THE WAR ROOM: Both the Israeli military and Hezbollah in Lebanon say an air strike in Beirut killed Ibrahim Aqeel, a top commander believed to have been behind the 1983 suicide bombings in Beirut that killed at least 360 people, the majority of them US Marines.

  As many as 31 people died in yesterday’s attack on two apartment buildings, including women and children. The buildings were levelled. Lebanon’s minister of health said 70 people have been killed since Tuesday in Israeli air strikes as well as the pager and walkie-talkie explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

  Back in 1983 the US Marines had been deployed as peacekeepers. The suicide bombing that killed 220 of them was the worst day for the Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. The US subsequently designated Aqeel as a “specially designated global terrorist” with a $7 million bounty for his capture or death.

COMMA-LA: Vice President Kamala Harris is bearing down on the emotional issue of preventable deaths and suffering in states where abortion is illegal.  She accuses Republicans who support abortion bans of causing unnecessary suffering.

  In her rallies Harris is focusing on the life-or-death risks that abortion bans pose to pregnant women and pinning the blame on former President Donald Trump, who takes credit for the Supreme Court decision that overturned the national right to abortion. Harris has taken to calling abortion bans “the Trump abortion ban.”

  In Madison, Wisconsin the crowd went silent as Harris spoke about visiting the family of a Georgia woman who died of sepsis after waiting for more than 20 hours for treatment of an incomplete medication abortion.

BY THE NUMBERS: While the race for president remains tight in the polls, Kamala Harris won the fundraising contest in August. Harris’s campaign raised $190 million last month while spending almost $174 million. 

  The Trump campaign finance report showed that he raised $43 million in August and spent $61 million, with $135million in cash left to spend going into September. 

COUNT ON IT: The Georgia State Election Board voted to force counties to hand-count all ballots cast on Election Day, which could significantly delay the determination of results in what is a battleground state. This would be in addition to the machine count.

  The new rule passed on a 3-2 vote. It’s one of many right-wing election policies passed by the Georgia Board over the past few months even while they are being criticized for re-writing the rules to favor Donald Trump in the election. The Georgia election board previously granted local election officials power over certifying the vote, which opponents say could disrupt the process.

  Critics say hand counting could introduce errors and confusion into the count.

THE OBIT PAGE: Nelson DeMille, the author who cranked out bestsellers about terrorists, Russian spies, murderers, Mafia bosses, and more unsavory characters at large in the world making him a rainmaker in the publishing business, died this week at age 81.

  Once an Army platoon leader in Vietnam, DeMille got his start churning out pulp novels for $1,500 apiece.

  His breakout novel was “By the Rivers of Babylon” about a Middle East peace mission that goes wrong. He wrote a new book every two years in longhand on legal pads.

  DeMille’s library of 40 titles includes, “The Lion’s Game,” “Gold Coast,” and “The General’s Daughter.”

THE SPIN RACK:  The Secret Service is responsible for multiple security failures that led to the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump, according to the first report on the attack released yesterday. The agency’s internal review found that agents failed to use technology to detect the attacker as he flew a drone over the rally venue hours earlier. Trump’s protective detail had no idea police were frantically searching for a suspicious person, until shots were fired. — The thoroughly American cheap hotel chain Motel Six has been sold to an Indian company for $525 million. — A 100-foot motor yacht carrying fireworks and 1,000 rounds of ammunition burned this week in Marina del Rey harbor off Los Angeles.  It was left at dock charred and tilted to its port side. The owner of the boat and cause of the fire were not identified. — Five members of the Tufts University men’s lacrosse team were still in the hospital yesterday, several days after participating in a workout led by a graduate who recently completed Navy SEAL training. — Fall officially begins tomorrow morning at 8:43 am eastern time.

BELOW THE FOLD: While railing about Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio, Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance are having trouble with their geography.

  Trump said at a rally, “Illegal Haitian migrants … nobody knows where they come from.” Really, nobody knows ….

  Vance complained that “Twenty thousand migrants, primarily from Haitia, have been dropped into Springfield, Ohio.”

  Trump has a solution, though. He told a rally, “We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio. We’re gonna get these people out. We’re gonna be bringin’ ‘em back to Venezuela.”

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