Tina Peters, a former Colorado Republican county clerk who espoused the conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election due to ballot fraud, was sentenced Thursday to nine years in prison for crimes related to a breach of her county’s voting system.

“You are no hero,” state District Court Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters.

“You’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”

“Your lies are well documented, and these convictions are serious. I’m convinced you’d do it all over again if you could,” Barrett told the 68-year-old former Mesa County clerk, who was accused of using another person’s security badge to allow someone else to gain access to her county’s election system.

The person who used that badge was affiliated with Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow and a leading proponent of the claim that Trump’s defeat for a second term was due to ballot fraud.

“You’re as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen,” Barrett told Peters.

Peters, who had requested probation, told the judge before being sentenced, “I’ve never done anything with malice to break the law. I’ve only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County.”

Mesa County District Attorney Daniel Rubenstein told Barrett that, “Ms. Peters has demonstrated repeatedly that she does not think she did anything wrong.”

“She submitted a statement to the court in the pre-sentence investigation report, giving excuses, giving justifications, but never once acknowledging that she did something wrong, that this was not the way to handle this,” Rubenstein said.

“What does every 12-step program start with? It starts with acknowledging you have a problem, and she has not done that, and there’s no purpose in rehabilitation for somebody who does not think they did anything wrong.”

Peters was immediately taken into custody after Barrett rejected her lawyer’s request that she remain free.

Peters was convicted by a trial jury in August of seven criminal counts, including attempt to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty, and failure to comply with secretary of state requirements.

Shortly after Peters was sentenced, the Republican presidential nominee Trump told attendees at a campaign rally in Michigan that in the 2020 election, “We won, we won, we did win.”

“It was a rigged election,” Trump said.

“That’s why I’m doing it again. If I thought I lost I wouldn’t be doing this again,” said Trump, who is facing Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in this year’s presidential race.

A federal judge will let expire a temporary restraining order against the Biden administration’s sweeping new student loan forgiveness plan, which could deliver relief to tens of millions of Americans.

The plan could benefit as many as three in every four federal student loan holders, when combined with the administration’s previous efforts, according to an estimate by the Center for American Progress.

U.S. District Judge Randal Hall in Georgia, appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush, delivered the win for the Biden administration late on Wednesday.

The ruling means President Joe Biden may move forward with his administration’s student loan forgiveness plan, just weeks before the November election.

The development stems from a lawsuit against the aid package brought by seven GOP-led states. The states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio — said the U.S. Department of Education’s new debt cancellation effort is illegal.

However, Hall found that Georgia lacked standing to sue against the relief plan, and could not be the venue for the case.

The judge directed the case to be transferred to Missouri, since the states claim Biden’s plan would most harm student loan servicer Mohela, or the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education said it appreciated the judge’s ruling that Georgia had “no legal basis” to bring the case, but slammed the GOP movement to stop the relief.

“The fact remains that this lawsuit reflects an ongoing effort by Republican elected officials who want to prevent millions of their own constituents from getting breathing room on their student loans,” they said.

“We will not stop fighting to fix the broken student loan system and provide support and relief to borrowers across the country.”

Biden’s plan would forgive student debt for four groups of borrowers: those who owe more than they originally took out; people who’ve been in repayment already for decades; students from schools with a low financial value; and those who qualify for loan forgiveness under an existing program, but haven’t applied for it yet.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff reportedly paid $80,000 in “hush money” to his former nanny as part of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) but was not prosecuted, unlike Trump.

Former President Donald Trump was prosecuted in New York and convicted on 34 counts for failing to list NDA payments to porn star Stormy Daniels (a.k.a. Stephanie Clifford) as campaign expenses (he denies the affair).

Democrats, including Emhoff’s wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, have referred to Trump as a “convicted felon,” referring to the New York case. Yet Emhoff, too, allegedly paid “hush money.”

The UK Daily Mail revealed in August that Emhoff’s first marriage broke up because of his affair with the family nanny, whom he allegedly impregnated. The affair was hidden during Harris’s Senate and presidential campaigns.

Emhoff acknowledged the affair to CNN once the story broke, but did not mention impregnating the nanny, or the fate of the child. Democrats and the media nonetheless praised Emhoff for reshaping “the perception of masculinity.”

On Wednesday, the Daily Mailreported that Emhoff had “forcefully slapped” a girlfriend in 2012, which prompted her to leave him. It added that Emhoff allegedly paid the nanny a “settlement of around $80,000, and had the nanny sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).”

It was not clear when the amount was paid, or over what period of time. The nanny lives in New York, where Trump was prosecuted.

Emhoff divorced his first wife in 2009 and married Kamala Harris in 2014; she ran for Senate in 2015-2016.

It is not clear if Emhoff also has an NDA with the alleged victim of his assault. Her story has not emerged until now, and the Daily Mail‘s sources are all the alleged victim’s friends; she herself declined to comment (as did Emhoff).

Garth Brooks has been accused of raping a makeup artist who worked for his wife Trisha Yearwood, in a new lawsuit.

The Grammy-winning artist was accused of sexual assault and battery, in a complaint filed in a state court in California on Thursday,

The plaintiff alleges the country icon brought her with him to Los Angeles for a Grammy event honoring the R&B singer Sam Moore in May 2019.

According to the suit, he booked only one hotel room there for both of them, and when she asked for a separate accommodation, he would not provide one.

She accuses him of then accosting her in the doorway nude, hauling her into another room, dangling her upside down by the ankles and raping her, in court documents obtained by TMZ.

The plaintiff was originally hired to do hair and makeup for Yearwood, and Brooks eventually enlisted her to do so for him, she claims.

Before the makeup artist filed her lawsuit, Brooks anonymously filed to fight back, using the name ‘John Doe,’ as reported by CNN.

According to the makeup artist’s suit, Brooks first made advances to her at his home in 2019, before the Los Angeles trip when she says the rape occurred.

She claims she was at Brooks’ house, waiting for him to meet her so that she could apply his makeup, when he emerged naked and erect from the shower.

She alleges that he then placed her hands on his erection, telling her that he harbored fantasies that she would perform fellatio on him while wearing her glasses until he eventually climaxed onto her face.

