Happy Thursday! Move over, Los Angeles: Washington, D.C., now ranks No. 1 for the worst traffic in America. We’ll take our chances with the Metrorail system, even if it means stomaching the occasional (or not-so-occasional) rat sighting.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories.
- European Union officials on Wednesday expressed strong reservations about Ukraine’s recent passage of a bill increasing the president’s power over two anti-corruption watchdogs, warning that the measure could threaten the country’s bid for EU membership. “The respect for the rule of law and the fight against corruption are core elements of the European Union,” EU Commission spokesman Guillaume Mercier said. “As a candidate country, Ukraine is expected to uphold these standards fully. There cannot be a compromise.” European officials had previously been supportive of Ukraine’s path to EU membership. Protests against the bill in Kyiv also continued Wednesday.
- Justice Department officials informed President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared several times in records related to Jeffrey Epstein, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The mentions themselves do not necessarily reflect any wrongful behavior on Trump’s part, and DOJ officials say Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision not to release the files was due to the fact that they contained child pornography and personal details of Epstein’s victims. White House spokesman Steven Cheung dismissed the story as “fake news.” Also on Wednesday, a federal judge rejected the federal government’s request to unseal transcripts from a grand jury investigation into the sex crimes committed by Epstein in Florida, saying that the request did not meet the legal standards for unsealing transcripts.
- The State Department on Wednesday opened an investigation into Harvard University’s compliance with the Exchange Visitor Program, a visa initiative for international professors, staff, and students. A letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Harvard President Alan Garber, obtained by the New York Times, gave the school a week to provide records related to the program, adding that the government planned to conduct interviews with Harvard visa recipients. “The investigation will ensure that State Department programs do not run contrary to our nation’s interests,” said Rubio in a statement.
- Columbia University on Wednesday announced plans to pay a $200 million fine to resolve several civil rights investigations stemming from its alleged failure to shield Jewish students on campus from harassment. The settlement, part of a broader deal with the Trump administration to reinstate the university’s access to federal research grants, was accompanied by Columbia’s assurances that it would institute changes to its disciplinary policies and end its consideration of race in admissions and hiring. While the university did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the agreement, “We are not … denying the very serious and painful challenges our institution has faced with antisemitism,” Columbia President Claire Shipman said in a statement.
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday released a House Intelligence Committee report from 2017 that she claimed undercut the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia wanted Trump to win the 2016 election. “New evidence has emerged of the most egregious weaponization and politicization of intelligence in American history,” she wrote on X. The report, which was drafted by the committee when it was controlled by Republicans, cast doubt on the interpretation of evidence and sources by intelligence agencies, findings which contradicted the conclusions of bipartisan Senate committees.
- Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, announced Wednesday that he plans to seek reelection to his House seat in a swing district rather than running for governor. “I have made the decision to run for reelection to the House and continue the important work I’ve been doing over the past two and a half years,” he wrote in an X post announcing the decision. The moderate Lawler had been considered as one of the strongest potential challengers to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is up for reelection in 2026. The move is widely expected to clear the way for Rep. Elise Stefanik, whose nomination as ambassador to the United Nations was withdrawn earlier this year.
Life-Saving Supplies in Limbo
In the mid-July heat of the Gaza Strip, an estimated 950 trucks worth of humanitarian aid is waiting to be distributed to people in need. And some of it may never reach them.
“Thousands of boxes and pallets of food are spoiling, including medical supplies that have already expired and rice from Jordan cooking for 90 days,” Chapin Fay, a spokesman for the nascent Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), said of the undelivered aid he saw near the Kerem Shalom crossing this week. Local aid workers have begun to describe the site as “the truck graveyard,” he told TMD.
The scenes, together with recent violence near aid centers, underscored the difficulty of getting life-saving supplies to civilians amid the ongoing war in Gaza. On Sunday, as Gazans gathered at an aid distribution site outside of Gaza City, Israeli troops in the area fired shots near the large crowd. While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described the gunfire as “warning shots” to remove an immediate threat to its soldiers, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said 85 people were killed in the incident. The IDF has disputed the death toll.
