Today’s edition of quick hits.
* At the White House: “President Joe Biden appeared Tuesday to offer his harshest criticism yet of the Israeli government since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Oct. 7, saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a ‘tough decision to make.’ Biden made the remarks at an off-camera campaign reception in Washington on Tuesday afternoon, suggesting that Netanyahu’s government is hindering a long-term solution.”
* Relatively good news on inflation: “Inflation data released on Tuesday showed that price increases remained moderate in November, the latest sign that inflation has cooled substantially from its June 2022 peak. That’s likely to keep the Federal Reserve on track to leave interest rates unchanged at its final meeting of the year, which takes place this week.”
* In Kentucky: “A pregnant woman in Kentucky who filed a lawsuit demanding the right to an abortion has learned her embryo no longer has cardiac activity, her attorneys said Tuesday. The plaintiff’s attorneys signaled their intent to continue the challenge to Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban, but did not immediately comment on what effect the development would have on the lawsuit.”
* Late yesterday in Texas: “The Texas Supreme Court has overturned a court order that would have allowed a Dallas woman to get an abortion. The ruling came down hours after Kate Cox’s lawyers announced she was leaving the state to terminate her non-viable pregnancy.”
* Hmm: “Three months after the FBI seized classified records from Mar-a-Lago last August, a longtime employee of Donald Trump’s private club quit his job. Within days, the former president did something he rarely did — Trump called the former employee on his cell phone to ask why he was leaving after two decades of working at the resort, according to two sources and material seen by CNN.”
* Speaking of the former president’s legal troubles: Special counsel Jack Smith has extracted data from the cell phone Donald Trump used while in the White House and plans to present evidence of his findings to a Washington, D.C. jury to demonstrate how Trump used the phone in the weeks during which he attempted to subvert the 2020 election.”
* An intensifying climate emergency: “This past summer was the hottest on record in the Arctic, which is warming nearly four times faster than any other location on the planet. And the symptoms of that warming laid bare a rapidly changing region that in many ways barely resembles what it once was.”
See you tomorrow.
