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Happy Wednesday! The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday eliminated a rule requiring the “No Smoking” signs on airplanes to have an “off” switch—only 24 years after smoking became illegal on airplanes.
The jokes about government efficiency write themselves.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Monday that Ukraine expects to receive $1.6 billion in aid from the United States for the domestic manufacturing of long-range weapons. Zelensky claimed that the first $800 million package—to be paid out to a Ukrainian weapons manufacturer—would arrive soon, followed by another of roughly the same size at a later date. A U.S. Defense Department official confirmed to the New York Times on Tuesday that the first payment was imminent. The funding comes amid repeated Ukrainian requests to use Western-made long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia, as its ability to do so with its own drones is limited.
- Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced Tuesday that the Islamic State’s commander for Iraq and eight other top leaders of the terrorist group had been killed in an overnight raid on Monday. The Iraqi national security services and the international coalition force apparently acted jointly to eliminate the terrorist leader, Jassim al-Mazroui Abu Abdul Qader, in an operation that injured two U.S. service members. Defense Department spokesman Gen. Pat Ryder said Tuesday both troops were in stable condition and being treated for their injuries.
- The Lebanese Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 18 people were killed, including four children, and 60 people were wounded Monday by an Israeli airstrike near Rafik Hariri University Hospital, just south of Beirut. The Israel Defense Forces claimed that the strike was against a Hezbollah target near the hospital and did not damage the facility.
- Israeli security services on Tuesday arrested seven residents of Jerusalem on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Israeli officials—including a nuclear scientist and the mayor of an Israeli city—on behalf of Iranian intelligence agencies. The arrests marked the fifth such case in the past five months and came the day after Israeli intelligence busted another spy ring.
- The Justice Department on Tuesday indicted Brig. Gen. Ruhollah Bazghandi, a senior official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and three other men for their alleged involvement in a plot to kill Iranian-American author Masih Alinejad. Federal prosecutors had previously charged several other men—associated with an Eastern European crime group—related to efforts to assassinate Alinejad, a critic of the Iranian regime who’s lived in exile in the U.S. since 2009. The four men charged on Tuesday are in Iran and remain at large.
- U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday released a report warning of intensified attempts by foreign intelligence services—particularly from Russia, Iran, and China—to interfere in the U.S. election during the coming weeks. The report said Russian actors fabricated and amplified a viral claim about Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz and will likely continue to boost false claims—some artificial intelligence-generated or “-enhanced”—though the report suggests “the IC has no information that any foreign actor intends to compromise the integrity of the election administration process.” The report also warned Iran may try to incite violence around the election, including against election officials.
- The parent company of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post on Monday sued the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity for copyright infringement. In its filing, News Corp accused Perplexity of copying on “a massive scale” articles from the news outlets to train its model. Perplexity—created as an alternative to a traditional search engine—generates summaries based on user queries, which it advertises as being so thorough that users can “skip the links”—thereby, the suit alleges, depriving the news outlets of “critical revenue sources” generated when consumers visit their sites.
- Peggy Judd—a county supervisor in Cochise County, Arizona, who delayed certification of the 2022 midterm election results in her county over unfounded concerns about fraud in Maricopa County—pleaded guilty on Monday to misdemeanor charges of failing to perform her duties as an election official. Judd’s plea was part of a deal with Arizona state prosecutors to reduce the original charges—brought last year—of felony conspiracy and interference with an election officer.
- A Washington Free Beacon investigation published Tuesday claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris, when she was the San Francisco district attorney, plagiarized a 2007 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee from a Republican district attorney in Illinois. However, Paul Logli, the GOP district attorney in question, attributed their nearly identical testimonies to the fact that they were drafted by the National District Attorney’s Association. But the Beacon also claims that Harris presented a fictional story from an advocacy group as an actual case of sex trafficking in a report created when she was California’s attorney general, along with some statements in other contexts that appear to be lifted from Wikipedia and other sources.
- A federal judge on Tuesday ordered former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to turn over almost $150 million worth of property to two Georgia election workers who won a defamation suit against him after he falsely contended they committed election fraud in the 2020 elections. The list of property includes an Upper East Side apartment, a Mercedes Benz, over two dozen watches, and a claim for $2 million worth of unpaid legal fees for services rendered to the Trump campaign in 2020. The two workers—a mother and daughter pair, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss—were able to pursue Giuliani’s assets after a judge dismissed his bankruptcy claim.
- Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Arkansas state government announced on Monday that they believe they’ve found a trove of lithium, potentially as large as 5 million to 19 million tons, in an underground brine reservoir in southwestern Arkansas. Energy companies, including ExxonMobil, are currently investigating whether the lithium-rich water can be accessed in a cost-effective way, but the deposit is potentially more than sufficient to meet the world’s demand for the metal.
