Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Stephen Hubbard is headed home: “Russia has released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.”

* In related news: “Special envoy Steve Witkoff heaped praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, the latest sign that Ukrainian and European efforts to get Washington to ramp up pressure on Russia to end the war are failing. … ‘You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again,’ Witkoff said.”

* Even some Republicans criticized Witkoff’s gushing praise for the head of a government that imprisoned Hubbard in the first place: “WTF, Steve? Look up the definition of ‘humanitarian,’’’ Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., posted on X. “You should go back to Ukraine and ask the families of the children Putin has kidnapped and murdered whether they agree your friend Putin is a ‘humanitarian.’” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, responded, “Putin is stone cold killer.”

* In the Middle East: “The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members ​to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia ‌and is planning to move out family members from a number of other US missions in the Gulf, US officials told Reuters.”

* Crisis conditions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Health officials in California and Washington, facing outbreaks of measles this past spring, asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May to validate a test that can diagnose 500 cases in eight hours. They did not hear back for two months.”

* An intensifying climate emergency: “Losing more ground in the fight against climate change, humanity is heading for a hotter world than experts projected last year — and the United States is a big reason for that, a new United Nations report says.”

* Good for Kagan for speaking out: “With Americans deciding the congressional balance of power in November’s midterm elections, Justice Elena Kagan is reminding the nation of how the Supreme Court’s decisions have shaped the ballot. It’s an antidemocratic shape, according to the Obama-appointed justice’s remarks Tuesday at Catholic University’s law school in Washington.”

* I’m with the majority on this one: “A majority of Americans say artificial intelligence is a bad thing for society and about two-thirds oppose the construction of new data centers in the U.S., with opposition even higher to building data centers in people’s own communities, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.”

* Facebook’s parent company: “Meta is finally being forced to pay for its near-decade-old falsehoods about the Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw millions of users’ data harvested for political purposes. On Wednesday, a judge in New Mexico ordered the social media company to pay a $25 billion penalty following a jury’s determination in late September that the company’s executives broke state laws with knowingly false statements they made in the wake of the scandal.”

* Speaking of New Mexico, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez “has filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, and accountant, Richard Kahn, accusing them of helping to facilitate and conceal Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.”

See you tomorrow.

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