The makeup artist accuses Brooks of raping her later that year when they traveled to Los Angeles for his appearance at the Sam Moore tribute.

In her lawsuit, the plaintiff claims that she and Brooks did not usually travel alone together, but the Los Angeles trip was an exception.

She only found out that she and Brooks would be unaccompanied by anyone else when she boarded his private jet in Nashville to head to California, she claims.

In her court filing, the makeup artist asserts that when she arrived in Los Angeles, she learned that she would have to share a hotel room with Brooks.

She allegedly raised her objections to the arrangement and asked for a room of her own, but she claims Brooks would not budge on the matter.

In the hotel room, she says, he suddenly arrived naked in the doorway and then pulled her bodily into a separate room, onto a bed.

The plaintiff, who is said to be about five foot tall, says he grabbed her by her ankles and held her upside down while he vaginally raped her.

The makeup artist accuses Brooks of thrusting himself into her so violently that she ‘felt as if she were breaking in two.’

She continued working on his hair and makeup throughout the trip because her financial situation was such that she needed the job, she says.

The makeup artist added that Brooks exploited her circumstances to his advantage.

She accuses Brooks of groping her breasts while she was applying makeup to him, even though she asked him not to, as well as of masturbating once she was finished.

An 81-year-old Illinois man was shocked to receive a mail-in ballot for his wife, who died in October 2022.

George, who lives in Kane County about 50 miles west of Chicago, showed The Daily Wire the ballot which he found in his mailbox on Saturday. He also received a ballot addressed to his late wife ahead of the Illinois primary in March. This was especially confusing, George said, because he had shown his wife’s death certificate to Kane County election officials — who also told The Daily Wire that George’s wife was no longer on the voter rolls.

The saga has George concerned about the integrity of the presidential election — and he’s not alone. Voters in several swing states have reached out to The Daily Wire to share stories like George’s, and raise concerns about what’s going on with mail-in ballots.

“There are states that do better than others in terms of identifying and removing all forms of inaccurate voter registration,” says Honest Elections Project executive director Jason Snead, adding that there are “widespread” issues with voter rolls throughout the country.

George, who has lived in Illinois for over six decades, said his ballot issues began with the 2022 midterms, when he got to his polling place on Election Day, only to be told he couldn’t vote in person because he had a pending mail-in ballot.

In the end, George said he had to go home and pick up his mail ballot, which he hadn’t used, and take it in to get it voided. He also brought the ballot that had been sent to his late wife, which he said really “upset” the election officials. He said he was eventually able to vote, but only after about 45 minutes of discussions with election officials and showing his wife’s death certificate to have her ballot voided.

While Illinois law allows voters to request permanent mail-in vote status for primary and general elections, George told The Daily Wire that he never signed up to get a mail-in ballot, and always votes in person.

“My assumption is that they are just sending everyone they can think of a ballot,” George said.

Kane County Clerk John Cunningham told The Daily Wire that George’s wife was no longer on the rolls, and that the county’s signature verification process would have caught any attempted voter fraud.

“Even if someone got a ballot and they mailed it in, and filled it out, it would not be counted because the signature would not be right,” he said. “Because we check for signature on our voter database with the signature on the ballot and if they don’t match, then we don’t count them.”

He said that he did not know how she could have ended up with a ballot for the primary election.

“She’s not on our records, so I don’t know how she would have gotten that,” he said, but said he couldn’t tell when she was removed from the record.

Several current and former Arizona voters told The Daily Wire they have received ballots for people who had moved out of the state.

Skyler, a former Army medic, told The Daily Wire that he and his wife have received 2024 mail-in ballots from Arizona at their home in Colorado, where he is now registered to vote. Previously a resident of Maricopa County, Skyler said that he voted absentee throughout his military career before retiring in May 2024, when he registered to vote in Colorado.

Despite changing his voter registration and informing Maricopa County that he was no longer an Arizona voter, Skyler said that received mail-in ballots for both the July primary election and the November general election. He doesn’t know how Maricopa County got his Colorado address.

Another Maricopa County resident told The Daily Wire they had been receiving a ballot for their daughter for the past three years, even though she had moved to Utah. They said they returned the ballots every year, indicating that their daughter no longer lived there, but that they still had been receiving her ballot.

One Maricopa County woman told The Daily Wire that she had received a ballot to her home for her son for years, as recently as the 2024 primary elections, even though he had lived in Alabama for six years.

According to Arizona law, voters on the Active Early Voting List (AEVL) are automatically sent a ballot “for all elections in which they are eligible to vote.” However, voters are supposed to be taken off the list if they do not vote in two consecutive federal elections.

“A voter may be removed from AEVL if the voter does not cast an early ballot in at least one candidate election over the course of two consecutive federal election cycles and fails to respond to an official notice from the Elections Department,” Maricopa County’s election website says.

“If you don’t vote the ballot, why do they keep sending you one?” the concerned Arizonan asked, noting that her son has not voted in the 2018, 2020, or 2022 federal elections, but received a ballot for the 2024 primaries.

She said that she also had received a ballot for a prior resident of a home she and her husband had purchased in Tucson. She said this raised concerns about how many ballots may be floating out there for people who have not moved out of Arizona, or even to a different home.

When asked about concerns with mail-in ballots, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said voters could “fill out a voter cancellation form” online and pointed to the county’s “voter list maintenance practices” posted online.

“Under Recorder [Stephen] Richer, more than 400,000 voters have been removed from our voter rolls due to diligent list maintenance. Our office reviews multiple databases to ensure our voter rolls remain as accurate as possible,” the recorder’s office told The Daily Wire in a statement.

Voting by mail in Arizona begins on October 9. The deadline to request a ballot by mail is October 25.

With just 34 days until the election, issues with mail-in ballots have begun to make headlines. Last week, election officials in Madison, Wisconsin, sent out 2,215 duplicate ballots to the heavily-Democratic city.

“This was a mistake,” said city spokesman Dylan Brogan. “The clerk’s office moved to rectify it as quickly as possible.”

In response, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) has called for an independent investigation into the incident, saying that voters “deserve clear answers regarding the full scope of this blunder.”

