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Monday's Mini-Report, 5.10.21

Today's edition of quick hits.

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Today's edition of quick hits:

* Colonial Pipeline: "The federal government issued a rare emergency declaration on Sunday after a cyberattack on a major U.S. pipeline choked the transportation of oil to the eastern U.S. The Colonial Pipeline, responsible for the country's largest fuel pipeline, shut down all its operations Friday after hackers broke into some of its networks. All four of its main lines remain offline."

* Israel: "Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets toward Jerusalem on Monday in a major escalation after hundreds of Palestinians were hurt during earlier clashes with Israeli forces at a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews. The rockets came on the anniversary of Israel's capture of the Old City of Jerusalem and its eastern neighborhoods in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel responded by attacking Hamas targets in Gaza."

* DHS: "The Department of Homeland Security has begun implementing a strategy to gather and analyze intelligence about security threats from public social media posts, DHS officials said.... The focus is not on the identity of the posters but rather on gleaning insights about potential security threats based on emerging narratives and grievances."

* Afghanistan: "Militants killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 100 in three explosions targeting girls outside a school in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Kabul, officials said, an attack that could exacerbate sectarian tensions ahead of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan."

* That's a lot: "There were at least nine mass shootings in the country over the weekend that combined left at least 15 people dead and 30 more wounded, according to CNN reporting and an analysis of data from Gun Violence Archive (GVA), local media and police reports."

* We're up to four states doing this (and counting): "An unexpected slowdown in hiring nationwide has prompted some Republican governors to start slashing jobless benefits in their states, hoping that the loss of generous federal aid might force more people to try to return to work."

* Good move: "The Biden administration is reversing a policy introduced under former President Donald Trump that limited protections for transgender people in health care, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Monday."

* Ghost guns: "The Justice Department proposed a rule on Friday that would expand the definition of a firearm and help close a loophole that has allowed people to buy so-called ghost guns, firearms that are easily assembled from kits but are not regulated by federal gun laws."

* Visitor logs: "The Biden White House released its first batch of visitor logs Friday, bringing back the practice that began under former President Barack Obama but stopped under former President Donald Trump."

* A 107% increase over the last year: "Over the first few months of 2021, threats to members of Congress have more than doubled year-over-year and are only expected to go up from here, according to a release issued Friday by the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP)."

* Elinore McCance-Katz: "The Trump administration's controversial mental health chief, who criticized last year's coronavirus response as overblown, is now serving as a senior civil servant in the Drug Enforcement Administration, raising concerns she has "burrowed" into the federal bureaucracy to shape policy, said three officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter."

* This is well done: "Josh Hawley says he doesn't know if he saluted any rioters, so we checked."

* Noted without comment: "Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter announced on Friday he has reached an agreement with FFF Enterprises to return the state's stockpile of hydroxychloroquine for a refund."

See you tomorrow.