• The Palestinians reach an impasse, right at a day of scheduled talks, with Hamas refusing Fatah’s nomination of Salam Fayyad to continue his premiership. [NYT]
• “I would resign,” President Obama said of what would happen if he were found to have sent crotch-shots to people he had met over the Internet. [City Room]
• Street clashes yesterday evinced simmering discontent with Jordan’s King Abdullah II. [WP]
• Somebody had to take Seymour Hersh’s dubious article about the lack of an Iranian nuclear weapons program overly credulously, which is why we have Roger Cohen. [IHT]
• And somebody else had to be a transcriber for the Saudi government vis-à-vis Israel, which is why we have … Richard Cohen? [WP]
• Whoa. In Israel, a mother and a grandfather—who are also more than that—were convicted of killing their four-year-old daughter/granddaughter. [Reuters/NYT]
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.