Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In Mexico: “Hurricane Erick made landfall early Thursday on the Pacific coast of Mexico as a major Category 3 storm, the National Hurricane Center said, and local officials report flooding and landslides in its wake. Erick made landfall in extreme western Oaxaca, just east of Punta Maldonado, with estimated maximum sustained winds near 125 mph, the center reported.”
* In Iran: “As the conflict entered its seventh day, Israel said that overnight it targeted Iran’s Arak nuclear reactor and a nuclear weapons development site in Natanz. Israel said it would ‘increase the intensity of attacks’ after a hospital in the southern part of the country was directly hit by an Iranian missile. Iran says it was aiming for a nearby military complex.”
* In related news: “The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families from the U.S. embassy in Israel as hostilities between Israel and Iran intensify and President Donald Trump warns of the possibility of getting directly involved in the conflict.”
* In L.A.: “The Los Angeles Dodgers announced Thursday they blocked federal immigration agents from entering their stadium as dozens of anti-ICE protesters gathered outside the sports venue.”
* I’d be interested in learning more about how and whether these limits are legal: “The Department of Homeland Security has placed new limits on members of Congress seeking to visit and inspect immigration detention facilities as lawmakers from New York and the Chicago delegations become the latest to encounter resistance from federal officials on an attempted tour.” * The travel ban doesn’t just hurt targeted countries: “Travel and visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration threaten patient care at hundreds of hospitals that depend on medical residents recruited from overseas. Foreign medical residents often serve as the frontline caregivers at busy safety-net hospitals in low-income communities. Normally the residents begin work on July 1. Orientation programs for some of them already started this week. Now some of those hospitals are racing to prevent staffing shortages.” * Usually, “rapid unintentional disassembly” happens in the air, not on the stand: “A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded in a huge fireball on a test stand late Wednesday during preparations for its next launch at the Elon Musk-led company’s base in South Texas.” 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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