Leaders Focused on Russia, China at G7 Summit

Happy Monday! We hope you enjoy this list of 17th- and 18th-century Quaker names—compiled by a history PhD student as she wrote her thesis—as much as we did.

Discipline Mathews? Obedience Waring? Harvest Prude? Patience Rawbone? They don’t name ‘em like they used to.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • President Joe Biden on Friday signaled openness to allowing Ukrainian pilots to be trained to fly American-made F-16 fighter jets, reversing his previous opposition to such a move over concerns it risked escalating the conflict with Russia. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday the United States has not yet decided whether to send Ukraine any jets directly, but some European NATO allies with F-16s have already expressed a willingness to transfer them to Ukraine—once they had the United States’ permission. Russia’s deputy foreign minister said in an interview Saturday the move “carries enormous risks” for the West, but that Russia has “all the necessary means” to achieve its military goals.
  • After months of grueling battle, Russian forces over the weekend claimed to have taken full control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky disputed those claims at the G7 Summit on Sunday—he said the Russian Federation didn’t control Bakhmut “​​as of today” while conceding the city has been largely “destroyed”—but Ukrainian Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy seemed to confirm the city is now largely under Russian control. If true, the capture of Bakhmut—far more important symbolically than strategically—would represent Russia’s first meaningful victory in the war since last summer, and it would have come at the cost of thousands of Russian lives. 
  • An April 2022 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court document was unsealed on Friday, revealing the FBI misused Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) nearly 300,000 times to surveil crime victims, January 6 rioters, summer 2020 rioters, and 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate. The FBI said it’s already fixed the issues that led to the breaches—the Washington Post reported it blamed the lapses on a “misunderstanding between its employees and Justice Department lawyers”—but the revelation is likely to weigh on lawmakers’ minds when it comes time to reauthorize Section 702 later this year.
  • Nebraska’s state legislature voted 33-15 on Friday to pass LB 574, a bill outlawing abortions after 12 weeks of gestation—with exceptions for rape, incest, or medical emergencies—and prohibiting doctors from performing gender-altering procedures on patients under the age of 19. The state’s Republican Gov. Jim Pillen is expected to sign the legislation into law later today.
  • Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina officially filed paperwork to run for president on Friday, and is expected to launch his campaign in North Charleston today before heading to Iowa and New Hampshire. Scott will enter the race with about $22 million in cash on hand, and his campaign has purchased nearly $6 million worth of advertising in early nominating states. Scott’s bid has already been endorsed by Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, and Republican Sen. John Thune—also from South Dakota—is reportedly set to endorse Scott today.
  • Mark Walker—a former Republican congressman from North Carolina—officially launched his gubernatorial campaign on Saturday, joining the state’s current Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Treasurer Dale Folwell in the GOP primary. Walker recently told Politico that, although he concedes Robinson is the frontrunner in the race, he feels called to run because he believes Robinson wouldn’t be able to win a general election.
  • American golfer Brooks Koepka shot three under par at Oak Hill Country Club on Sunday to win the PGA Championship—his fifth major title, and the first major title won by a player in the Saudi Arabian LIV Golf League.
  • Jim Brown, the Hall of Fame running back for the Cleveland Browns, died on Thursday at the age of 87. On Friday, British novelist Martin Amis passed away after a battle with esophageal cancer. He was 73.

A Sidetracked G7 Summit

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arriving for the family photo at the G7 Summit on May 19, 2023. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau - Pool/Getty Images)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arriving for the family photo at the G7 Summit on May 19, 2023. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau – Pool/Getty Images)

Remember long, long ago (Thursday) when we wondered whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s push to receive American-made F-16 fighter jets would win out over the Biden administration’s reluctance?

Wonder no more: At this weekend’s G7 summit in Japan—attended by officials from the titular wealthy democracies plus a selection of guests, including Zelensky—the United States signaled its openness to providing Ukraine with F-16s and the training to use them. The headline-grabbing news summed up a summit in which leaders tried to focus on countering the threat of China and working together on nuclear disarmament, climate change, and AI—but kept circling back to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.

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