Today’s edition of quick hits.
* It’s hard not to wonder whether a Venezuela-like assault could soon follow: “A federal grand jury has indicted 94-year-old former Cuban President Raúl Castro on murder charges in the 1996 downing of two small planes by a Cuban fighter jet while Castro was in charge of the country’s armed forces, U.S. authorities announced Wednesday.”
* On a related note: “Cuba is open to changes to its economy and government, and eager to continue negotiations with the United States, but it does not believe Washington is participating in talks in good faith, Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations told The New York Times.”
* A closely watched case: “A federal judge has ordered aides to President Donald Trump to continue to observe the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, despite a Justice Department opinion that found the law unconstitutionally intrudes on presidential power.” (The judge in the case is a George W. Bush appointee.)
* No good will come of this: “The Pentagon announced late Tuesday that it was pausing the deployment of any additional troops to NATO ally Poland as the Trump administration … pulls thousands of forces from Europe.”
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* In related news: “U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau instructed senior State Department officials to facilitate and approve a visa for a fugitive former Polish cabinet minister, allowing him to flee to the United States from Hungary, three people familiar with the matter said. Poland is seeking to prosecute former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, the architect of changes to the Polish judicial system that the EU has said undermined the rule of law during the 2015-2023 rule of the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS).”
* Another indicator of economic tumult: “Bond markets convulsed on Tuesday, pushing the rates on U.S. Treasuries to levels not seen since the global financial crisis nearly 20 years ago, as investors grew increasingly anxious about rising inflation because of the war in Iran. The yield on the 30-year Treasury note rose to 5.18 percent on Tuesday, its highest level since 2007. Bond yields move inversely to prices.”
* With any luck, the White House won’t respond to this investigation by firing the inspector general: “The Defense Department’s inspector general will evaluate whether U.S. Southern Command followed the department’s processes for targeting enemy combatants during its campaign against people the Trump administration accuses of smuggling drugs at sea.”
* Minnesota is the first to take this step, but it probably won’t be the last: “A day after Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota signed into law the first state law explicitly barring prediction markets, the Trump administration sued the state on Tuesday, seeking to block it from going into effect this summer. The law, which had the backing of a bipartisan group of state legislators, would make it illegal to host or advertise a prediction market site in Minnesota.”
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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