Israel Kills Hezbollah Leader

Happy Monday! And welcome to the most wonderful time of the year: Fat Bear Week. (Editor’s Note: I nominate Andrew Billings.)

The annual contest congratulates the brown bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska on a summer of bulking up before they go into hibernation for the winter—and pits them against each other in a battle to crown the chonkiest bear. (Editor’s Note: … Oh. Whoops.)

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) airstrike in Beirut on Friday killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the IDF and the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based terror group both confirmed on Saturday. U.S. officials claimed they had no prior warning about the massive strike—likely carried out with U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs—which took place while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in New York City as part of the United Nations General Assembly meeting. After days of sustained attacks by the IDF—including another strike over the weekend targeting Hezbollah official Nabil Kaouk—the terror group’s leadership is significantly degraded. Israeli forces continued airstrikes in the region over the weekend, striking a port in Yemen on Sunday controlled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, as well as bombing additional targets in southern Lebanon. 
• U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Sunday that the U.S. military had conducted two strikes in Syria this month, targeting senior leaders of an al-Qaeda affiliate and the Islamic State (ISIS). Combined, CENTCOM said the two strikes—on September 16 and September 24—killed 37 terrorists and claimed there had been no civilians harmed. 
• More than 90 people have died as a result of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall just east of Tallahassee, Florida, late Thursday night as a Category 4 storm. The death toll is expected to rise after the storm cut a path of destruction through the southeast over the weekend, bringing heavy rain that caused flooding and mudslides—particularly in North Carolina and southern Appalachia—as well as heavy winds that felled trees and knocked out power for some two million people. President Joe Biden on Saturday approved major disaster declarations for Florida and North Carolina, as well as emergency declarations for Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama. Biden said Sunday he plans to visit some of the impacted areas this week, provided it doesn’t interfere with recovery work.
• The U.S. armed forces carried out training exercises with four other Pacific nations—the Philippines, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand—in the South China Sea on Saturday, at the same time as China undertook drills elsewhere in the South China Sea. China holds an illegal claim on much of the waterway and has recently behaved aggressively toward Filipino vessels as part of a dispute over coral islands. 
• Austria’s far-right Freedom Party won its first-ever general election victory Sunday, securing more than 29 percent of the vote, ahead of the ruling conservative party. The Freedom Party—which favors ending sanctions against Russia, is skeptical of the European Union, and takes a hardline on immigration—may not be able to form a government after leaders of the other parties said they would refuse to join a coalition with controversial Freedom Party leader, Herbert Kickl. 
• Former President Donald Trump met on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who later said that he had “very direct information” from the former president “that he will be on our side, that he will support Ukraine.” Over the weekend, Russian attacks in Kharkiv reportedly killed four people, Russian airstrikes on a hospital in the northeastern Ukrainian town of Sumy killed nine people and injured a dozen more, and more than a dozen were wounded in strikes on the city of Zaporizhzhia. 
• Singer, songwriter, and actor Kris Kristofferson died on Saturday at the age of 88. The Oxford-educated country music star penned songs for Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Ray Price, and others throughout his long career, which included starring in A Star is Born opposite Barbra Streisand.
• British actress Maggie Smith died Friday at the age of 89. Though best known in recent years for her roles in the TV show Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter film series, Smith was prolific on the stage. She also won Oscars for 1969’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and 1978’s California Suite.

‘We Are Winning’

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared during his fiery address to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that the U.N. was a “swamp of antisemitic bile,” dozens of diplomats in attendance had already walked out in protest. 

But the rhetorical explosions in New York City were merely a distraction—perhaps, it appears, by design—from a massive strike that rocked Beirut on Friday. 

After more than a week of Israeli attacks on the senior leadership of Hezbollah …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,571-word story on the Israeli strike that killed Hassan Nasrallah is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• There’s a battle brewing inside BRICS—a group of rising, non-Western countries. “Some of its members, chief among them China and Russia, want to position the grouping against the West and the global order crafted by the United States,” Alexander Gabuev and Oliver Stuenkel explain for Foreign Affairs. “The addition of Iran, an inveterate adversary of the United States, only deepens the sense that the group is now lining up on one side of a larger geopolitical battle. Other members, notably Brazil and India, do not share this ambition. Instead, they want to use BRICS to democratize and encourage the reform of the existing order, helping guide the world from the fading unipolarity of the post–Cold War era to a more genuine multipolarity in which countries can steer between U.S.-led and Chinese-led blocs. This battle between anti-Western states and nonaligned ones will shape the future of BRICS—with important consequences for the global order itself.”
• DNA testing company 23andMe may not be long for this world, with uncertain results for all the genetic data it now owns, Kristen V. Brown reported for The Atlantic. “Its stock is on the verge of being delisted,” she wrote. “It shut down its in-house drug-development unit last month, only the latest in several rounds of layoffs. Last week, the entire board of directors quit, save for Anne Wojcicki, a co-founder and the company’s CEO. Amid this downward spiral, Wojcicki has said she’ll consider selling 23andMe—which means the DNA of 23andMe’s 15 million customers would be up for sale, too. … DNA might contain health information, but unlike a doctor’s office, 23andMe is not bound by the health-privacy law HIPAA. And the company’s privacy policies make clear that in the event of a merger or an acquisition, customer information is a salable asset. … For nearly two decades, the company had an incentive to keep its customers’ data private: 23andMe is a consumer-facing business, and to sell kits, it also needed to win trust. Whoever buys the company’s data may not operate under the same constraints.”

Presented Without Comment

Former President Donald Trump, on Truth Social: 

It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris. This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States!

In the Zeitgeist

The late Dame Maggie Smith seemed to resent the fame she garnered from her portrayal of the Dowager Countess of Grantham on the hit TV show Downton Abbey. “It’s freedom,” she said when the show ended. But even she had to admit that her own barbed wit made her a good fit to play “spiky elderly ladies.” And Violet Crawley was the spikiest of them all: 

Toeing the Company Line

• Dispatch Politics’ Charles Hilu answered readers’ questions in September’s Monthly Mailbag. To learn about Charles’ personal connection to the Salem Witch Trials, his thoughts on the best Lebanese food, and the most challenging role of his theater career, be sure to click here. 
• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics crew dug into new data about Americans’ faith in elections, Jonah argued governing shouldn’t be an exercise in “experimentation,” Nick tried to explain (🔒) why Trumpworld is backing New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Chris bemoaned the proliferation of economic pandering this election cycle, and for Dispatch Faith, Jen Pollock Michel explored what is required of a Christian citizen. 
• On the podcasts: Jonah caps off a big week for The Remnant by ruminating on the “presidential mandate” and why it’s meaningless, and Jamie is joined on The Dispatch Podcast by David Rubenstein to discuss presidential legacies. 
• On the site over the weekend: Luis explored what Matt Walsh’s new film, Am I Racist?, misses about race in America, and Mark Tooley chronicled how the new Global Methodist Church came to be.
• On the site today: Charlotte looks at what Hassan Nasrallah’s death might mean for the future of Hezbollah and Melissa Kearney pens this week’s Monday Essay about why we shouldn’t dismiss concerns about a falling birth rate.