Permawar: Syrian soldiers are celebrating in the heart of Raqqa after taking the city from the Islamic State. Isis had considered it to be their capital. The city was destroyed in the months of fighting.

Guilty as Charged: Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who abandoned his post in Eastern Afghanistan and then spent five years as a prisoner of the Taliban, pleaded guilty yesterday to desertion and endangering the soldiers sent to search for him.

Bergdahl had said he left his unit to go complain to higher-ups about command problems. While in captivity, he was beaten with rubber hoses and wire cables. The Obama administration was sympathetic to Bergdahl, but President Trump called him a “dirty rotten traitor.” Bergdahl said he couldn’t get a fair trial after that.

Hearings will begin next week on Bergdahl’s punishment. Desertion carries a maximum of five years in prison and endangering fellow soldiers, up to life.

Nation: New Jersey resident Ahmad Khan Rahimi was convicted yesterday in federal court of setting off  bombs in New Jersey and in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood last year. The first was set early that morning in a garbage can at the finish line of a United States Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park, N.J. The race’s start time was delayed, however, and no one was hurt when the bomb exploded.

Frenemies: President Trump put on a show of unity yesterday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, even though the two have seriously knocked heads. Even though Trump has blamed congressional leaders for failure to pass major legislation, he told reporters after a lunch with McConnell, “The relationship is very good. We are fighting for the same thing. We are fighting for lower taxes, big tax cuts, the biggest tax cuts in the history of our nation.”

But earlier in the day, Trump, who has personally attacked McConnell, said, “There are some Republicans, frankly, that should be ashamed of themselves.”

In short, they hate each other.

It’s in the Mail: Questioned by reporters about why he has not said anything about four US Special Forces soldiers killed in Niger, or called their families, President Trump told a boldface lie, claiming “if you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls.”

The President spoke following his meeting with Mitch McConnell.

Trump said his letters have been “sent or they’re going out tonight, but they were written during the weekend. I will at some point during the period of time call the parents and the families, ‘cause I have done that traditionally.”

Pressed about Obama, Trump back peddled saying,  “I don’t know if he did. No, no, no. I was told that he didn’t often and a lot of presidents don’t, they write letters.”

A spokesman for Obama said, “President Obama engaged families of the fallen and wounded warriors throughout his presidency through calls, letters, visits to Section 60 at Arlington, visits to Walter Reed, visits to Dover, and regular meetings with Gold Star Families at the White House and across the country.”

Ramble On: Trump answered questions for about 45 minutes.

-“We are going to get drug prices, prescription drug prices, way down.”

-“I’m going to be developing an economic development bill that will put us so far ahead of other countries you will not even believe it.”

-“We’re going to be immigration work that’s going to be outstanding.”

-“The whole Russian thing was an excuse for the Democrats losing the election.”

-“We need a wall in this country. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it.”

Permawar: Iraqi forces appear to have taken the contested Kurdish city of Kirkuk without much of a fight, dealing a heavy blow to Kurdish hopes for independence.

Celestial Fireworks: Astronomers report that they have seen and recorded the collision of two dead stars that set off what they describe as a wave of celestial fireworks. Astronomers around the world turned their instruments to the sky in August to see an explosion of gamma rays, X-rays, and radio waves.

The explosion is known as a “celestial forge,” a merger between collapsed stars, more formally called a “kilonova.” These events are believed to create many of the heavier elements in the universe, including gold, silver, platinum and uranium. You wouldn’t be able to go to Jared if not for kilonovas.

Biblical Brothers: In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Matthew Belloni, Harvey Weinstein’s estranged brother Bob called the movie mogul “sick and depraved.”

The younger of the Weinstein brothers said, “It’s hard to describe how I feel that he took out the emptiness inside of him in so many ways. It’s a sickness but not a sickness that is excusable. It’s a sickness that’s inexcusable.”

He said he had begged his brother to get professional help. But he said he was unaware of the full extent of his brother’s sexual depravity. “No way. No F-in’ way was I aware that that was the type of predator that he was. And the way he convinced people to do things? I thought they were all consensual situations.”

Really. Has he ever looked at his brother?

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