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Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Thursday expanding the scope of a previously declared national emergency to enable the Treasury and State Departments to impose sanctions on individuals who have engaged in “actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, or stability of Sudan.” The fighting that broke out in Sudan last month between forces led by two rival generals has now killed more than 500 people, injured thousands, and displaced even more.
• The White House on Thursday announced a suite of moves aimed at promoting “responsible artificial intelligence innovation,” including a $140 million investment in AI research and development and a public assessment of existing generative AI systems. Vice President Kamala Harris convened industry leaders at the White House yesterday, urging them to consider the risks of the technologies they are developing. “The private sector has an ethical, moral and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products,” Harris said.
• The North Carolina Senate voted 29-20 on Thursday, entirely along party lines, to advance legislation prohibiting most abortions after 12 weeks of gestation, with exceptions for rape and incest (up to 20 weeks of gestation), “life-limiting anomalies,” (up to 24 weeks), and life of the mother (no limit). The bill also appropriates money for child and foster care programs, contraception, and paid parental leave for teachers and government employees. North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has said he will veto the measure, but Republicans—who have supermajorities in both chambers after a state representative recently changed parties—believe they have the votes to override him.
• A federal jury on Thursday convicted five leaders of the Proud Boys militia—Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola—on multiple felony charges related to their activities on January 6, 2021. Four of the leaders—all except Pezzola—were found guilty of a seditious conspiracy to interfere with the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, and the five were also convicted on charges of obstructing an official proceeding, conspiring to prevent members of Congress and federal law enforcement officers from discharging their duties, civil disorder, and destruction of government property. Prosecutors are likely to seek lengthy sentences for all five.
• ProPublica reported Thursday Republican donor Harlan Crow spent thousands of dollars on private school tuition for a great nephew of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whom Thomas and his wife Virginia were raising “as a son.” Thomas did not disclose the payments as gifts. Mark Paoletta, a lawyer and friend of the Thomases, confirmed Crow paid for at least two years of the child’s schooling, but argued the justice was not required to disclose the tuition payments as gifts because the child is not his son or stepson. Crow and Paoletta both said Justice Thomas never asked Crow to pay for the child’s tuition. (Disclosure: Harlan Crow is a minority investor in The Dispatch and a friend of the founders.)
• Separately, the Washington Post reported Thursday that in January 2012, Leonard Leo—a conservative judicial activist and Federalist Society executive—instructed Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit he was advising tens of thousands of dollars and use the money to pay Virginia Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife,  though he requested her name be left off any paperwork. Conway’s polling firm paid Virginia Thomas’ consulting firm at least $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012, according to documents reviewed by the Post. Leo told the Post Virginia Thomas’ work “did not involve anything connected with either the Court’s business or with other legal issues,” and said he sought to keep her name off any paperwork to “protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni.
• The Daily Wire reported this week Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not recuse herself from multiple copyright infringement cases before the court involving Penguin Random House—one in 2013, one in 2019-2020—despite receiving several million dollars from the publisher and its subsidiaries for her books. Justice Neil Gorsuch—who joined the court in 2017—also didn’t recuse himself from the latter case, despite receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in book deals from the publisher. Then-Justice Stephen Breyer did recuse himself from two cases involving Penguin Random House; he’d written books for the publisher, and he and his wife owned stock in a company that owned a stake in Penguin Random House. 
• Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico announced Thursday he will run for a third term in 2024, and Democratic Rep. David Trone of Maryland launched a campaign for the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he is “seriously investigating” whether to jump into the U.S. Senate race as well.
• The Department of Labor reported Thursday that initial jobless claims—a proxy for layoffs—increased by 13,000 week-over-week to a seasonally-adjusted 242,000 claims last week, adding to the growing number of signs the hot labor market is continuing to cool.

Chevr-on the Chopping Block?

A battle over whether a fishing boat operator is required to pay the salaries of government monitors checking how many fish are being caught may not sound like a riveting legal drama. But it’s on its way to becoming the hottest case on the docket.

Music Industry Safe—For Now

It’s been a big week for pop superstar Ed Sheeran. His new album, – (Subtract), is out today, completing his series of records named to prove he passed middle school algebra. Wednesday, Disney released a four-part docuseries about his life—Ed Sheeran: The Sum of it All (he’s very good at math). And yesterday, a federal jury in Manhattan ruled he did not copy parts of Marvin Gaye’s legendary 1973 hit, “Let’s Get It On,” in his 2014 chart-topper “Thinking Out Loud.” 

The copyright infringement suit—first brought in 2017 by the descendants of Gaye’s co-writer, Ed Townsend—is the latest in a series of plagiarism accusations that have left some in the music industry, including Sheeran, fearing songwriters’ creative liberty may be at risk.

Worth Your Time

• In a piece for the MIT Technology Review, Jessica Hamzelou details a groundbreaking brain surgery doctors performed on a baby girl—before she was born. “She doesn’t know it yet, but a baby girl living somewhere near Boston has made history,” Hamzelou writes. “The seven-week-old is one of the first people to have undergone an experimental brain operation while still in the womb. It might have saved her life. Before she was born, this little girl developed a dangerous condition that led blood to pool in a 14-millimeter-wide pocket in her brain. The condition could have resulted in brain damage, heart problems, and breathing difficulties after birth. It could have been fatal. Her parents signed up for a clinical trial of an in-utero surgical treatment to see if doctors could intervene before any of these outcomes materialized. It seems to have worked. The team behind the operation now plans to treat more fetuses in the same way. Other, similar brain conditions might benefit from the same approach. For conditions like these, fetal brain surgery could be the future.”

Presented Without Comment 

National Review: TikTok Claims ‘Technical Error’ Led to Suspension of Think Tank that Posted about Hong Kong

Also Presented Without Comment 

Financial Times: Buyer Plans to Make Jeffrey Epstein’s Infamous Islands a Luxury Resort

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Nick weighs in on (🔒) a viral video depicting a death on a New York subway.
• On the podcasts: For Advisory Opinions David and Sarah discuss the latest in Ron DeSantis’ crusade against Disney, and on the Dispatch Podcast David, Sarah, Steve, and Jonah discuss the drones in Moscow, Kevin McCarthy’s job performance, violent crime, and the 2024 Senate map. Plus: If you weren’t able to make it to D.C. earlier this week, Dispatch members can now access a recording—video or audio-only—of Jonah, Steve, and Stirewalt’s conversation about their time at Fox News. Click here for more!
• On the site: Kevin offers three ways to think about the debt ceiling, and Reuel Marc Gerecht argues Iran may be as emboldened as ever.