WAITING: Hamas militants yesterday released two more hostages identified as elderly women in what the terrorist organization described as a humanitarian gesture. These are the same people who killed babies in their October 7^th attack.

  The two women are said to be 79 and 85 years old. Their husbands were taken hostage with them and are still being held with 220 others.

  One of the women said she was beaten and driven into Gaza on a motorbike through a series of tunnels. She said she was treated well and seen by a doctor who made sure she and other hostages continued getting the medications they did in Israel.

  Whether the release of what’s been four hostages so far represents a softening on the part of Hamas remains to be seen. The Biden administration has been pressuring Israel to delay an invasion of Gaza in part to allow more time to negotiate the release of hostages. The US is also cautioning Israel about the enormous consequences of invasion.

  With hundreds of thousands of troops poised to invade, the Israeli public is reported to be becoming increasingly impatient. But invading Gaza is a decision with years and possibly generations of implications to follow. Take over a country, or an area like Gaza, and you become responsible for everything including supplying food, water, health care, and even delivering the mail. It would also create generations of hatred.

  Palestinian authorities say that about 5,000 civilians have already been killed by Israeli bombing that has hit hundreds and hundreds of targets.

  Israel seems bent on explaining and justifying what it might be about to do. The military gave journalists a private showing of footage of the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,400 Israelis on October 7^th, much of it shot by Hamas militants themselves. Israel’s military revealed 43 minutes of the graphic footage to foreign media on the condition that the images not be shared. The images included an attempted beheading.

  Humanitarian aid crossed the border from Egypt again yesterday, but the aid has not included fuel, which means that hospitals will soon run out of fuel for their generators and patients on life support, including babies in incubators, will start to die.

THE CHAOS CONGRESS: As Congress returns to the job today with Republicans attempting again to elect a speaker, Donald Trump is politicking against Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, the #3 ranking Republican and the frontrunner, because he voted to certify the 2020 election for Joe Biden.

  Trump supporters have been spreading opposition research on Emmer and Steve Bannon’s “War Room” noted that Emmer has not endorsed Trump in the Republican presidential primary. Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn said on the podcast, “We need a MAGA speaker. That’s what it comes down to.” Bannon called Emmer a “Trump hater.”

  Even so, back at the time of the election Emmer said without proof that there were “questionable” practices in the 2020 election. He also signed on to a Texas lawsuit seeking to throw out the election results in key swing states.

  He might pay a price for not being 100 percent behind Trump. Any Republican candidate for speaker can afford to lose only a handful of party votes unless Democrats jump in, and that would be the political kiss of death for the new speaker.

SUPER FOG: A combination of smoke and mist over New Orleans yesterday created what’s described as a “super fog” that resulted in a flaming highway pileup that burned possibly dozens of vehicles and killed seven people. Another 25 people were injured, some critically.

  Police say that 158 vehicles were involved in the wreck on Interstate 55 northwest of New Orleans. An aerial picture today shows the burned out cars. Investigators say more bodies may yet be found.

ORANGE ALERT: Former Donald Trump employee Michael Cohen is set to testify against his former boss in the New York business fraud trial as soon as today. Cohen has spent time in prison and previously testified against Trump before Congress and a grand jury. Trump has called Cohen a “rat” and a liar.

  Trump has already been found to have fraudulently inflated the value of his assets and the trial is mostly to determine punishment. Cohen’s testimony before Congress was the impetus for the New York fraud investigation. He told a committee that Trump’s company started with the former president’s desired net worth and then calculated the value of his assets to match it. 

THE SPIN RACK: The Texas Rangers beat Houston 11-4 last night to win a berth in the World Series. The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Phillies play their 7^th game tonight. — The United Auto Workers have expanded their strike to the Dodge Ram pickup assembly factory and its 6,800 workers. That brings the total of striking UAW employees to 40,000. — Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan became the latest power figure to pull support for Harvard because a coalition of student groups issued a statement blaming Israel for the Hamas massacres. — An off duty pilot flying in the jump seat of an Alaska Airlines flight on Sunday has been accused of 80 counts of attempted murder for trying to turn off the engines. The plane bound to San Francisco diverted to Portland where 44-year-old Joseph D. Emerson was arrested. One passenger said a flight attendant got on the PA system and said, “He had a mental breakdown. We needed to get him off the plane immediately.”

BELOW THE FOLD: Some like it hot. The Guinness Book of World Records has recognized a newly bred pepper as the hottest pepper in the world. The new pepper designated as “X,” having nothing to do with Elon Musk or the former Twitter, is rated 2.69 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU), beating the previous record holder, Carolina Reaper, which averages 1.64 million SHU. By comparison, the average jalapeño rates between 3,000 to 8,000 SHU. Keep some rice handy on the side.

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