Happy Friday! Scientists, please do not attempt to bring woolly mammoths back from extinction. We have watched a lot of movies, and we can pretty much guarantee something is going to go badly wrong.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
French President Emmanuel Macron announced yesterday that a French drone strike last month killed Abu Walid al Sahrawi, the leader of the Islamic State in Greater Sahara. The U.S. government had offered a $5 million reward for information regarding Al Sahrawi’s whereabouts, as he was the mastermind behind a 2017 ambush of U.S. forces in Niger that killed four Green Berets.
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from continuing a Trump-era policy—Title 42—that allowed immigration officials to quickly deport or expel migrant families arriving at the southern border on public health grounds during the pandemic. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s ruling only applies to families, meaning the Biden administration can continue to turn away single adults seeking asylum. Previously under Biden, only unaccompanied children had been exempt from Title 42 enforcement.
Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed during the Trump administration to investigate the origins of the FBI’s Trump/Russia investigation, announced the indictment of attorney Michael Sussman on Thursday. The indictment accuses Sussman of lying to the FBI in 2016 over the capacity in which he provided allegedly damaging information about Trump’s dealings with a Russian bank; he was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign at the time.
GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez—one of 10 House Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching former President Donald Trump in January—announced Thursday night he will not run for re-election in 2022. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision,” he wrote, “it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision.” Gonzalez was facing a Trump-backed primary challenger in Ohio.
Initial jobless claims increased by 20,000 week-over-week to 332,000 last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. The Census Bureau, meanwhile, announced yesterday that U.S. retail sales rose 0.7 percent from July to August—a significant improvement over the 1.8 percent drop from June to July.
There’s An AUKUS Among Us
In the wake of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration is preparing for possible military engagement elsewhere: the Indo-Pacific.
