Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Israel: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he could not form a new government after President Reuven Rivlin asked him to try in the wake of a deadlocked election. Netanyahu’s decision to cut short his efforts leaves the country’s political future — and his own — uncertain.”
* Brexit: “House of Commons Speaker John Bercow ruled Monday that the government could not ask lawmakers to vote again on the Brexit deal, in the latest blow to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.”
* Facebook unveiled plans today “to fight 2020 election interference. It will clearly label news that comes from state-owned media, and will give greater transparency for the origins of Facebook pages. And it has already found interference coming from authoritarian regimes overseas.”
* Nuclear proliferation: “Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wants more than control over a wide swath of Syria along his country’s border. He says he wants the Bomb.”
* An appropriate honor: “The body of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Baltimore Democrat and committee chairman, will lie in state next week in National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced.”
* Jose Segovia Benitez: “Supporters of a Marine combat veteran who served in Iraq are calling on the governor of California to help stop his imminent deportation to El Salvador, a country he left at 3 years old.” * More evidence for the White House to ignore: “Home values could fall significantly. Banks could stop lending to flood-prone communities. Towns could lose the tax money they need to build sea walls and other protections. These are a few of the warnings published on Thursday by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco regarding the financial risks of climate change.” * And on a related note, here’s a headline I didn’t expect to see: “Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors.” See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