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The fog of war prevents a clear understanding of what exactly happened Sunday. But the incident is one of many violent episodes near aid sites across the Gaza Strip, as an Israeli-backed initiative seeks to prevent Hamas from commandeering food and other supplies. Aid organizations have faced numerous obstacles in trying to fight the hunger crisis in Gaza, but one thing has become clear: Getting aid into the Strip is not the problem; distributing it is.
The GHF—a new group with reported Israeli and U.S. support—began operating in Gaza in May, opening a number of aid hubs run in coordination with local contractors and secured with the help of the IDF. Prior to its entry on the scene, Israel says, Hamas exercised significant control over the distribution of aid brought into Gaza by the United Nations and other international organizations. “In the prior system, the U.N. had a near-perfect record of diversion,” Fay said. “Meaning, almost 100 percent of their aid trucks were diverted by Hamas and looters and other gangs.”
Israel argues this arrangement allowed the terror group to do three things with the influx of supplies: upsell it to vendors to generate revenue, dole it out directly to the Gazan people, and hoard it for Hamas fighters and their families. Over the last 21 months, Hamas has used its access to international aid to survive as both a military and governing entity—but it’s a problem that predates the current war. The U.N., through its financial and material support via the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), “has undergirded Hamas at every step of the way since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip” in a 2007 civil war against the Palestinian Authority, Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, told TMD.
Enter the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The new aid organization has now distributed 87 million meals to civilians in need. But its efforts to cut out Hamas have already faced significant challenges. Last month, Hamas gunmen attacked a bus transporting the organization’s Palestinian workers to a distribution site, killing 12 people. According to the GHF, the terrorist group has offered cash rewards for the killing of both American security contractors and Palestinian aid workers participating in aid delivery. “Hamas has put bounties on these people,” said Fay, who recently visited the aid centers.
Hamas’ efforts to target the foundation and its workers have compounded the other challenges of distributing aid in a densely populated war zone. Last week, scores of Palestinians were killed in a stampede near a food distribution center in the Khan Younis area. “We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd – armed and affiliated with Hamas – deliberately fomented the unrest,” the GHF said in a statement, adding that multiple weapons were identified among the crowd of aid seekers.
There have also been repeated reports of Israeli soldiers firing at or near Palestinians approaching distribution sites. While the IDF frequently acknowledges shooting at individuals who it says pose a threat to its forces, it largely disputes the steep death tolls provided by the Hamas-run government. The uptick in deadly encounters appears to be at least partially driven by the GHF’s distribution system, which relies on the Israeli military to provide security on the perimeter of aid sites.
These incidents have contributed to backlash against the GHF, which the U.N. and other international organizations have dismissed as illegitimate. The group’s origins are murky, but the State Department confirmed earlier this month that it had awarded $30 million to the foundation’s operations. The windfall came from an expedited process that allows the department to bypass certain protections against fraud and terrorism in emergency situations such as the crisis in Gaza.
Last month, 15 human rights groups penned a statement criticizing the privatization of humanitarian aid delivery as a violation of “the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.” Meanwhile, the commissioner-general of UNRWA described the GHF as an “abomination,” arguing it “provides nothing but starvation and gunfire to the people of [Gaza].” And the GHF first executive director, Jake Wood, resigned weeks before the initiative’s launch over concerns that it failed to meet “the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
Speaking to TMD on the condition of anonymity, a humanitarian official from an NGO operating in Gaza argued these concerns have hurt the foundation’s ability to effectively care for the enclave’s civilian population. “They [GHF] are not providing clean water, medical assistance, or shelter materials that people need when they’re being displaced repeatedly,” the official said, alleging that Israel has hindered the entry of aid into Gaza. “We didn’t need a new mechanism. Our problem is not a logistical problem; it’s a political problem.”
The foundation maintains that its sole goal is to get vital supplies directly into the hands of the Palestinian people. “We have one mission here, which is to deliver food directly to the people of Gaza,” Fay said. GHF’s private security allows it to safely pass through the “truck graveyard,” a byproduct of the massive risk that comes with delivering aid to civilians that has stopped other aid organizations. In fact, he added, another humanitarian organization’s truck drivers have requested security from GHF to reach distribution sites safely. Local drivers tell harrowing stories of attempts to deliver aid, thwarted by life-threatening encounters with Hamas or armed gangs.
