Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The ongoing war: “The U.S. … carried a new round of strikes on military targets in Iran ahead of its blockade of Iranian ports, a U.S. official told MS NOW. … U.S. Central Command later confirmed it the strikes, saying in a statement, ‘an additional round of strikes against Iran to continue degrading Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.’”

* Encouraging news on inflation, but for how long? “Consumer prices posted their biggest decline in more than six years during June as a sharp swoon in energy prices provided at least temporary relief from this year’s inflation surge, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.”

* In Minnesota: “Federal prosecutors turned over key evidence long sought by Minnesota investigators in their ongoing probe into the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during pitched protests against an immigration enforcement crackdown earlier this year, state prosecutors announced Monday.”

* Carroll gets paid: “Writer E. Jean Carroll finally has the $5 million — plus interest — that a jury ordered President Donald Trump to pay her in damages in one of her two cases against him, after Trump fought the payout for years. Court records posted Tuesday show a transfer of $5,625,005.48 to Carroll’s legal team took place the day before.”

* The lawsuit challenging Team Trump getting the Endangered Species Act: “Shortly after the new rule was published in the federal register Tuesday, the law firm Earthjustice, alongside more than half a dozen other environmental groups, filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Seattle against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries (also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service).”

* The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has clearly seen better days: “The U.S. is tapping in to its national stocks of crude with abandon. The withdrawals are taking a toll on the strategic reserve system.”

* Just one day after Donald Trump declared his intention to impose fees on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the president said he doesn’t think “anybody should be able to charge a fee” for the Strait of Hormuz.

* Good riddance: “The bright blue sign reading ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ outside the silver chain-link gate at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport has been removed. The airstrip, formerly used to hold immigrants in industrial tents, is now cleared with only a few structures and cars remaining. And after Gov. Ron DeSantis invested over a billion dollars to transform the Everglades runway into an immigration detention center, it now looks as if that never occurred.”

* An accompanying press release said those responsible hoped this award will be featured alongside the FIFA Peace Prize and Trump’s “seized” Nobel Peace Prize: “The group behind a number of eye-catching installations critical of the Trump administration is back. The Secret Handshake placed a giant gold ‘participation trophy’ for President Donald Trump on the National Mall on Monday.”

See you tomorrow.

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