Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/b>
\nToday\u2019s edition of quick hits:
* Israel confronts a major political crisis: \u201cIsrael\u2019s attorney general announced Thursday that his office plans to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges after a two-year investigation. The prime minister faces one count of bribery and three counts of breach of trust.\u201d
* Either North Korea is lying about the offer it put on the table in Hanoi, or Donald Trump didn\u2019t understand that Kim Jong-un was proposing.
* There\u2019s political tumult in Ottawa, too: \u201cA political firestorm surrounding Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became more damaging Wednesday, as his ex-justice minister accused his top aides of repeatedly pressuring her to drop the prosecution of a global engineering and construction firm.\u201d
* Judicial nominees: \u201cThe Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to advance the nomination of Neomi Rao to replace Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The committee voted along party lines, 12-10, to send the nomination to the full Senate despite concerns from members of both parties about her past writings on gender equality and sexual assault as well as her record as a regulatory official.\u201d
* Conditions get a little more intense for Trump\u2019s inaugural committee: \u201cThe attorney general for the District of Columbia has subpoenaed documents from President Trump\u2019s inaugural committee, the third governmental body to delve into how the fund raised $107 million and spent it to celebrate Mr. Trump\u2019s swearing-in.\u201d
* I feel like there\u2019s a perfectly good metaphor here: \u201cA jackhammer reduced prototypes of President Donald Trump\u2019s prized border wall into piles of rubble Wednesday, a quick ending to an experiment that turned into a spectacle at times.\u201d
* Oh no: \u201cA Virginia state employee has complained that her eighth-grade daughter was upset during a tour of the historic governor\u2019s residence when first lady Pam Northam handed raw cotton to her and another African American child and asked them to imagine being enslaved and having to pick the crop.\u201d
* Answering one of the questions that confused me during yesterday\u2019s hearing: \u201cBillionaire Phil Ruffin said Wednesday that he is the anonymous Kansas businessman mentioned during the marathon questioning of President Donald Trump\u2019s former attorney Michael Cohen\u2026. Ruffin\u2019s connection to the president surfaced when Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, asked Cohen at a House Oversight Committee hearing who paid $25 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by former students of the defunct Trump University.\u201d
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.<\/p>\n