By
Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In Israel: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out a temporary cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, saying today he will press ahead with a military offensive until hostages held by the Hamas militant group are released.”
* In New York: “The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial on Friday imposed a partial gag order on members of the former president’s legal team after he said they made ‘on the record, repeated, inappropriate remarks’ about his principal law clerk.”
Follow MSNBC’s live blog coverage of Trump’s testimony here.
* Jan. 6 criminal sentence, Part I: “[Federico Klein, a] former Donald Trump political appointee at the State Department who tried to storm the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement officers on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to 70 months in prison on Friday.”
* Jan. 6 criminal sentence, Part II: “[Steven Cappucci, a] Jan. 6 rioter who ripped at an officer’s gas mask during the brutal battle in the lower west tunnel leading into the Capitol, was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison on Friday.”
* An intensifying refugee crisis: “Pakistan has begun mass deportation of undocumented Afghans residing in the country illegally, including thousands of people who escaped the Taliban’s rule and who are at risk of persecution at home after the country fell to the Taliban two years ago following the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. In October, the Pakistani government gave 1.7 million Afghan refugees living in the country until Nov. 1 to leave voluntarily or face arrest and forced deportation. Police also warned landlords to avoid renting homes for undocumented refugees.”
* SCOTUS: “The Supreme Court on Friday stepped into a new gun rights battle by agreeing to weigh whether a Trump-era ban on so-called bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic rifles to fire more quickly, is lawful.”
* In this ruling on chlorpyrifos, the three-judge panel featured two George W. Bush appointees and a Donald Trump appointee: “A federal appeals court on Thursday is tossing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ban on a pesticide that has been linked to brain damage in children. The decision from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to send the rule back to the agency does not preclude the agency from reinstating the ban in the future.”
* New York City’s mayor appears to have a real problem on his hands: “Federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. are conducting a broad public corruption investigation into whether Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 election campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations, according to a search warrant obtained by The New York Times.”
* The White House doesn’t go after Fox News all the time, but it definitely happens: “The Biden administration is demanding that Fox News apologize to its viewers over host Jesse Watters’ remarks that he’s ‘had it’ with Arab-Americans and Muslims, noting that his ‘unacceptable remarks’ come just weeks after a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy was murdered.”
Have a safe weekend.