Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Crisis in Mississippi: “U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration approved an emergency declaration over a water crisis in the State of Mississippi and ordered Federal assistance late on Tuesday to supplement the state’s response.”
* Vaccine news: “The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized updated versions of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s Covid booster shots that target the highly contagious BA.5 omicron subvariant. The FDA authorized Pfizer’s modified booster for people ages 12 and older; Moderna’s shot was authorized for those 18 and up.”
* This is an angle worth watching closely: Two lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump [M. Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb] are likely to become witnesses or targets in the investigation into how he hoarded documents marked as classified at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate — and secretly held onto some even after the lawyers claimed all sensitive materials had been returned, legal specialists said.”
* A bold move on reproductive health care: “California is preparing to spend up to $20 million to bring women from other states to its abortion clinics, a policy aimed at increasing access to a procedure that has been outlawed or restricted in many states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.”
* Domestic terror threat: “Authorities are investigating a bomb threat called in Tuesday night on Boston Children’s Hospital, which has faced a harassment campaign from right-wing groups for providing gender-affirming care to trans youth.”
* Trump has spent the week fixated on this guy: “An FBI agent’s retirement last Friday was unrelated to politicized comments he made on social media or his purported link to the Hunter Biden investigation, according to a statement from his lawyer. Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy R. Thibault ‘voluntarily’ retired from the FBI on Aug. 26 after 30 years of service, his pro bono attorney said, and that he ‘was not fired, not forced to retire, and not asked to retire.’”
* This is just what the White House wanted to see: “First Solar, a big solar panel manufacturer, said on Tuesday that it would invest up to $1.2 billion to build its fourth factory in the United States, in large part because Congress this month passed a major energy and climate bill that expands incentives for renewable energy.”
* Apparently, Fox News viewers were told that the White House is telling children to report their parents for Covid disinformation. That’s not even close to being true.
* A big and important shift: “Seventy-one percent of Americans now approve of labor unions. Although statistically similar to last year’s 68%, it is up from 64% before the pandemic and is the highest Gallup has recorded on this measure since 1965.”
* I’m glad the lawsuit failed, but the fact that these Virginia Republicans made the effort in the first place is extraordinary: “A Virginia judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by two Republicans that sought to limit how bookstores and public school libraries could distribute two books to minors, closing — at least temporarily — an unusual commercial strategy in what conservatives say is a campaign to protect students from age-inappropriate literature.”
* Imagine that: “Under a new law, Texas public schools must display posters that say “In God We Trust” if they are donated to a campus. But when a parent offered signs written in Arabic and rainbow colors, they were rejected.”
See you tomorrow.