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Russia Tries to Reel Moldova and Georgia Back In
In 2014, the European Union signed economic and political association agreements—early steps toward membership in the bloc—with three former Soviet Republics: Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.
A decade later, the trio is still trying to integrate with Europe and the West while under assault from Russia and pro-Russian factions. Ukrainians are fighting tooth-and-nail on the battlefield against Kremlin forces trying to wipe their country off the map as pro-EU voices in Moldova and Georgia strive to overcome Russian and Russia-aligned efforts to subvert their democracies and bring the two countries back into its sphere of influence.
Moldova narrowly affirmed its goal of securing membership in the EU despite Russian influence in the elections last weekend, but Georgia faces its own geopolitical test on Saturday as voters go to the polls to elect a new parliament that will determine whether the Caucasus nation pursues European integration and renewed ties with the United States or continues in its drift toward ...
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,926-word item on Russian influence in Moldova and Georgia is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- Former President Donald Trump wants to wield military power, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg reported. “I asked [former White House Chief of Staff John] Kelly about their exchange,” Goldberg wrote. “He told me that when Trump raised the subject of ‘German generals,’ Kelly responded by asking, ‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’ He went on: ‘I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.’ Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel. … This wasn’t the only time Kelly felt compelled to instruct Trump on military history. In 2018, Trump asked Kelly to explain who “the good guys” were in World War I. Kelly responded by explaining a simple rule: Presidents should, as a matter of politics and policy, remember that the ‘good guys’ in any given conflict are the countries allied with the United States.”
- In Foreign Affairs, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Mara Karlin argued that “total war” is back. “An era of limited war has ended; an age of comprehensive conflict has begun,” she wrote. “Indeed, what the world is witnessing today is akin to what theorists in the past have called ‘total war,’ in which combatants draw on vast resources, mobilize their societies, prioritize warfare over all other state activities, attack a broad variety of targets, and reshape their economies and those of other countries. But owing to new technologies and the deep links of the globalized economy, today’s wars are not merely a repeat of older conflicts.” That requires a reassessment by U.S. policymakers: “To make deterrence credible in an age of comprehensive conflict, the United States needs to show that it is prepared for a different kind of war—drawing on the lessons of today’s big wars to prevent an even bigger one tomorrow.”
Presented Without Comment
Kansas City Star: TV Reporter Struck by Bullet Fragment at [Missouri Senate Candidate] Lucas Kunce Shooting Range Campaign Event
A bullet fragment struck a TV reporter at a shooting range during a campaign event on Tuesday for U.S. Senate candidate Lucas Kunce, who provided first aid to the journalist.
Kunce, a Democrat, was at a private residence near Holt north of Kansas City with former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, when a fragment appeared to have ricocheted off a target. Kunce was shooting an AR-15 at the time, and was the only person shooting when the injury occurred.
Also Presented Without Comment
Axios: Joe Rogan to Interview Trump on His Podcast
In the Zeitgeist
During the Los Angeles Lakers’ season opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves last night, LeBron James and his son Bronny made history, becoming the first father-son pair to share the court in an NBA game. What’s Bronny yelling on the court to get his dad’s attention? “Bron,” apparently.
Toeing the Company Line
- Can we replace the income tax with tariff revenue? Who will take control of the Senate? What comes next for Israel after Yahya Sinwar’s death? Kevin was joined by Scott, Alex Muresianu, the Dispatch Politics team, TMD’s own James, and Natalie Ecanow to discuss all that and more on last night’s Dispatch Live (🔒). Members who missed the conversation can catch a rerun—either video or audio-only—by clicking here.
- In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew covered former Rep. Liz Cheney’s event with Vice President Kamala Harris in Detroit and Nick unpacked Cheney’s statements about abortion while stumping for Harris.
- On the podcasts: Seth Masket joins Jonah to discuss party realignment on The Remnant.
- On the site: Gary Schmitt and Reuel Marc Gerecht argue the U.S. and EU are letting Russia win in Georgia, Kevin wonders whether Democrats regret picking Harris, and Jonah says both parties are acting like minority parties and we’re all the worse for it.
Mary Trimble is a former editor of The Morning Dispatch.
Grayson Logue is a staff writer for The Dispatch and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he worked in political risk consulting, helping advise Fortune 50 companies. He was also an assistant editor at Providence Magazine and is a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh, pursuing a Master’s degree in history. When Grayson is not writing pieces for the website, he is probably working hard to reduce the number of balls he loses on the golf course.
James P. Sutton is a Morning Dispatch Reporter, based in Washington D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2024, he most recently graduated from University of Oxford with a Master's degree in history. He has also taught high school history in suburban Philadelphia, and interned at National Review and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. When not writing for The Morning Dispatch, he is probably playing racquet sports, reading a history book, or rooting for Bay Area sports teams.
