Weds- Today's Best Drone in the World & Logistics

US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 554 Million Shots  (Population 333 Million)




--------------
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday March 1)

There is some rain in the Nor Cal forecast for the next two weeks, but no major storms.

--------------
Barring a 'miracle,' California snowpack will end the season below average

Winter is California's wet season, but a discouraging snow survey performed on Tuesday, along with an ominous (lack of) precipitation record set in Sacramento, shows that California reservoirs will likely not fill up again this year.

"With below-average precipitation and snow up until this point, our team's latest statewide snow melt forecast are only about 66% of average," said Sean de Guzman, manager of the Snow Surveys & Water Supply Forecasting Program with the California Department of Water Resources (DWR).

"That's not enough to fill up our reservoirs and without any significant storms on the horizon, it's safe to say that we will end this year dry and continue on into the third year of this drought."
--------------
75% of the Adult US Population is Fully Vaccinated

Message for the other 25%:  You're welcome.
--------------
Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

Russian TV Gives Fox "News" a Run For Their Money

Never was there a better illustration of the alternative reality presented by Russian state media than at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday. As BBC World TV opened its bulletin with reports of a Russian attack on a TV tower in the capital Kyiv, Russian TV was announcing that Ukraine was responsible for strikes on its own cities.

On Tuesday the normal running order is interrupted at 05:30 Moscow time [02:30 GMT]. The presenters announce that TV schedules have been changed "due to well known events", and there will be more news and current affairs. The news bulletin suggests that reports about Ukrainian forces destroying Russian military hardware are false, designed to "mislead inexperienced viewers".

"Footage continues to be circulated on the internet which cannot be described as anything but fake," the presenter explains as the viewer is shown photographs of what is described as "unsophisticated virtual manipulations".
On Rossiya 1 and Channel One - Russia's two most popular channels, both state-controlled - Ukrainian forces are accused of war crimes in the Donbas region. The threat to civilians in Ukraine comes not from Russian forces, but from "Ukrainian nationalists", says the Rossiya 1 presenter.

"They use civilians as a human shield, deliberately positioning strike systems in residential areas and stepping up the shelling of cities in Donbas."

Channel One's presenter announces that Ukrainian troops "are preparing to shell residential houses" and bomb warehouses with ammonia, in "acts of provocation against civilians and Russian forces".

Events in Ukraine are not referred to as war. Instead, the offensive is described as a demilitarisation operation targeting military infrastructure or a "special [military] operation to defend the people's republics".

Crypto Once Again Doesn't Give a Damn About Anyone Else.  Protecting Drug Dealers and Now War Criminals.

The boss of one of the world's biggest crypto-currency exchanges has ruled out restricting ordinary Russians from using the service.

Binance founder and chief executive Changpeng Zhao, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Many normal Russians do not agree with war."

Major crypto-currency exchanges have been asked by Ukraine to block Russian users.

One financial expert warned the war could become a "crypto conflict".

Apparently, He Had Quite a Family

A Capitol rioter died by suicide as he was awaiting sentencing on charges of witness tampering, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and two counts of disorderly conduct, officials said.

“Matthew Lawrence Perna died on February 25, 2022 of a broken heart,” his family said in an obituary. “His community (which he loved), his country, and the justice system killed his spirit and his zest for life.”

The Mercer County Coroner’s office confirmed to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Perna, 37, of Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, died by suicide. NBC News has reached out to the coroner for comment.

Before Emmet Till, There Was Benjamin Tillman

Benjamin Ryan Tillman was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for black Americans, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he defended lynching, and frequently ridiculed black Americans in his speeches, boasting of having helped kill them during that campaign

Tillman Hall is the most famous building on the Clemson University campus. The 3-story brick building with a clock tower is located on a hill overlooking Bowman Field. Tillman Hall is currently the home of the College of Education.

Connected to Tillman Hall is the Tillman Auditorium, a 755-seat auditorium that formerly was a campus chapel named Memorial Chapel. Tillman Auditorium is used primarily for lectures and seminars, small concerts, pageants and dances.

The building was named after former South Carolina governor Benjamin Tillman, a staunch opponent of civil rights, and is under proposal to be renamed to its original name, the Main Building, commonly called “Old Main”. On June 12, 2020 the proposal was sent to the SC State legislature to rename the building, pending a two thirds majority vote in both the state House and Senate.  

