TECH WAR: The Gaza Health Ministry, which answers to Hamas, now says that 16,000 people have been killed in the crowded strip of land since the war with Israel began. 

  The US is pushing for Hamas to release its hostages to bring a pause in the fighting. “Such a release of a large number of hostages would result in a significant pause in fighting,” and a “massive surge of humanitarian relief,” President Biden’s top adviser on the Middle East, Brett McGurk, told a security summit in Bahrain today.

  The Washington Post details how Hamas militants studied Israeli border security and took advantage of the system’s dependence on technology over human observation to launch their October 7^th attack.

  After studying video taken from dead Hamas fighters and from Israel, the Post explains how Hamas “blinded” the border defenses Israel had touted as their “Iron Wall,” knocking out video observation towers and remote-controlled machine guns, destroying tanks with drones, and allowing fighters to breach the border in as many as 30 locations. They went on to slaughter 1,200 people and take 220 hostages.

  Israel failed to take warning from available videos of Hamas militants attacking mock Israeli villages, believing that Hamas did not really want a war.

  Charles Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, told The Post, “We didn’t believe that Hamas had this capability, and so we didn’t see it coming,” 

INTELLIGENCE: Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI which runs the popular Chat-GPT and has been “the face” of the artificial intelligence boom, has been fired by the company board of directors. They didn’t give much explanation, just that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

  The 38-year-old Altman helped found OpenAI with the backing from Elon Musk in 2015. The company rocked the world last year with the release of Chat-GPT, an artificial intelligence engine that can write a love letter, a college student’s term paper, or give instructions on how to become rich.

  Hours after Altman’s firing, Greg Brockman, the company’s president, said he was quitting.Brockman posted on Twitter/X, “Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today. We too are still trying to figure out exactly what happened.”

ORANGE ALERT: A Colorado judge yesterday ruled to allow Donald Trump to remain on the state’s 2024 primary ballot despite finding that the former president had a role in the January 6^thinsurrection. 

  Judge Sarah Wallace ruled that Trump is not subject to an amendment to the US Constitution that bars officials who have engaged in insurrection from holding federal office even though Trump was president on that day. She wrote that despite overwhelming evidence against Trump, it has not been proven in court. 

 Prosecutors in Georgia have proposed an August 5^th start of trial for Trump and the remaining defendants in the state’s election interference trial. That’s just a few weeks after the Republican National Convention in which it looks like Trump will be the 2024 presidential nominee. 

  A trial starting that day would likely run right through election day and beyond, with Trump required to be present in court. 

  In a court filing yesterday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wrote: “This proposed trial date balances potential delays from Defendant Trump’s other criminal trials in sister sovereigns and the other Defendants’ constitutional speedy trial rights.”

  Trump faces six other civil and criminal trials.

THE MOON AND MARS: Elon Musk’s SpaceX was on schedule this morning to make its second attempt at launching the largest rocket the world has ever seen, a 400-foot stainless steel monster known as Starship. Its massive first stage they call “Super Heavy,” is powered by 33 synchronized Raptor engines. 

  Musk hopes that Starship can become a cheap, reusable system for human exploration of the moon and Mars.

  Today’s launch window closes at 8:20 am EST.

THE SPIN RACK:  The Republican chair of the House Ethics Committee introduced a resolution yesterday to expel New York Republican Rep. George Santos from Congress, citing the committee’s damning report detailing violations of House rules and using campaign money for personal luxuries. Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi said there’s plenty of evidence for punishment, “And the most appropriate punishment is expulsion.” — Following IBM, Apple, Disney and other advertisers are leaving Twitter/X after owner Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic tweet. — Police in Concord, New Hampshire yesterday afternoon shot and killed an active shooter on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital after he had killed one person in the lobby. — Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, 96, has entered hospice care at home in Georgia with her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, who has been under hospice care since February. Rosalynn has dementia.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Rapper Snoop Dogg, who’s known as much for being perpetually stoned as he is for his music, announced that he’s giving up weed.

  He has said he takes as many as 80 smoke breaks a day and even got high in the White House. He’s lived on marijuana and off it, launching several businesses focused on cannabis, even a pot-focused media company called “Merry Jane.” 

  But Snoop posted to his 82.5 million Instagram followers that, “After much consideration & conversation with my family, I’ve decided to give up smoke.” He said, “Please respect my privacy at this time.”

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