Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/b>
\nToday\u2019s edition of quick hits:
* A serious threat: \u201cTropical Storm Harvey rapidly intensified into a hurricane on Thursday as it hurtled toward Texas, with meteorologists forecasting the storm could be a \u2018major hurricane\u2019 when it makes landfall. NOAA\u2019s National Hurricane Center said early afternoon that Harvey had become a hurricane with 80 mph sustained winds.\u201d
* USS McCain: \u201cAfter more than 80 hours of searching thousands of miles of open sea, the U. S. Navy now hopes only to recover the bodies lost from the USS John S. McCain after it collided with an oil tanker near Singapore.\u201d
* Let the lawsuits begin: \u201cInterior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended Thursday that President Trump alter at least three national monuments established by his immediate predecessors, including two in Utah, a move expected to reshape federal land and water protections and certain to trigger major legal fights.\u201d
* Good idea: \u201cSen. Chuck Schumer called on President Donald Trump on Thursday to dissolve his controversial vote fraud commission, blasting it as a voter suppression tool pushing the agenda of the same white supremacists who violently protested in Charlottesville.\u201d
* The slow-motion backlash continues: \u201cA Florida hospital\u2019s foundation said Thursday that it had canceled plans to hold a fundraiser luncheon at President Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago Club this November, becoming the 18th charity to cut ties with the club after Trump\u2019s comments on the violent protests in Charlottesville.\u201d
* Middle East: \u201cQatar restored full diplomatic relations with Iran on Thursday, the latest volley in an 11-week-old geopolitical feud that has set the tiny yet fabulously wealthy Persian Gulf nation against its neighbors and rattled a previously placid part of the Middle East.\u201d
* That\u2019s a lot of premature deaths: \u201cRussia\u2019s ambassador to Sudan, a career diplomat with decades of service, was found dead at his Khartoum home on Wednesday, Russian and Sudanese officials reported. The death of the ambassador, Mirgayas Shirinsky, who was in his early 60s, was at least the fourth time since December that a senior Kremlin envoy has died prematurely overseas.\u201d
* Again with Colombia? \u201cThe U. S. Army detail assigned to Vice President Mike Pence\u2019s communications team has been re-assigned for bringing women back to their hotel in Colombia, according to three U. S. defense officials. The soldiers didn\u2019 t register the women when they brought them in, the officials said.\u201d (This follows an unrelated scandal in Colombia involving Secret Service agents and women in hotel rooms in 2012.)
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.<\/p>\n

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