Today’s edition of quick hits:
* A turn in the dreadful Illinois story: "Joseph Gliniewicz, the Fox Lake, Illinois, police lieutenant who killed himself in what authorities called a 'carefully staged suicide,' tried to have a hit man kill a village administrator who he feared would discover his crimes, an investigator said Thursday."
* A question that needs an answer: "Russia and Egypt on Thursday dismissed suggestions by Britain and the United States that a bomb was likely to have brought down a Metrojet flight packed with Russian vacationers leaving an Egyptian resort, saying the claim was premature."
* How to make a bad story worse: "Just a few days before he heads to Washington to try to mend fences with the White House and secure billions of dollars in U.S. military aid, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed a new chief of public diplomacy who called President Obama a modern-day anti-Semite and wrote that Secretary of State John F. Kerry has the intellectual acuity of a 12-year-old."
* The full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is now available online and open to public review.
* China, "the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases from coal, has been burning up to 17 percent more coal a year than the government previously disclosed, according to newly released data. The finding could complicate the already difficult efforts to limit global warming."
* More on this tomorrow: "Speaker Paul Ryan just pulled off what no House leader has been able to do in a decade -- corralling an unruly chamber into passing a massive, multiyear highway and transit bill."
* "Paid patriotism": "Honoring troops with increasingly elaborate displays of patriotism has become as much a part of professional sporting events as the singing of the National Anthem. But a Senate investigation found that some of those events -- color guard parades, reenlistment ceremonies, ceremonial first pitches -- were bought and paid for by the Pentagon in a form of “paid patriotism” that cost millions of dollars."
* The diversity in the new Canadian cabinet really is extraordinary: "Justin Trudeau ensured there were some old hands to rely on in his new 30-member cabinet, but the real story of his complex cabinet crafting was the huge amount of faith the new prime minister has invested in three women and two men with no political experience" (thanks to reader F.B. for the heads-up).
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.