In Pennsylvania, another battleground state, the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit last month alleging that Montgomery County officials had sent out 2024 election ballots without conducting accuracy testing required by state laws. The suit said that the county, the commonwealth’s third most populous, did not conduct logic and accuracy tests before sending out absentee ballots.

Former President Donald Trump has long raised concerns about mail-in voting, arguing that it opens up the door to fraud. And while Trump has encouraged supporters to vote however they can in the coming cycle, he has said he would restrict mail-in voting if he wins the White House.

“Any time you have a mail-in ballot, there’s going to be massive fraud. What we have to do is, get control, and then we have to change it,” he said during an interview in August. “And it’s a very simple change, same day voting.”

A listening device was found in Boris Johnson’s personal bathroom at the Foreign Office after it had been used by Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister has claimed.

Mr Johnson has alleged that when the Israeli Prime Minister visited his department in 2017, his security team found bugging devices in the toilets after he had used the facilities.

During their meeting in his old office, Mr Johnson says Mr Netanyahu, who he calls Bibi, excused himself to go to the bathroom, which Mr Johnson describes as similar to “the gents in a posh London club” which exist within a “secret annexe”.

In his book, ‘Unleashed’, Mr Johnson writes: “Thither Bibi repaired for a while, and it may or may not be a coincidence but I am told that later, when they were doing a regular sweep for bugs, they found a listening device in the thunderbox.”

When asked during an interview with The Telegraph if he could give any more detail on what happened, Mr Johnson said: “I think everything you need to know about that episode is in the book.”

It is not clear whether Israel was questioned or rebuked over the incident.

Around a similar time, Israel was accused of planting listening devices in the White House.

According to US officials, Washington concluded that Israel was likely behind the placement of cellphone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around the capital.

Although having never worked in Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, Mr Netanyahu is known to have worked closely with them.

As the second-largest espionage agency in the Western world after the CIA, it focuses on foreign intelligence gathering and covert operations.

During the meeting with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Johnson, then the foreign secretary, describes how he felt like “Willy Wonka” as he showed him around his place of work in what was his first visit to the Foreign Office.

He writes how he joked about having the very walnut desk where the Balfour Declaration was written by Arthur James Balfour, where he set out “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

In response, Mr Netanyahu supposedly uttered “wow” and appeared “genuinely awestruck”.

Mr Johnson then claimed to have the “very pen that he used”, only to pull a Bic biro out of his drawer.

He then confesses that he does not know how Balfour came to write the letter and that the walnut desk was unlikely the one at which it was composed by the former foreign secretary.

Nearly 200 people are reportedly dead after Hurricane Helene slammed the southeast portion of the United States.

NBC News reported on Thursday that 194 people lost their lives amid the destruction the storm brought, with over half of the deaths occurring in North Carolina.

“Hundreds are still missing and officials have reported difficulties in identifying some of the dead,” the outlet said.

It added “President Joe Biden visited North Carolina yesterday and announced that up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers will join the North Carolina National Guard in delivering supplies, food and water to isolated communities.”

Video footage shows floodwaters moving entire buildings, holes in roofs where residents busted through to escape the rising water, and landslides in the mountainous areas, per Today.

“There are significant challenges ahead between three different states; North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, there are roughly still a million people without power,” a reporter on the show said.

The village of Chimney Rock, North Carolina, has been described as being “washed away,” Breitbart News reported on Monday.

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe authorized by former President Donald Trump to help victims of the storm has raised $4,581,000 of its $1,000,000 goal, as of Thursday morning.

An update on the page reads:

President Trump and his supporters are using the GoFundMe platform to direct unprecedented levels of generosity from MAGA supporters to help Americans facing the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Helene. In just a matter of days, this account for those across the Southeastern US has raised millions of dollars. Please continue to support your fellow Americans in their recovery efforts! President Trump is grateful for your support of this effort and as funds come in we will disperse to those who have been impacted. We have selected Samaritan’s Purse and Water Mission as the recipients of this generosity. We have made an initial disbursement and will continue providing more funds as support continues to come in.

Country music star Morgan Wallen donated $500,000 to the American Red Cross through the Morgan Wallen Foundation in an effort to help communities hit by the storm, Breitbart News reported Tuesday.

A young hostage kidnapped by ISIS terrorists at age 11 and then held by Hamas for a decade has been rescued by Israeli forces in Gaza after a months-long operation led by the US, officials said Thursday.

Fawzia Amin Sido, 21, was freed earlier this week, with footage showing her being embraced tightly by her emotional family soon after touching back down in her native Iraq.

“Fawzia, a Yazidi girl kidnapped by ISIS from Iraq and brought to Gaza at just 11 years old, has finally been rescued by the Israeli security forces,” tweeted David Saranga, the director of the digital diplomacy bureau at Israel’s foreign ministry.

“For years, she was held captive by a Palestinian Hamas-ISIS member. She has now been reunited with her family.

“Her story is a reminder of the brutality faced by Yazidi children, taken without a choice,” he wrote of the more than 6,000 Yazidis captured by ISIS in 2014, including many sold into sexual slavery or trained as child soldiers.

The freed hostage was in good physical condition — but traumatized by her lengthy time in captivity, Iraqi officials said.

WATCH: The emotional reunion as Fawzia Amin Sido (21), a Yazidi woman, is finally reunited with her family. She was rescued by Israeli security forces from Gaza after being kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq at the age of 11 in 2014. From Iraq, she was taken to Gaza, where she was… pic.twitter.com/thv6M7s5g8

— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) October 3, 2024

Sido had been snatched from her home back in 2014 when Islamic State jihadists were carrying out terror attacks on Yazidi communities across the country.

The young girl was quickly sold off and trafficked to Gaza, where she was held captive for the next 10 years.

Iraqi officials had been in contact with the woman for several months before this week’s rescue efforts — and had passed on her information to US officials, sources told Reuters.

Several prior attempts to rescue Sido over the past four months had failed due to ongoing security threats because of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Iraqi officials said.

It wasn’t immediately clear exactly how she was released.

A State Department spokesperson only said Sido’s captor had recently been killed, which allowed her to seek repatriation.

