It’s hard to keep up these days with the tides of Republican malevolence and press failures. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this one. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been mounting various stunts in recent weeks to keep the border immigration issue at a boil for his own 2022 reelection campaign. His latest move was to impose universal safety inspections on trucks coming from Mexico into Texas to snarl the border, drive up prices and possibly create food shortages in the United States. The proximate reason for this move is President Biden’s decision to phase out COVID-era restrictions on asylum seekers. Price spikes and border chaos are his weapon against Biden.

Yesterday evening U.S. time, Ukraine reportedly used a Neptune missile to strike and apparently destroy the flagship vessel of the Russian Black Sea fleet, the missile cruiser Moskva. There’s still conflicting reports about the fate of the ship. Ukraine says it was struck and sank. Russia says it was badly damaged, evacuated and is now under tow. Russia also seems to dispute that there was a successful missile attack, seemingly claiming a munitions explosion on board. Regardless of exactly what happened it seems Ukraine scored a rather stunning success either destroying or taking out of commission a major Russian warship.

The suspected shooter who fired a gun inside a New York City MTA train car in Brooklyn yesterday was arrested this afternoon after a 24 hour-plus manhunt. The man is suspected of releasing smoke grenades inside the moving train and firing a gun 33 times, shooting 10 people and injuring 29 others. None of the victims have died.

The attack roiled New York on Tuesday, the realization of a nightmare scenario in a city that relies heavily on its massive and largely underground transit system.