Israeli forces continued their unrelenting assault on the Gaza Strip throughout the weekend, killing scores of Palestinians even as Israeli and Hamas officials resumed talks in Qatar aimed at a ceasefire. Al Jazeera reports Israel carried out over 100 bombings in just three days. Earlier today, more than 40 Palestinians were injured when an Israeli drone bombed a school housing displaced people in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Before that, an Israeli attack on a residential building in Bureij refugee camp killed four. And seven Palestinians, including two farmers, were killed in three separate attacks in Rafah.

In Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, an Israeli airstrike late Saturday killed 11 people, most of them members of the Zuhd family. Relatives of the dead worked by hand to sift through the ruins of their home, hoping to find loved ones trapped in the rubble. 

Ammar Zuhd: “Three young men, the son’s wife and three children are still under the rubble. We retrieved this cousin of mine. Another cousin has been martyred and is now in the hospital. Approximately 11 people have been martyred here.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports another baby in Gaza has died of hypothermia — the eighth such death.

In Qatar, representatives of Hamas say they’ve approved a list of 34 Israeli hostages to be released as part of the first phase of a potential ceasefire deal. The list includes all women, children, seniors and sick people still being held in Gaza. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed talk of progress toward a ceasefire as “spin” and dismissed Hamas’s offer as “propaganda and psychological terror.”

In the occupied West Bank, three people were killed and eight others wounded when two attackers opened fire at Israeli cars and a bus near the West Bank settlement of Kedumim earlier today. Israeli soldiers said they were pursuing two suspected Palestinian shooters. 

President Biden has reportedly notified Congress of a new $8 billion arms sale to Israel. The deal includes artillery shells, small-diameter bombs and warheads, and munitions for fighter jets and helicopter gunships. In approving the sale, Biden once again rejected calls to suspend U.S. support for Israel’s military over war crimes committed in Gaza. The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the sale, writing, “Only racists who do not view people of color as equally human, and sociopaths who delight in funding mass slaughter, could send Netanyahu even more bombs while his government openly kidnaps doctors, destroys hospitals, and exterminates the last survivors in northern Gaza.”

Israel’s Embassy in Brazil helped a 21-year-old Israeli army reservist flee the country after a Brazilian federal court ordered police to open an investigation into possible war crimes he committed in Gaza. That’s according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which reports Yuval Vagdani was under investigation for his role in planting explosives and destroying entire neighborhoods in Gaza. The Hind Rajab Foundation, a Belgium-based group advocating for Palestinian rights, had compiled 500 pages of evidence against Vagdani before Israeli diplomatic staff reportedly helped smuggle him out of Brazil. The Israeli military has warned its soldiers they could face arrest while traveling abroad over crimes committed in Gaza.

Ukraine’s military has launched a surprise cross-border offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, where there are reports of fierce fighting. Before Ukraine’s renewed offensive, Russia had retaken much of the territory Ukraine seized when it first invaded Kursk last August. On Sunday, one person was killed and another wounded when Russian forces shelled the city of Nikopol in southeastern Ukraine. Further south, at least eight people were wounded when Russian troops shelled the city of Kherson. Meanwhile, Russia has vowed to retaliate after it said it shot down eight U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles fired by Ukraine at the Russian region of Belgorod. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously threatened to respond to such attacks using Russia’s new nuclear-capable hypersonic ballistic missile.

On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson squeaked through a win, retaining his gavel on Friday, after Donald Trump called two Republican lawmakers to ask them to change their votes to support Johnson. In an acceptance speech, House Speaker Johnson said that defending the nation’s borders should be Congress’s “number one priority.” 

Speaker Mike Johnson: “In coordination with President Trump, this Congress will give our border and immigration enforcement agents the resources that they need to do their job. We will secure the border. We will deport dangerous, criminal illegal aliens and finally finish building the border wall.”

After the first roll call vote in the House on Friday, the Democratic delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, Stacey Plaskett, addressed the chamber. She asked why delegates representing 4 million U.S. citizens from the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia were not called to vote — before her microphone was cut.

