Happy Tuesday! Short-lived British Prime Minister Liz Truss says the viral bet on whether her premiership or a head of lettuce would last longer—the lettuce won—was not funny.

Sorry, ma’am, but that’s not for you to decide.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories 

• Multiple tornadoes killed at least 1 person and injured nearly two dozen in Mississippi Sunday night. The tornadoes, which cut off power for close to 50,000 Mississippians, were the latest in a string of extreme weather events across the South over the weekend that left six people dead and more than 100 injured.
• Former President Donald Trump claimed Monday that he didn’t comply with requests from the National Archives to return classified material he’d kept after his presidency because “I was very busy.” Trump also denied that he’d shown a secret document on Iran war plans with visitors to his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course and once again made the false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. Trump made the comments in the first half of an hour-long interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, the second half of which airs tonight.
• U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered Trump and his aide Walt Nauta not to release evidence in the federal case related to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. The order—requested by special counsel Jack Smith and intended to prevent leaks of highly classified material—also prohibits Trump from retaining evidence and requires a lawyer to be present when he views it.
• Republican lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee proposed a new bill that would restrict the public’s access to military records. The Pentagon has for decades released general information about service members upon request, including their name, photo, rank, and awards. But if the new bill—which follows several unauthorized releases of information about GOP lawmakers who previously served in the armed forces—is passed, members of the public and journalists would have to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain records. 
• Russian cybercriminals breached several federal agencies last week in an ongoing global cyberattack that exploits a vulnerability in MOVEit, a widely used data transfer software. Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said Thursday that the ransomware group, known as Clop, is “taking data and looking to extort it.” The attack follows a similar hack by Clop using the same software two weeks ago that impacted British Airways, a British pharmacy, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
• The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops voted Friday to update its Catholic health care directives, beginning the process of blocking sex-change procedures—including surgeries and hormone treatments—at Catholic hospitals in the U.S. These treatments “are not morally justified either as attempts to repair a defect in the body or as attempts to sacrifice a part of the body for the sake of the whole,” the conference concluded in a doctrinal note. Catholic hospitals operate about 1 in 7 hospital beds in America and already tend not to offer cosmetic surgeries or birth control procedures.
• At least five Palestinians were killed Monday in a nearly 10-hour clash between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops who were trying to make arrests at a Jenin refugee camp. The Palestinian fighters detonated roadside bombs, leaving five Israeli military vehicles stranded and forcing the deployment of helicopter gunships to help Israeli troops evacuate—reportedly the first such deployment of armed helicopters since the second Palestinian Intifada two decades ago. 
• Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Monday the Ukrainian counteroffensive had recaptured an eighth village—Piatykhatky, in Zaporizhzhia—and freed about 70 miles of territory in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian troops have also been striking Russian ammunition depots behind the front lines, including what Ukrainian officials claimed was the successful destruction this weekend of a depot about 100 miles behind front lines in the Kherson region. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces are taking heavy losses in the fighting.
• The New York Times reported yesterday that Russian officials surveilled a Russian defector in Florida in 2020, likely as part of a botched plan to assassinate the man. The target—former Russian intelligence officer Aleksandr Poteyev—had reportedly become a CIA informant and in 2010 helped the FBI catch 11 undercover Russian spies living in the United States. The Biden administration imposed sanctions and expelled 10 Russian diplomats when the plot was uncovered in 2021.

Blinken’s Whirlwind Beijing Tour

When the bar is set low, it’s easy to impress. At least, that’s what senior State Department officials seemed to be hoping as they previewed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China over the weekend—the first by a secretary of state in five years.

“We’re not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation in the way that we deal with one another,” Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink told reporters last Wednesday. Instead, Kritenbrink said, the general goals of the visit were threefold: to keep senior-level communication open, to signal the United States’ “values and interests,” and to “explore areas of potential cooperation where it’s in our interest to do so.”

Sure enough, Blinken concluded his two-day trip without a major breakthrough, despite more than 10 collective hours of meetings with his Chinese counterparts—the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang—and a roughly half-hour-long meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both parties did rhetorically commit to “stabilizing” U.S.-China ties—neither a full-fledged “thaw” nor a second ice age—but Blinken didn’t deliver on the top Biden administration priority of resuming military-to-military talks with Beijing.

Worth Your Time

• Nebraska-based ammunition manufacturing company Hornady touts its rounds as “Accurate. Deadly. Dependable.” and capable of firing “ten bullets through one hole.” Russian troops are putting that promise to the test on the battlefield. Though Hornady says it cut sales to Russia after the country invaded Ukraine, a new Politico investigation shows Western-made armaments are slipping through sanctions loopholes and reaching Russian hands, freely advertised online. “Take the ‘Sniper Shop’ on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that is popular in Russia,” the reporters write. “It features a current offer for a full range of Hornady products, with the seller inviting buyers to visit a showroom in Sokolniki, a Moscow district, and offering delivery throughout Russia by courier or post. Contacted by Politico, the poster confirmed the Hornady ammo was in stock but declined to comment further on how it was sourced.”
• Ian Barth’s vivid recounting of the life and death of Gimpy the pet duck blends with his exploration of our changing relationship with animals and meat, and the value of raising animals yourself and involving kids in the process. “Two years ago, just days after Christmas, I knelt next to the incubator with my eight-year-old son, peering through the glass to witness our duck eggs hatching,” he writes for Plough. “I’ve talked with a number of people who became vegetarian or vegan in recent years; in general, they are motivated by a genuine desire to make the world a better place, ensure the future of the planet, and not be complicit in the cruelty that happens in factory farms. My own unsophisticated counterpoint is simply that if you love animals, start raising some for food yourself. Chickens are easy. Goats and rabbits are pretty cheap. Pigs can be fed on acorns. You’ll find you love creation more deeply when you actually start to take a hand in caring for it.”

Presented Without Comment

Bloomberg: Trump Says He Kept Documents Because He Was ‘Very Busy’

Also Presented Without Comment

The Hill: Maryland Governor Says Book Bans Are ‘Castrating’ Kids

Also Also Presented Without Comment

Politico: Russian Warlord Prigozhin to Politico: Get Me F-35 Fighter Jets

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: The Dispatch Politics team provides the latest on Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Trump-plus” campaign, Nick asks whether (🔒) Republican voters even want to win, and Kevin ponders the (🔒) role of the Supreme Court.
• On the podcasts: On the latest episode of the Dispatch Podcast, Audrey talks to Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon about his plan for unifying the state’s fractious Republicans.
• On the site today: Oliver examines the Biden administration’s claim that its immigration plan is working, and Audrey B. explains the tricky politics surrounding efforts to rename military posts across the country.

Let Us Know

Do you think Blinken’s trip to China was worthwhile? Why or why not?