Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Brussels is effectively locked down: "Sweeping overnight raids failed to trap one of Europe's most-wanted men, leaving Belgium's capital essentially on lockdown Monday for a third straight day. Belgian officials said five more raids were carried out on Monday, hours after residents of Brussels were ordered to shelter in place as police searched nearly 20 properties around the European capital overnight."
* Paris: "An explosive belt was found in a suburb south of Paris on Monday, a spokesperson for the city's prosecutor told NBC News."
* New Orleans: "Sixteen people were injured when two groups opened fire on each other during an impromptu gathering of several hundred people to record a music video at a New Orleans playground Sunday night, police said. Ten people were taken to hospitals by ambulance, while six others were later learned to have arrived on their own, police said."
* ISIS: "American warplanes destroyed around 280 of ISIS' oil tanker trucks along the Syria-Iraq border on Monday, U.S. officials told NBC News. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said that A-10 Warthogs and AC-130 Specter gunships launched 24 precision-guided bombs and strafed the tanker trucks with heavy machine-gun and cannon fire."
* Inversion draws fire: "The Democratic Party’s field of presidential candidates is united in opposition to the massive merger between pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Allergan, which would also include a controversial maneuver known as a tax inversion to reduce the company’s U.S. tax burden."
* Smart move: "The senior senator from one of the states hit hardest by heroin and opioid abuse will call on Monday for Congress to spend $600 million immediately to address and curtail the epidemic. The Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, being introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), would spread money to various government agencies tasked with research, intervention and recovery. It is the most robust legislative response yet to what Shaheen and others deem a 'national public health emergency.'"
* Turning conservative assumptions on their head: "Economists tested 7 welfare programs to see if they made people lazy. They didn't."
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.