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.

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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.

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1. 🏛️ 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.
2. 🚬 Teen tobacco use is at a 25-year low. Go deeper.
3. ⚖️ Trump's attorneys asked a judge to delay the public release of evidence in his criminal trial until after the election. Go deeper.

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.