The Supreme Court cleared the way for mass federal firings.

Elon Musk's AI chatbot went on an unhinged anti-Semitic rant.

And one of Spotify's top bands isn't really a band at all.

That's some of what we'll get to on The 7 from The Washington Post.

I'm Reni Svrnovsky in for Hannah-Jule. It's Wednesday,

July 9th. Let's get you caught up with today's seven stories.

Number one. The Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to launch mass layoffs.

Officials in the Trump administration had wanted to fire thousands of federal workers,

including at the State Department and the Social Security Administration.

But their plans have been held up by a lower court order that blocked the firings.

That freeze was lifted yesterday.

Justices cleared the way for the Trump administration to launch plans for mass firings and reorganizations at 19 federal agencies and departments while litigation continues.

In a brief order, the majority of justices said they were not ruling on the legality of specific firing plans, but simply allowing the

administration to launch its efforts. The full impact of the Supreme Court's order is not

immediately clear. Since Elon Musk has parted ways with the U.S. Doge Service, there have been signs

of a retreat from the effort to carry out mass firings.

Trump lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin. That's number two. Trump's relationship

with Putin has come under strain in recent weeks, as Russia has dramatically increased its

bombardments of Ukraine.

On Monday, Trump confirmed plans to send more weapons to Ukraine to aid in its war against Russia.

And yesterday, he had sharp words for Putin, describing his actions with an expletive.

He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.

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