National News at a Glance

Trump Says He Has Short List for Supreme Court and Will Reveal His Pick July 9

President Donald Trump said Friday he planned to announce his pick to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9, kicking off a confirmation battle the White House and Senate Republicans hope to finish by early fall. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he had narrowed his list to “about five people,” including two women. Kennedy, who is retiring after three decades on the Supreme Court, gives Trump a historic opportunity to shift the ideological makeup of the court with a reliably conservative jurist. Activists are already gearing up to fight whomever the president picks.

NSA Purges Hundreds of Millions of Call and Text Records

The National Security Agency has purged hundreds of millions of records logging phone calls and texts it had gathered from U.S. telecommunications companies since 2015, the agency disclosed. It had realized that its database was contaminated with some files the agency had no authority to receive. The agency began destroying the records May 23, it said in a statement. Officials had discovered “technical irregularities” this year in its collection from phone companies of call record details, or metadata showing who called or texted whom and when, but not what they said.

New Jersey to Suspend Prominent Psychologist for Failing to Protect Patient Privacy

A prominent New Jersey psychologist is facing the suspension of his license after state officials concluded he failed to keep details of mental health diagnoses and treatments confidential when he sued patients over unpaid bills. The Board of Psychological Examiners this week upheld an administrative law judge's decision that Barry Helfmann “did not take reasonable measures to protect the confidentiality of his patients’ protected health information,” Lisa Coryell, a state attorney general’s offices spokeswoman, said in an email. New Jersey began to investigate Helfmann after a ProPublica article published in The New York Times in December 2015 that described the lawsuits and the information they contained.

Hundreds Arrested During Women’s Immigration Protest in Washington

More than 500 people, including at least one member of Congress, were arrested and escorted from the Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday after staging a sit-in during a march led by women against the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance approach to illegal immigration. Capitol Police charged approximately 575 people with unlawfully demonstrating, a misdemeanor punishable by a $50 fine, according to a police spokeswoman. Those arrested included Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and actress Susan Sarandon. Organizers said more than 2,500 women from 47 states participated in the protest.

Condemning Deadly Newsroom Shooting, Trump Tempers Hostility Toward Media

President Donald Trump on Friday condemned the deadly newsroom shooting in Maryland, declaring that “journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.” Trump has labeled the news media “the enemy of the people” and routinely encourages supporters to join in his verbal attacks against journalists covering him. On Friday, however, he chose the standard vocabulary of a political leader offering condolences. “This attack shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief,” he said. Trump did not refer to his own vexed relationship with the press, choosing to sympathize with a profession he normally vilifies.

Accused Gunman in Capital Gazette Shooting Left a Trail of Conflicts

Before he stormed into a newsroom and unleashed a burst of gunfire that left five people dead, the suspect in the Maryland attack vented his hostility at the world with a barrage of lawsuits, harassment and workplace conflict. Jarrod W. Ramos had been fired from his government job, was the subject of a police investigation and for years kept up an online crusade against targets including the newspaper. His trail of public clashes came to an end when he attacked employees of the Capital Gazette, against which he had long held a grudge after a columnist wrote about Ramos' harassment of a female high school classmate.