Happy Thursday! British politicians are on a sneaker-killing spree. First, it was Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Adidas Sambas. Now, Nigel Farage—the head of the Brexit Party—has apparently doomed the Adidas Gazelles. We don’t know which model is next to be condemned to perpetual uncoolness, but Liz Truss had best stay away from our Stan Smiths.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to then-President Donald Trump, and former Trump lawyer Rudy Guiliani were among the 18 people indicted by an Arizona grand jury on Wednesday on felony charges relating to election interference. The indictment alleges that seven attorneys or aides involved with the 2020 Trump presidential campaign—including Meadows and Giuliani—attempted to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump, despite the fact that Trump lost the state by more than 10,000 votes. The 11 others indicted were Arizona GOP officials who falsely declared to Congress that Trump was the rightful winner of the state.
- Israel is planning to advance a military operation aimed at taking the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a final Hamas stronghold in the enclave, Egyptian and former Israeli officials said on Wednesday. President Joe Biden warned Israel last month that invading Rafah—where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians have fled—would cross a “red line.” Israel reportedly intends for the military operation to roll out in phased, targeted attacks, rather than a full-scale offensive, after evacuating civilians from the area. Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Wednesday that it struck various Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, targeting at least 40 sites.
- Hamas is still holding nearly 130 hostages in the Gaza Strip—several of whom are dual Israeli-American citizens—but it’s unclear how many of those hostages are still alive. Hamas released a highly edited propaganda video on Wednesday featuring 23-year-old American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin reading a statement pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut a deal with the terrorist group to free the remaining hostages. Hamas brutally kidnapped Goldberg-Polin from the Nova music festival on October 7 and blew off much of his left arm in a grenade explosion. It was unclear exactly when the video was filmed, though Goldberg-Polin said he had been held for nearly 200 days.
- Germany’s foreign ministry announced on Wednesday that the country would continue to financially support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the primary U.N. agency working in Gaza. Several countries, including the U.S. and Germany—the top two contributors—paused their funding of the agency in January following Israel’s claim that at least 12 of its workers participated in Hamas’ October 7 attacks. Germany’s government said it would reinstate the funding after a review commissioned by the U.N. released on Monday found that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this.” In a press statement, German officials emphasized what they called the “vital and currently irreplaceable role played by UNRWA in meeting the basic needs of the people in Gaza.”
- Toomaj Salehi, an Iranian rapper and vocal critic of the Iranian regime in both his music and on social media, was handed a death sentence on Wednesday on charges including “corruption on Earth.” Salehi was first arrested in October 2022 for speaking in support of anti-government protests in the country. In April 2023, a U.S. State Department spokesman said the rapper’s arrest “underscores just how much Iran’s leadership fears its own people, particularly young people like Toomaj.” Salehi has 20 days to appeal the sentence, which his lawyer said he plans to do.
- President Biden on Wednesday signed into law a $95 billion foreign aid and national security package which includes support for Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed the legislative package—which also contains a measure that could lead to the potential ban of TikTok—that the House drew up and passed last week. “When our allies are stronger, we are stronger,” Biden said shortly after signing the bill.
- The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in a case examining whether an Idaho law restricting abortion access violates a federal law that requires hospitals receiving Medicare funding to provide emergency care. The Biden administration sued Idaho in 2022, arguing the federal law—known as EMTALA—protects abortions that doctors deem medically necessary. Conversely, the Idaho law only allows exceptions to save the mother’s life and in cases of rape or incest. The justices seemed divided over the issue on Wednesday, and the court’s decision could have implications beyond Idaho, including in six other states that have implemented similar abortion bans.
- After initially setting a deadline of midnight on Tuesday for protesters to dismantle their camp or face “disciplinary action” from the university or law enforcement, Columbia University administrators on Wednesday extended the deadline for the groups to do so. A Columbia spokesperson told the Columbia Spectator early Wednesday morning that university administrators were continuing negotiations with the student activists for the next 48 hours. Meanwhile, police arrested more than 50 people at a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) on Wednesday after they proceeded with plans to occupy a part of the campus lawn without authorization from the UT administration.
- Jim Hoft, the founder of the conspiracy theory-laden website, Gateway Pundit, announced on Wednesday that the site’s parent company had declared bankruptcy. Hoft said that the move was made to help “consolidate litigation” against the company, which was sued by two Georgia election workers in December 2021 for publishing “false and endlessly repeated accusations that [they] committed election fraud.”
Time To Check Your Contract
In light of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) decision Tuesday to retroactively ban non-compete agreements, your Morning Dispatch editors have an announcement to make.
Just kidding. We’ve learned from painful experience not to joke about major changes to this newsletter.
The FTC passed a rule on Tuesday eliminating non-competes—contract clauses that block employees from working for a company’s competitors for a certain period of time after leaving a job—for all American workers, initiating a sweeping change affecting millions of employees. But the rule already faces a legal challenge from the business groups that favor non-competes and believe the FTC has overstepped its authority.
The commission approved the change in a 3-2 vote with two Republican commissioners voting against the ban. “The FTC’s final rule to ban non-competes will ensure Americans have the freedom to …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,574-word story on the FTC’s move to ban non-compete agreements is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- Apparently, venture capitalists and book publishers have a lot in common. “[Publishers] invest small sums in lots of books in hopes that one of them breaks out and becomes a unicorn, making enough money to fund all the rest,” Elle Griffin wrote on her Substack, The Elysian, in a report on the finances of five major book publishers. “The Big Five publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Britney Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business. They also sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like Lord of the Rings, and children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).”
- “The skies above Athens turned orange on Tuesday as clouds of dust from the Sahara blew north, casting an eerie glow over the Greek capital’s landmarks,” Niki Kitsantonis reported in a photo essay for the New York Times. In the times of Ancient Greece, an orange atmosphere would have been a sign that the gods of Mount Olympus were displeased—but with summer on the horizon, perhaps they just wanted a spray tan. “The phenomenon isn’t new—sandstorms from North Africa have shrouded Britain, Greece and Spain in the past—but the event led to remarkable scenes around the Acropolis and in other parts of Athens.” Indeed, the pictures bear a closer resemblance to the fictional planet of Arrakis from Dune than to the bustling Greek city.
Presented Without Comment
GOP Sen. Mitt Romney, asked to weigh in on Donald Trump’s hush money case: “I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump’s character. And as far as I know, you don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.”
Also Presented Without Comment
Former President Donald Trump, on Truth Social: “Wow! Former A.G. Bill Barr, who let a lot of great people down by not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country, has just Endorsed me for President despite the fact that I called him ‘Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy’ (New York Post!). Based on the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I am removing the word ‘Lethargic’ from my statement. Thank you Bill.”
In the Zeitgeist
In his first-ever outing at Nationalss Park in Washington, D.C.—and on Japanese Heritage Night with diplomats from his home country watching—Dodgers’ star Shohei Ohtani did this:
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Scott praised (🔒)—and explained—the resilience of global supply chains, Jonah condemned (🔒) the left-wing silence on the pro-terrorist speech on college campuses, and Nick argued (🔒) that the MAGA movement and anti-Israel protests have their capacity for both menace and cringe in common.
- On the podcasts: Adaam interviewed Israeli-born Columbia Assistant Professor Shai Davidai about the protests at Columbia University on The Dispatch Podcast, and today’s episode of The Remnant, Jonah is joined by Chris to discuss antisemitism at elite colleges and drama in the House of Representatives.
- On the site: Ari Blaff reports from Portland on Oregon’s swift reversal on drug legalization and David May and Antonette Bowman remind colleges that they could enforce their own rules in the face of encampments on campus.
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