Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Sri Lanka: “At least 290 people were killed and 500 others injured after a series of blasts shook Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. A wave of near-simultaneous explosions rocked three churches and three luxury hotels, officials said. Police later reported two further explosions. Police said Monday that 24 suspects had been arrested.”
* The results weren’t close: “Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy won Sunday’s runoff election in Ukraine, ousting incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a landslide. With over 90 percent of the ballots counted, Zelenskiy had 73 percent of the vote with Poroshenko at just under 25 percent.”
* At the border: “The FBI on Saturday arrested a man described as a commander of an armed group that has been detaining migrants in New Mexico, the state attorney general’s office said.”
* The end of a strike: “Stop & Shop and its striking workers reached a tentative agreement Sunday night, bringing an end to a 10-day work stoppage that crippled New England’s largest grocery chain — closing dozens of stores, delaying food from reaching others, and keeping away loyal shoppers in large numbers.”
* This seems unlikely to go well: “The Trump administration said Monday it will scrap all waivers that allowed eight governments to buy Iranian oil without facing U.S. sanctions — a move designed to choke off Tehran’s oil revenue.”
* Kansas: “Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s power to fill vacancies in some top state posts would be stripped and given to party leadership under new legislation introduced in the House.”
* He’s off to a great start, isn’t he? “Interior Secretary David Bernhardt began working on policies that would aid one of his former lobbying clients within weeks of joining the Trump administration, according to a POLITICO analysis of agency documents — a revelation that adds to the ethics questions dogging his leadership of the agency.”
* The administration sure does lose a lot in court: “A federal judge late Friday delivered a significant setback to the Trump administration’s policy of promoting coal, ruling that the Interior Department acted illegally when it sought to lift an Obama-era moratorium on coal mining on public lands.”
* An unexpected new policy: “President Trump on Friday abruptly reversed American policy toward Libya, issuing a statement publicly endorsing an aspiring strongman in his battle to depose the United Nations-backed government.” * Will the facts matter? “The special counsel’s report confirmed this week that Seth Rich, a young Democratic National Committee employee whose unsolved killing became grist for a right-wing conspiracy theory, was not the source of thousands of internal D.N.C. emails that WikiLeaks released during the 2016 presidential race, officially debunking a notion that had persisted without support for years.” * Grenell strikes again: “U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, has defended “my friend” Vice President Mike Pence and compared the openly gay Mayor of South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg, to Jussie Smollett in an interview on Fox News.” * Matt Shea is back in the news: “A controversial Washington state Republican participated in discussions about spying on and engaging in physical violence against anti-fascist activists, private chats published by the Guardian Saturday reveal.” Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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." Recommended
