Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Crisis conditions in Lebanon: “The Israeli military is ‘deepening its operation’ in Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday. Large forces have been deployed there, he said in a statement, to capture additional territory. Earlier on Tuesday, an Israeli military official confirmed that Israeli troops had operated beyond the so-called yellow line, which demarcated the area in southern Lebanon that Israel kept under its control during a cease-fire that went into effect in mid-April.”
* Russia’s war in Ukraine: “Russia pounded Kyiv and surrounding areas with hundreds of drones and missiles on Sunday in one of the heaviest bombardments of the city since the start of the four-year war, firing an Oreshnik hypersonic missile near the capital. Russia’s hours-long overnight barrage killed two people in Kyiv and two more in the surrounding area, and it wounded nearly 100, according to Ukrainian officials. Authorities said dozens of residential buildings and several schools had been damaged, many in the center of Kyiv.”
* Turkey takes fresh steps away from democracy: “Turkish riot police forced their way into the headquarters of the country’s main opposition party on Sunday, days after a court dismissed its leadership.”
* At the Vatican: “Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the role the Holy See played in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican’s record a ‘wound in Christian memory.’”
* At this point, I believe the overall tally is eight losses and zero wins: “Federal judges in Wisconsin and Maine dismissed lawsuits from the Department of Justice that were seeking the unredacted, private voter files. The decisions were the latest setbacks in a sprawling effort by the Justice Department to obtain the private voter rolls, including identifying information such as partial social security numbers, from all 50 states. The D.O.J. is suing at least 30 states and territories to force officials to turn over the data, but has yet to win a single suit.”
* Green cards: “The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday that it will sharply limit when immigrants already inside the United States can apply for permanent residency. In a new policy memo, the agency said most noncitizens seeking a green card must instead leave the U.S. and complete the process through consular offices overseen by the U.S. Department of State in their home countries.”
* Since October, the United States has admitted 6,069 refugees. According to State Department figures, 6,066 of them were from South Africa.
* He sure does seem to have a lot of medical appointments: “President Donald Trump had another medical exam on Tuesday, putting his health under renewed public scrutiny as he has worked to dismiss concerns over his age and stamina. … In a social media post after the visit, Trump said that he had just finished his ‘6 month physical’ and that ‘Everything checked out PERFECTLY.’”
See you tomorrow.
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