Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In Moscow: “Vladimir Putin hosted his ‘dear friend’ Xi Jinping for dinner in the Kremlin on Monday, showing off his relationship with his most powerful ally just days after an international court called for the Russian president’s arrest for war crimes in Ukraine.”
* In France: “President Emmanuel Macron survived a key vote Monday that could have collapsed his government and killed off his flagship pension plan, the cause of countrywide protests and strikes. The no-confidence vote received 278 votes in the National Assembly, falling short of the 287 needed to pass.”
* Headed home: “An American held hostage in West Africa for more than six years has been released, in a stunning turn of events that left the former captive ‘thrilled to be free,’ officials and his family said Monday. Aid worker Jeff Woodke, who is from McKinleyville, California, was kidnapped on Oct. 14, 2016, from his home in the northern city of Abalak, Niger.”
* The latest Jan. 6 convictions: “Four members of the Oath Keepers were convicted of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Monday, as a judge ordered jurors to continue deliberating the most serious counts against two additional defendants.”
* In related news: “A retired Air Force officer who stormed the U.S. Capitol dressed in combat gear and carried zip-tie handcuffs into the Senate gallery was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison.”
* Biden’s first veto: “President Joe Biden on Monday issued his first veto since taking office, rejecting a bipartisan measure that would nullify a new administration rule for retirement plans.”
* Among Trump’s many legal troubles: “A New York federal judge on Monday postponed indefinitely the previously scheduled April trial for the first of two lawsuits accusing former President Donald Trump of defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she claimed he raped her in the mid-1990s. Judge Lewis Kaplan also denied a joint request by lawyers for Trump and Carroll to consolidate her two pending civil lawsuits against Trump into a single trial.”
* Dreadful new details out of Uvalde: “In previously unreleased interviews, police who responded to the Robb Elementary shooting told investigators they were cowed by the shooter’s military-style rifle [an AR-15].”
* Yet another new Republican-imposed abortion restriction: “Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill Friday night prohibiting abortion pills in the state and also allowed a separate measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature.”
* Following up on a story we recently discussed: “On Friday, Governor Tim Walz visited Webster Elementary School in Minneapolis and signed a bill that will provide Minnesota students free breakfast and lunch.”
* We had some coverage about this last week, too. “Nine South Carolina Republicans who had co-sponsored one of the most severe anti-abortion proposals in the country have since withdrawn their support, reversing course on a measure that proposed applying the state’s homicide laws to people who undergo abortions.”
See you tomorrow.