The rescue operation also involved Israel, Jordan and Iraq, according to officials.

Of the more than 6,000 Yazidis captured by ISIS in Iraq in 2014, roughly 3,500 have been rescued or freed in the years since.

However, Iraqi officials estimate some 2,600 are still missing — with many feared dead.

Melania Trump, the wife of former President Donald Trump, is criticizing restrictions on reproductive rights, including limits on abortion, in her new memoir, “Melania,” according to a new report.

“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” Melania Trump writes in her upcoming book, according to a report Wednesday from the Guardian.

In a position at odds with much of the Republican party, Melania Trump reportedly argues that the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be a decision left between a woman and her doctor, calling it “the common-sense approach.”

“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” she reportedly writes in the memoir set for release next week.

“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life,” she reportedly says in the pages of “Melania.”

Purported excerpts of Melania Trump’s forthcoming book were published by the Guardian Wednesday.

Melania Trump also addresses late-term abortions, according to the excerpts.

“It is important to note that historically, most abortions conducted during the later stages of pregnancy were the result of severe fetal abnormalities that probably would have led to the death or stillbirth of the child. Perhaps even the death of the mother. These cases were extremely rare and typically occurred after several consultations between the woman and her doctor. As a community, we should embrace these common-sense standards. Again, timing matters,” she reportedly writes.

Those comments offer a stark contrast to narratives Donald Trump has pushed around the issue, falsely claiming that Democrats support abortion “after birth.” Infanticide is illegal in all 50 states.

According to the report, Melania Trump then goes on to further ask for compassion for women who decide to terminate a pregnancy, detailing the hardships that surround making the decision and stressing the importance of “knowledge, security, and solace” for the next generation.

“When confronted with an unexpected pregnancy, young women frequently experience feelings of isolation and significant stress. I, like most Americans, am in favor of the requirement that juveniles obtain parental consent before undergoing an abortion. I realize this may not always be possible. Our next generation must be provided with knowledge, security, safety, and solace, and the cultural stigma associated with abortion must be lifted,” the former first lady reportedly writes.

Melania Trump’s reported comments come as husband Donald Trump has, at times, stumbled when answering complex questions on the campaign trail about his position on abortion rights and what reproductive care he would or wouldn’t protect. After being instrumental in the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the former president has advocated for certain abortion exceptions and has said he wouldn’t sign a federal abortion ban.

During campaign rallies, Trump has touted his abortion policy, calling himself “the most pro-life President in American history.” He has also celebrated his appointment of three U.S. Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe vs. Wade.

As Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz sparred over Trump’s policies on reproductive rights at Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the former president reiterated his position that the decision on abortion is where people wanted it — with the states, writing on his social media platform that he would not support a federal abortion ban “under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it.”

Abortion remains a top issue for voters — especially women — in the upcoming election. Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are working to connect with voters on the topic in what’s expected to be a close contest in November.

According to the Guardian, Melania Trump, an immigrant herself, also addresses immigration in her book. But she writes that she likes to keep “occasional political disagreements” private.

Donald Trump recently promoted his wife’s book at his rally in Uniondale, New York, though he suggested he hadn’t actually read it.

“First Lady, people love our first lady out there. Go out and get her book,” Trump said to cheers. “She just wrote a book. I hope she said good things about … She just wrote a book called ‘Melania.’ Go out and buy it. It’s great. And if she says bad things about me, I’ll call you all up, and I’ll say, don’t buy it.”

Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband assaulted his ex-girlfriend, three friends have told Dailymail.

The Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, 59, allegedly struck the woman in the face so hard she spun around, while waiting in a valet line late at night after a May 2012 Cannes Film Festival event in France.

One of her friends told DailyMail.com that the woman called him immediately after the incident, sobbing in her cab, and described the alleged assault.

DailyMail.com is not naming the woman, who is a successful New York attorney, but will refer to her by the pseudonym ‘Jane’.

A second friend said Jane, who had been dating Emhoff for three months, also told her about the alleged violence at the time.

A third friend told DailyMail.com that Jane first told her in 2014 that she had dated Emhoff, and recounted the full story of his alleged abuse in 2018, when then senator Harris was in the news after grilling Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a Senate hearing over sexual assault allegations.

The friends, who all asked not to be named for fear of retaliation by Emhoff, shared with DailyMail.com pictures of him and Jane together from 2012, and other documents and communications corroborating elements of the story.

All three of Jane’s friends said she also told them about a disturbing alleged incident during her relationship with the Second Gentleman, in which Emhoff nonchalantly admitted to impregnating Naylor.

Emhoff told Jane that the nanny accused him of causing her to have a miscarriage, the friends claimed.

According to the friends, Emhoff did not say how he was allegedly responsible for the miscarriage, and he told Jane that the nanny’s claims were false.

But the Second Gentleman allegedly confessed to Jane that he paid Naylor a settlement of around $80,000, and had the nanny sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

Emhoff was previously dubbed by Democrats as a ‘wife guy’ and a ‘mensch’, a Yiddish term for an honorable, kind man. He has also spoken out in media interviews about being an ally to women and against toxic masculinity.

In a fawning interview on Sunday, MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki told Emhoff that he ‘reshaped the perception of masculinity’ – despite his admitted affair with his daughter’s nanny and teacher.

‘I’ve always been like this,’ Emhoff said to Psaki. ‘To me, it’s the right thing to do, support women.’

These allegations strike to the heart of his benevolent image, promoted by the Harris presidential campaign.

Jane’s friends said she was given tickets by wealthy friends to go to the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) Gala Dinner, an elite charity auction filled with top celebrities and Hollywood executives, held on May 24, 2012 at the Hotel du Cap in Antibes, near Cannes in Southern France.

Attendees that year included model Cara Delevingne, actors Antonio Banderas and Alec Baldwin, designer Karl Lagerfeld, singer Kylie Minogue, actress Kirsten Dunst, socialite Paris Hilton, and top amfAR supporter, now-disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

The friends said Jane brought her then boyfriend, Emhoff, as a plus one.

One of Jane’s friends, a top New York businessman, said he was at home getting ready for bed that night when he got an unexpected phone call from her.

