Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Carrier strike group: “Approximately 2,000 U.S. troops have been put on prepare-to-deploy orders for possible support to Israel, a defense official tells NBC News. They are not going anywhere yet, nor would they necessarily go to Israel or Gaza — if given orders they will go to a nearby country to be prepared to support Israel. These are troops who were already on a 96 hour prepare to deploy order and they’re now on a 24-hour notice.”
* Hostages: “The Qassam Brigades said today they ‘have’ as many as roughly 200 to 250 hostages, after the IDF said earlier that it had notified at least 199 families that their loved ones had been kidnapped by the militant group.”
* The latest from Brussels: “A shooting in Brussels, Belgium, that reportedly left two dead is being investigated as an apparent terrorist attack as authorities try to determine the shooter’s motives. It was not immediately clear if the shooter had been engaged by police or was in custody.”
* Closely watched elections in Poland: “With 98 percent of the votes counted by Monday evening and aligning very closely with the outcome forecast by exit polls, Poland is on the cusp of what many see as the most significant change of power since voters rejected communism in the country’s first partly free election in 1989.”
* An important settlement: “The Biden administration and more than 4,000 migrants who were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Trump administration reached a legal settlement Monday that allows the families to live and work in the U.S. for three years while receiving housing, mental health and legal assistance to apply for asylum. The settlement also prohibits the federal government from separating any migrant families crossing the border for eight years, unless the parents are considered a danger to their children or the public or they have previously entered the country illegally more than twice.”
* Wadea Al-Fayoume: “A 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was stabbed to death in his Illinois home by his landlord, who also critically wounded the boy’s mother in an alleged anti-Muslim hate crime, police said Sunday, calling it a ‘senseless and cowardly act of violence.’ Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 times at his Plainfield home by Joseph Czuba, 71, Saturday, investigators said. He died at the hospital.”
* Colorado’s latest mass shooting: “Three people were killed and three others were wounded as gunfire erupted at a party in Denver, authorities said.”
* In Alabama: “By the end of the month, two Alabama hospitals will stop delivering babies. A third will follow suit a few weeks later. That will leave two counties — Shelby and Monroe — without any birthing hospitals, and strip a predominantly Black neighborhood in Birmingham of a sought-after maternity unit.”
* I meant to mention this on Friday: “The Biden administration announced plans on Friday to award up to $7 billion to create seven regional hubs around the country that will make and use hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel with the potential to power ships or factories without producing any planet-warming emissions.”
* I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I hadn’t thought of this: “The anti-vaccination movement is spreading—to pet owners.”
See you tomorrow.
