Today’s edition of quick hits.
* On the Black Sea: “A Ukrainian maritime drone damaged a Russian warship on the Black Sea on Friday, the most serious strike on Moscow’s navy since last year, demonstrating both the escalating conflict at sea and the growing range and capability of Ukraine’s uncrewed vehicles.”
* An amazing ruling, though I’m concerned about its future: “A three-judge panel of the United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Mississippi’s lifetime ban on voting for people convicted of certain felonies, saying it is unconstitutional because it inflicts cruel and unusual punishment. In a 2-1 ruling released Friday, the panel sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan III in the Southern District of Mississippi with instructions to find the state’s lifetime ban on voting to be unconstitutional.”
* Hmm: “Donald Trump is concerned that evidence sought by Michael Cohen in a $500 million lawsuit the former president filed against his ex-lawyer could potentially incriminate him in other cases.”
* All is not well in Florida: “Florida ‘effectively banned’ Advanced Placement Psychology classes in the state due to the course’s content on sexual orientation and gender identity, the College Board said Thursday.”
* No, really, all is not well in Florida: “An appointee by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to an oversight board of Disney’s special tax district taught a seminar in 2021 falsely claiming ‘Whites were also slaves in America,’ using discredited research to say there was an ‘Irish slave trade.’”
* An extraordinary story: “Texas A&M University acknowledged on Thursday that top university officials, fearing criticism from conservatives, had made ‘significant mistakes’ in their failed effort to hire a prominent Black professor to run the university’s journalism program. It said it had reached a $1 million settlement with the professor, Kathleen McElroy.”
* This report from Reuters suggests Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, might not be great at her job: “The judge in former U.S. President Donald Trump’s upcoming trial over his handling of classified documents made two key errors in a June trial, one of which violated a fundamental constitutional right of the defendant and could have invalidated the proceedings, according to legal experts and a court transcript.”
* I think they’re right: “More than three dozen House Democrats are calling on the policymaking body for federal courts to permit live broadcasting of court proceedings in the Justice Department’s cases charging former President Donald Trump with federal crimes.”
* Maybe Justice Alito noticed? “Justice Elena Kagan publicly declared her support for an ethics code for the U.S. Supreme Court but said there was no consensus among the justices on how to proceed, suggesting the high court is grappling with public concerns over its ethics practices.”
* Maybe if Meta allowed people to actually use their computers to access the platform, more people would be engaged with the platform: “Threads, Meta’s Twitter rival, is struggling to retain users roughly a month after its highly publicized launch, according to fresh industry estimates showing that app engagement has fallen to new lows.”
Have a safe weekend.
