Do you ever look at political headlines and go, huh?

Well, that's exactly why the NPR Politics Podcast exists.

We're experts, not just on politics, but in making politics make sense.

Every episode, we decode everything that happened in Washington

and help you figure out what it all means.

Give politics a chance with the NPR Politics Podcast, available wherever you get

your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. The Supreme Court today declined

to hear a major constitutional challenge to state laws in Maryland and Rhode Island that

banned semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15.

As NPR's media Totenberg reports, the court was split on whether to hear the case.

It takes the votes of four justices to grant review of a lower court decision.

And in today's case, only the court's three most conservative justices, Thomas Alito and Gorsuch, voted to hear the appeal.

Justice Kavanaugh, who declined to provide the fourth vote, needed to hear the case next term,

nonetheless filed a statement calling the lower court decision, quote, questionable.

He gave no reason why he voted against hearing the case, except to say that there will be other similar cases before the court soon, that, as he put it, should assist in making the ultimate decision on the AR-15.

Nina Tottenberg and PR News, Washington.

Four additional victims have now been added to the list, bringing to 12 the number of people injured when a man firebombed a crowd marching

in support of Israeli hostages. The suspect, an Egyptian national, identified as 45-year-old

Mohammed Sabri Soleiman, faces charges of attempted murder along with federal hate crime charges.

Soleimani had apparently overstated Torres visa, and according to DHS, was in the U.S.

illegally.

Meanwhile, Jewish groups are speaking out about Sunday's attack. NPR's Jason DeRose reports

...