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Happy Friday! If you didn’t get your fill during her recent “ask me anything” series on The Remnant, be sure to catch Sarah Isgur on ABC’s This Week at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- During an overnight meeting, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for a military operation to take over Gaza City. The plan involves evacuating all civilians from Gaza City by October 7, while providing humanitarian aid outside of combat zones. The plan is more limited than Netanyahu’s original proposal. He told Fox News yesterday that Israel intended to retake all of Gaza and pass governance to Hamas-opposed Arab forces. Ahead of the Cabinet meeting, Hebrew media reported that Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had pushed back against a broader plan, saying it would endanger the hostages and “drag Israel into a black hole.” Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich voted against the operation, with Ben-Gvir opposing the provision of humanitarian aid, and Smotrich demanding a Cabinet resolution committing that the operation would not be stopped, under any condition.
- The United States has brokered a peace framework between Armenia and Azerbaijan, to be signed by the heads of both countries during a meeting at the White House on Friday. This would mark the first U.S.-brokered bilateral declaration between the two nations, which have been at odds since Die Hard was in theaters. Under the deal, Armenia will grant the U.S. a 99-year lease over the mountainous Zangezur Corridor—Armenian territory between Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave—which Washington has named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” or “TRIPP.” The U.S. will sublease development in the 27-mile corridor to private firms to build rail, energy, and fiber-optic lines, in a move seen as boosting American influence in the South Caucasus and curbing Russian sway. The pact follows Azerbaijan’s 2023 military offensive that triggered the exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians, and comes after a March 2025 draft peace treaty between the two states. U.S. officials hope the agreement could open the door to further negotiations to add Azerbaijan to the Abraham Accords.
- Haiti’s transitional council on Thursday appointed a new president, Laurent Saint-Cyr, a businessman who previously served as head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Haiti and of the country’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In his swearing in, Saint-Cyr emphasized the importance of restoring security amid a surge of gang violence, calling on international military support. Haiti remains underpoliced, with gangs controlling up to 90 percent of the capital of Port-au-Prince. Haitian authorities are still trying to locate eight people, including an Irish missionary, who were kidnapped from an orphanage early Sunday morning.
- The Bank of England cut interest rates from 4.25 percent to 4 percent, the lowest rate in two years, marking the fifth such cut since Prime Minister Keir Starmer won last year’s U.K. General Election. However, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee was split 5-4, with four members of the committee voting to hold interest rates stable, citing concerns about inflation. This was also the first time since the nine-person committee was created in 1997 that it required two votes to reach a majority consensus, with the first round split 4-4-1.
- On Thursday afternoon, OpenAI launched GPT-5, its most advanced model yet, with a particular focus on improved writing and providing more reliable answers to health questions. The company says the upgrade delivers faster, more accurate, and less “hallucinatory” responses, with internal tests showing up to an 80 percent error reduction and fewer sycophantic or misleading outputs. GPT-5 is now the default in ChatGPT for all users, but free accounts face usage limits, with GPT-5 Thinking only available for Plus users, and the GPT-5-Pro research version exclusively limited to the $200 per month Pro tier.
- President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post Thursday that he had directed the Commerce Department to begin work on a new census that excludes illegal immigrants. Trump attempted to add a question to the census about citizenship during his first term, a move blocked by a federal court, with the Supreme Court choosing not to intervene. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, as modified by the 14th Amendment, requires a count of all persons residing in each state, citizens and noncitizens alike, and the next regular census is scheduled for 2030. It’s unclear whether the president intends to hold an unprecedented mid-decade count, and civil-rights groups say the proposal to remove non-citizens from the census is “politically weaponized” and unconstitutional.
- Trump on Thursday called for the resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan in a Truth Social post, sending the company’s share price tumbling. Trump’s post came a day after Republican Sen. Tom Cotton sent a public letter to Intel Chair Frank Yeary, raising concerns about the CEO’s reported links to China’s People’s Liberation Army. Tan took over the role in March, hoping to turn around the struggling chipmaker—which was dropped by Apple in 2023, as the company completed its transition to using in-house chips, and has largely missed out on the AI boom. But in April, Reuters reported Tan’s investments in hundreds of Chinese companies, including eight with ties to the Chinese military.
