Today’s edition of quick hits:
* A White House warning: “President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he has hope, both of a diplomatic solution to ease tensions over Ukraine and in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to continue those talks. Should diplomacy not prevail, Biden warned in remarks at the White House, the consequences could be painful, and not just for Putin.”
* Related news: “Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow had decided to ‘partially withdraw’ some troops gathered near Ukraine and said his country was ready for more talks with the West.”
* A major settlement: “Relatives of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre have reached a $73 million settlement with Remington, concluding a lawsuit that saw a gun manufacturer for the first time face liability following a mass shooting in the United States.”
* The practical significance of this might matter when the case is appealed: “A Manhattan federal jury ruled against former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Tuesday in her lawsuit accusing The New York Times of defamation.”
* An expensive tantrum: “The trucker protests against vaccine mandates that have blocked key trade crossings between Canada and the United States have prompted losses of nearly $300 million in wages and production in the automotive industry, according to a study this week.”
* The Eastman controversy: “A federal judge on Monday moved to speed up efforts to supply Jan. 6 investigators with a crucial set of emails from John Eastman, the attorney who helped develop then-President Donald Trump’s strategy to subvert the 2020 election.”
* The partisan split on this one was unusual: “The Senate narrowly confirmed Dr. Robert Califf as Food and Drug Administration commissioner on Tuesday, over objections to his pharmaceutical industry ties and concerns he would not act aggressively enough to stem the opioid epidemic.”
* Speaking of confirmation fights: “The head of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday delayed a vote on President Joe Biden’s five nominees to the Federal Reserve, including Chair Jerome Powell, after Republicans staged a boycott over objections to Sarah Bloom Raskin, the White House’s pick to be the central bank’s Wall Street regulator.”
* Quite an allegation about Zero Hedge: “U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday accused a conservative financial news website with a significant American readership of amplifying Kremlin propaganda and alleged five media outlets targeting Ukrainians have taken direction from Russian spies.” * Amazing: “An American research team reported that it has possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time. Building on past successes, as well as failures, in the HIV-cure research field, these scientists used a cutting-edge stem cell transplant method that they expect will expand the pool of people who could receive similar treatment to several dozen annually.” * Society needs to be better than this: “Local school officials across the United States are being inundated with threats of violence and other hostile messages from anonymous harassers nationwide, fueled by anger over culture-war issues. Reuters found 220 examples of such intimidation in a sampling of districts.” * This shouldn’t have taken quite so long: “A proposal to create a national historic site at a former World War II Japanese American internment camp in rural Colorado has passed the U.S. Senate after Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee dropped his objections to adding more land to the federal government’s portfolio — in this case less than a square mile.” 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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