We Could Nominate the QOP Every Day






The Incredible Shrinking Flu Trucks Klan




The Two Easiest Thing to Buy In Florida are an AK-47 and Marco Rubio

Several lawmakers missed attending Tuesday’s State of the Union address because of a COVID-19 testing requirement ― some because they complied and tested positive for the virus and others because they refused to get tested.

A handful of Republican lawmakers also skipped attending President Joe Biden’s speech, but because they refused to get tested.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Monday that he wouldn’t attend the event because he didn’t have “time” to get tested.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) announced on Twitter that they would not be attending because of the test requirement.

“I’m healthy, so I won’t be taking a test for COVID,” Massie tweeted.

Reps. Mary Miller (Ill.), Bob Good (Va.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.) and Andrew Clyde (Ga.) also said they were refusing the testing requirement, according to The Daily Caller.

Boebert Brings Out the Boo Birds

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was booed by her colleagues for heckling President Joe Biden as he spoke about Afghanistan and Iraq veterans and his late son, Beau Biden, during his State of the Union address.

Biden was speaking about the effects of “burn pits” that “incinerated wastes of war — medical and hazard material, jet fuel, and more,” saying some veterans battle “a cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin. I know.”

After that remark, Boebert shouted, “You put them in, 13 of them,” referencing 13 service members who died last year in a bomb attack in Kabul. Democrats booed Boebert after the outburst.

Biden continued without acknowledging Boebert’s comment, mentioning his son, who died of brain cancer in 2015, by name.

“I don’t know for sure if the burn pit that he lived near ... in Iraq, and earlier than that, in Kosovo, was the cause of his brain cancer, or the disease of so many of our troops, but I am committed to finding out everything we can,” he said.

Kim Skims

Iowa’s state auditor has again called for Gov. Kim Reynolds to return nearly $450,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds that were used to pay for 21 governor’s office staff members for three months in 2020.

Auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat, released a report Tuesday that repeated his recommendation from October 2020 and last December that the funds were improperly used and should be returned.

Sand said in December that the Republican governor not only misspent the federal money but tried to conceal it by passing it through the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Does Tyranol Only Work on Republicans?



Too Vile for the QOP

The Arizona Senate voted Tuesday to censure Republican Wendy Rogers, whose embrace of white nationalism and calls for violence drew bipartisan condemnation.

Rogers is in her first term in elected office but has built a national profile among the far right with inflammatory rhetoric and vociferous support for former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Rogers has long faced fierce opposition from Democrats and a handful of Republicans for offensive comments on social media.

Pressure mounted within the GOP this week after she said over the weekend that her political opponents should face a “newly built set of gallows.” She spoke in a video played at the America First Political Action Conference, a white nationalist gathering.

“We do support First Amendment freedom of speech,” said Republican Senate President Karen Fann, who voted to censure. “We absolutely support it. We fight battles over it. But what we do not condone is members threatening each other. To ruin each other. To incite violence. To call us communists. We don’t do that to each other.”

Making War on Pregnant Women and Babies.

In a makeshift maternity ward in the basement of a Ukrainian hospital, new mother Kateryna Suharokova struggled to control her emotions as she held her son while doctors upstairs raced to treat victims of Russian shelling.

“I was anxious, anxious about giving birth to the baby in these times,” the 30-year-old said, her voice trembling. “I’m thankful to the doctors, who helped this baby to be born in these conditions. I believe that everything will be fine.”

The basement of the maternity hospital in Ukraine’s coastal city of Mariupol transformed into a bomb shelter and nursery as Russian forces escalated their attacks on crowded urban areas Tuesday. Workers bundled one newborn and carried him down flights of stairs to the basement, where a dimly lit room cramped with beds and cribs sheltered workers and patients.



A similar scene unfolded in Kharkiv, where a maternity ward was moved into a bomb shelter. Mothers there rocked newborns in cradles amid mattresses piled against the windows for protection.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said it had seen an increase in Russian air and artillery strikes on populated urban areas in the past few days. Mariupol was one of three cities — along with Kharkiv and Kherson — encircled by Russian forces, the ministry said.
--------------
Today's Best Person in the World Nominees

History Has Its Eyes on You.  So Do We.

