Important Takeaways:
- A senior Israeli Air Force officer says the airstrikes carried out over the past day against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon are the most extensive the IAF has carried out in its history.
- More than 1,600 Hezbollah sites, mostly homes where weapons were stored, were struck in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley within a day, according to the IDF.
- The senior IAF officer says the widespread airstrikes are “changing the operational situation in the north, changing the reality.”
- He says Hezbollah had two main capabilities that it built up over decades: the elite Radwan Force and its arsenal of rockets, missiles, and drones.
- The top leadership of the Radwan Force, tasked with invading Israel, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.
- Hezbollah’s rocket and drone capabilities have been targeted across Lebanon in the past day.
- The official says the IAF is working to strike “all of their rocket capabilities, all of them” and that it is “very determined” to do so.
- Hezbollah still has rocket capabilities, but they have been harmed significantly in the recent strikes, the official says.
- The official says Hezbollah has endangered Lebanese civilians twofold: first by placing the weapons in their homes, and second by telling civilians to ignore the IDF’s evacuation calls, he says.
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Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. is sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East in response to a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said Monday.
- Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, would not say how many more forces would be deployed or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. now has about 40,000 troops in the region.
- “In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional U.S. military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” Ryder said. “But for operational security reasons, I’m not going to comment on or provide specifics.”
- The State Department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.
- Ryder would not say if the additional forces might support the evacuation of American citizens if needed.
- “Given the tensions, given the escalation, as I highlighted, there is the potential for a wider regional conflict. I don’t think we’re there yet, but it’s a dangerous situation,” Ryder said.
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Important Takeaways:
- The suspect behind the second Trump assassination attempt in Florida appears to have stalked Mar-a-Lago and the former president’s golf course in West Palm Beach for weeks and may have been planning a getaway to Mexico, a judge and federal prosecutors have revealed.
- A document released by the Justice Department before Routh appeared in court yesterday said one of the cell phones found in his vehicle during his arrest on Sept. 15 “contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.”
- Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe, who ultimately granted the government’s request to detain Routh pending the resolution of the charges against him, said during Monday’s hearing that it appeared Routh was stalking Trump for 30 days.
- Federal prosecutors told the judge that the government intends to ask a grand jury to indict Routh on the much more serious charge of the attempted assassination of Trump, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russia and Iran are using artificial intelligence to influence the American election, U.S. intelligence officials said on Monday.
- “Foreign actors are using AI to more quickly and convincingly tailor synthetic content,” an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said. “The IC (intelligence community) considers AI a malign influence, accelerant, not yet a revolutionary influence tool.”
- Officials saw AI being used in overseas elections, but it has now made its way to American elections, according to intelligence officials, who says there is evidence Russian manipulated Vice President Kamala Harris’ speeches.
- Russia “has generated the most AI content related to the election, and has done so across all four mediums, text, images, audio and video,” an ODNI official said.
- “Russia is a much more sophisticated actor in the influence space in general, and they have a better understanding of how U.S. elections work and what states to target,” an ODNI official said.
- Iran has also used AI in its election influence efforts, including help in writing fake social media posts and news articles to further Iran’s objectives, which are to denigrate the former President Donald Trump’s candidacy, the official said.
- Officials have previously assessed Iran prefers that Vice President Harris win the 2024 election.
- The intelligence community assesses that AI is an “accelerant” to influence operations, but the risk to U.S. elections depends the ability of foreign actors to overcome restrictions built into many AI tools and remain undetected, develop their own sophisticated models, and strategically target and disseminate such content.
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Important Takeaways:
- Microsoft AI Needs So Much Power It’s Tapping Site of US Nuclear Meltdown
- The owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania will invest $1.6 billion to revive it, agreeing to sell all the output to Microsoft Corp. as the tech titan seeks carbon-free electricity for data centers to power the artificial intelligence boom.
- Constellation Energy Corp., the biggest US operator of reactors, expects Three Mile Island to go back into service in 2028, according to a statement Friday.
- While one of the site’s two units permanently closed almost a half-century ago after the worst US nuclear accident, Constellation is planning to reopen the other reactor, which shut in 2019 because it couldn’t compete economically.
- Microsoft has agreed to purchase the energy for two decades and declined to disclose financial terms.
- This is the first time Microsoft has secured a dedicated, 100% nuclear facility for its use.
- The decision is the latest sign of surging interest in the nuclear industry as power demand for AI soars.
- “There’s no version of the future of this country that doesn’t rely on these nuclear assets.”
- Wind and solar power outputs can vary, while a nuclear plant generally runs constantly and requires a customer that can take all of that electricity
- That makes tech companies selling cloud computing an ideal option.
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Important Takeaways:
- Lawmakers, legal groups urge government to release first assassination attempt documents
- A conservative legal watchdog group is heading to court to get the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to explain how gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks had been able to “fire a relatively simple shot that came within an inch of killing President Trump and struck fellow Americans.”
- In a lawsuit filed Thursday, America First Legal (AFL) alleges that the Secret Service and DHS illegally concealed government records related to the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. The organization claims it submitted multiple public records requests about the incident but still has not received any documents.
