Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In Tel Aviv: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Hamas’ decision to attack Israel ‘a terrible mistake,’ and warned that images of ‘devastation and destruction’ from militant strongholds were ‘just the beginning.’”
* From the White House: “President Joe Biden today said at least 11 Americans are known to have been killed in Hamas’ attack on Israel.”
* Devastation in Afghanistan: “More than 2,400 people were killed in earthquakes in Afghanistan, the Taliban administration said on Sunday, in the deadliest tremors to rock the quake-prone mountainous country in years.”
* The latest Jan. 6 sentence: “A Donald Trump supporter who smashed a window at the Capitol with a tomahawk ax and threw projectiles at officers during the most brutal battle of the Capitol riot was sentenced to seven years in federal prison Friday.”
* I’m not even sure what “recognize” means in this context: “Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday he did not ‘recognize LGBT’ and vowed to combat ‘perverse’ trends which he said aimed to destroy the institution of family in the country.”
* Michael Benz worked in Trump’s State Department, and his work has been promoted by Elon Musk, “but before his stints in government and as a pundit, Benz appears to have been a pseudonymous alt-right content creator who courted and interacted with white nationalists and posted videos espousing racist conspiracy theories, according to recordings, livestreams and blog posts reviewed by NBC News.”
* All is not well at the platform formerly known as Twitter: “As false information about the rapidly changing war between Gaza Strip militants and Israel proliferated on the social media platform X over the weekend, owner Elon Musk personally recommended that users follow accounts notorious for promoting lies.”
* On a related note: “While all major world events are now accompanied almost instantly by a deluge of disinformation aimed at controlling the narrative, the scale and speed at which disinformation was being seeded about the Israel-Hamas conflict is unprecedented — particularly on X.”
See you tomorrow.
