Israel's air defences intercepted four rockets fired from neighbouring Syria on Tuesday, the army said, prompting reported retaliatory missile strikes against the source of the fire. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets were fired from positions around the capital held by groups loyal to the Damascus government. It did not elaborate on which group had launched the rockets or whether there had been any casualties in the retaliatory strikes.

In her first public appearance since being deported by U.S. authorities who had jailed her for being a Russian agent, Maria Butina was on Monday offered a job by Moscow to defend Russians imprisoned abroad. During an event for the media, Russia's human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, offered Butina, 31, a job working for her commission. Butina, who flew back to Russia on Oct. 26 after being deported, did not say whether she would accept the offer made at what she called her first public appearance since she was mobbed by wellwishers in front of the media at the airport on her arrival home.

National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman brought his receipts to Tuesday’s impeachment hearings when Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) attempted to question Vindman’s judgment, reading aloud a recent employment evaluation describing him as “brilliant.”Referencing the previous testimony of NSC official Tim Morrison, Jordan noted that Morrison claimed he and others raised concerns about Vindman’s judgment and believed he may have leaked info to the press.“Your former boss, Dr. [Fiona] Hill, had concerns about your judgment,” Jordan added. “Your colleagues had concerns about your judgment and your colleagues felt that there were times when you leaked information. Any idea why they have those impressions, Colonel Vindman?”Vindman, meanwhile, pulled out the last performance evaluation that Hill had given him, dated this past July.“Alex is a top 1% military officer and the best Army officer I have worked with in my 15 years of government service,” Vindman read from the document. “‘He is brilliant, unflappable, and exercises excellent judgment’—I’m sorry—‘Was exemplary during numerous visits,’ so forth and so on. I think you get the idea.”As for Morrison’s remarks, Vindman stated that they had only recently started working together and that Morrison hadn’t been there very long and it could have been a clash of cultures. Jordan, seemingly a bit shaken, quickly moved on to asking Vindman if he ever leaked information, something the veteran denied.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Federal prosecutors are planning to interview an executive with Ukraine’s state-owned gas company as part of an ongoing probe into the business dealings of Rudy Giuliani and two of his Soviet-born business associates. A lawyer for Andrew Favorov confirmed Tuesday that he is scheduled to meet voluntarily with the U.S. Justice Department. Favorov is the director of the integrated gas division at Naftogaz, the state-owned gas provider in Ukraine.

The Great Firewall may have been breached.Beijing doubled down Monday after The New York Times published a report on over 400 leaked documents that provided a look into China's mass detention of Muslims in the Xinjiang region, though the government didn't dispute the authenticity of the documents."It is precisely because of a series of preventative counterterrorism and de-extremism measures taken in a timely manner that Xinjiang, which had been deeply plagued by terrorism, has not had a violent terrorist incident for three years," said Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Geng added that the Times took things out of context in an attempt to "smear and discredit China's antiterrorism and de-extremism capabilities."But aside from Geng's comments, the Times reports that Chinese state media said little else about the issue, which is not surprising given the sensitive nature of the issue. But there were signs that at least some aspects of the leak snuck past Beijing's internet firewall, which blocks access to the Times. One user on Chinese social media platform Weibo reportedly posted about Wang Yongzhi, an official cited in the report who initially helped implement China's harsh measure, but eventually ordered the release of more than 7,000 detention camp inmates before he was arrested. "History will not forget this person and this page of paper," the Weibo user wrote, indicating that the documents might have made their way through. Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com The potential lie that could actually destroy Trump The coming death of just about every rock legend Everyone will eventually turn on Trump. Even Steve Doocy.