- AFL requested documents pertaining to the Secret Service’s staffing shortages, hiring and employment standards and all communications to or from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and two senior DHS officials, Kristie Canegallo and Jonathan Davidson.
- According to AFL, the Secret Service said it would not process their expedited public records’ requests because there was “no threat to the life or safety of anyone” and that there was no urgency to grant their request.
- Lawmakers on Capitol Hill — both Republican and Democratic — have also been trying to obtain documents from government agencies related to the events that unfolded that day and what security lapses may have occurred.
- In light of the second attempted assassination of Trump’s life at his golf course in Florida last week, AFL said in it statement: “There is no denying that President Trump currently faces genuine threats, and AFL’s requests would help to ensure that USSS and DHS leadership are sufficiently trained and staffed to ensure the safety of President Trump.”
- “The American people and Congress need total transparency,” the group said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Investigators are trying to determine what motivated a Kentucky sheriff to allegedly shoot and kill a district judge after the two had an argument inside the judge’s chambers, according to Kentucky State Police.
- District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was found around 3 p.m. Thursday with multiple gunshot wounds and pronounced dead at the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg, Kentucky State Police Trooper Matt Gayheart said at a Thursday evening news conference.
- Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, shot Mullins after an argument inside the judge’s chambers, a preliminary police investigation revealed.
- Stines is now facing a first-degree murder charge, state police said.
- Stines turned himself in after the shooting and was arrested at the scene without incident on Thursday, authorities said. He is cooperating with authorities, Gayheart said. It is unclear who will take over as the county sheriff following the arrest of Stines, who had been sheriff for about eight years.
- The killing came less than two weeks after southeast Kentucky was rocked by a shooting at an interstate that wounded five people in Laurel County earlier this month. And just three days ago, a Russell County deputy had been killed in the line of duty, officials said.
- “There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in a social media post.
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Important Takeaways:
- From bulletproof glass to panic buttons, jurisdictions across the U.S. are taking unprecedented steps to protect election workers and ballots amid concerns about voter intimidation, fraud and even violence at the polls.
- Officials are already on edge: This week, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service launched an investigation after officials in 16 states reported receiving suspicious packages.
- Several secretaries of state reported being mailed letters containing white powder.
- Election officials in Durham County, N.C., soon will move into a new facility equipped with bulletproof glass at the front desk, panic buttons to summon help in any emergencies, a network of security cameras and a separate exhaust system where mail-in ballots will be processed.
- On Election Day, each of the county’s 59 polling site coordinators will receive employee badges with panic buttons.
- GPS tracking will be used to follow ballots’ chain of custody as they’re escorted from polling places to county offices.
- At the end of the night, the chief election judge at each polling place will take ballots to the county’s election headquarters with an escort — an election judge from the opposite party.
- Similar measures are being taken in Cobb County, Ga., to protect ballots, the roughly 2,200 poll watchers there and hundreds of other permanent and temporary staffers who’ll be working on election night.
- The vote totals in Cobb County — a mostly Democratic suburb of Atlanta in a much-watched swing state — will draw national interest on Election Night.
- Between the lines: Security measures aside, Cobb County Director of Elections Tate Fall says the county is using new digital tools to automate parts of the election process and increase transparency.
- One digitizes the chain of custody of applications for mail-in ballots. Officials receive real-time updates on how many applications the county has received and where they are in the voting process.
- Georgia also is using a new audit tool that will compare images of ballots to the results that are uploaded to reporting systems on Election Day.
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Important Takeaways:
- The United Nations general assembly’s resolution on Wednesday advanced a dramatic legal shift, begun by the international court of justice (ICJ) in July, in how we understand Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
- The ICJ had found Israel’s prolonged occupation to be unlawful and ordered it to end “as rapidly as possible”.
- The headline on the general assembly resolution was that it ordered Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory within one year. But that is only the beginning.
- International humanitarian law, which governs warfare, is neutral about the fact of occupation but imposes duties on the occupier for how it must treat the occupied population.
- But the ICJ, and now the general assembly, also looked to a separate body of law which regards prolonged occupation as the illegal forcible acquisition of territory.
- Israel is violating both sets of laws.
- The general assembly and ICJ actions also have implications for the international criminal court (ICC), which is currently considering the prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as three senior Hamas officials.
- The Israeli government will undoubtedly resist, but everyone else has a duty to press it to comply – and to avoid any contribution, military or commercial, to Israeli defiance.
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Important Takeaways:
- US officials believe hostage-ceasefire deal unlikely by end of Biden’s term
- Multiple senior US officials have reportedly acknowledged that a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas is unlikely before the end of US President Joe Biden’s term in office in January, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
- The US officials told the outlet that one of the biggest obstacles to a deal has been the ratio of Palestinian security prisoners Israel must release in exchange for each hostage.
- The US has said publicly that Hamas has raised the number of prisoners it originally asked for, even after executing six hostages earlier this month.
- More broadly, WSJ reported that Hamas has made demands and then refuses to agree to a deal after Israel accepted them.
- “There’s no chance now of it happening,” an official from an Arab country told the newspaper. “Everyone is in a wait-and-see mode until after the [US] election. The outcome will determine what can happen in the next administration.”
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