was limited because it came mostly from the leaking fuel of a malfunctioned rocket, ignited on impact, rather than from the explosion of the rocket head.
Bottom line: The scene after the explosion is inconsistent with that of a typical Israeli airstrike.
3. Hamas’s case
Hamas, not Israel, controls the area around the hospital and has had more than two weeks to scour it for the evidence, such as shrapnel, that even a smaller Israeli weapon likely would have left. ‘The evidence of an Israeli airstrike wouldn’t simply evaporate into the night,’ Julian said. (In Ukraine, physical evidence is one way that Times reporters solved the mystery of a September explosion.)
Yet Hamas has produced no signs of an Israeli airstrike, as my colleagues Patrick Kingsley and Aaron Boxerman have explained. Instead, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, said, ‘The missile has dissolved like salt in the water.’
Bottom line: Hamas’s failure to produce evidence suggests the group may not want outsiders to see it.
4. The tapes
Israel has released the recording of what it says is an Oct. 17 conversation in which one Hamas member tells another that a Palestinian rocket caused the explosion. ‘It’s from us?’ one asks. ‘It looks like it,’ the other replies.
Israel has also shared at least three similar taped conversations with the U.S., and U.S. officials have judged them to be genuine.
Bottom line: The conversations are relevant evidence, but they’re not proof. It’s possible that Hamas fighters were themselves confused.
In the aftermath of the blast.Shadi Al-Tabatibi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The full picture
I try to avoid the journalistic sin known as bothsidesism when information favors one version of events over another. And while much about the hospital explosion remains unclear, the available evidence points toward a Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, as the more likely cause.
‘One of the legs of the stool — the videos of a rocket exploding in the sky — now looks a lot weaker than it did,’ Julian said. ‘But the other pieces of evidence remain in place. And the overall conclusion of the American intelligence agencies appears sound: It was a malfunctioning Palestinian rocket that most likely hit the hospital.’
This evidence, in turn, suggests that the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, has deliberately told the world a false story. U.S. officials believe that the health ministry also inflated the toll when it announced 500 deaths; the actual number appears to be closer to 100.
This episode doesn’t mean that Gazan officials always mislead or that Israeli officials always tell the truth. Even in this case, for example, Israeli officials have cited video evidence that Times reporting suggests does not support their argument. Both sides deserve continued scrutiny.
But the hospital explosion offers reason to apply particular skepticism to Hamas’s claims about civilian deaths — which are an undeniable problem in this war. Hamas’s record on the war’s most closely watched incident does not look good.” [New York Times]
Starfish don’t have five arms.
“What? Using “arm” to describe the five points of a sea star is misleading, according to a new genetic study. The starfish appears to be mostly just a head.
Why it matters: The study raises questions about how the starfish evolved to lose its torso. It’s like a ‘disembodied head walking about the sea floor on its lips,’ one expert said.”
Read this story at Washington Post
”Lives Lived: Ken Mattingly was bumped from Apollo 13 after being exposed to measles, then helped it avert disaster from mission control. He died at 87.” [New York Times]