Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In the Middle East: “Israeli officials and hostage families have accused Hamas of violating the new cease-fire deal by failing to immediately return the remains of many of the former captives still in Gaza.”
* I’ll have more on this in the morning: “The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday. Those who died in the strike were aboard the vessel, and no U.S. forces were harmed, the Republican president said in a social media post. It’s the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump’s administration has asserted it’s treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.”
* Comey’s defense attorneys target Lindsey Halligan’s dubious appointment: Former FBI Director James Comey filed a formal notice today that he will challenge the legality of the appointment of the U.S. attorney who has charged him with lying to Congress.”
* SCOTUS news: “The Supreme Court has declined to review Alex Jones’ appeal, which sought to upend the $1.4 billion judgment that the Infowars host called ‘the largest in American libel history.’ He was sued by victims’ relatives over his lies about the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.”
* Creating more economic uncertainty: “Trump took to Truth Social to once again go after China. Trump said, ‘I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act.’ In recent days Trump has repeatedly threatened China with new tariffs through Truth Social posts, but seemed to back off those threats over the weekend.”
* Tariffs remain a tax on consumers: “Six months into President Donald Trump’s unprecedented gambit to impose sizable tariffs on imports, U.S. consumers are already shouldering as much as 55% of their costs, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs analysts. And with new tariffs most likely on the way, the cost burden could rise even higher, they said.”
* Remember the community colleges the White House touted? The Trump administration’s agenda is hurting them, too: “A spate of federal cuts are hurting a pillar of the higher-education system: community colleges. The schools, which educate about 40 percent of the nation’s college students, are contending with millions of dollars in lost funding for services such as campus-based child care, student advisement and academic support.”
See you tomorrow.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
