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Today’s edition of quick hits.
* A discouraging ruling: “The Supreme Court on Monday granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants. The administration had asked the justices to lift a federal judge’s order that blocked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from terminating Biden-era protections. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted her dissent from the order that blocks the lower court judge’s ruling pending further litigation.”
* An encouraging ruling: “A federal district judge on Monday tossed out the takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace by the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency, declaring that actions by ‘illegitimately-installed leaders’ were ‘unlawful’ and had to be declared ‘null and void.’”
* In Romania: “In a setback for Europe’s surging nationalist forces, Nicusor Dan, a centrist mayor and former mathematics professor, on Sunday won the presidential election in Romania, defeating a hard-right candidate who is aligned with President Trump and has opposed military aid to Ukraine.”
* The latest on the Palm Springs bombing: “Investigators on Sunday identified a 25-year-old man as the suspect in the bombing outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, Calif., as they searched for the motive behind the blast that damaged several blocks downtown and, they believe, killed him as well.”
* The more Trump says Putin wants peace, the more we’re confronted with evidence to the contrary: “Nine people were killed and seven were injured on Saturday in a Russian drone attack on a bus carrying civilians in northeastern Ukraine, according to local officials. ... The attack occurred near the town of Bilopillia, in Sumy Oblast, a Ukrainian region bordering Russia. Ukrainian police confirmed the strike and released photos of the bus, whose roof was torn off by the explosion.”
* Fortunately, the dispute was short-lived: “The New Jersey Transit rail strike will end after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and NJ Transit managers reached a tentative agreement Sunday.”
* Another one? “We have another screwy deportation case under the Trump administration. At this point in Donald Trump’s second term, it’s necessary to distinguish among these cases to know which one we’re talking about.”
* A case we’ve been keeping an eye on: “A politically fraught investigation opened by the Trump administration into a Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency grant program has so far failed to find meaningful evidence of criminality by government officials, according to people familiar with the matter.”
* Keep an eye on this one: “The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine, but only for older adults and for others over age 12 who have at least one medical condition that puts them at high risk from Covid.”
* The consequences of Trump gutting USAID are ongoing: “Food rations that could supply 3.5 million people for a month are moldering in warehouses around the world because of U.S. aid cuts and risk becoming unusable, according to five people familiar with the situation. The food stocks have been stuck inside four U.S. government warehouses since the Trump administration’s decision in January to cut global aid programs, according to three people who previously worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development and two sources from other aid organizations.”
* I meant to flag this one last week: “The Trump administration on Thursday fired nearly 600 employees at Voice of America, a federally funded news network that provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedoms. The layoffs targeted contractors, most of them journalists but also some administrative employees, and amounted to over a third of Voice of America’s staff.”
* Kacsmaryk strikes again: “A MAGA judge in Texas has issued a sweeping ruling that destroys workplace discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in the United States. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who holds a reputation for being a far-right activist judge, declared that while Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not protect LGBTQ people from workplace harassment based on their sexual or gender orientation.”
* A brutal diagnosis: “Former President Joe Biden thanked well-wishers Monday for their support after his personal office announced he has cancer. ... The former president’s personal office shared Sunday that Biden had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, prompting an outpouring of support from politicians and allies.”
See you tomorrow.