National Briefing | West: Arizona: Movement, Perhaps, On Immigration Law

“Three hostages were released from Gaza on Sunday and returned to Israel, the Israeli military said, as a long-awaited cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas went into effect,” the New York Times reports. “The truce prompted celebrations in Gaza, relief for families of Israeli captives and hope for an end to a devastating 15-month war.”

“President Biden pardoned five activists and public servants on Sunday, including a posthumous grant of clemency to the civil rights leader Marcus Garvey, who mobilized the Black nationalist movement and was convicted of mail fraud in 1923,” the New York Times reports. “Mr. Biden also commuted the sentence of two other people who are serving sentences for crimes that they committed in the 1990s that would keep them behind bars for the rest of their lives.

“The $TRUMP memecoin — a financial asset that didn’t exist on Friday afternoon — now accounts for about 89% of Donald Trump’s net worth,” Axios reports. “The coin (technically a token that’s issued on the Solana blockchain) has massively enriched Trump personally, enabled a mechanism for the crypto industry to funnel cash to him, and created a volatile financial asset that allows anyone in the world to financially speculate on Trump’s political fortunes.”

“I think it’s gonna be shock and awe. He’s going to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, swing those doors open at the Oval Office, and sign 100 or more executive orders that overturn the damage of the last four years.” — Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), quoted by CBS News.

“Gov. Gavin Newsom has been an omnipresent figure as fires have burned across the nation’s most populous county. He surveyed damage with emergency officials, peppered network and cable television with interviews, and pushed a blizzard of state actions meant to ease the path for victims — often evincing a more moderate approach than his liberal reputation suggests,” the Washington Post reports. “For Newsom, the stakes are not only the survival and recovery of his troubled state, but also of his ambitions, including the odds of securing the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.” “More broadly for his party, the vast destruction marks the first opportunity for a nationally known Democrat to demonstrate competence to solve issues directly affecting constituents’ lives, rebuffing criticism that was brutally leveled before the November elections in which Republicans gained united control of Washington, in part by luring dissatisfied Democratic voters.”

Politico: “It was one of many instances over his final weeks in office — a period Biden and his staff hoped to use to burnish his political legacy — that drove home the limitations of even a president’s power to control the agenda. The heightened air of futility punctuated a four-year term that, for everything accomplished legislatively, is ending where it began — with Donald Trump in the White House.” “Biden’s team struggled in the final days and weeks of his term, as it did for four years, to drive a message that might capture the country’s attention and bolster a battered legacy.”