WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced criminal charges Tuesday against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other senior militants in connection with the Oct. 7, 2023, rampage in Israel, marking the first effort by American law enforcement to formally call out the masterminds of the attack.

The seven-count criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City includes charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death. It also accuses Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah of providing financial support and weapons, including rockets used in the attack.

The impact of the case may be mostly symbolic given that Sinwar is believed to be hiding out in tunnels and the Justice Department says three of the six defendants named in the complaint are believed to be dead.

The complaint was originally filed under seal in February to give the U.S. time to try to take into custody then-Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, but was unsealed Tuesday weeks after Haniyeh’s death and because of other developments in the region, the DOJ said.

Other Hamas leaders charged include Haniyeh; Marwan Issa, deputy leader of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza, who helped plan last year’s attack and who Israel says was killed when fighter jets struck an underground compound in central Gaza in March; Khaled Mashaal, another Haniyeh deputy and a former leader of the group thought to be based in Qatar; Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ longtime shadowy military leader, who is thought to be dead following an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza in July; and Lebanon-based Ali Baraka, Hamas’ head of external relations.

During the Oct. 7 attack, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Trump hush money case: A federal judge on Tuesday swiftly rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to intervene in his New York hush money criminal case, thwarting Trump’s latest bid to overturn his felony conviction and delay his sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Trump’s lawyers permission to file paperwork asking the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to take control of the case. He said they had failed to satisfy the burden of proof required for a federal court to seize the case from the state court where Trump was convicted in May.

The ruling leaves Trump’s case in state court, where he is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 presidential run. Trump has denied her claim and said he did nothing wrong.

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation or a fine.

Migrant drownings: A boat carrying migrants ripped apart in the English Channel as they attempted to reach Britain from northern France on Tuesday, plunging dozens into the treacherous waterway and leaving 12 dead, authorities said.

Most of the victims were believed to be women, and many of the passengers didn’t have life preservers, officials said, with one calling it the deadliest migrant accident in the channel this year.

“Unfortunately, the bottom of the boat ripped open,” said Olivier Barbarin, mayor of Le Portel near Boulogne-sur-Mer, where a first aid post was set up to treat victims. “If people don’t know how to swim in the agitated waters ... it can go very quickly.”

Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rules, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants have been pushing them north.