• Trump leaves China, touts wins: President Donald Trump’s visit to China is complete, and he said that it resulted in some “fantastic trade deals.” Trump’s comments on Friday did not include details on the trade deals, but he confirmed both the U.S. and China “feel very similar on Iran” and want the Strait of Hormuz opened. The two countries reiterated their positions on Taiwan with no change. Trump’s visit included a state dinner featuring an instrumental version of “YMCA” and a tour of Chinese attractions, including the Temple of Heaven. President Xi Jinping has been invited for a reciprocal visit to the White House in September.

• Trucking companies can be sued for unsafe (read: illegal) drivers: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Americans can sue major logistics companies for hiring unsafe truck drivers. The decision, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, with a concurrence by Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, overturns a lower court decision holding that freight brokers were protected from lawsuits because it is the federal government’s responsibility to regulate carriers. SCOTUS determined that logistics companies may be liable under an exception to safety regulations. The decision was greeted enthusiastically by many Americans who have become concerned after a spate of fatal crashes revealed that many truck drivers are illegals who cannot speak English or read road signs. Some “Chameleon Carrier” companies specialize in keeping dangerous drivers with a history of crashes on the road. Hopefully, SCOTUS’s decision will lead to fewer illegals on the road and fewer fatal crashes.

• Israel to sue NYT over Kristoff smear: Columnist Nicholas Kristof has landed The New York Times in hot water. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is filing a defamation case against the Times and Kristof, declaring, “They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers.” It is still uncertain as to the venue for the trial or what damages are to be sought, but regardless, it won’t be difficult to prove the general malice and lies against Israel oozing from Kristof’s hit piece. The Times defended the article as a “deeply reported piece of opinion journalism.” Kristof wrote the piece as a factual account rather than an opinion. Whether or not Israel prevails, the takeaway for the Times is that it just got a lot more expensive to carry water for terrorists.

• SCOTUS allows mail abortion pills: On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing the dispensing of abortion pills through the mail without requiring an in-person doctor’s office visit. In other words, pro-abortion advocates can still get around a number of pro-life laws in red states. Both Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, with Alito calling the Court’s “unreasoned order … remarkable.” He pointed out, “What is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which restored the right of each State to decide how to regulate abortions within its borders.” Thomas likewise blasted the majority decision, stating that the abortion drugmakers “are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise.”

• Border Patrol chief resigns: “It’s just time,” U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said when he announced his resignation yesterday. Banks, who took up the post after leaving it in protest during the Biden administration, explained, “I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure, disastrous, chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen.” He added, “Time to pass the reins, 37 years, it’s time to enjoy the family and life.” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott thanked Banks for his decades of service and for coming out of retirement to help the Trump administration. The CBP has yet to name a replacement.

• Judge blocks TX law permitting state arrests and deportation of illegals: Reagan-appointed District Judge David Alan Ezra has struck down part of Texas’s SB 4 after he determined that 10 million illegals being allowed to cross the border under a derelict administration did not constitute an invasion. Texas had argued that since the incredible migrant surge constituted an invasion of its soil, it had the right to detain and deport illegals. Judge Ezra asserts that isn’t an invasion, and Texas’s law would be in violation of Congress’s rights. The Biden administration, which was derelict in its constitutional duty to secure the border, initiated the lawsuit against Texas, showing its hand on the willful nature of the border surge.

• Dem lawmakers a no-show at DC police congressional vigil: This week is National Police Week, and in Washington, DC, the 38th Annual Candlelight Vigil was held, during which the names of 363 fallen law enforcement officers were added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. The congressional vigil was held on the steps of the Capitol building to remember and honor these fallen officers, yet not a single Democrat member of Congress was present. The only lawmakers among the crowd at the vigil were Republicans. As Fox News’s Griff Jenkins observed, “When I was standing at that vigil last night, and you saw half a dozen, several dozen members of Congress, it struck me I couldn’t count a single Democrat that was there. … It’s a shame that you didn’t have bipartisan support for something so important.”

• Report blames DC police chief for officers fixing crime data: A 554-page internal report from Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department found that the crime data manipulation that was recently revealed was due to a “culture of fear” created by former Chief Pamela A. Smith. The report noted that the data-manipulation scheme involved reclassifying hundreds of crimes as lesser offenses, including theft, burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon. Thirteen members of the MPD leadership involved in the scheme have avoided federal prosecution but face potential termination. In her December farewell speech, Smith claimed, “Never would I, never will I ever compromise my integrity for a few crime numbers.” While the report did not accuse Smith of directing the scheme, it noted that her intimidating, harsh leadership led officers to tell her what they believed she wanted to hear out of fear of retaliation.

• The AP’s silly musket warning: The un-American Leftmedia really thinks the Second Amendment is a second-class right. In a recent post on social media, the Associated Press explained how dangerous a 1776-era musket is and bemoaned its lack of regulation. Seeming completely unaware that they were echoing an argument that sent 700 British Regulars to seize a weapons cache in Concord, Massachusetts, 251 years ago, the AP explained that muskets fire a lead ball at 1,000 feet per second, so “Imagine what they can do to a human body.” Modern arguments around the Second Amendment and the right of the people to keep and bear arms frequently center around our Founders’ inability to imagine modern weaponry. Such arguments are specious, but one weapon our Founders were intimately familiar with as they drafted the Bill of Rights was a 1776-era musket.

Headlines

• CIA director meets with Cuban officials in Havana (WSJ)

• Mamdani blasted for planned cuts to veterans services (NY Post)

• DOJ investigation finds Yale’s medical school discriminated against whites, Asians (Not the Bee)

The Executive News Summary is compiled daily by Jordan Candler, Thomas Gallatin, Sterling Henry, and Sophie Starkova. For the archive, click here.