_:nfba2496ee6a14944a3633576b9dcf605xb0
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"[[\\#image: /photos/590954ea019dfc3494e9ea73]](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/to-do-list/)\n\n**To know**: Saying that the “tide of war is receding,” President Obama [announced last night his timetable for drawing down the American troop presence in Afghanistan](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/world/asia/23prexy.html?hp), beginning with ten thousand this summer before withdrawing an additional twenty-three thousand by the end of next year. (Ryan Lizza [explains why people shouldn’t be surprised](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/06/obama-afghanistan-policy.html).) Geert Wilders, the increasingly powerful far-right Dutch politician, has been [acquitted in an Amsterdam court](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/us-dutch-wilders-idUSTRE75M10P20110623) of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims. And James (Whitey) Bulger, the notorious Boston crime boss, [was arrested in Santa Monica, California, last night, after nearly sixteen years on the lam](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0623-whitey-bulger-20110623,0,3111204.story).\n\n**To read**: The journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who last year [profiled Mark Zuckerberg for this magazine](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/20/100920fa_fact_vargas), confesses in an [essay for the New York *Times Magazine*](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html) that he is an illegal immigrant.\n\n**To team up for pot**: Congressmen Barney Frank and Ron Paul will introduce [legislation today that would repeal the federal prohibition on marijuana](http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hG4_lcgg7LZJkhGZ77XVWkgc4qEg?docId=CNG.303a98314b212653789ee9d519e7b3fd.bc1), leaving policy to individual states except in cases of cross-border or inter-state smuggling.\n\n**To launch a diversionary war**? Sources close to Hezbollah say that the militant Lebanese group, which is backed by Syria and Iran, is [considering war against Israel](http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110622/wl_nm/us_syria_hezbollah) as a way to relieve international pressure to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.\n\n**To join the big leagues, tentatively**: Top prospects in tonight’s N.B.A. draft have said that [they plan to return to school](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-22/draft-hopefuls-prepared-to-fall-back-on-college-as-nba-lockout-approaches.html) if the league is unable to resolve its labor dispute, [which could result in a lockout](http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6694528).\n\n**To de-friend, for good**: The Winklevoss twins [have dropped their case against Facebook](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/winklevosses-drop-facebook-fight-keep-settlement/?hp), after seven years of legal wrangling and a settlement, originally valued at $65 million, that is now worth over $200 million.\n\n"
<https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/to-do-list-legislation-lockouts-and-lawsuits>