Israel and Hamas have agreed “in principle” to a ceasefire, CBS has reported. According to the network, which cited unidentified Arab, US and Israeli officials, the deal could be finalized as early as this week. If its final details are approved, and if Israel’s government votes to approve it, the ceasefire could be implemented starting this weekend, just in time for Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington. In a speech at the Atlantic Council today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that, in the absence of a deal ending a conflict that began 15 months ago and which has killed close to 50,000 people, Hamas has continued to replenish its troops, having recruited almost as many militants as it’s lost.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was excoriated by Democrats at his Senate confirmation hearing for, among other things, a deep lack of experience needed to run one of the most powerful militaries in the world. A former cable television host who served in the National Guard, Hegseth is one of the president-elect’s most controversial choices to run a major federal department. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Republican chairman, called him an “unconventional” nominee. Hegseth has faced—and denied—allegations of sexual assault, public intoxication and financial mismanagement at a veterans’ group. Democrats also targeted the FBI for performing what they called an inadequate background check amid an all-out GOP pressure campaign to push through Hegseth’s nomination. During the hearing, Republicans echoed the former Fox personality’s defense that he’d be a Pentagon “change agent.” Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, the committee’s lead Democrat, had a different view, saying Hegseth lacks “the character and the competence” to lead the Defense Department, and that his confirmation would be an “an insult to the men and women who have sworn to uphold their own apolitical duty to the Constitution.”
