Today’s edition of quick hits.
* A new ceasefire: “Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, which President Donald Trump said will begin today at 5 p.m. ET. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed to the truce ‘to advance’ peace efforts with Lebanon.”
* The third strike in three days and the 51st overall: “The United States military said it had struck a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, killing three people that it accused of smuggling drugs. The U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the strike on social media.”
* Russia’s war in Ukraine isn’t on front pages every day, but it remains devastating: “Russia launched a vast missile and drone attack across Ukraine overnight and early Thursday morning, killing at least 18 people and destroying any thought that the temporary Easter truce announced by President Vladimir V. Putin meant anything more permanent.”
* On the Hill: “The GOP-led House once again rejected an effort to curtail President Donald Trump’s war with Iran on Thursday, rejecting a war powers resolution for the second time. The vote, which came more than six weeks after Trump first launched the attack on the Islamic Republic, was 213-214 — a tighter margin than last month’s attempt at tying the president’s hands.”
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* Keep an eye on this one: “An ICE agent who was part of the federal immigration surge in Minnesota earlier this year was charged with felony second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, a Minnesota prosecutor announced Thursday. The agent, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., is accused of pointing a gun at the heads of two civilians in a vehicle, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.”
* How unsubtle: “Pope Leo XIV is not backing down. Amid a growing dispute with the Trump administration over the legitimacy of American attacks in Iran, Leo used a speech on Thursday in Cameroon to express ‘woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.’”
* That’s quite a deployment: “The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, broke the U.S. record Wednesday for the longest post-Vietnam War deployment, a nearly 10-month span that saw it take part in both the military raid in Venezuela and the Iran war.”
* Sotomayor’s contrition: “Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor apologized Wednesday for suggesting that Justice Brett Kavanaugh had a sheltered upbringing that made him insensitive to day laborers being targeted by the Trump administration for immigration enforcement.”
See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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