Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In the Middle East: “Hamas’s slain political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, was being mourned in Qatar on Friday, with the region on edge after twin assassinations that have shaken up the leadership of some of Israel’s most prominent foes. The strikes on senior figures in Hamas and Hezbollah have threatened to engulf the Middle East in an even wider war and to derail already troubled talks aimed at stopping the fighting in Gaza. Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas have all said they would retaliate against Israel.”
* In related news: “The United States is preparing to send additional combat aircraft to the Middle East in response to threats from Iran and its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen to attack Israel in the coming days to avenge the death of Ismail Haniyeh this week, American officials said on Friday.”
* In Caracas: “Venezuela’s opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia thanked the U.S. on Friday for recognizing him as the official winner of Sunday’s controversial presidential election, in which both González Urrutia and President Nicolás Maduro claimed victory.”
* All is not well with the 5th Circuit: “A federal appeals court further narrowed the scope of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ruling that members of separate minority groups cannot join together to claim that a political map has been drawn to dilute their voting power. The 12-to-6 ruling on Thursday by the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned almost four decades of legal precedent, as well as earlier rulings by a three-judge panel of the same appeals court and, before that, a federal district court.”
* Quite a story: “Five days before Donald Trump became president in January 2017, a manager at a bank branch in Cairo received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service. It asked the bank to ‘kindly withdraw’ nearly $10 million from the organization’s account — all in cash.”
* Jeffrey Clark’s troubles: Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department attorney who became a central figure in Donald Trump’s bid to seize a second term he didn’t win, should be suspended from practicing law for two years, a Washington, D.C., disciplinary panel ruled Thursday. * A case worth watching: “The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance on Friday, alleging that the company repeatedly violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.” * Holder has a point: “Former Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday slammed the ‘political hacks’ who blocked the trial of accused Sept. 11 terrorists in federal court nearly 15 years ago, saying those politicians owed an apology to the families of the victims of the attack for delaying justice against Guantanamo Bay detainees who Holder said would be ‘nothing more than a memory’ had they been tried and convicted in the United States.” Have a safe weekend.
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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