Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Tsunami waves after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded: “The 8.8-magnitude temblor struck early today off Russia’s remote Far East and sparked tsunami warnings and evacuations across the Pacific. Hawaii was braced for the most severe impact, but the alert level there was downgraded to a tsunami advisory just before 5 a.m. ET, allowing residents to return to their homes.”
* The Fed tells the White House what it didn’t want to hear: “The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left its key interest rate unchanged, a widely expected move that comes despite enormous pressure from the Trump administration to lower it. The Fed, in a statement announcing the decision, said that economic growth had moderated in the first half of the year but that inflation remained ‘somewhat elevated.’”
* I’m struggling to imagine why anyone would voluntarily participate in a project like this one: “The Trump administration is pushing an initiative for millions of Americans to upload personal health data and medical records on new apps and systems run by private tech companies, promising that will make it easier to access health records and monitor wellness.”
* I’ll be counting down the days: “Trump told reporters that the United States will impose tariffs and secondary sanctions on Russia in 10 days if it can’t come to a ceasefire agreement on Ukraine.”
* A welcome reversal: “Days before the Pentagon was set to cut off access to satellite observations that help meteorologists track hurricanes overnight, Defense Department officials told government forecasters they would continue sharing the data, after all.”
* On Capitol Hill: “The Senate [on Tuesday night] confirmed Susan Monarez to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a party-line vote. Monarez is the first CDC director without a medical degree in more than 70 years. She is also the first CDC director subject to Senate confirmation, following a new requirement from a 2023 law.” * The administration’s offensive against higher education has a great many targets: “The Trump administration has frozen $108 million in federal funds for Duke University’s medical school and health care system, according to two administration officials, after the government accused the university of ‘systemic racial discrimination.’” * It’ll be worth watching to see if other senators come to the same conclusion: “Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, strongly denounced the Israeli government in a statement yesterday amid international calls to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. ‘I cannot defend the indefensible,’ he said. ‘Israel’s actions in the conduct of the war in Gaza, especially its failure to address the unimaginable humanitarian crisis now unfolding, is an affront to human decency.’” 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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