Viva Las Vegas!

What’s the only thing worse than the current American presidential race? The Las Vegas-themed headlines and references in the Hebrew press ahead of the third and final presidential debate in Nevada. Leave it to Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth to concoct the most groan-inducing lines possible about Sin City.

Haaretz, in its usual sangfroid manner, avoids such schlocky headlines as Yedioth Ahronoth’s “Gambling it all,” which to the unwitting Israeli suggests the debate was held in a casino rather than the University of Nevada. While the tabloid’s curtain-raiser for the debate — which took place overnight and wasn’t in time for the morning editions — is tucked behind harder news stories, it cannot resist the terrible headline “Fear and loathing in Las Vegas.” Its reporter, Orly Azoulay, opens with a cliched description of the aftermath of hedonistic revelry in Vegas, not bothering to mention anywhere that the debate wouldn’t take place on the Strip, but at an institution of higher learning. Of course, the reportage has no substance as it’s only a prelude to the debate.

Rounding out the hackneyed references to Vegas, she writes, “It’s customary to say ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But this time what happens in the city of sin won’t stay there: the results of the fateful battle may determine these elections and set who will become the next president of the United States.”

Surely a newspaper as esteemed as Israel Hayom won’t succumb to the same urges and print the same tiresome tropes. Right?

“They say that what happens in Las Vegas usually stays in Las Vegas, but certainly not when it’s an American presidential debate,” writes the paper’s Boaz Bismuth in his front-page interview with the Republican candidate. Permit me to pause to emit an audible groan.

The paper’s nonstop Trumpathon carries on, with the GOP candidate telling the paper ahead of the debate that 20 days is a long time in politics and that he still plans on winning the election despite being down several points against Clinton in all the polls. He also reiterates his claim that all the media are stacked against him — all, of course, except Israel Hayom, which once again demonstrates its heavy preference for the Republican candidate.

Moreover, Trump is quoted telling the paper that he can’t understand how any Israeli could support Clinton, saying that “the Clintons are very bad for Israel.”

Haaretz keeps its cool, runs a New York Times piece translated into Hebrew, and turns its attention to other matters.

Looking toward the elections, Haaretz reports that five US states, including California, will be voting on referenda to legalize marijuana, making November 8 a possible turning point for the legalization of the substance in the United States. Should they pass, particularly in the Golden State, it could pave the way for nationwide legalization in the coming years, the paper says.

One might mistakenly think that the Hebrew papers devoted all their time to coming up with eye-roll inducing references to Las Vegas, but in fact they also published other material on Thursday. Yedioth Ahronoth devotes its main story to a case of four newborns being infected with an antibiotic-resistant bacteria at Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv. It breaks down what Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae are, what the risks are, and answers a dozen other questions, but reveals little about the case itself besides the fact that twins were found to have caught the bacteria from their mother, and that two other preemies in the ward with them were found to be CRE carriers. None of them was ill.

A proposal in the government to kill the new public broadcasting corporation before it is born and create a new organization which would incorporate Army Radio, Educational Television and the remnants of the moribund Israel Broadcasting Authority is Haaretz’s main story. The plan would bring those three public media bodies under a single roof and a single regulator, a single senior source familiar with the issue tells the paper, outlining the political algebra behind the various parties supporting the move. In spiking the independent new public broadcasting corporation, the new body would effectively remove any separation between government and the public media, the paper says.

When Israel Hayom isn’t throwing its weight behind Trump with a three-page interview, it’s gushing over “the response to deniers of history” as thousands attend the annual Sukkot holiday prayers at the Western Wall. See, UNESCO? Jews are praying there as they do every year, but this time they’re doing it coincidentally just after you omitted any reference to a Jewish connection to the contested holy site. Take that!