Hamas' Next-Level Brutality
Plus: Trump hush money case, assisted suicide prosecution, Tucker Carlson's Holocaust-denialist historian, and more...
Six dead and new instructions to kill: Last week, the terrorist group Hamas killed six of the remaining 100 hostages taken on October 7, including one American citizen, 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention just two weeks ago.
As funerals were held for the hostages, Hamas started releasing videos taken of the hostages just before their deaths. The terrorist group also spread word that, if Israeli troops close in, all Hamas militants have been given "new instructions" to kill remaining hostages immediately.
Within Israel, people took to the streets voicing anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has remained beholden to his far-right flank, which aims to see Hamas fully wiped out. In contrast, moderates support a ceasefire and advocate for ending the war without Hamas' eradication.
But even those ceasefire negotiations are complicated and have become more fraught. The most recent round, which had looked so close to getting across the finish line that the U.S. sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken over to seal the deal, ultimately did not work out because Israel wanted to maintain a military presence at the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land between Egypt and the Gaza Strip where arms are frequently smuggled in.
Following the brutal slaughter of six hostages, it will be even less likely that both parties will agree to a deal. "It does not look good," one Israeli official briefed on ceasefire negotiations told Politico. "We are still working at it, but the hostages being killed changed everything."
"Hamas has taken the hostage issue out of the equation. It knows that this current Israeli administration is not interested in any kind of hostage release deal," Tahani Mustafa of Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, tells CNN. "I don't think they consider them as substantial playing cards any longer."
Trump's bid to move hush-money case to federal court slapped down: At the end of May, Judge Juan Merchan declared former President Donald Trump guilty of all 34 counts of business-record falsification, for concealing hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels following a tryst. This month, Trump will be sentenced, though his lawyers are looking to move that date until after the presidential election, in which Trump is running again.
In the meantime, Trump has attempted to move jurisdiction of the case from New York state courts to federal court, arguing Merchan was biased against him due at least in part to the fact that Merchan's family members have given money to Democrats, including Trump's presidential-race opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
This did not succeed and the case will remain with Merchan, who is expected to hand down a lighter sentence than the possible maximum of four years in prison.
"It would be highly improper for this Court to evaluate issues of bias, unfairness or error in the state trial," federal Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein wrote. "Those are issues for the state appellate courts." (Full text here.)
Scenes from New York: In an assisted suicide prosecution out of upstate New York, a doctor who facilitated a woman's death will receive five years' probation for his actions.
The woman, 59-year-old Doreen Brodhead, probably would not have qualified for assisted suicide programs even if New York were a state where such programs were legal; she had reportedly suffered 40 years' worth of chronic back and neck pain but did not have a terminal illness.
QUICK HITS
- In France, a woman named Gisèle Pélicot has deliberately waived her right to anonymity to face those who assaulted her. Her husband, Dominique Pélicot, stands accused of drugging his wife and recruiting more than 70 men to rape her. "Dominique Pélicot's activity came under scrutiny in 2020, after three women reported him for allegedly trying to film under their skirts, according to prosecutors," reports The Washington Post. "Police arrested him and seized his technological devices, where they found hundreds of photos and videos allegedly showing his wife being sexually assaulted by multiple men." The case is galvanizing France's feminist movement, which is lobbying for changes to the way the country defines consent.
- "Russia bombarded a swath of Ukraine early Wednesday, killing at least seven people in the western city of Lviv, local Ukrainian officials said, a day after a ballistic missile attack in the eastern city of Poltava left dozens of people dead," reports The New York Times.
- Really next-level idiocy on Tucker Carlson's show:
Oh they did? They just ended up dead? Huh. What a wild turn of events. What an absolutely wild and crazy turn of events that is absolutely fucking nonsense. pic.twitter.com/ur0gG0Lco5
— Jane Coaston ????️ (@janecoaston) September 3, 2024
- "Financial regulators [in China] have proposed reducing rates on outstanding mortgages nationwide by a total of about 80 basis points, part of a package that includes an accelerated timeline for when mortgages become eligible for refinancing, according to people familiar with the matter," reports Bloomberg.
