Today’s edition of quick hits:
* NYC: “Prosecutors filed federal terrorism charges on Tuesday against a would-be suicide bomber who was accused of detonating a pipe bomb affixed to his torso inside a Manhattan subway corridor.”
* Syria: “Declaring a success in Syria, Vladimir Putin on Monday visited a Russian military air base in the war-ravaged country and announced a partial pullout of his forces…. Russian television stations showed Putin walking off the plane, embracing and shaking hands with [Bashar al-Assad] at the air base.”
* And then there were six: “A sixth senator on Tuesday called on President Donald Trump to resign amid renewed attention to past allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told NBC News that Trump is a ‘misogynist,’ ‘admitted sexual predator’ and ‘liar’ with a ‘narcissistic need for attention.’”
* Alert the White House: “On Tuesday, NOAA released its latest annual Arctic Report Card, which analyzes the state of the frozen ocean at the top of our world. Overall, it’s not good. ‘The Arctic is going through the most unprecedented transition in human history,’ Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA’s Arctic research program, said at a press conference.”
* This is not the congressman’s first ethics controversy: “New York Rep. Chris Collins is pushing for the brother of his business partner to be nominated for the federal bench. Collins invested between $3.5 and $14 million in the business of Nick Sinatra, a developer in Buffalo, the Buffalo News reported. Nick Sinatra’s brother is John Sinatra Jr., who Collins is pushing for a federal judgeship.” * As political sex scandals go, this one’s brutal: “A Kentucky lawmaker accused of sexually abusing a teenager said Tuesday that he would not resign from office and that the allegations are false and politically motivated.” * Hmm: “Our solar system has a visitor. It’s cylindrical, dark and reddish, a quarter-mile long. The object won’t be staying. This fall, astronomers announced that the thing came blazing into our neck of the galaxy at speeds of up to 196,000 mph. It is now headed away as quickly as it came. The object’s trajectory is so strange and its speeds are so blistering that it probably did not originate from within our solar system.” 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
