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Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Conditions in Syria: “A civil war that dominated international headlines for more than a decade has now been reignited after a coalition of Syrian rebels launched a lightning offensive last week, seizing Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, from President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.”
* Biden in sub-Saharan Africa: “President Joe Biden made history Monday as he becomes the first American head of state to visit the southern African nation of Angola, where he will showcase U.S.-backed infrastructure projects designed to link three nations. In his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa, which comes at the end of his White House tenure, Biden is set to hold a bilateral meeting with his Angolan counterpart, João Lourenço, in the capital, Luanda.”
* Some Capitol Hill drama: “Rep. Jamie Raskin, a former constitutional law professor who served as the Democrats’ lead prosecutor in the Trump impeachment trial after the Jan. 6 attack, told colleagues Monday he will challenge Rep. Jerry Nadler for the top Democratic spot on the powerful Judiciary Committee.”
* Outrageous threats: “At least nine Democratic members of Congress said they received bomb threats to their homes on Thanksgiving or the day after, after similar threats were made against some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks earlier in the week. ... In a statement on Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., condemned the threats, which he said ranged from ‘detailed threats of a pipe bomb placed in mailboxes to swatting, all signed with ‘MAGA’ at the conclusion of the message.’”
* Worth watching: “Saudi Arabia has abandoned its pursuit of an ambitious defense treaty with Washington in return for normalizing relations with Israel and is now pushing for a more modest military cooperation agreement, two Saudi and four Western officials told Reuters. In a drive to get a wide-ranging mutual security treaty over the line earlier this year, Riyadh softened its position on Palestinian statehood, telling Washington that a public commitment from Israel to a two-state solution could be enough for the Gulf kingdom to normalize relations.”
* In Brazil: “Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil, wants to return to power and said he believes U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will help make that happen, possibly by using economic sanctions against the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.”
* The online scrubbing continues: “Karoline Leavitt, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, deleted two social media posts she shared after the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol — including a retweet praising then-Vice President Mike Pence for certifying the 2020 election.”
See you tomorrow.