- The FBI and local police launched an investigation into a suspected antisemitic hate crime in a suburb of St. Louis after three cars were set alight on Tuesday morning. In addition to the fires, “Death to the IDF” was spray-painted on the road outside the home of a U.S. citizen who had recently served in the Israeli military. In a post on X, Leo Terrell, the head of the Justice Department’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, condemned the suspected hate crime and vowed ot hold the culprits accountable: “We will pursue every avenue to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
- Brian Driscoll—a senior FBI official who served as acting director at the beginning of the Trump administration—has been fired and will depart the bureau today, multiple news outlets reported Thursday. Driscoll refused to turn over to the administration names of FBI agents who participated in investigations of the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Also on Thursday, NPR obtained and released police body camera footage in which Jared Wise—a former FBI agent who was pardoned by Trump after allegedly telling rioters to “kill” police on January 6— could be heard calling officers “disgusting, “Nazi” and “Gestapo.” Wise currently serves as an adviser to Justice Department official Ed Martin.
- Trump has nominated Stephen Miran, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, to fill a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve Board, after Adriana Kugler’s early resignation. Miran would serve through January 31, 2026, and is a longtime Trump ally who has advocated for lower interest rates, tariffs, and structural changes to the Fed. The move positions Miran as a potential successor to Chair Jerome Powell when his term ends in May 2026.
What’s Next for Gaza?
Last night, as Israel’s Security Cabinet voted to expand the war in Gaza, protesters across the country called on their government to reach a deal to bring home the remaining 50 hostages—whatever the cost. Among the demonstrators were family members of the abductees, who gathered outside of the Cabinet session to drape chains around themselves in solidarity with their loved ones.
“Escalating the fighting is a death sentence and immediate disappearance for our loved ones,” the Hostage Family Forum said in a statement on Thursday. “Look us in the eyes when you choose to sacrifice them.
The stark warning came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to take over all of the Gaza Strip ahead of Thursday night’s Cabinet meeting, which stretched on for more than 10 hours as the government and defense establishment debated the next phase of the war. In the end, the body voted to approve a plan to occupy Gaza City, leaving the prime minister’s ambitious plan to control the entire enclave up in the air.
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Speaking to Fox News’ Bill Hemmer on Thursday, Netanyahu laid out his vision for the operation, insisting that securing the freedom of the remaining Israeli hostages and finally breaking Hamas’ rule over Gaza were not mutually exclusive goals. “We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas,” he said. “I want to free 2 million Gazans from Hamas terrorism.”
According to Israeli media reports, the military operation entails encircling and evacuating Gaza City, the enclave’s capital and largest city, by October 7. An estimated 1 million people live in the urban center, which, relative to other areas of the war-ravaged Strip, has been mostly spared from Israel’s ground operations thus far, making it a Hamas bastion and symbol of resistance in the eyes of many Palestinians. After the evacuation period, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) plans to lay siege to the terrorist operatives who remain in the city.
During the Cabinet meeting, Israeli officials approved an operation focused solely on Gaza City. But it’s unclear whether, and when, the next phase of Netanyahu’s proposal to conquer the enclave in its entirety would begin. Under his initial plan, the military would also move into Gaza’s central refugee camps to dismantle Hamas infrastructure there. In the process, much of the enclave’s civilian population would be relocated to the southern Mawasi humanitarian zone, where Israel would construct hospitals, camps, and other facilities in preparation for the influx of people.
Simultaneously, the U.S. and Israel would coordinate to significantly ramp up the distribution of humanitarian aid across the Strip. In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced plans to increase the number of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation food sites from four to 16, and “begin to operate them as much as 24 hours a day.” According to Israel’s Channel 12, the effort would be funded by $1 billion in donations from the U.S. and other countries. In theory, the initiative would serve two primary goals: preventing a humanitarian crisis and further breaking Hamas’ ability to use aid as leverage over Gaza’s civilian population.
In his Thursday interview, Netanyahu laid out five key conditions for the “day after” the war: Hamas must lay down its arms, Gaza must be demilitarized, the hostages must be brough home, Israel must remain responsible for the enclave’s authority, and the enclave must be governed by a civilian authority that can live in peace with Israel. Under this blueprint, Israel would be able to reenter Gaza at will if there were signs that Hamas were trying to reconstitute. But Netanyahu also reiterated that Jerusalem wants no long-term role in Gaza’s governance. “We don’t want to keep it,” he said. “We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces.”
The specifics of that plan, such as which Arab countries have signed onto play a role in postwar Gaza, remain unclear. Speaking to Reuters, a Jordanian official denied his country’s involvement. “Security in Gaza must be done through legitimate Palestinian institutions,” the official said. “Arabs will not be agreeing to Netanyahu’s policies nor clean his mess.”
