Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The NLRB case: “’An American President is not a king,’ a federal judge wrote in ruling against President Donald Trump on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in the District of Columbia made the stark statement in rejecting Trump’s bid to fire Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board.”
* A closely watched ruling: “A federal appeals court Wednesday said President Donald Trump can fire a top government watchdog in the latest round of a legal fight over the authority to dismiss federal officials. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., put on hold on a lower court’s ruling that found Hampton Dellinger’s termination at the Office of Special Counsel was ‘unlawful.’ The court said it would expedite its review of the ruling, but in the meantime Dellinger can be removed from his post.”
* The ruling the National Institutes of Health was hoping for: “A U.S. judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from carrying out steep cuts to federal grant funding for research that universities and Democratic-led states warn would lead to layoffs, lab closures and a curtailment of scientific and medical studies.”
* This was an important speech, which got Moscow’s attention: “President Emmanuel Macron has warned that France needs to prepare for the possibility of the United States disengaging from Europe by increasing spending on defense needs and rethinking how the country uses its nuclear deterrent.”
* The sequel: “The Trump administration is reopening a sprawling detention center in South Texas for migrant families facing deportation, resuming the practice of detaining children four years after the Biden administration ended it, according to the private prison contractor that runs the facility.”
* Why do this? “U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would soon decide whether to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia, following a Reuters report that his administration planned to take that step. Such a move would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration and potentially put them on a fast-track to deportation.”
* The confirmation vote was 52 to 46: “The Senate on Wednesday confirmed President Trump’s criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche to take the No. 2 position at the Justice Department, where he has vowed to end the kind of investigations and prosecutions that led to indictments against his client.”
* All is not well at the Social Security Administration: “The Social Security Administration wrote in a Thursday morning email that employees can no longer read news websites on work devices.”
See you tomorrow.