Del. Stacey Plaskett: “This body and this nation has a territories and a colonies problem.”

Kevin McCumber: “House will be in order.” 

Del. Stacey Plaskett: “What was supposed to be temporary has now” —

Kevin McCumber: “Gentlelady will suspend.”

Del. Stacey Plaskett: — “effectively become permanent. We must do something about this problem” —

Kevin McCumber: “The gentlelady is no longer recognized.” 

Del. Stacey Plaskett: — “so that these 4 million” —

With the House speaker voted in, a joint session of Congress is meeting today as scheduled to count electoral votes and certify Donald Trump’s win. Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who repeatedly called her election rival Trump unfit for office, will oversee the process as the president of the Senate.

This comes exactly four years after a horde of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s win and keep Trump in power. Trump has vowed to pardon those convicted for taking part in the Capitol insurrection. One of those convicts is 32-year-old Antony Vo, who recently fled to Canada instead of reporting for his nine-month prison term. Vo, who’s since been giving interviews and snowboarding at the Whistler resort, is hoping to receive a Trump pardon or asylum from the Canadian government.

Donald Trump is set to become the first felon to serve as U.S. president after New York Judge Juan Merchan upheld his felony conviction in his 2016 election subversion hush-money case. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced this Friday, January 10, though he is not expected to receive any prison time.

President-elect Trump hosted far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at his Mar-a-Lago resort Saturday. Trump described Meloni, who also has close ties to Elon Musk, as “a fantastic woman” who’s “really taken Europe by storm.” Meloni is meeting with President Biden later this week as he travels to Rome and the Vatican.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes has quit The Washington Post after her editors rejected a cartoon depicting billionaires genuflecting to President-elect Trump. Telnaes says it was the first time since she began her work at the newspaper in 2008 that she had a cartoon killed because of who or what she chose to aim her pen at. A draft of the cartoon depicts Big Tech owners kneeling at Trump’s feet, offering up sacks of cash. Among them is Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Just two months ago, the Post featured Ann Telnaes in a video celebrating her work.

Ann Telnaes: “I mean, just look at all the autocrats that hate editorial cartoonists. I mean, not in this country, hopefully, but in — you know, a lot of my colleagues overseas are thrown in jail for doing cartoons about powerful people. … A lot of people don’t realize that, you know, we’re journalists. We’re opinion journalists, but we are journalists. And that is our job as editorial cartoonists: to bring up sometimes uncomfortable truths.”

On Friday, Telnaes published an online post titled “Why I’m quitting the Washington Post,” in which she writes, “I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, 'Democracy dies in darkness.'”

This comes after Jeff Bezos prevented The Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris for president and as Amazon’s Prime Video service announced it has acquired exclusive licensing rights to a new behind-the-scenes documentary about incoming first lady Melania Trump. Amazon also plans to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and said that it would stream the event on Prime Video as a separate in-kind donation worth another $1 million. Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak with Boston University historian Quinn Slobodian, author of “Crack-Up Capitalism.”

North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea earlier today as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Seoul, where he called for the U.S., South Korea and Japan to band together against Pyongyang’s warming relationship with Moscow. Blinken’s visit comes amid a deepening political crisis in South Korea, as authorities have failed to execute an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, who remains barricaded behind heavy security. Tense protests pitting Yoon supporters and his critics have erupted near the presidential residence. Yoon’s defenders have been holding signs reading “Stop the Steal,” a reference to Trump’s 2020 election subversion campaign. This is a protester in Seoul.

Bang Joo-hyuk: “Now our country, the Republic of Korea, is fighting against Chinese agents and those who are subservient to socialism. But we will recover soon. Our president, Yoon Suk Yeol, is at the forefront of this fight. Just as U.S. President Trump has stood against a fraudulent election, we will reveal the truth about the fraudulent elections in our country, as well.” 

Two of Canada’s biggest newspapers are reporting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is preparing to resign as Liberal Party leader as soon as today. Trudeau has faced growing calls to step down amid high inflation and after his finance minister quit amid a public spat over how to respond to Trump’s vow to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian goods.