Your Evening Briefing

Here's what you need to know from NYT Now: * Hamas's fate.

Hamas continued to fire rockets nearly nonstop into southern Israel today, after Israeli airstrikes killed three senior commanders before dawn.

'It's a blow, substantively and symbolically, to the movement,' Jodi Rudoren, our Jerusalem bureau chief, says of the killings of the commanders.

Still, it isn't the first time that Hamas has lost a high-ranking official: In 2012, Israel killed the head of day-to-day operations for Hamas's armed wing.

'Commanders get replaced,' Ms. Rudoren says.

The question now is whether today's loss will destabilize Hamas or push it to escalate the conflict.

'For sure, the loss of these leaders is a blow, but it could be motivation for some more creative kind of attack as well,' Ms. Rudoren says.

* An America divided.

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll found strong divisions among Americans over the handling of events in Ferguson, Mo.

But whether race or political party was the stronger factor in people's answers is unclear.

'Blacks have long been strongly associated with the Democratic Party, so for some issues, it can be difficult to separate the partisan aspect from the racial one,' says Marjorie Connelly, our polling director.

Sixty percent of the black participants surveyed said they were satisfied with President Obama's response to the situation, and 20 percent said they were dissatisfied.

Among whites, 59 percent of Democrats were satisfied and 52 percent of Republicans were dissatisfied.

Racial differences are common in surveys about discrimination and the fairness of the criminal justice system, Ms. Connelly says.

But she has seen plenty of questions where blacks and whites - and Republicans and Democrats - agree.

One is on marriages between races: 87 percent of the total population approves, according to a Gallup poll last year.

* The ice bucket cometh.

The grass-roots Ice Bucket Challenge helped the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association raise more money in the past couple of weeks to fight the incurable disease than it typically raises in an entire year, the group said today.

Without trying to tarnish that accomplishment, we wondered whether there was a downside to such an effort.

Emily Steel, our reporter on the story, says the campaign has come under its share of criticism. Some people have called it 'slacktivism' that is all clicks but little action, while others see it as no more than a celebrity popularity contest.

But the net result is a plus, she says, in both money and awareness.

'The group says that before the challenge, only about half of Americans knew about the disease,' Ms. Steel says. Also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, A.L.S. attacks nerve cells and ultimately leads to total paralysis.

One important lesson for other charities: 'The A.L.S. Association believes that if it had tried to create such a campaign itself, it probably wouldn't have been as successful,' she says.

* Off the cuff.

'Medieval pilgrimage meets contemporary political campaign.'

That's Rachel Donadio, who covered the Vatican as our Rome bureau chief, talking about papal flights accompanied by reporters.

'Those trips are pretty much the only time a pope speaks to the press,' she says, and Pope Francis has used these moments to make straightforward, often newsworthy remarks.

This week, on his trip home from South Korea, he reflected on his own mortality: 'because I know this will last a short time, two or three years, and then to the house of the Father,' he said.

He has been just as blunt on other trips. Flying back from Brazil, he said of gay priests, 'Who am I to judge?' Returning from Jerusalem, he compared sex abuse by priests to a 'satanic Mass.'

Francis's in-flight approach, Ms. Donadio says, is an extension of his personal style of church leadership.

MARKETS

* Wall Street stocks gained. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index set a record high, closing up 0.3 percent at 1,992.97.

TONIGHT * Better on the big screen?

' Sharknado 2: The Second One ' will be in theaters nationwide for one night only. It premiered on television last month on Syfy.

There are already plans for 'Sharknado 3,' which will air next summer.

* If you're staying up ...

On 'Chelsea Lately': Jennifer Lopez. (11 p.m. Eastern, E!)

'Late Show': Serena Williams, the top women's seed in the U.S. Open, beginning next week in New York; Chadwick Boseman of the James Brown biopic ' Get On Up'; and the British rock band Echo & the Bunnymen. (11:35 p.m. Eastern, CBS)

TOMORROW * A gathering of dudes.

'The Big Lebowski,' which starred Jeff Bridges in 1998 as a pot-smoking, bowling-obsessed slacker known as the Dude, has become one of the most popular cult films of all time.

The movie has spawned drinking games, Halloween costumes, bumper stickers and annual festivals around the world.

New York gets a Lebowski Fest on Friday and Saturday. Chicago's is in October.

Adeel Hassan contributed reporting. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 5 p.m. weekdays. Don't miss Your Morning Briefing at 6 a.m. weekdays. What would you like to see here? Email us at NYTNow@NYTimes.com. Follow us on Twitter: @NYTNow.