Wednesday briefing
A senior Hamas leader is killed in an explosion in Beirut
Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri and two leaders of its armed wing were killed in an explosion in Lebanon that the group blamed on Israel. Israel has refused to discuss the matter, but two senior US officials said Israel was responsible for the attack.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said seven members of the group had been killed in the strike in a suburb of Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Videos from the scene show at least one car burst into flames in front of a tall building as dozens of people gathered in the area.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal conversations, said this was most likely the first of many covert attacks Israel will carry out against Hamas officials or operatives with any connection to the deadly October 7 attack in which people died. 1,200 people.
Al-Arouri: A founder of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, he was elected vice chairman of the group’s political bureau in October 2017 and held the official role of head of Hamas in the West Bank. Regional security officials said al-Arouri was usually in Beirut, serving as an ambassador of sorts for the militant group Hezbollah.
Russia bombards Kiev with missiles
Russian missiles and drones pounded Kiev yesterday morning, officials said, in a massive attack on the Ukrainian capital and other cities, killing at least five people and wounding nearly 130 others. The barrage came a day after Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, vowed to retaliate for a Ukrainian attack on a Russian city.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the attack involved about 100 missiles, including hypersonic weapons that fly several times the speed of sound. It was the latest in an escalating cycle of air strikes between the two countries.
Moscow claimed that Ukraine retaliated hours later by firing at least eight rockets into the Russian city of Belgorod in an attack that a local official said killed one civilian and injured four others.
Analysis: Both sides appear to be justifying the airstrikes as retaliation for previous attacks, in an escalating violence that risks causing more civilian casualties.
A ‘miracle’ in Japan after a plane explodes in flames
A Japan Airlines plane collided with a Japanese Coast Guard plane while landing at Haneda Airport in Tokyo yesterday, causing the passenger plane to catch fire. All 367 passengers and 12 crew members on the plane were evacuated safely, the airline said.
Five Coast Guard members, who were on their way to deliver supplies to western Japan, which was hit by a recent powerful earthquake, were killed in the accident.
Quotable: “It was a miracle that all the passengers got off,” said an aviation expert.
Earthquake: The death toll rose to at least 55 yesterday, authorities said.
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A dinosaur fossil – which resembles a Tyrannosaurus rex, but is about the size of a pickup truck – is currently for sale for $20 million at an art gallery in London. It has raised a question that has come to obsess and polarize paleontologists: Is the dinosaur simply a young T. rex, or does it represent a different but related species known as Nanotyrannus?
The dispute is now raging through auction houses and galleries, where some see the T. rex name as a valuable brand – with a price to match.
‘Library joy’
Mychal Threets, a 33-year-old librarian, wants you to abandon the lingering idea of the library as a dry, humorless place where rigid pedants rule. He makes videos about what he calls “library joy,” in which he tells stories about the daily events at the Northern California library where he works.
“It means you can see that people love their local library and just have great moments,” he said. In addition to providing a dose of joy, the videos – which have been viewed millions of times – remind people that libraries offer many more books: access to the Internet, the ability to check out baking equipment, video games and instruments, and a place to exist. for people who have nowhere else to go.
Threets borrows a line from one of his favorite childhood characters, Arthur Read, a mild-manneredaardvark from a book and animated series: “Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card.” (He even has Arthur Read’s library card tattooed on his arm.)