Come for Morning Wire’s Afternoon Update’s straight news, but stay for the rapid reaction. The following five stories, and more, can be heard on today’s Morning Wire Afternoon Update podcast. Click here to listen. 

1. Russia Pulls Out Of Ukraine Grain Deal 

This morning, Russia announced that it would not be renewing the grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export its grain around the world as the two countries fight a war.

That agreement, which first began in July 2022, was set to expire Monday evening at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The move could harm supply chains, lead to food shortages, cause grocery prices to surge, and further escalate the conflict. Ukraine has historically been known as “the bread basket of the world.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba had a blunt message for Russia Monday morning: “Stop playing hunger games with the people around the world.”

Rapid Reaction: This war could be over if the U.S. pushed for a peace deal. Under President Joe Biden, we aren’t. So, the rest of the West will have to deal with its consequences. For now, those consequences aren’t resulting in the death of Americans, but they are making life more difficult. Experts have previously predicted that food prices will skyrocket — even higher than they already have been — without this deal in place.

2. Ukraine Attacks Crimean Peninsula

Ukraine also took responsibility Monday morning for an attack on a key bridge that connects Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. As CNN reports, the bridge holds both logistics and symbolic importance for Russia after the country annexed Crimea in 2014 — the last time it invaded Ukraine. According to reports, a husband and wife were killed in the explosions. 

Rapid Reaction: Again, why is the Biden adminsitration’s policy to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes?”

3. Flashfloods Kill Five, Two Missing In Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania authorities have been searching for a missing 9-month-old and his 2-year-old sister in the Philadelphia area after the duo was presumably swept away in flash floods that hit the region Saturday evening. That weather emergency killed five individuals in Upper Makefield Township in Bucks County.

Rapid Reaction: What else can you do but pray for the families?

4. Train Derailment

Also near Philly on early Monday morning, a CSX Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, forcing residents nearby to be evacuated from their homes and offices. Officials said one train car was transporting hazardous material, but insisted there was “no indication of any leaks or spills.” Nor have there been any injuries reported as of press time.

Rapid Reaction: Don’t worry, the Biden administration’s Transportation Department will get to the bottom of this right after it stops ramming equity into every crevice of American life …

5. $900 Million Powerball 

And, Monday night’s Powerball jackpot is expected to be a whopping $900 million. If taken as a lump sum, the estimated cash payout would be about $465.1 million.

Rapid Reaction: To quote Creed Bratton, a character from “The Office,” “I already won the lottery. I was born in the US of A, baby.”

I already won the lottery, I was born in the U.S of A. pic.twitter.com/zXPhizHsFs

— Creed Bratton *Parody (@Creed_Thoughts2) July 4, 2020

But, if there’s no Rundown on Tuesday, you can take it as a sign that I won the actual lottery.

Former “non-binary” Biden Energy Department official Sam Brinton rolled off with a woman’s suitcase from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas last year while on a taxpayer-funded trip, according to a federal watchdog group.

Brinton, who President Joe Biden tapped to serve as the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the U.S. Department of Energy, was fired six months later amid allegations of stealing luggage and women’s clothing from at least three different airports.

But during one of Brinton’s luggage heists, the federal watchdog Functional Government Initiative (FGI) report provided to The New York Post found that he was in Vegas on business representing the Energy Department when airport surveillance captured images of him swiping a woman’s suitcase.

“Not only did Sam Brinton commit a crime, the illegal shopping spree was funded by taxpayers,” Pete McGinnis, FGI’s director of communications, told The Post. “The pattern of petty theft shows that Brinton never should’ve been hired and given a security clearance in the first place.”

According to the report, Brinton’s business trip occurred from July 6 through July 9, 2022. It included a “meeting and site visit to DOE Las Vegas Site.” The four-day trip cost taxpayers $1,951.50, records show.

The documentation also revealed that Brinton stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacations Club located on the Las Vegas Strip.

Authorities initially charged Brinton with a felony based on the belief he stole $3,670 worth of items. However, the former Biden official agreed to pay the victim more than $3,500 in restitution and received a suspended 180-day jail sentence under the assumption Brinton would obey the law.

Brinton pleaded “no contest” to the misdemeanor theft.

Brinton, who has dressed in drag and boasted online about his puppy role-play fetish, first came under fire in December 2022 for allegedly stealing a woman’s luggage in Minneapolis.

Authorities charged Brinton with stealing luggage at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, where he allegedly removed a tag from a navy blue Vera Bradley suitcase bag, dropped it into his handbag, and “then left the area at a quick pace” on September 16, 2022, according to a criminal complaint.

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And earlier this year, authorities arrested Brinton at a house in Rockville, Maryland, as a “fugitive from justice” for allegedly stealing luggage belonging to Tanzanian fashion designer Asya Khamsin.

Khamsin previously appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in March, saying that her luggage had been stolen from Reagan National Airport in 2018 on the way to a fashion show, causing catastrophe because she could not show her designs.

Brinton was later pictured wearing one of her one-of-a-kind designs that had been in the suitcase, she said.

Authorities later revealed that despite Brinton’s “non-binary” identifier, he would be placed in a men’s jail in Maryland before being released on bond in June.