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Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The latest from the St. Louis school shooting: “The 19-year-old gunman who killed two people at a St. Louis high school Monday was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and over 600 rounds of ammunition, and left behind a note referencing mass shootings, police said.”
* Brittney Griner: “A Russian court on Tuesday denied WNBA star Brittney Griner’s appeal and upheld her nine-year prison sentence on drug charges. Griner, 32, looked despondent as she appeared at the hearing in the Moscow Regional Court via video conference from the detention center where she has been held since her arrest in February.”
* It’s about time: “Hope Hicks, who served as a top adviser to former President Donald Trump, is interviewing with the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday, a source familiar told NBC News.”
* I hope you caught Rachel’s coverage of this on last night’s show: “A pair of right-wing provocateurs pleaded guilty Monday to telecommunications fraud stemming from robocalls made shortly before the 2020 election. Jacob Wohl, 24, and Jack Burkman, 56, each pleaded guilty to one felony count, a spokesperson from the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed.”
* What are people waiting for? “More than 19 million Americans have received the new boosters that became available to those 12 and over in September and to children as young as 5 earlier this month. That’s just a sliver of the population ahead of a potential coronavirus surge this winter.”
* By any fair measure, this was not handled well: “Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Tuesday announced the group had retracted a letter that asked President Joe Biden to directly engage with Russia in an effort to end the war in Ukraine.”
* An unexpected loss of an impressive public servant: “Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter died Monday evening after a ‘sudden cardiac event,’ his family said. He was 68. He served as Defense Secretary in the Obama administration from 2015 to 2017.”
* I wonder if Trump will get around to pushing this idea, too: “At the urging of [Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro], some of Brazil’s leaders are now trying to make it a crime to incorrectly forecast an election. Brazil’s House of Representatives has fast-tracked a bill that would criminalize publishing a poll that is later shown to fall outside its margin of error.”
See you tomorrow.