Jack Sweeney, a Florida teen who tracks Elon Musk's private jet online has a new aviation-themed target: Russian oligarchs and billionaires.

The 19-year-old, who rejected Musk's $5,000 offer to delete his Twitter account, recently launched two new automated Twitter handles — @ruoligarchjets and @putinjet — following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The two profiles have amassed nearly 300,000 followers combined and provide nearly live updates of the private jets' movements along with pictures of maps locating them.

Clemson Should Rename Tillman Hall.  Call It Emmet Till Hall.  

A Mississippi county has approved contracts for a sculptor to make and install a bronze statue of Emmett Till, the Black teenager whose 1955 lynching became a catalyst for the civil rights movement.

The Justice Department announced in December that it was ending its investigation into the killing of Till. The 14-year-old from Chicago was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta when he was abducted, tortured and shot after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman in a rural grocery store in Money. The small community is in Leflore County, about 10 miles north of Greenwood.

Bella Belarusians



I Think She Speaks for All of Us

Ukrainian singer Maria Burmaka cursed out Russian President Vladimir Putin during a live BBC interview on Wednesday.

“I want to say to Putin — you’re a murderer, you’re an aggressor, Ukraine was never against Russia,” said the musician. “Like our soldiers say, ‘Fuck you.’”

As “BBC Breakfast” anchor Dan Walker apologized for Burmaka’s swearing, she defiantly mouthed the expletive again.



This Nominee Isn't a Person.  It's a Drone

In a video that went viral on Twitter Sunday night, a massive explosion rips through what appears to be a Russian convoy, scoring a direct hit on a surface-to-air missile system.

The black-and-white footage, posted to the account of the Ukrainian armed forces, is one of several that have emerged on social media in recent days showing the devastating impact of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian hardware. As the drone’s payload explodes in the video—which appears to be a cellphone recording of a screen in a Ukrainian drone facility—people at the facility can be heard gasping in awe before breaking out in cheers and applause.

The video racked up more than 3 million views on Twitter in two days. “Have fear, enemies! There will be no peace for you on our earth!” the Ukrainian armed forces wrote in the video’s caption.

The star of this video and others circulating on Twitter is the Bayraktar TB2 – a type of Turkish drone that the Ukrainian military has increasingly deployed against Russian forces in recent days. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military said that Bayraktar drones had destroyed one tank and two surface-to-air missile systems overnight. In other videos shared on Twitter, Bayraktar drones, in use by the military since at least 2021, are shown blowing up what appears to be a Russian fuel convoy and a group of supply trucks.

The drones are small and lightweight, (around seven times lighter than the U.S. military’s Reaper drone,) with a 12-meter wingspan that allows them to remain in the sky for up to 30 hours at a time. Each drone can each carry four laser-guided missiles, according to promotional material from Baykar Technologies, the company that produces them.

If He Kills a Russian, Will Someone Shout "GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!"

AUkrainian-born professional soccer player whose family immigrated to Canada when he was a young boy put his career on the field on hold to enlist in the Ukrainian military on Friday.

A Canadian soccer player left the field behind to enlist in the military in Ukraine, the country where he was born. This undated stock image shows a soccer ball on a field.

Svyatik Artemenko, 22, had been visiting his home country, which his family left for Winnipeg when he was two years old, for a tryout with F.C. Podylla, a professional team in Ukraine. He was given an offer to join the club, and he had even signed a contract the day before Russia began its attack on Ukraine.
--------------
Invasions Have Consequences (At Least This One Does)

Apple Takes a Bite Out of Russia

Apple (AAPL) has stopped selling all of its products in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, the company announced Tuesday.

The company said in a statement that it is "deeply concerned" about the Russian invasion and that in response, it has "paused all product sales" in the country. Apple also said it has moved to limit access to digital services, such as Apple Pay, inside Russia, and restricted the availability of Russian state media applications outside the country.

"Last week, we stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country. Apple Pay and other services have been limited. RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia," Apple said. "And we have disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens."

Sucking the Brains Out of Russia




When Are Reserves Not Reserved?

