@ Al-Monitor.com, April 3

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously recommended today that retired Gen. John Abizaid serve as ambassador to Saudi Arabia while voting 13-2 to advance Matthew Tueller as ambassador to Iraq, paving the way for their confirmation in the coming days.

While the Abizaid nomination proved noncontroversial, Tueller took heat not for his views on Iraq, but rather for his current role as ambassador to Yemen [....]

By Reid Wilson @ TheHill.com, April 3

[....] Within hours of the new policy’s announcement, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) criticized the DCCC. Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley are two of the 10 House Democrats who won their seats by beating sitting members of their own party.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) defended the change on Tuesday, saying the party was still seeking to embrace different perspectives. “But at the end of the day, the reality is the DCCC has a singular mission, which is to protect and preserve the majority,” said Jeffries, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus [....]

Op-ed by Jennifer Rubin @ WashingtonPost.com, April 3

[....] In the past 24 hours, Trump — who will be 74 in November 2020 and is “tired,” according to aides — has:

• Falsely declared multiple times that his father was born in Germany. (Fred Trump was born in New York.)
• Declared that wind turbines cause cancer.
• Confused “origins” and “oranges” in asking reporters to look into the “oranges of the Mueller report.”
• Told Republicans to be more “paranoid” about vote-counting.

He is increasingly incoherent. The Post quotes him at a Republican event on Tuesday: “We’re going into the war with some socialist. It looks like the only non, sort of, heavy socialist is being taken care of pretty well by the socialists, they got to him, our former vice president. I was going to call him, I don’t know him well, I was going to say ‘Welcome to the world Joe, you having a good time?'” Even when attempting to defend himself, he emits spurts of disconnected thoughts. “Now you look at that [presidential announcement] speech and you see what’s happening and that speech was so tame compared to what is happening now, that trek up is one of the great treacherous treks anywhere, and Mexico has now, because they don’t want the border closed.” [....]

By Paul Farhi @ WashingtonPost.com, April 2

Jussie Smollett is a free man who wants to “just get back to work” as an actor. Tucker Carlson is still employed by Fox News. Ralph Northam is still Virginia’s governor. They seem to have ridden out viral backlash. You may even have forgotten about them by now.

Tobacco use among children and teens continues to fall despite popularity of vaping

By Steven Morris @ TheGuardian.com, April 1

[....] the study led by Cardiff University researchers suggests the number of teenagers who said they had tried smoking or thought it was acceptable to smoke has continued to fall despite the rise in e-cigarette use.

The study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, examined data from England, Wales and Scotland, and found that from 1998 to 2015 the percentage of children aged between 13 and 15 who had smoked decreased from 60% to 19%, while regular smokers in the same age group fell from 19% to 5%.

It also reported that the percentage of young people who reported that trying a cigarette was “OK” declined from 70% in 1999 to 27% in 2015.

The report also points out that in the same period there was a fall in cannabis and alcohol use.

The analysis, funded by the National Institute for Health Research and conducted in collaboration with academics from Edinburgh, Stirling, Glasgow and Bristol, focused on three national surveys canvassing the views of almost 250,000 young people [....]

Reporting from L.A. @ NBCNews.com, Updated April 2, 2019, 1:06 AM EDT

Law enforcement sources confirmed that a person was stabbed at a vigil for the slain rapper, but they said reports of shots didn't appear to be accurate.