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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the past 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
Top Biden administration negotiators visited the Middle East yesterday in a last-ditch attempt to jumpstart ceasefire talks before next week’s U.S. presidential election. Julian E. Barnes and Ephrat Livni report for the New York Times.
An overnight Israeli bombardment of Gaza killed 47 people, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported today. Ali Sawafta and Clauda Tanios report for Reuters.
Israeli bulldozers yesterday damaged the office of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) in a West Bank refugee camp, the agency’s chief said. The Israeli military denied responsibility for the damage. Hatem Maher and Ari Rabinovitch report for Reuters.
Israeli forces detained a Médicins Sans Frontières surgeon working in the Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza during a raid last week, the charity said yesterday. Emma Farge reports for Reuters.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — U.S. RESPONSE
The Biden administration has been ramping up pressure on Israel to address Gaza aid concerns in recent days, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken convening internal meetings to monitor Israel’s implementation of U.S. requests and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin raising the demands in phone calls with his Israeli counterpart. Barak Ravid reports for Axios.
Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen yesterday issued a joint statement urging Israel to extend its waiver on cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks. Kanishka Singh reports for Reuters.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR — INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
A French court reversed a government ban on Israeli firms’ participation in an arms show near Paris next week, organizers said yesterday. Tassilo Hummel reports for Reuters.
ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH WAR
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has denied reports that the United States asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire, after two sources said a U.S. envoy had made the request to renew stalled talks on ending Israel-Hezbollah hostilities. The Guardian reports.
Two separate Hezbollah rocket attacks killed seven people in northern Israel yesterday, including four Thai agricultural workers, authorities said. David Gritten reports for BBC News.
ISRAEL-IRAN CONFLICT
Iran is preparing to launch a major retaliatory strike from Iraq in the coming days, potentially before the U.S. election, Israeli intelligence suggests. Meanwhile, two top Iranian officials yesterday told state media that Iran plans to respond to Israel’s attacks. Barak Ravid reports for Axios; Farnaz Fassihi reports for the New York Times.
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Former President Trump yesterday filed a lawsuit against CBS News over the network’s interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired earlier this month, alleging the station’s edit of the interview “amounts to a brazen attempt to interfere” in the election. A CBS spokesperson said the lawsuit was “completely without merit.” Tobi Raji reports for the Washington Post.
The Pennsylvania lawsuit over Elon Musk’s $1mn swing state sweepstakes was put on hold yesterday, pending a federal judge’s decision on whether to take up the case. The state judge declined to sanction Musk in the meantime. Ivana Saric reports for Axios.
The Justice Department must do more to protect staffers from election-adjacent threats of political violence, according to a letter sent to senior DOJ leadership yesterday on behalf of nearly 2,000 employees. Alfred Ng reports for POLITICO.
Colorado’s governor said yesterday he is providing state aircraft and vehicles to help with changing voting system passwords following their accidental leak on a state website. Jesse Bedayn reports for AP News.
An Arizona judge yesterday ordered the release of a list of tens of thousands of voters mistakenly classified as having access to the full ballot because of a coding glitch. Sejal Govindarao reports for AP News.
Republicans yesterday again asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rule against undated mail-in ballots being included in the vote count. Josh Gerstein reports for POLITICO.
TRUMP LEGAL MATTERS
A New York court yesterday indefinitely disbarred a key architect of the idea to use “fake” pro-Trump electors to overturn the 2020 election result, in the latest instance of Trump-aligned lawyers losing their licenses. Charlie Savage reports for New York Times.
Special counsel Jack Smith yesterday asked a judge to reject Trump’s challenge to the lawfulness of Smith’s appointment in the Jan. 6 election interference case. Rebbeca Beitsch reports for The Hill.
OTHER U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is expected to appear before a Manhattan court today to contest a federal bribery charge, one of the five counts against him. Jake Offenhartz reports for AP News.
A Congress Covid subcommittee on Wednesday referred the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s criminal case to the Department of Justice over alleged lies to Congress on nursing home data reporting. Nick Reisman reports for POLITICO.
U.S. FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The Treasury Department yesterday imposed sanctions on companies and individuals linked to the armed wing of a Mexican drug cartel operating on border territories in a bid to stem the entry of fentanyl into the United States. Fatima Hussein reports for AP News.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
About 8,000 North Korean troops are expected to enter Russia’s war with Ukraine in the “coming days,” Secretary Blinken said yesterday. Meanwhile, U.S. negotiators are increasingly turning to China as an interlocutor in addressing Russia and North Korea’s rapidly strengthening security partnership, senior U.S. officials say. Ellen Mitchell reports for The Hill; Edward Wong reports for the New York Times.
Russia made its largest territorial gains in Ukraine since the summer of 2022 in October, threatening a key logistics hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donbas. Constant Méheut and Josh Holder report for the New York Times.
Russia’s torture of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war is “a crime against humanity,” U.N.-backed experts said yesterday. Separately, BBC reported it saw “credible evidence” of Russia using drones to target civilians in Ukraine’s Kherson. Edith M. Lederer reports for AP News.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
The U.N. Security Council will likely meet on Monday to discuss yesterday’s North Korean test of what the country said was an intercontinental ballistic missile, diplomatic sources say. Michelle Nichols reports for Reuters.
After nearly 60 years in power, Botswana’s Democratic Party lost its parliamentary majority in yesterday’s national election, a stunning rebuke underpinned by an economic slump caused by the waning global diamond trade. Yvonne Mooka and John Eligon report for New York Times.
Not a single country has contributed towards reparations for the victims and survivors of a Ugandan warlord created by the International Criminal Court, the ICC Trust Fund for Victims said. Caroline Kimeu reports for the Guardian.
At least 10 people were killed and 63 wounded by police gunfire during a Mozambique presidential election unrest crackdown, medical groups said on Wednesday. AP News reports.