‘It was hard to hear her because she was sobbing,’ he said. ‘She told me she was with a guy and he hit her.

‘It was very clear what she was telling me. She said she was with a guy, her date, she was at the Cannes Film Festival, and he hit her. She was in the car with the guy at the time.

‘I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know whether to call the French police. I couldn’t get a hold of her after calling back.’

He said he still had a ‘vivid’ memory of the troubling conversation from 12 years ago.

‘In later conversations, but pretty contemporaneous with that, she told me more about the guy,’ he added.

‘It was something like 3am. They were trying to get out of there and they both had been drinking. There was a gigantic line for taxis.

‘[Jane] went up to one of the valet guys, offered him 100 Euros or whatever, to get to the head of the line. She told me she put her hand on his shoulder. Doug apparently thought that she was flirting, and came over and slapped her in the face.

‘She slapped him back.

‘My impression is that he had a lot to drink. She was sobbing [on the phone afterwards], but she wasn’t slurring her words.

‘She told me that she broke up with him that night.’

A second friend, another female New York attorney, said Jane told her about the alleged attack at the time – and said it came out of nowhere.

‘They had dinner. She said Doug was very charming, and it was lovely. Then I believe it was between 2-3am, it was still raging, but she was wearing four-inch heels and a floor-length gown, so it was time to depart,’ the lawyer said.

‘She said there’d been no fight before he hit her. You would have thought it was this fairytale trip.

‘She put her hand on the valet’s shoulder, and as she was talking to him, Doug comes up.

‘She said he turned her around by her right shoulder, and she was completely caught off guard. He hauled up and slapped her so hard she spun around. She said she was in utter shock.

‘She was so furious, she slapped him on one side, and then on the other cheek with the other hand.’

The three friends said that as Jane tried to leave following the alleged assault, Emhoff forced his way into the cab with her.

‘All of a sudden the car was there and they were ushering her into the car,’ the attorney friend said.

‘She said she wanted to go back to the hotel without him. But while she was shutting the door, he forced himself into the car, which she did not want.

‘I think she asked him ‘what the f*** was that all about?’ in the car, and the only thing she could really get out of him was that he thought she was hitting on the valet.

‘[Jane] told me she was so embarrassed. She couldn’t believe he is the person that he is, and that it turned into this trailer trash moment.

‘It woke her up about the self-delusion she was having, explaining away the teacher story. She realized he was bad news. This was the first time she saw his ugly side.

‘She said she called [her male businessman friend] because she wanted Doug to see her on the phone, telling somebody. She felt that would afford her some protection.’

The third friend, a female top company executive, said Jane told her the story in 2018.

‘I don’t know if it was an aggressive slap or a punch, but it was something that I know she would never forget, and something that would end a relationship immediately,’ the executive said.

‘She had never been hit in her life. [Jane] is a gorgeous, strong woman and you would never expect somebody to hit her.’

The executive said Jane told her that Emhoff was unapologetic about the alleged abuse the next day.

‘When he hit her she hit him back, like, ‘Don’t you ever do that again,’ she said.

‘I asked her if he ever apologized. She said no, but he commented about the hit she gave him. It was a tennis metaphor. But no apology at all.’

‘He was a tennis fan,’ said the female attorney. ‘All he said to her was, ‘Don’t worry about it, you got one across the court and down the line.’

The executive said Jane believed Emhoff meant that ‘now they were even’.

‘She said it was hurtful at the time,’ the attorney said. ‘But she said she didn’t want to feel like a victim.’

The friends said Emhoff ended the trip early to return to LA for his daughter Ella’s 13th birthday on May 29, and that he and Jane never saw each other again.

Israel bombed central Beirut in the early hours of Thursday, killing at least six people, after its forces suffered their deadliest day on the Lebanese front in a year of clashes against Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.

Israel said it conducted a precise air strike on Beirut.

Reuters witnesses reported hearing a massive blast, and a security source said it targeted a building in central Beirut’s Bachoura neighborhood close to parliament, the nearest Israeli strikes have come to Lebanon’s seat of government.

At least six people were killed and seven wounded, Lebanese health officials said.

A photo being circulated on Lebanese WhatsApp groups, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed a heavily damaged building with its first floor on fire.

Three missiles also hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week, and loud explosions were heard, Lebanese security officials said.

The southern suburbs came under more than a dozen Israeli strikes on Wednesday.

A day after Iran fired more than 180 missiles into Israel, Israel said on Wednesday eight soldiers were killed in ground combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbor.

The Israeli military said regular infantry and armored units joined its ground operations in Lebanon on Wednesday as Iran’s missile attack and Israel’s promise of retaliation raised concerns that the oil-producing Middle East could be caught up in a wider conflict.

At least three women have claimed they had trysts with Robert F. Kennedy Jr over the last year during his failed presidential run after linking up through Children’s Health Defense organization he chairs, according to a report.

Two sources told Mediaite on Wednesday they had direct knowledge of the women’s allegations, which came to light after news broke that Kennedy, 70, had another alleged sexting fling with New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi.

The outlet also reviewed texts from a woman detailing an alleged relationship with Kennedy this year.

Kennedy’s camp strongly rejected the latest bombshell claims in a statement to Mediaite, calling the report “untrue.”

“Mr. Kennedy has had no romantic relationships with any woman other than his wife since their marriage,” a spokesperson said in reference to actress Cheryl Hines.

The trio of women know Kennedy from the Children’s Health Defense organization, Mediaite reported. He has been on leave as chairman and chief legal counsel of the group since April 2023, according to its website.

The women have reportedly shared their experiences with each other in text messages following the Nuzzi affair revelations, according to the outlet.

Page Six exclusively reported on Wednesday that Hines may divorce Kennedy because of his ties with former President Donald Trump – more than his alleged affair with Nuzzi.

“The guy is a serial philanderer and she knew that coming in,” a source said.

Questions about Kennedy’s marriage to Hines initially swirled after Nuzzi was placed on leave last month for a digital relationship with Kennedy.

She profiled him for New York magazine last November and the two began chatting shortly after.

While Nuzzi admitted to her bosses about having a personal relationship with a subject she covered as part of the 2024 presidential campaign, Kennedy has denied that affair.

