3: In the third exchange of prisoners since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal was inked, Hamas is set to release three Israeli hostages and five unnamed Thai hostages on Thursday. Israel, in turn, will release 110 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails. Nearly a third of the remaining 26 Israeli hostages that Hamas is set to release as part of the first phase of the Jan. 19 ceasefire deal are dead, according to Israeli officials.
19: A commercial airliner collided with a military helicopter in Washington, DC, as it was coming in to land at Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night. The craft, carrying 4 crew members and 60 passengers – many of them members of a figure skating team – plunged into the Potomac River after striking the Black Hawk with three crew aboard. As of Thursday morning, rescue workers had recovered at least 19 bodies from the river. The cause of the crash is unknown, and no one is expected to have survived.
30: At least 30 people were killed in a crowd rush at India’s Kumbh Mela festival on Wednesday. During Kumbh Mela, a Hindu pilgrimage that occurs every 12 years, tens of millions of people take ritual baths at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers over six weeks. Critics of the ruling BJP party, including the opposition Congress Party, seized on the disaster, blasting the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for mismanaging the mass event.
50 million: Donald Trump’s press secretary said that as part of the administration’s mass cost-cutting measures it had slashed $50 million for “condoms in Gaza.” But official reports show the Biden administration’s foreign aid programs sent precisely zero condoms to the entire Middle East over the past three years. Unless the outgoing Biden administration slipped those condoms into the new budget at the last minute, this claim by the Trump administration – since boosted by Elon Musk – is a lie.
100: Australian police on Wednesday said they had thwarted a planned terror attack targeting Jews after discovering a trailer containing explosives in a Sydney suburb. More than 100 police officers have been put on the case. In recent months, Australia has seen a rash of attacks on synagogues as part of a broader uptick in antisemitic hate crimes since the start of the Gaza war in late 2023.
11: Former US Sen. Bob Menendezwas sentenced to 11 years in prison on corruption charges. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was convicted on a raft of bribery and fraud charges after it was found that he had accepted gold bars and other luxury items from influence-seeking members of the Egyptian government.
