Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Russia: “The fierce Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma as doctors fight for his life after he was poisoned Thursday morning, his spokesperson said. The 44-year-old foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin felt unwell on a flight back to Moscow from Tomsk, a city in Siberia, Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter.”
* Reversing course on a bad idea: “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is reversing course on a change to the way hospitals report critical information on the coronavirus pandemic to the government, returning the responsibility for data collection to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
* Flint: “The state of Michigan announced Thursday it has agreed to pay $600 million to Flint residents whose health was afflicted by lead-tainted drinking water in a crisis that spurred a class-action lawsuit and became emblematic of how poorer, majority-Black communities can suffer under government mismanagement.”
* The administration’s approach toward Venezuela has sputtered for quite a while: “The Trump administration is tapping into more than $300 million in frozen Venezuelan government funds in an effort to give new momentum to its elusive goal of ousting President Nicolas Maduro.”
* The latest Capitol Hill infection: “Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, he said in a statement Thursday. Cassidy, 62, said he was notified Wednesday night he had been in contact with someone confirmed positive for the virus and sought a test Thursday. It came back positive.”
* Nursing homes: “COVID-19 has been with us for more than half a year and a passenger jet’s worth of nursing home residents are dying from it every day. But it seems neither the president, his allies nor the country as a whole appreciates the magnitude of tragedy — or the need to do something about it.”
* This does not seem like an especially well timed departure: Brian Harrell, a senior official in charge of physical infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, resigned his post on Thursday and is headed to the private sector. * Facebook yesterday “banned about 900 pages and groups and 1,500 ads tied to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon, part of a sweeping action that also restricted the reach of over 10,000 Instagram pages and almost 2,000 Facebook groups pushing the baseless conspiracy theory, which has spawned real-world violence.” * Seems reasonable: “Nearly 7 in 10 Americans say the US response to the coronavirus outbreak makes them feel embarrassed, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, as 62% of the public says President Donald Trump could be doing more to fight the outbreak.” 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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