Axios PM

October 17, 2024
Good afternoon. Today's newsletter, edited by Sam Baker, is 528 words, a 2-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing.
1 big thing: New hope for hostage deal

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's death creates an opportunity to resume negotiations for a deal to release the 101 hostages still held by Hamas and establish a ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli and U.S. officials tell Axios' Barak Ravid.
- Sinwar's death is a huge blow to Hamas, which has lost most of its military and political leadership.
- It also provides Netanyahu the "victory picture" he's been looking for since the Oct. 7 attacks and gives him political space to move toward a deal.
- Israeli officials said other Hamas leaders and commanders — unlike Sinwar — might be more ready to surrender and even go into exile as part of a deal to end the war.
🔎 Driving the news: Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in a house in Rafah, Gaza.
- An infantry unit of 19-year-old soldiers who were on routine patrol in the area exchanged fire with three armed militants and killed them.
- It was a coincidental encounter that wasn't based on intelligence.
It's unclear what Sinwar was doing in the house. Israeli and U.S. intelligence believed for a long time that he was hiding in deep underground tunnels with hostages around him.
2. 📖 McConnell's harsh words for Trump
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) privately lambasted former President Trump as "despicable" and a "narcissist" after the 2020 election, according to a soon-to-be-released biography.
- The forthcoming biography of McConnell — "The Price of Power," by Michael Tackett, AP's deputy Washington bureau chief — draws from years of interviews with the Senate leader as well as his recorded diaries.
💬 Following the 2020 election, McConnell privately called Trump a "despicable human being" and said he was "stupid as well as being ill-tempered."
- "It's not just the Democrats who are counting the days" until Trump leaves office, he added.
3. Catch me up

- 🏛️ Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made a forceful case against tariffs in a speech this afternoon. While her words implicitly target former President Trump, they also signify shifting intellectual currents within the Democratic Party. Go deeper ... Read her speech.
- 🚬 Teen tobacco use is at a 25-year low. Go deeper.
- ⚖️ Trump's attorneys asked a judge to delay the public release of evidence in his criminal trial until after the election. Go deeper.
4. 🎃 1 for the road

This pumpkin weighs 2,471 pounds, making it the winner of the 51st World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off.
- Travis Gienger, a Minnesota horticulture teacher, captured the biggest-pumpkin crown for the second year in a row, but this year's gourd fell 8 pounds short of beating the world record he set last year.

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