THE STRUGGLE ISRAEL

Israel’s unprecedented airstrike targeting Hamas leaders Qatar deals a major blow to ceasefire talks and Donald Trump’s attempts to bring the conflict to an end.

• Israel’s conflict with Hamas has already spread far beyond the warzone in Gaza, with strikes in Iran, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. But Israel stunned the world this morning with its first-ever attack on Doha, the capital of Qatar, in an apparent attempt to assassinate senior Hamas leaders. The move marks a dramatic escalation by Israel, because it meant striking a key American ally in the Middle East, which has played a crucial role as a mediator in U.S.-backed peace efforts.

• Six people died, including five members of Hamas — but all of its negotiating team survived, according to the group. The “cowardly” attack is a “flagrant violation of all international laws and norms,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement. The country then suspended its role as a mediator in the ceasefire talks efforts.

• Israel has “literally blown up negotiations for the foreseeable future,” Ilan Goldenberg, chief policy officer at the J Street think tank, said in a livestream, talking about Israel’s actions.

• The extraordinary strikes prompted the White House to raise a rare rebuke of Israel. “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today, while denying U.S. involvement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said that Israel acted alone.

• President Donald Trump personally pushed back on the strike. “I view Qatar as a strong Ally and friend of the U.S. and feel very badly about the location of the attack,” Trump posted on social media. “I assured them that such a thing will not happen again on their soil.”

• Trump also tried to spin this escalation as, potentially, a good thing. “I believe this unfortunate incident could serve as an opportunity for PEACE,” he wrote. Someone give this guy a Nobel Peace Prize, ASAP!

As the dust settles, experts are bracing for devastating consequences. Hopes for a ceasefire now seem even more distant than before.

• “The region is at an incredibly dangerous moment … Israel is flaunting international laws and norms and is acting with impunity,” Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East Program at the CSIS think tank, told What A Day. Israel has now struck six countries, as well as Gaza, over the past two years.

• Qatar once suspended its role in mediating negotiations before, but only as part of an effort to restart stalled talks. This time, the situation seems dire.

• “It’s really hard to see what other country could play that role of interceding between Israel and Hamas,” Yacoubian said. “I think the likelihood of the much sought-after ceasefire and hostage release is now dimmed significantly.”

Trump seems frustrated with Israel. But there’s no sign that Israel will receive anything more than a slap on the wrist for its risky behavior.

WHAT ELSE?

A Russian airstrike killed at least 23 people in an eastern Ukrainian village today, according to Ukrainian officials. The attack came two days after Moscow’s largest aerial attack on Ukraine during the war so far, which killed at least three people.

A man was charged after allegedly stabbing Iryna Zarutska, 23, to death on a bus in Charlotte, North Carolina last month. The incident, caught on video, has been a major focus of the White House for days and Donald Trump’s anti-crime rhetoric.

Donald Trump described the Epstein drama as a “dead issue,” despite the questions raised by the appearance of a bawdy birthday letter sent to the deceased child predator that appears to bear Trump’s signature. Trump has repeatedly denied sending this lewd doodle. But no matter what he says, this scandal is far from “dead.”

The labor market created about 900,000 fewer jobs since March 2024 than believed, according to a new government data. The revision was still in the realm of Wall Street’s expectations, but it added fresh fuel to Trump-peddled conspiracies about the unreliability of jobs data. In reality, he’s probably just mad that the labor market is even worse than we thought.

Nepal’s prime minister resigned as protesters attacked the homes of political leaders, after 22 people died in a clash with police. The protests were sparked by a ban on social media platforms enacted by the government, which was later withdrawn.

Seniors in high school are scoring record lows on math and reading tests. “In reading, two-thirds of seniors could determine the purpose of a persuasive essay, but only one in five was able to draw a conclusion from such an essay, supported by the text,” the Wall Street Journal writes. Yeah… I wonder if students relying on artificial intelligence to do their work has anything to do with this???

Light at the End of the Email…

Ben (Cohen) & Jerry (Greenfield) are urging their parent company to allow the ice cream activists’ brand to once again become independent. “For several years now the voice of Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced by Unilever, particularly when the brand has tried to speak out about social justice and unjust wars,” the two wrote. “That is not the Ben & Jerry’s that we founded.” We expected nothing less from our ice cream kings!

The new Apple AirPod live translation feature is pretty damn cool: “By tapping on the stems of both buds, AirPods enter a new translation mode which cancels out background noise and listens in to your conversations. When it hears a foreign language it can understand, you hear the translated version spoken back to you through your AirPods,” one website explains.

The internet is getting a kick out of Zohran Mamdani’s new ad making fun of rich people in the Hamptons, via an actor’s dramatic reading of a New York Times report. “The Hamptons is basically in group therapy about the mayoral race,” the actor says. “In other words, the plutocrats are panicking.”

I don’t know who asked for this, but the Washington Post published a piece explaining how to give your frozen pizza some extra pizzazz. The tips: Use a metal sheet for the ’za, give your oven time to preheat (I am so guilty of this), feel free to modify the box instructions if the pizza has come out lousy before, and add your own fresh toppings. I know what I’m doing this weekend, wooooo!