Today’s edition of quick hits.
* An update on a story from yesterday: “North Korea was silent Wednesday about the status of an American soldier who ‘bolted’ across the inter-Korean border into the isolated communist country a day earlier, as more details emerged about the 23-year-old Army private.”
* It’s probably never going to be front-page news, but Biden appears quite serious about consumer protections: “The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed new guidelines for corporate mergers, took steps to disclose the junk fees charged by landlords and launched a crackdown on price-gouging in the food industry.”
* On Capitol Hill: “President Isaac Herzog of Israel addressed Congress on Wednesday at a fraught moment in the American relationship with his nation, and amid fresh signs of strain in the longstanding bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill to fervently support the Jewish state.”
* In related news: “Days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to ram through the first part of his plan to weaken Israel’s Supreme Court, President Joe Biden urged him “not to rush” the legislation that has so deeply divided Israel. It was an unusually direct intervention by an American president into the affairs of one of the United States’ closest allies.”
* The latest Jan. 6 prison sentence: “A Jan. 6 rioter who was armed with a concealed weapon as he led a mob that overran police on the steps of the Capitol was sentenced to seven years in federal prison on Wednesday.”
* An important Houston Chronicle report out of Texas: “Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as ‘inhumane.’”
* This is an interesting story for a variety of reasons, including the student journalists who uncovered the controversy: “Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced Wednesday he will step down next month following an inquiry into his past research as a neuroscientist.”
See you tomorrow.