Today’s edition of quick hits.
* You should definitely check out our coverage tonight on Cohen’s testimony, starting at 8 eastern: “Key witness Michael Cohen is testifying today about paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with then-candidate Donald Trump. ... Prosecutors have been preparing Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, for this moment for more than a year.”
* In Ukraine: “Ukraine is shooting down a far smaller proportion of Russian missile attacks than it was earlier in the war. The worsening performance of Ukraine’s air defenses comes as Russia increases drone and missile attacks, and fires more harder-to-hit weapons, such as ballistic missiles. Kyiv is also running low on ammunition for the Western-supplied Patriot systems that have been its best defense against such attacks.”
* In related news: “Sergei Shoigu seemed to have survived. The man leading Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was looking relaxed just last week as he appeared in uniform at the Russian leader’s fifth inauguration ceremony and then at Moscow’s annual Victory Day parade. But on Sunday he was removed as defense minister, the post he had held on to for more than a decade despite a rebel mutiny, a corruption scandal and a calamitous start to the full-scale invasion of Russia’s neighbor.”
* In Gaza: “The Israeli military intensified its attacks on northern Gaza on Monday, battling a regrouped Hamas in areas it said it had cleared and renewing questions over Israeli strategy in the war as the United States issued some of its harshest public criticism yet.”
* In many advanced countries, this would dominate the public conversation: “At least 11 people, including a teenager, were killed in a spate of weekend shootings from Florida to Massachusetts.”
* It appears the congressman has a problem: “A Houston woman has pleaded guilty in a bribery scheme that allegedly funneled $360,000 in payoffs from the government of Azerbaijan to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife, the Express-News has learned. Irada Akhoundova, 67, secretly entered a guilty plea on May 1 to a charge of acting as an agent for Azerbaijan between September 2020 and January 2021 without registering as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
* What an unusual mess: “Former aides to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) vehemently disputed her claims that they ‘sabotaged’ her office by hacking her phone, mismanaging the office budget, spying on her children and trying to destroy electronic devices with water. ... [T]he turmoil between Mace and former staffers has played out in public view over the past year as staff has cycled through her office.”
* I remember covering some of the right’s predictions about marriage equality 20 years ago, and how bizarre they seemed at the time. They’re worse now: “The widespread public approval suggests most people don’t believe the horrors once forecast have resulted from same-sex marriage’s legalization, and now there is evidence to prove it. A comprehensive new research report by the Rand organization finds that the consequences of two decades of legal same-sex marriage have been broadly positive for gay and straight Americans alike.”
See you tomorrow.