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Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Today’s mass shooting in Georgia: “A Georgia man fatally shot two of his relatives and a fast-food worker before killing himself on Thursday in rural south Georgia, the local coroner said.”
* An arrest in yesterday’s mass shooting in Georgia: A man accused of opening fire in an Atlanta medical facility waiting room Wednesday, killing a woman and wounding four others, was arrested in a neighboring county after an hourslong manhunt, police said.
* Among the scarier Jan. 6 arrests: “The FBI this week arrested a former bureau supervisor in connection with the Jan. 6 riot who they said called for killing officers protecting the Capitol that day. Authorities arrested Jared L. Wise in Oregon on Monday, court records show. An FBI affidavit says he worked as a special agent and a supervisory special agent at the FBI from 2004 until 2017.”
* A welcome bipartisan display: “House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Thursday called on Russia to immediately release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and American businessman Paul Whelan.”
* Right-wing media outlets didn’t like the idea, and they prevailed: “Legislation that would have sharply curbed press protections in Florida has stalled in the State Legislature and won’t face a vote this year — a rare example of forces on the right thwarting a piece of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s agenda.”
* I happen to agree with the CBC about blue slips: “Tensions are escalating between Senate Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus over the arcane tradition that gives a single senator veto power over President Joe Biden’s judicial picks.”
* Flipping the book-banning campaign on its head: “Illinois is poised to become the first state to punish public institutions that ban books. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has said he supports a House bill that would withhold state funding from any of the state’s 1,600 public or school libraries that remove books from their shelves. It passed in the Illinois Senate on Wednesday, and Pritzker is expected to sign the legislation.”
* A trial that could’ve had dramatic artistic implications: “British pop star Ed Sheeran is not liable in a copyright infringement lawsuit that accused him of taking parts of the melody of Marvin Gaye’s soul classic ‘Let’s Get It On’ in his own hit ‘Thinking Out Loud,’ a jury decided Thursday. The jury reached a unanimous verdict, a requirement in the case, after just under three hours of deliberations.”
See you tomorrow.