During their fling, Nuzzi, 31, and Kennedy had “incredible” FaceTime sex, a source told Page Six last week.

Meanwhile, Nuzzi and her former fiancé, Politico’s Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza, have been at odds after the dalliance between Nuzzi and RFK Jr. emerged.

Nuzzi claimed in legal documents Tuesday her ex-beau mounted a harassment and blackmail campaign after the two broke up earlier this year.

Lizza has “emphatically” denied the allegations, but agreed with his Political bosses to take a leave of absence as an investigation is conducted.

Kennedy dropped his long-shot campaign over the summer and threw his support behind Trump, who is running for the White House for a third straight time.

The Post previously revealed a decade ago that the political scion had a long list of rumored mistresses in his cellphone, including his now-wife.

Bank of America customers on Wednesday reported having problems accessing their bank accounts or that their account balances currently show $0.

The outage started at around 12:30 p.m. E.T. on Wednesday, according to the tracking website Downdetector.

About an hour later, more than 20,000 user complaints were submitted via the website.

The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reports that numerous Bank of America users have posted screenshots of empty account balances on social media.

An Epoch Times staff member also reported not being able to log in to their Bank of America account.

Some users on social media stated that Bank of America had not yet alerted them to the issue.

Meanwhile, some users have reported having problems with Zelle, the digital payment system that is used by multiple banks and is owned by Bank of America and several other banks.

It’s not clear how many customers were impacted or when the problem will be resolved.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank has not released details about what’s causing the issue.

On the social media platform X, Bank of America’s team was responding to complaints by asking for additional information.

However, it did not appear that the bank provided information about the nature of the outage or how long it could take to fix.

“Hi, we are sorry to see this. If you’re still experiencing the concern, please click below to let us know. Thank you,” one Bank of America representative wrote on X to a user who expressed concerns about logging in.

Another post said:

“Hello, your concern caught our attention. Please use the link below to connect with us and send additional details. We’d be happy to follow up with you.”

Last year, fellow banking giant Wells Fargo issued an alert on its website after customers reported not seeing their paychecks and direct deposits in their accounts.

Donald Trump blasted Special Counsel Jack Smith after new evidence from the January 6th riots on Capitol Hill was made public just weeks before the election.

The former president accused President Biden’s Justice Department of ‘election interference’ after the release of 165 pages of evidence in his case – revealing private conversations Trump had with his employees, lawyers, and allies.

In a shock move, Washington, DC Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the filing and made it public Wednesday, despite Trump’s lawyers arguments against it.

‘FOR 60 DAYS PRIOR TO AN ELECTION, THE DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE IS SUPPOSED TO DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THAT WOULD TAINT OR INTERFERE WITH A CASE,’ Trump wrote in all-caps on his Truth Social social media platform.

The Department of Justice has no official ‘rule’ preventing a case to be brought 60 days before an election, but is considered a ‘general practice’ among law enforcement professionals in the department to avoid accusations of political motivation for cases.

The former president shared several posts on social media criticizing the decision as evidence of election interference by the Justice Department under Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Special Counsel Smith, however, has pressed forward on his trial even after the Supreme Court ruled that the president would be immune to prosecution for official actions he took as president of the United States, effectively delaying the trial until after the election.

Smith’s filing argues that Trump’s conduct surrounding January 6th were actions as a private individual and not as official acts of a president.

‘Donald Trump launched a “private criminal effort” to subvert the 2020 US election and should not be shielded by presidential immunity,’ he wrote.

Trump insisted, however, that Smith was out of line.

‘THEY DISOBEYED THEIR OWN RULE IN FAVOR OF COMPLETE AND TOTAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” he wrote.

The new filing reveals tense private conversations between Trump and his vice president Mike Pence, about his decision to certify the election, disputing with Trump and his allies that he had the legal power to stop it. It also describes actions the president took to cast doubt on the vote tallies in important swing states.

President Trump argued on social media that the new filing was just one more way that the Biden administration was trying to interfere with the election.

‘I DID NOTHING WRONG, THEY DID!’ he wrote. ‘THE CASE IS A SCAM, JUST LIKE ALL OF THE OTHERS, INCLUDING THE DOCUMENTS CASE, WHICH WAS DISMISSED!’

Earlier in the day, Trump described the new information as proof of ‘another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy’ by trying to distract from Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Gov. Tim Walz’s debate performance on Tuesday evening.

‘Democrats are Weaponizing the Justice Department against me because they know I am WINNING, and they are desperate to prop up their failing Candidate, Kamala Harris,’ he wrote.

‘The DOJ pushed out this latest “hit job” today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz last night in the Debate.’

The head of an Iranian secret service unit set up to target Mossad agents working in the Islamic Republic turned out to be an Israeli agent himself, according to former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Speaking to CNN Turk, Ahmadinejad claimed Monday that a further 20 agents in the Iranian intelligence team tasked with monitoring Israeli spying activities also turned against Tehran.

The alleged double agents provided Israel with sensitive information on the Iranian nuclear program, according to his comments in the interview, which were widely picked up by international media.

Ahmadinejad said the agents were behind some key Mossad successes in Iran, including the 2018 theft of nuclear program documents that were taken from Tehran to Israel and revealed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The trove is thought to have been a factor in convincing then-US president Donald Trump to pull out of the nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran.

The head of the counterintelligence unit was revealed as a double agent in 2021 but he and all of the other alleged Mossad moles were able to flee the country and are now living in Israel, claimed Ahmadinejad, a firebrand populist known for his hardline anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric and for the violent crackdown that followed his disputed 2009 reelection. He was prevented from running again for president earlier this year.

Other Iranian officials have in the past remarked about Mossad’s penetration in Iran. A former Iranian minister who served as an adviser to former president Hassan Rouhani said in 2022 that senior officials in Tehran should be fearing for their lives due to the “infiltration” of Israel’s spy agency, according to the London-based Persian-language Manoto news site.

Ahmadinejad’s assertions came as Israel has been battling Iran’s proxy terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, and achieving remarkable success apparently based on profound intelligence. In the past two weeks, thousands of Hezbollah handheld communications devices exploded in Lebanon, injuring at least 1,500 of its members in incidents the terror group blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility. In addition, airstrikes have killed almost the entire top tier of Hezbollah’s command structure, including the terror group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a Friday airstrike on his Beirut bunker.

