Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In Israel: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Tuesday to launch an incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering from the almost 7-month-long war, just as cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to be gaining steam.”
* The crisis in Haiti: “Haiti’s newly installed transitional council chose former Sports Minister Fritz Bélizaire as the Caribbean country’s prime minister Tuesday as it presses forward in its monumental task of trying to establish a stable new government amid stifling violence.”
* Keep an eye on this one: “The White House said Monday that it viewed the reported role of the Indian intelligence service in two assassination plots in Canada and the United States as a serious matter.”
* Donald Trump apparently fell asleep again today during his criminal trial in New York.
* On a related note, despite the recent hysterics from the former president and his allies, Judge Juan Merchan indicated today that Trump should be able to attend his youngest son’s high school graduation in mid-May.
* The latest defamation case of interest: “A former Secret Service agent sued two news organizations for defamation Tuesday and accused them of publishing stories based on fabricated text messages that he says falsely linked him to Hunter Biden.”
* Updating a brutal report from yesterday: “Four officers were fatally shot as a U.S. Marshals task force was serving a warrant at a home Monday in Charlotte, North Carolina, officials said. A suspected shooter was also dead. A marshal and two local officers working with the fugitive task force were killed in the gunfire around 1:30 p.m. Gov. Roy Cooper said that ‘two state Department of Adult Correction officers’ had died.”
* Texas’ Ken Paxton, naturally, is taking the lead on this: “Five Republican-led states have sued the Biden administration over its new rules expanding Title IX — a federal civil rights law that protects students from sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools — to protect transgender students. “
* The latest on Jeffrey Clark: “Disbarment is ‘the only possible sanction’ for former Trump administration official Jeffrey Clark, DC Bar officials said in a filing Monday.”
* And if the Taliban is waiting for a significant number of tourists, it might want to keep expectations low: “Afghanistan’s rulers are pariahs on the global stage, largely because of their restrictions on women and girls. The economy is struggling, infrastructure is poor, and poverty is rife. And yet, foreigners are visiting the country, encouraged by the sharp drop in violence, increased flight connections with hubs like Dubai, and the bragging rights that come with vacationing in an unusual destination. The numbers aren’t huge — they never were — but there’s a buzz around Afghan tourism.”
See you tomorrow.