The GHF recognizes the significant problems plaguing its current aid delivery system, particularly when it comes to securing distribution sites. It’s now working to bring food to people instead of the other way around. In its beta stages, community members who are vetted as non-Hamas operatives are delivering food as aid workers. The foundation has also urged Israel to open more distribution sites, which would alleviate problems of overcrowding and prevent aid seekers from having to travel long distances to obtain supplies.
As for the U.N., the GHF has an offer: Let us deliver the untouched aid currently spoiling near the Israeli border. “Grab an oar—we would be happy to help with security, we would be happy to help deliver,” Fay said. “The answer to most of these problems is more aid.”
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House Members Take a Long Shot at Immigration Reform
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Separation Anxiety: Courts and Congress
Furnishing the Mind | Interview: Chris Stirewalt
Worth Your Time
- With age comes wisdom. Or so they say. In a piece for the Financial Times, Janan Ganesh argued that today’s world leaders are older, more anti-establishment, and more impulsive than ever before. “The problem with aged leaders is not their health … but their incentives. As well as not having much time to leave a mark, they won’t have decades of retirement in which to suffer the legal and reputational penalties of any disastrous act committed in office. We have to get our heads around, if not a paradox, then a surprise. Age, which ‘should’ instill caution and restraint in people, quite often emboldens them. This is as true of voters as of their leaders,” he wrote. “It seems that age confers wisdom, but also a certain liberation. It imposes a sense of social duty, but also a deadline for personal achievement. To explain the disorder of the modern world, it is far more intellectually proper to cite economic trends and grand historical forces. But perhaps part of the story is that a few old men are striving for a legacy in the time that is left to them.”
- Does your dog need to attend a “wellness retreat?” A lot of Angelenos seem to think so. Accompanying Dug the golden retriever on his wellness journey, Deborah Vankin reported on the growing trend of doggie spas, mud masks, and Reiki meditation in a feature for the Los Angeles Times. “Wellness for dogs is a niche industry that mirrors the spectrum of wellness treatments for humans. As with humans, it swings from the relaxing and rejuvenating to the dubious. Vet-affiliated treatments include acupuncture, hydrotherapy and chiropractic care. Nutrition is its own subculture that includes raw and organic food, supplements and Western and Chinese herbal remedies. On the pampering end, dog spas and private practitioners offer massage, reiki meditation, inflammation-fighting red light therapy and skin and nail treatments, such as deluxe ‘pawdicures.’ Fido feeling anxious? Try forest bathing or see a pet psychic,” she wrote. “Dug is a happy-go-lucky guy. But he had a rough puppyhood, having been abandoned at a shelter where he suffered distemper, a viral disease and heartworm before being adopted. Perhaps because of that, he has nightmares, during which he kicks his feet and yelps. Could a relaxing sound bath help? It was worth a shot.”
Presented Without Comment
New York Times: Republicans Look to Rename Kennedy Center Opera House After Melania Trump
Also Presented Without Comment
Politico: Russia’s Top Court Bans Non-Existent ‘Satanist Movement’
Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed what it termed the “International Movement of Satanists” as hostile to traditional religions on Wednesday, in the latest incarnation of the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown on ideological dissent.
…
Despite the official-sounding name, the “International Movement of Satanists” does not appear to exist, at least not under that moniker. Independent Russian-language news outlet Meduza, based in Latvia, wrote that the Supreme Court has previously “also banned other fictitious movements” such as the “international LGBT movement” and then “used that designation to persecute LGBTQ+ individuals and censor artistic works.”
In the Zeitgeist
Keanu Reeves is doing a 180 from his run as assassin John Wick. In Good Fortune, a comedy coming to theaters in October, he depicts a well-meaning but inept guardian angel alongside Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari. The first official trailer dropped Wednesday:
Let Us Know
Do you think Ganesh’s critiques of the world’s aging leaders are warranted?
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