French newspaper Le Parisien, citing a Lebanese source, reported Saturday that Israel was tipped off about Nasrallah’s presence by an Iranian mole.

Immediately after news broke of Nasrallah’s death, the Iranians rushed their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to a secure location.

In July, the Hamas terror group’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by an explosion at the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying during a visit to attend the funeral of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. Although Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death, Iran has vowed to retaliate.

Days after Haniyeh’s death, Iran arrested at least two dozen people for suspected connection to the assassination, The New York Times reported at the time, citing two Iranians familiar with the investigation.

Those arrested included senior Iranian intelligence officers, military officials, and staff at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-run guesthouse, the report said. Iranians feared a major security breach among high-ranking officials made the daring assassination possible.

A series of mysterious explosions and other setbacks have plagued Iran’s nuclear program over the years.

In November 2020, top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in Iran in what The New York Times would later report was a sophisticated hit led by a Mossad team that reportedly deployed a computerized machine gun.

Tehran frequently claims to foil Mossad operations in the country, but the veracity of such claims is unclear.

Last month, the Revolutionary Guard claimed that 12 people had been arrested on suspicion of serving as operatives collaborating with Israel and planning acts against Iran’s security.

Israel has been at war with the Hamas terror group in Gaza and engaged in daily fighting with the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon — both Iranian proxies — since Hamas committed its massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Federal prosecutors charged five University of Michigan graduates from China with several crimes on Tuesday night, after they were allegedly discovered at a military facility in northern Michigan last year.

The graduates were caught with cameras at the facility during a joint training exercise between U.S. national guardsmen and members of the Taiwanese military in August of 2023, according to the Detroit News.

The indictment comes amid increased scrutiny regarding national security threats and a series of incidents regarding Chinese nationals trespassing on U.S. military grounds.

The five are not in custody, but they have been charged with conspiracy, lying to federal investigators, and destroying records during a federal investigation.

They have been identified as Zhekai Xu, Renxiang Guan, Haoming Zhu, Jingzhe Tao, and Yi Liang.

“The defendants are not in custody. Should they come into contact with U.S. authorities, they will be arrested and face these charges,” Gina Balaya, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit, said Wednesday, per 8 News Now.

Special counsel Jack Smith outlined the “increasingly desperate” efforts by former President Trump and his allies to try to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in a lengthy motion unsealed by a judge on Wednesday.

Trump and his legal team had opposed the motion, arguing it would interfere with the November election results. The filing unveils new details in connection to the former president’s federal 2020 election case.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the redacted motion on Wednesday.

Smith in the motion wrote that Trump’s “scheme was a private criminal effort.” He emphasized throughout the document that the former president was acting in his capacity as a candidate, not a president.

This is an apparent attempt by Smith to respond to the bombshell Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that said that presidents have immunity for “official acts.”

“At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one; he extensively used private actors and his Campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office,” Smith wrote.

Smith also accused Trump of knowing “his fraud claims were false because he continued to make those claims even after his close advisors—acting not in an official capacity but in a private or campaign-related capacity—told him they were not true.”

“At one point long after the defendant had begun spreading false fraud claims, a White House staffer traveling with [Trump], overheard him tell family members that ‘it doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell,'” Smith wrote.

In addition to outlining the instances when Trump was directly corrected about his allegations of voter fraud, the filing said Trump privately called allegations of voter fraud made by his lawyer Sidney Powell as “crazy” — despite employing similar arguments to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, prosecutors allege.

Smith also outlined numerous instances of Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence telling Trump that there was no evidence of fraud.

The special counsel wrote that “when all else had failed” for the former president in his bid to cling to power, he “directed an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.”

He wrote that Trump used the false claims about the election to “inflame and motivate the large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceeding.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that the filing is “falsehood-ridden” and “Unconstitutional,” again calling it an attempt to interfere with the November election.

Smith filed the sealed legal brief last week, leaving Chutkan to decide whether or not to publicly release it, or a redacted version of it.

Prosecutors had said the brief contains previously unseen evidence.

Trump’s legal team argued in their own filing Tuesday that more redactions should be made if the brief was to be made public. They also objected to the release timing as early voting has already begun.

Prosecutors responded Tuesday, saying they have “no role or interest in partisan politics.”

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to charges in his federal election subversion case.

The former president has been indicted across four criminal cases, but three of his four cases have been paused indefinitely or dismissed.

Trump was convicted in a New York criminal trial earlier this year on 34 felony counts in the first degree of falsifying business records.

Israel is planning to strike Iran’s oil fields in response to Tehran’s ballistic missile attack amid boiling tensions between the two archenemies.

Israeli PM Netanyahu vowed to retaliate against Iran after it unleashed a barrage of 180 missiles in a major escalation triggering fears of a Middle East all-out war.

Netanyahu’s response to Iran’s blitz could target oil production facilities inside Iran within days, Israeli officials told Axios.

Other possible targets would be the country’s air defence system as well as assassinations of senior figures.

After Tuesday’s attack, Netanyahu said Iran “made a big mistake and it will pay for it.”

“The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies,” he added.

Washington said it would work with Israel to ensure Iran faced “severe consequences” for the missile attack.

Israel Defence Forces’ Daniel Hagari said: “We are on heightened alert on defence and offensive.

“We will protect the citizens of Israel. This missile fire will have consequences.

“We have plans, and we will act in the time and place that we choose.”

While Defence Minister Yoav Gallant added: “Iran has not learned a simple lesson – those who attack the state of Israel, pay a heavy price.”

In response, Tehran threatened Israel would suffer the “vast destruction” of its infrastructure if it attacks Iran.

Iran’s military also warned of “strong attacks” on military bases in the region if Israel’s allies intervene.

Meanwhile, Israel continued its operations in Lebanon with at least five airstrikes in Beirut early this morning.

The IDF said that regular infantry and armoured units were joining ground operations in southern Lebanon, but noted they would remain limited and localised in scope.

