Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Today’s school shooting in St. Louis: “Three people are dead, including the gunman, after a shooting at a St. Louis high school Monday morning sent multiple people to hospitals, police said. Chaos unfolded shortly after 9 a.m. when authorities learned of a shooter with a long gun inside Central Visual and Performing Arts High School.”
* A highly dangerous situation: “First, it was about blowing up a dam, now it’s about unleashing a ‘dirty bomb.’ A sudden flurry of Russian accusations about supposed Ukrainian plans has fueled new Western fears that President Vladimir Putin might be planning his own escalation to change the course of a war that reached eight months Monday and has not been going his way.”
* This is likely to get Beijing’s attention: “The Justice Department has charged 13 individuals who tried to ‘unlawfully exert influence in the United States’ for the People’s Republic of China, U.S. officials allege.”
* Speaking of China, this was weird: “Former Chinese President Hu Jintao was led out of the country’s Communist Party Congress Saturday in a moment of unexpected drama during an otherwise highly choreographed event.”
* Good luck: “Former finance minister Rishi Sunak won the race to be Britain’s next prime minister Monday, the first British Asian to assume the role and the third leader in seven weeks of a country roiled by political and economic chaos.”
* SCOTUS: “Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday temporarily put on hold a requirement that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., testify in a Georgia prosecutor’s probe of alleged interference in the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and his allies. The decision by Thomas, who handles emergency requests that arise from Georgia, freezes the litigation while the justices weigh Graham’s plea that the Supreme Court quash the subpoena.”
* The latest Jan. 6 sentence: “One of the first rioters to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6 has been sentenced to 24 months in prison for barging through a shattered window and helping chase a police officer near the Senate chamber. Hunter Seefried watched as another rioter — Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola — used a police shield to shatter a Capitol window, triggering the breach of the building. Seefried then helped clear glass from the window frame and entered the building.”
* Uvalde fallout: “The Texas Department of Public Safety fired an officer Friday who was at the scene of the Uvalde school massacre and becomes the first member of the state police force to lose their job in the fallout over the hesitant response to the May attack.”
* A conversation about the Senate pro tempore seems sensible: “[H]istorians are expressing concern, particularly as political violence is on a dramatic rise, about a line of succession that runs to a senator who is particularly old and might be a less-than-optimal choice during a national crisis.”
See you tomorrow.