The proposed operation also met pushback from within Israel, as IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir reportedly warned that launching a full takeover of Gaza could drag the country into a “black hole.” Israeli troops are exhausted after more than 22 months of war, with turnout among reservists dropping to below 60 percent—far below the 120 percent reservist turnout in the days after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. There are also concerns about the country’s international standing, as the renewed offensive comes on the heels of a particularly difficult few weeks for Israel on the international stage and in the media.
But, perhaps most importantly for Israelis, Zamir and others have warned that occupying the entire Strip could endanger the 20 living hostages who remain in Gaza. “What Netanyahu is proposing is another war, more dead hostages, more ‘cleared for publication’ announcements, and tens of billions of shekels from taxpayers’ money poured into the delusions of [Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said Thursday, referring to two far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s government (both of whom have endorsed proposals to settle Gaza).
Hamas, meanwhile, played on Israeli concerns about the abductees’ fate. “Netanyahu’s plans to expand the aggression confirm beyond any doubt that he seeks to get rid of his captives and sacrifice them,” the terrorist group said in a statement.
But Netanyahu insists that a deal that both ensures the end to Hamas’ rule and frees the remaining hostages wasn’t on the table to begin with. Negotiations between Israeli and Hamas officials collapsed on July 24, with Washington and Jerusalem blaming the terrorist group for undermining talks. But an increasing share of Israelis are now willing to accept an agreement that leaves the terrorist group in control of Gaza. In a recent poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute, 54 percent of Israelis supported striking a hostage deal, even if it means Hamas stays in power. Just 37 percent said Israel should stay the course if doing so prevents the captives’ return.
As it prepares for a renewed offensive in Gaza, Israel may need to face this impossible choice in the days and weeks ahead. But Israeli and U.S. officials have emphasized that both objectives—freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas—need to be achieved before a lasting peace is within reach.
“There are 20 innocent human beings that are being held hostage in horrifying conditions,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview on Wednesday. “Not enough attention [is] being paid to the fact that 20 people that had nothing to do with this are being held hostage in tunnels on the verge of death—and no real talk about how Hamas needs to be disarmed and disbanded.”
Today’s Must-Read
Factionalism Yesterday, Polarization Today
Toeing the Company Line
Trump’s Love-Hate Relationship With Labor Statistics
Can Cooper Break the GOP’s Grip on North Carolina Senate Seats?
Gerrymandering Is Normal
Texas Showdown
Worth Your Time
Philosophy graduates tend to out-earn the average college graduate. Some argue this is due to the field’s widely applicable skills, but in Slow Boring, Matthew Yglesias offers a different explanation: that philosophy is hard. And he thinks other humanities should follow its lead: “The way to make humanistic learning more respected and prestigious, it seems to me, is to make the classes harder. Assign more work. Grade the work more harshly. Get the laziest and dumbest students to opt out. And then repeat the cycle. … The risk of higher standards and more rigorous grading, of course, is that fewer people will complete college. But that seems fine. I don’t care for the schtick where college graduates who desperately want their kids to go to college write articles for other people who went to college, where the thesis is ‘maybe we shouldn’t have so many people going to college.’ So I’m really not trying to gatekeep or argue that only a select few should be pursuing degrees in history or English or other liberal arts. But I think that if you want to see people studying these subjects, you have to make their study valuable. And for it to be valuable, the programs need to be rigorous.’”
Presented Without Comment
The Guardian: J.D. Vance’s Team Had Water Level of Ohio River Raised for Family’s Boating Trip
Also Presented Without Comment
Phoenix New Times: Women Shouldn’t Hold Office, Says GOP Woman Now Running for Office
“Honestly, I don’t know if I would vote for any female. I don’t know if females should be in office,” [Arizona state Senate candidate Mylie] Biggs told McCurdy and an unknown third person on the Aug. 6, 2024, episode, laughing about the extreme take. If anyone thought it was a joke, Biggs was sure to clear it up that she wasn’t kidding.
“There are a lot of really good women in office, I’m not trying to hate on anyone — like, some really good congresswomen,” Biggs added. “Yeah, I don’t think women should hold office in general. That’s my position. That’s my stance. I think women should run the home.”
In the Zeitgeist
If you’ve watched the original British version of The Office and the American version of The Office—or any of the various remakes from France, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Israel, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, India, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and Australia—and still haven’t gotten your fix, Peacock is set to release a new Office spin-off called The Paper on September 4. Starring Domhnall Gleeson and Sabrina Impacciatore, the new mockumentary series follows a small Midwestern newspaper staffed by volunteer reporters. Oscar, played by Oscar Nunez, is the only returning character, but it looks like it will have much of the same humor that made the American series such a hit.
Let Us Know
Did you watch The Office? If so, do you plan to watch The Paper?
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