Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Another key legal setback for the White House: “A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.”
* In Gaza: “Israel expanded its preparations for a full-scale assault on Gaza City on Friday and targeted a prominent local landmark, a day after a military spokesman said it was in control of almost half the city.”
* The news is never good when RFK Jr. starts talking about autism: “Shares of Kenvue fell more than 10% on Friday after a report that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely link autism to the use of the company’s pain medication Tylenol in pregnant women.”
* The Venezuelan government really shouldn’t do this: “Two armed Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets flew over the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer Jason Dunham in the southern Caribbean Sea in a show of force on Thursday, a Defense Department official said, in the latest escalation of tensions between the Trump administration and President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. The U.S. warship did not engage, the official said.”
* This does not sound like someone interested in greater transparency: “President Donald Trump said Friday that the Justice Department has ‘done its job’ in releasing records from Jeffrey Epstein’s case and that it was ‘time to end’ the push for more transparency.”
* An interesting case, Part I: “European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, marking the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company.”
* An interesting case, Part II: “President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to launch a trade investigation to ‘nullify’ what he said were discriminatory fines being levied by Europe against U.S. tech firms such as Google and Apple.”
* The administration targets yet another Democratic-run city: “The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday sued the city of Boston and its Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu to challenge an ordinance that restricts police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement carrying out U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda.”
* Pay particular attention to the judge in this case, whose name might sound familiar: “A federal judge in Miami on Friday dismissed an antitrust lawsuit that the right-wing cable channel Newsmax filed against Fox News earlier in the week. The judge said Newsmax could refile the complaint. Newsmax’s lawsuit was ‘an impermissible ‘shotgun pleading,’ in which four of the five counts incorporated allegations from the preceding counts, wrote the judge, Aileen Cannon of U.S. District Court.”
Have a safe weekend.