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Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The latest on the deadly strike in Jordan: “The Pentagon released the names of the three soldiers who were killed in Jordan yesterday after a drone struck a base near the border with Syria. The service members were identified as Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.”
* Difficult diplomacy: “Israeli, Qatari, Egyptian and American officials in Paris have reached a ‘unified position’ on a framework for deal that would enact a 60-day pause of hostilities in Gaza, a source familiar with the talks tells NBC News. The framework is being presented today to Hamas in Egypt, the source added. Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that no final deal has been agreed upon.”
* On the Korean Peninsula: “South Korea’s military said Sunday that North Korea fired several cruise missiles that flew over waters near a major military shipyard on the country’s eastern coast, extending a streak in weapons tests that are worsening tensions with the United States, South Korea and Japan.”
* This seems wise: “The White House is laying out a new set of guidelines to ensure it will be informed any time a Cabinet head can’t carry out their job after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s secret hospitalization this month was kept for days from President Joe Biden and his top aides.”
* Some of the initial headlines on this overstated matters a bit, but it’s still a big deal: “The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania issued a ruling Monday finding that a 1982 state bill barring Medicaid from covering most abortions can be challenged in court, years after the initial legal petition was dismissed.”
* Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty in October and was sentenced today: “The former Internal Revenue Service contractor who leaked the tax records of former President Donald Trump to The New York Times as well as the tax records of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to ProPublica was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.”
* Quite a story out of Tennessee: “Nearly 30,000 firearms have been stolen from motor vehicles in Tennessee in the decade since Republican lawmakers voted to allow gun owners to keep their weapons in their cars and trucks without any penalty for those who leave them unsecured, a NewsChannel 5 analysis has discovered.”
* Allegations worth watching: “In the wake of the 2020 election, the president of the far-right network One America News sent a potentially explosive email to former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, with a spreadsheet claiming to contain passwords of employees from the voting technology company Smartmatic, according to court filings. The existence of the spreadsheet was recently disclosed by Smartmatic, which is suing OAN for defamation. CNN pieced together who was involved in the email exchanges by examining court records from three separate cases stemming from the 2020 election.”
See you tomorrow.