Time Is Running: US officials say that with world opinion turning against them because of the civilian slaughter in Gaza, Israel has limited time to destroy the Hamas militant organization before the country loses sympathy over the 1,400 people killed in the October 7^th attacks.

  Deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza is approaching 11,000. Asked by reporters if he was worried that those casualties would generate future Hamas militants, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Brown Jr. said, “Yes, very much so.”

  With Hamas positioning its underground bunkers, weapon caches, and rocket launchers under or near schools, mosques, and hospitals, Israel has ceased to care whether it kills civilians to destroy those targets.

  American officials worry that as Israel presses its destruction of Gaza it might spark a wider regional war in which Israel is seen as the victimizer, not the victim.

ALMOST HEAVEN: West Virginia’s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who has shaded toward the Republican side to survive in office, announced that he will not run for re-election in 2024. This sets up a fight for the Democrats to hold on to their thin 51-49 majority in the senate.

  “After months of deliberation and long conversation with my family, I believe, in my heart of hearts, that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia,” Manchin said in a message posted on social media. He said that instead of serving in the senate he will be travelling the country “to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.” 

  Manchin has been a senator since 2010, serving during a transitional period in which many of the working classes have gone from Democrat to Republican, seeing the party of Trump as the champion of the little guy.

JUDGE NOT: Senate Republicans have effectively blocked a Democratic plan to subpoena two conservative financial beneficiaries of Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas in an ethics inquiry.

  Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, chairman of the judiciary committee, delayed his plan to force cooperation from Leonard Leo, a longtime leader of the Federalist Society, and billionaire Republican Harlan Crow.

  The Republicans threatened to make an issue out of liberal Justice Sonya Sotomayor possibly using court staff to promote her book sales. 

  The truth is that many, if not all the justices, have used their positions to get rich, but none more so than the “originalist” conservative Clarence Thomas. 

THE BIG MELT: Greenland’s glaciers and floating ice shelves are melting at a quicker rate and becoming destabilized, according to two separate studies published this week.

  The peripheral glaciers in coastal mountains that are not connected to the primary Greenland ice sheet retreated twice as fast between 2000 and 2021 as they did before the turn of the century, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

  The floating ice is melting mostly from beneath because of warmer ocean water.

  The study says glaciers in southern Greenland have shrunk by 18 percent on average since 2000, and glaciers on other parts of the island have become shorter by 5 to 10 percent. The research was done in part by comparing photographs from the 1930s to current satellite images.

  Another study says the Denman and Scott glaciers in East Antarctica could lose ice faster in the future than previously thought. Together, they hold enough water to raise sea levels by five feet.

THE OBIT PAGE: Former astronaut Frank Borman, who commanded two early NASA missions including the first to orbit the moon, has died at age 95 in Billings, Montana after a stroke. He was NASA’s oldest living astronaut. 

  Known for discipline, attention to detail, and a no-nonsense demeanor, Borman used to say he cared more about beating the Soviet Union in the space race than being a national hero. 

  On Christmas Eve, 1968, Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders circled the moon 10 times, becoming the first humans to have left Earth’s gravitational pull. He said later, “The Earth was the only thing in the world in the universe that had any color. Everything else was black and white but the earth was beautiful blue and white.” 

THE SPIN RACK: The FBI is investigating suspicious letters sent to public officials across the country, some of those letters targeted at election officials and containing the drug fentanyl. Letters have been received in California, Georgia, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, and Washington state. — Presidential son Hunter Biden has filed a defamation suit against Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com accusing him of publishing false statements claiming Biden sought a bribe from Iran.The lawsuit accuses Byrne of claiming that Hunter offered to have his father, Joe Biden, “unfreeze $8 billion in Iranian funds” in return for $800 million. — A Manhattan jury ordered actor Robert DeNiro’s company to pay the former assistant of the Oscar Best Actor winner $1.2 million because he subjected her to abuse and misogynistic behavior. Graham Chase Robinson, who worked for De Niro for 11 years, had charged that her boss underpaid her because she was a woman, engaged in creepy behavior like having her scratch his back, or talking to her on the phone while he was peeing.

BELOW THE FOLD: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis likes to say that he is the only presidential candidate who served in the military during wartime. 

  DeSantis was on active duty from spring of 2004 to early 2010 as a Navy lawyer, serving as a prosecutor, defense lawyer, and international law attorney. He served at the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay and went to Iraq as an adviser to a Navy SEAL commander overseeing operations in Fallujah, Ramadi, and the rest of Al Anbar province. DeSantis is careful not say he fought in a war because he fought all his battles in a courtroom.