Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The death toll in Turkey keeps climbing: “As the temperatures plunged, anger started to rise in Turkey over the government’s response to two massive earthquakes this week. On Thursday, the number of those killed by the tremors in Turkey and neighboring Syria passed 20,000.”
* New information on China’s balloons: “American intelligence agencies have assessed that China’s spy balloon program is part of a global surveillance effort that is designed to collect information on the military capabilities of countries around the world, according to three American officials.”
* Rare unanimity: “The House on Thursday issued a bipartisan condemnation of the Chinese Communist Party for flying a spy balloon over the United States last week, unanimously approving the move after Republican leaders rebuffed a right-wing faction that had pressed to rebuke President Biden personally for how the incident was handled.”
* Kevin Seefried’s sentence: “A Delaware man who carried a Confederate flag through the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday.”
* This story just keeps getting messier: “While the College Board was developing its first Advanced Placement course in African American studies, the group was in repeated contact with the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, often discussing course concepts that the state said it found objectionable, a newly released letter shows.”
* Statehood for D.C. matters: “The Republican-led House has launched the first salvo in what could be a long-running feud with the District of Columbia over self-government in the nation’s capital. In back-to-back votes, the House voted Thursday to overturn a sweeping rewrite of the criminal code passed by the City Council last year and a new law that would grant noncitizens the right to vote in local elections.”
* The fact that this was even a possibility is a reminder of just how ridiculous conditions in Florida have become: “Florida schools will no longer ask student-athletes to share their menstrual histories in order to play high school sports, following months of opposition from parents, physicians and advocates.”
* Not too surprising: “In a study released on Thursday by the Brookings Institution, [Steve] Bannon’s show was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts.”
* Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe continues: “Chad Wolf, former acting homeland security secretary, has been interviewed as part of a special counsel’s probe into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the matter.”
* All is not well in Mississippi: “The Mississippi House has approved the creation of a new court system in which judges and prosecutors would be appointed by state officials — who all happen to be white — for the capital of Jackson, which has the second-highest percentage of Black residents among U.S. cities.”
See you tomorrow.