Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In the Middle East: “A wave of deadly Israeli airstrikes targeted government forces in Syria and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon on Tuesday, escalating what Israel said were efforts to secure its northern border. The strikes in Syria were a rare attack on forces of the new government, which is led by Islamist former rebels who toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. “
* Waltz’s testimony was far from impressive: “President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Waltz, was pressed by Democrats on Capitol Hill on Tuesday but did not acknowledge any wrongdoing related to a sensitive group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal in March.”
* Since the administration needs more immigration judges, not fewer, these firings are tough to understand: “Seventeen immigration court judges have been fired in recent days, according to the union that represents them, as the Trump administration pushes forward with its mass deportations of immigrants in the country.”
* A policy shift with potentially dramatic consequences: “The Trump administration has declared that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.”
* A lawsuit worth watching: “A group of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration Monday over its withholding of nearly $7 billion in education funding for after-school care, English-language learning, teacher training and other programs, asking a federal judge to force the federal government to release the money.”
* Just one week after Grok was endorsing Adolf Hitler, this report reached the public: “The Defense Department will begin using Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot built by Elon Musk’s start-up xAI, the company said in a post Monday. … In a news release, the Defense Department said the contract award is worth up to $200 million. The department issued similar awards to Google, Anthropic and OpenAI, it said.” * A story we’ve been following: “A county official in New York on Monday rejected for a second time efforts by Texas to enforce a $100,000 judgment against a New York doctor accused of violating Texas’ ban on abortion by sending abortion pills to the state, further escalating an unprecedented interstate conflict.” * If this reporting in The Atlantic is correct, it’s unforgivable: “Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it. Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire tomorrow, according to current and former government employees with direct knowledge of the rations. Within weeks, two of those sources told me, the food, meant for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be ash.” 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."
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