It wasn’t immediately clear just how much money the Central Bank of Russia still holds in New York, London, and other Western financial centers—and which it will no longer be able to access. (According to some estimates, about two-thirds of Russian reserves are now blocked off in countries that have introduced sanctions.) Even so, experts on economic sanctions described the targeting as unprecedented and highly effective. “The G-7 sanctions against the Russian Central Bank, not the swift sanctions, are the real hammer, and they’re showing effect,” Jonathan Hackenbroich, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said. “Russia’s Central Bank might struggle to fight massive inflation and panic even after it doubled interest rates and introduced capital controls.”

Aeroflop Takes Another Hit

The Biden administration’s decision to prohibit Russian airlines from entering American airspace will further isolate the nation, as Western governments weaken Russia’s aviation system and hinder its ability to access the portion of its fleet owned by other countries.

President Biden announced Tuesday during his State of the Union address that the United States will join Canada and several European nations in limiting Russia’s access to the global aviation network in response to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Federal transportation officials said the ban would go into effect by the end of Wednesday.
--------------
Let's Not Forget That Previous Guy Killed Far More Americans With COVID Incompetence than Putin has Kill Ukrainians.

So far.
--------------
Not All "Russian" Things are Russian.  This is Bolshoi!

Middlesbrough's mayor says it would be "completely wrong" to stop a ballet company performing because it uses Russia in its stage name.

Sleeping Beauty is due to be performed in the town by the Russian National Ballet, but some have called for it to be stopped due to the Ukraine invasion.

The show is produced by UK-based Amande Concerts which performs under the name and has no political links to Russia.

Darlington Hippodrome pulled shows by the same company's Russian State Opera.

The Billingham Forum Theatre has also decided to cancel October's performance of Swan Lake.

Andy Preston, Middlesbrough's independent-elected mayor, said stopping the performance at the town's theatre in October would be unfair.

"It would be completely wrong to ban a UK-based company and their performers - some from Ukraine - who don't appear to have any links with the Russian state," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"My understanding is that this is an international cast of performers who, for artistic reasons, use the name of Russia in their stage name.

Should We Ban Russian Dressing?
--------------
Getting Back to Abnormal

A Warwickshire town kicked off its ancient Shrove Tuesday ball game following a two-year break due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The 822nd Atherstone Ball Game involved hundreds of people competing on the streets for ownership of a heavy, leather ball.

Rob Bernard, chairman of the organising committee, said: "We are absolutely delighted that it is back on now."


--------------
Need a Data Fix?

The best antidote for hot takes is hard data, and the latest Daily Kos/Civiqs poll is here with your cure. This survey of 1,349 registered voters was conducted online from Feb. 26 - March 1 and finds that 69% of Americans view the war between Russia and Ukraine as a threat to U.S. national security. Further, 80% of Americans support imposing additional economic sanctions on Russia as a response to its invasion of Ukraine. Just 28% support the U.S. military becoming involved in the conflict.

Other noteworthy findings in this month’s poll include:

52% of Republicans think that Donald Trump best speaks for the Republican Party right now.

Views on the U.S. Supreme Court are sharply divided along partisan lines: 76% of Democrats believe the court is too conservative, while 41% of Republicans think it is too liberal.

45% of Americans support the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, including 87% of Democrats. Only 30% of Americans oppose confirmation.

While 37% of Americans think that schools overreacted to the pandemic and should have kept more in-person learning, another 37% feel that schools did a good job on balance, and 13% say that schools were not cautious enough.
--------------
It's the Logistics, Stupid!

Let's talk some more about logistics. It's the reason Russia is losing this war

On Yesterday’s The Brief, had two people who know military logistics. VoteVets’ Jon Soltz actually was a logistics officer during the Iraq invasion, and said the U.S. struggled to support one axis of attack, from the south. Russia right now has four major axes, and those are splintered into 15 different fronts. Suddenly, 180,000 troops doesn’t seem so daunting. And remember—not all of them actually fire stuff. The bulk of them are stuck in those bizarre supply columns, seemingly waiting for ambushes to put them out of their misery.

“You won’t find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics” ~ General Dwight. D. Eisenhower

“Gentlemen, the officer who doesn’t know his communications and supply as well his tactics is totally useless.” ~ General George S. Patton

“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…” –Sun Tzu

Ignore Sun Tzu, Eisenhower, and Patton at Your Own Risk

U.S. and British officials said a long column of tanks and combat vehicles was stalled roughly 20 miles north of Kyiv on the sixth day of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, deepening questions about whether Moscow’s assault will yield a protracted war of resistance with its much smaller, less powerful neighbor.

