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Tuesday's Mini-Report, 7.13.21

Today's edition of quick hits.

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Today's edition of quick hits:

* A presidential diagnosis of a national scourge: "President Biden on Tuesday delivered his most forceful condemnation yet of the wave of voting restrictions proposed in Republican-led states nationwide — efforts the president argued are the biggest threat to American democracy since the Civil War."

* Curious news about REvil: "Just days after President Biden called President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and demanded that he act to shut down ransomware groups that are attacking American targets, the most aggressive of the groups suddenly went off-line early Tuesday morning, terminating negotiations over ransom payments and even bringing down the page where it boasted about its most successful extortion schemes. The mystery is who made that happen."

* Ruling out of the 4th Circuit: "A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the long-standing federal ban on sales of handguns from licensed dealers to 18- to 20-year-olds is unconstitutional, because Congress in the 1960s did not demonstrate a good enough reason for the law."

* Diplomatic team: "President Joe Biden is nominating former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona as his ambassador to Turkey, whose alliance with the U.S. has in recent years been marked by major disagreements on key foreign policy issues."

* CISA: "The Senate on Monday confirmed Jen Easterly to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, filling an eight-month leadership void at the top of an agency struggling to address widespread digital weaknesses inside the government and across the country."

* Rahul Gupta is a Joe Manchin ally: "President Biden has selected a former West Virginia health official as the nation's top drug policy official, according to two White House officials with knowledge of the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations."

* Debunking Trump: "Former President Donald Trump suggested Sunday that the U.S. Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol was the 'head of security' for a 'high-ranking' Democratic member of Congress. That is false, according to a senior law enforcement official briefed on the matter."

* Another one: "A Miami Beach apartment building was evacuated by the city Monday due to concrete deterioration, an attorney for the building owners said."

See you tomorrow.