Today’s edition of quick hits:
* California: “Thirteen bodies have been found in Northern California in the wake of the deadly Camp Fire, bringing the death toll in the blaze to 42, authorities said Monday. The grim discovery makes the wildfire the deadliest in the state’s history, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters, replacing the record held by a Los Angeles brush fire in 1933 that killed 29.”
* A major case: “Maryland’s attorney general on Tuesday challenged the appointment of what he called an ‘unqualified’ partisan as acting attorney general and charged the president did it to protect himself from any accusations of wrongdoing.”
* Another case worth watching: “CNN has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for revoking correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials, the network said in a statement on Tuesday.”
* Sadly predictable: “President Donald Trump lashed out over his recent trip to Paris in a series of tweets Tuesday, blaming the Secret Service for his cancelled visit to a cemetery for fallen U.S. soldiers in France on Saturday.”
* Guantanamo: “The Trump administration closed a diplomatic office designed to keep track of released Guantanamo inmates and make sure they didn’t return to their insurgencies. And now the U.S. government has lost track of several of them, including one who has returned to a terrorist-held part of Syria, a McClatchy investigation has found.” * A discouraging trend: “The number of international students entering U.S. colleges and universities has fallen for the second year in a row, a nonprofit group said on Tuesday, amid efforts by the Trump administration to tighten restrictions on foreigners studying in the United States.” * How was Robert Bowers radicalized, from being a conservative to become a violent white nationalist? The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explored the question in fascinating, albeit disturbing, detail. 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