The convoy, stretching some 40 miles, has moved little over the past day as the Russian forces have grappled with fuel and food shortages, a U.S. defense official told reporters, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

Has a Ukrainian Highway Turned into the 405?

Plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages, some Russian troops in Ukraine have surrendered en masse or sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday.

Some entire Russian units have laid down their arms without a fight after confronting surprisingly stiff Ukrainian defense, the official said. A significant number of the Russian troops are young conscripts who are poorly trained and ill-prepared for the all-out assault. And in some cases, Russian troops have deliberately punched holes in their vehicles’ gas tanks, presumably to avoid combat, the official said.

The Pentagon official declined to say how the military made these assessments — presumably a mosaic of intelligence including statements from captured Russian soldiers and communications intercepts — or how widespread these setbacks may be across the sprawling battlefield. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational developments.

But taken together, these factors may help explain why Russian forces, including an ominous 40-mile convoy of tanks and armored vehicles near Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, have come to a near crawl in the past day or two, U.S. officials said.
--------------
"Polar Vortex" Is Not an Animated Tom Hanks Movie

Bomb cyclone after bomb cyclone have exploded for the past two weeks in the far north Atlantic with the most intense weather over the Labrador and Greenland seas but extreme conditions also slammed northern Europe. Those storms sent heat upwards in winter version of a heat dome over northern Europe. Meanwhile, over the far north Pacific an intense storms that formed offshore of Japan and swung up into the Aleutian Islands formed the winter version of a heat dome over Alaska and the Alaskan side of the Arctic ocean. These two atmospheric domes caused an intense planetary wave number 2 to form sending an intense pulse of heat upwards into the stratosphere, disrupting the polar vortex. Extremely high levels of ocean heat in the north Atlantic off of the east coast of north America have provided extraordinary amounts of energy to intensify the bomb cyclones and build the ridge of warm air over Europe that has triggered the polar vortex splitting.

This is the polar vortex event I have been anticipating since last fall. www.dailykos.com/… This is the second year of La Niña, a situation where tropical convection is intensifies over Indonesia and Brazil while the welling up of cool water is intensified over the equatorial eastern Pacific ocean. This intensified equatorial convection pushes the jet stream polewards. However, it can also cause the polar vortex to become unstable. About half of all La Niña years have a significant disruption of the polar vortex. This fact combined with forecasts by the American CFS model that showed increasing instability of the polar vortex in midwinter, plus several other factors including extreme levels of ocean heat in the central temperate north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans (climate change) led me to think that the polar vortex would destabilize in mid to late winter. It is finally happening.
--------------
The UN Climate Report Singled Out Florida.  Governor DeathSentence Has No Comment

The nearly 2,000-page report had a global focus, but Florida was repeatedly used as an example of a place where the impacts of climate change were already being felt, both economically and environmentally.

Those impacts aren’t news to resident of the Sunshine State. It’s tidal flooding from higher sea levels, even on perfectly sunny days, it’s hotter days and nights, more harmful algal blooms and mosquito-borne illnesses, stronger and wetter hurricanes and less productive crops, livestock and fisheries.

Financially, studies have repeatedly shown buyers are already selecting homes and buildings that face less flood risk, which has already taken at least a $500 million toll on the Miami-Dade real estate market alone, according to a study cited in the report. This has led to the displacement of poorer communities, usually communities of color, from higher elevation neighborhoods in a process known as climate gentrification.

Adapting to it all is doable, but pricey. Florida has already spent hundreds of millions raising roads, homes and seawalls to defend against the incoming threats, but the report noted that at a certain point, there isn’t enough money or technology to keep everywhere in the world habitable.

The IPCC report mentioned Florida specifically multiple times as an example of dreaded climate change impacts, including:

Tidal flooding worsened by sea rise has led to almost $500 million in lost real estate value from 2005 to 2016 in Miami-Dade alone, “and it is likely that coastal flood risks in the region beyond 2050 will increase without adaptation to climate change.”