The addition of infantry and armoured troops from the 36th Division, including the Golani Brigade, the 188th Armoured Brigade and the 6th Infantry Brigade, suggests that the operation has moved beyond limited commando raids.

It comes as Iran launched a missile blitz after Israel’s ground invasion Operation “Northern Arrows” in Lebanon.

Israelis scrambled for bomb shelters as air raid sirens sounded and the orange glow of missiles streaked across the night sky.

Shocking footage showed the moment a news reporter ducked for cover while live on air as scores of missiles were flying over Tel Aviv.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer condemned the strike, reiterated his support for Israel, and once again called for a ceasefire.

Alerts sounded across Israel late on Tuesday afternoon after US satellites picked up ballistic missiles being moved to launch sites in the west of Iran.

Defence rockets intercepted most in the skies above Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.

The Sun understands that British Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as Iran unleashed its attack.

Last night, Defence Secretary John Healey said: “British forces have this evening played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation in the Middle East.

“I want to thank all British personnel involved in the operation for their courage and professionalism.”

And at least six people were shot dead in a suspected terror attack in Tel Aviv while people were scrambling for shelter.

A 37-year-old Palestinian man was killed by shrapnel in the large-scale missile attack launched by Iran against Israel on Tuesday night, officials said, apparently the only fatality in the onslaught.

“A Palestinian worker in Jericho was killed when pieces of a rocket fell from the sky and hit him,” Jericho governor Hussein Hamayel told AFP.

According to Palestinian media, Sameh al-Asali, a laborer originally from Jabalia in the Gaza Strip, was struck in the West Bank village of Nu’eima, near Jericho. Four other Palestinians were reportedly injured by shrapnel from the same missile.

According to information circulating on social media, corroborated by an image of his ID, al-Asali, a father of three, was one of the thousands of Gazan laborers with an Israeli work permit who were stranded in Israel on October 7 and sought refuge in the West Bank.

Pictures and videos circulating on social media show a meters-long fragment of a missile next to al-As li’s body, lying on the ground and covered with a sheet.

In Israel, only two people were reported wounded in the barrage, both in Tel Aviv, according to Magen David Adom. Several others were treated for minor injuries after falling over while running for shelter, and acute anxiety, MDA reported.

The IDF said that it intercepted “a large number” of the 180 ballistic missiles launched by Iran at Israel, thanks to the country’s air defenses and the cooperation of the US that detected the threat and intercepted some of the projectiles. Jordan said that it also intercepted a number of missiles and drones over its airspace.

Palestinian man Sameh al-Asali, 37, kïlled by shrapnel from Iranian missile near Jericho
6 hours ago pic.twitter.com/041zRuIK1k

— WarRoom Archives (@War_Rum) October 2, 2024

الشهيد سامح العسلي أحد عمال غزة المُقيمين في معسكرات الأمن الوطني في أريحا.. https://t.co/F7FVaKwNFE pic.twitter.com/5dnZ5dpOi4

— Ąbų Łąřiņ (@m2m2n0) October 1, 2024

Various Arabic-language social media accounts called Iran’s missile attack a “face-saver,” as Tehran came under criticism in Lebanon and elsewhere for failing to respond to the assassination of its historic ally, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut last week.

Some Arab social media users also remarked that the Shiite Islamic Republic has so far only managed to kill and wound Sunni Muslims in its strikes against Israel. Tehran had launched a similar missile and drone attack in April, but Israel, the US, and Western and Arab allies shot down almost all the projectiles. The only injury in that assault was sustained by a seven-year old Bedouin girl in southern Israel.

Tuesday’s assault came hours after a US warning that a wide-scale attack was about to be directed at the Jewish state from Iran, which allowed the IDF to prepare its air defenses and the Home Front Command to warn the population to remain in the proximity of bomb shelters, thereby keeping the number of casualties to a minimum. Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York denied giving prior notice of the attack to the US.

The projectiles launched by Iran on Tuesday night caused a number of craters around Israel.

Videos circulating on social media showed a large sinkhole in the Sharon region, and a large fragment in the southern Bedouin town of Tel Sheva.

Beside the missile that killed al-Asali, impacts were reported in other parts of the West Bank. Palestinians in Ramallah were filmed touching and posing with a piece of a ballistic missile that fell in the city.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israel would respond to the Iranian attack. “We are on heightened alert on defense and offensive, we will protect the citizens of Israel. This [missile] fire will have consequences. We have plans, and we will act in the time and place that we choose,” he said.

Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ongoing ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that his country is in the “middle of a tough war against Iran’s axis of evil.”

The Israeli Defense Forces announced that Captain Eitan Itzhak Oster, 22, Captain Harel Etinger, 23, Captain Itai Ariel Giat, 23, Sergeant First Class Noam Barzilay, 22, Sergeant First Class Or Mantzur, 21, Sergeant First Class Nazaar Itkin, 21, Staff Sergeant Almken Terefe, 21 and Staff Sergeant Ido Broyer, 21 “fell during combat in southern Lebanon.”

“I would like to send my deepest condolences to the families of our heroes who fell today in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said in a video message. “May God avenge their death. May their memory be of blessing.”

“We are in the middle of a tough war against Iran’s axis of evil, which seeks to destroy us. This will not happen — because we will stand together, and with God’s help — we will win together,” Netanyahu added. “We will return our hostages in the south, we will return our residents in the north, we will guarantee the eternity of Israel.”

Details about the incidents resulting in the deaths of the soldiers were not immediately available.

IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned residents of two dozen communities in southern Lebanon to evacuate Wednesday for their own safety.

“Hezbollah’s activities are forcing the IDF to act forcefully against it. The IDF does not intend to harm you, and therefore, for your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and head north of the Awali River. Save your lives,” he said on X.

“Anyone who is near Hezbollah members, installations, and combat equipment is putting his life at risk. Any home used by Hezbollah for its military needs is expected to be targeted,” Adraee also said.

The Israeli military operation inside Lebanon comes after airstrikes last week killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top members.

The IDF says so far, more than 150 “terrorist infrastructure sites” have been destroyed in Lebanon, including Hezbollah weapon storage facilities and rocket launchers.