Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Ukraine’s counteroffensive: “Ukraine announced a military offensive Monday in areas across its south, signaling the launch of a long-awaited push to retake Russian-held territory…. The apparent start of the major counteroffensive comes after weeks of buildup and nearly six months since Russian forces seized swaths of territory in southern Ukraine in the early days of the war.”
* Arizona’s latest mass shooting: “Three people are dead, including the suspect, and two police officers are injured after a shooting broke out Sunday night in Phoenix, authorities said.”
* Oregon’s latest mass shooting: “Three people, including the suspected shooter, are dead following an attack Sunday night at a grocery store in central Oregon, police said.”
* The lingering question about a possible special master: “Some of the documents recovered during the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort ‘potentially contain attorney-client privileged information,’ Justice Department lawyers said Monday. The Justice Department acknowledged the find in a submission to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who’s weighing a request from Trump’s team to appoint a special master to review some of the documents the FBI seized as part of its national security-related criminal investigation.”
* The latest Jan. 6 conviction: “A ‘pissed off’ Donald Trump fan was sentenced to 46 months in prison Friday for assaulting law enforcement officers with a Trump flag and joining a mob to use a giant Trump billboard as a battering ram when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.”
* In related news: “A former D.C. bartender and Proud Boy who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to 55 months in federal prison on Monday. Joshua Pruitt, 40, pleaded guilty in June to obstruction of an official proceeding after he was caught on video joining a mob pursuing police officers and smashing a sign inside the U.S. Capitol.”
* Unfortunately, this is the outcome congressional Republicans insisted upon: “The government will end its giveaway of Covid-19 at-home tests Friday because of insufficient congressional funding, a senior Biden administration official said Sunday. A stockpile of the tests is being depleted, and officials want to have enough on hand in the event of a fall surge, the source said.”
* That’s real money: “The Secret Service said Friday that it has recovered $286 million in Covid relief funds that were meant for small businesses but were siphoned off by fraudsters using thousands of stolen or fake identities.” * A different kind of diplomacy: “President Joe Biden plans to establish a new ambassador-at-large position focused on the Arctic region, an area of growing geostrategic concern to the United States — as well as Russia and China.” * Jim Trusty has joined Donald Trump’s legal defense team because the former president was impressed with him after seeing him on television. 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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