Miami-Dade’s efforts to raise roads and build stormwater pumps have raised property values, leading to inequality for vulnerable populations

Floridians could be forced to retreat from the coast as sea levels rise

Florida’s coral reefs are bleaching and dying as temperatures rise

As coral reefs die, Florida could lose up to $55 billion in reef-related tourism money by 2100

Harmful algal blooms along Florida’s west coast spurred by climate change lead to massive economic losses
--------------
Globally, the COVID News Is Good

The number of new coronavirus cases reported globally dropped by 16% last week, marking a month-long decline in COVID-19 infections, according to figures from the World Health Organization.

In its weekly report on the pandemic issued late Tuesday, the U.N. health agency also said that deaths fell by 10%, continuing a drop in fatalities first seen last week. WHO said there were more than 10 million new cases and about 60,000 deaths globally. The Western Pacific was the only region where COVID-19 increased, with about a third more infections than the previous week. Deaths rose by 22% in the Western Pacific and about 4% in the Middle East, while declining everywhere else.

That's Not to Say the Risk is Gone.  COVID is Still FAR More Dangerous than the Flu If You Are not Vaccinated
--------------
The Rate Hikes are Coming!  The Rate Hikes are Coming!

Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a sliding stock market, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told Congress Wednesday the central bank plans to raise its key interest rate from near zero this month to fight a historic surge in inflation.

Powell said he'll propose a quarter point, rather a half point, hike, suggesting that's likely what the Fed's policymaking committee will approve.
--------------
The Two Worst Places to Be Right Now:  Ukraine and the Moon

The moon is about to get walloped by 3 tons of space junk, a punch that will carve out a crater that could fit several semitractor-trailers.

The leftover rocket will smash into the far side of the moon at 5,800 mph (9,300 kph) on Friday, away from telescopes’ prying eyes. It may take weeks, even months, to confirm the impact through satellite images.

It’s been tumbling haphazardly through space, experts believe, since China launched it nearly a decade ago. But Chinese officials are dubious it’s theirs.
--------------
Feel a Burning Sensation on Your Wrist?

Fitbit is recalling about 1.7 million Ionic smartwatches sold globally because the fitness product's lithium-ion battery can overheat, posing a burn hazard, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced on Wednesday.

About 1 million of the recalled smartwatches were sold in the U.S. at retailers including Best Buy, Kohl's and Target, as well as online at Amazon.com and Fitbit.com from September 2017 through December 2021 for between $200 and $330 each. Fitbit discontinued production of Ionic in 2020. Another 693,000 were sold internationally, according to the company.
--------------
It Was a Hell of a Lot Better than Looking at Moscow Mitch

They made history last year as the first time two women who sat behind the president during a joint session in the House Chamber, but Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once again made history, marking the first time two women sat behind the president during the State of the Union.
--------------
Why "Moscow Mitch"?

The nickname was pinned on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) by Joe Scarborough, the former Florida congressman who hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, and spread like wildfire, offending McConnell, who returned to Washington this week after the congressional summer break.

Why Moscow Mitch? U.S. intelligence was unanimous that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin planned to disrupt the 2020 elections, too. Yet McConnell has blocked bills geared to stop foreign hackers from attacking U.S. voting systems.

Before the 2016 election, President Barack Obama learned from U.S. intelligence about Russia’s interference. He wanted Congress to send out a strong letter warning such meddling wouldn’t be tolerated.

McConnell refused to sign the letter, and said he would “consider efforts to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.”
--------------
Are You Willing to Pay More for Gas to Help Ukraine?

Global crude oil prices surged to more than $110 per barrel and the cost of natural gas skyrocketed to a new record in Europe on Wednesday as Russia's escalating military campaign in Ukraine stoked fear in markets about a supply shock.

Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, jumped nearly 9% to $113.65 per barrel, the highest level since 2014. US oil futures also gained more than 8% to trade at $112.25 per barrel. In Europe, the price of wholesale natural gas spiked 60% to a record high of €194 ($215) per megawatt hour. That's more than double where it stood last Friday.

"The market panic is here," said Louise Dickson, senior oil market analyst at Rystad Energy. "The initial upward price reaction after the conflict in Ukraine started six days ago is only intensifying."

Russia's energy riches haven't been directly targeted by Western sanctions imposed following the invasion of Ukraine. But it's a huge card the United States and Europe might yet play if Russia presses on with its assault.
--------------

--------------

--------------