Post by mhbruin on Apr 16, 2022 9:48:00 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 566 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 12)
There is some rain and snow in Northern California this week.
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Before the Crowbar Was Invented, Crows Had to Drink At Home.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Florida Must be So Proud
Assets Are Not Money
Somebody Should Throw Rotten Vegetables As Ab-Butt. He Made Sure There Will Be a Good Supply
A weeklong protest by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott against President Biden's recent immigration policy reached a resolution on Friday, but the gridlock it created has resulted in hundreds of millions of lost dollars and delays in shipments of everything from avocados to automobile parts that will have a longer-term impact.
On Friday, Abbott reversed course on an order he put in place last week that required lengthier "enhanced safety inspections" of commercial vehicles entering Texas. The efforts, he said, were to help stop the flow of illegal contraband and human trafficking.
Abbott's move, which Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller criticized as "political theater," ultimately created a logjam of trucks between the US and its largest goods trading partner. Vegetable producers say their produce is spoiling in idling trucks and they are losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mexico is a critical supplier of vehicles, automotive parts, electrical machinery, chemicals and agricultural goods. Nearly $9 billion of fresh produce crosses the Texas border from Mexico each year, said Dante L. Galeazzi, CEO and president of the Texas International Produce Association.
And for the past week, that produce has been held hostage, with businesses and goods "being used as bargaining chips," Galeazzi said.
What used to be a routine border crossing turned into a 30-hour wait for some trucks. Meanwhile, the fruits and vegetables in those trucks spoiled, leaving some produce department shelves sparse or empty in advance of the holiday weekend, he said.
Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has spent his short life mostly lying about himself, his accomplishments, his integrity, and just about anything one could lie about. He has done so in order to make himself money. After becoming a member of the U.S. Congress, Cawthorn has continued to say outlandish thing after outlandish thing in the service of fundraising and promoting himself as a brand. A brand of what? Who knows? Whatever he and Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are selling. Madness, mostly.
People Gave This Clown $3.5 Million?
Not a good look for the guy who spent time disrespecting veterans during committee hearings, choosing to clean his gun instead of pay attention to their testimony. It’s an even worse look for the North Carolina representative who then voted against the Honoring our PACT Act, which looked to over the costs military personnel incur after being poisoned by toxic burn pits during their service to our country.
Previous Guy Will Endorse Anyone Who Exaggerates Their Wealth
Former NFL star Herschel Walker has made millions in business ventures since he retired in 1997, and he claims to be worth more than $29 million today.
But despite that success, the Republican Senate hopeful and longtime friend of Donald Trump has, for whatever reason, chosen to dramatically inflate his business record, according to a Daily Beast investigation. In doing so, Walker has established a parallel record of demonstrably false claims, many of which appear to bear no resemblance to reality whatsoever.
While Walker’s business record has been picked over before—including in an Associated Press review of “exaggerated claims of financial success”—The Daily Beast has reviewed documents and other records that shine new light on previously unexamined, and particularly egregious, false claims.
Those claims include running the largest minority-owned food company in the United States; owning multiple chicken plants in another state; and starting and owning an upholstery business which was also, apparently, at one point in his telling, the country’s largest minority-owned apparel company.
While the chasm between Walker’s vision and reality often appears staggering—and applies not just to business but to multiple dimensions of his personal life as well—he might be playing fast and loose with the concept of “ownership.” But it’s unclear whether he transposed this fanciful structure onto his candidate financial disclosure, which claims a net worth of between $29 million and $65 million, and which, according to a Georgia Public Broadcasting report, merits further scrutiny.
The Deets
Why Should You Care About a Brazilian Election?
Since taking office in 2019, far-right Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has presided over record levels of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. He loosened laws and regulations meant to protect the forest from landgrabbers, miners and loggers who’ve declared open season on the Amazon and the Indigenous peoples who live within it. He pursued a ruthless policy of extraction and demolition. He made Brazil a pariah on the world stage, earned the title as the planet’s most dangerous climate change denier, and generated charges that he is guilty of crimes against humanity.
That predictable record of destruction put the future of the Amazon rainforest on the ballot in Brazil’s looming October presidential election, in which Bolsonaro is seeking a second term.
The stakes for the forest and the planet could not be higher. Bolsonaro is currently trailing leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in early election polls, fueling hopes among environmentalists, Indigenous leaders and his opponents that the world’s largest rainforest — the preservation of which is vital to stave off global climate catastrophe — may soon get a chance to breathe and even begin to recover.
The nightmare scenario, though, is a Bolsonaro victory that could unleash four more years of destruction that the Amazon simply cannot withstand.
Herbster is Not a Nickname for Kirk Herbstreit. He's a Predator. He Belongs in the Slammer, Not Near Slama.
Nebraska Republican state Sen. Julie Slama said she was “in shock” when Donald Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster allegedly put his hand “up my dress” at a GOP dinner.
Slama detailed what she has described as an “assault” in 2019 in an interview Thursday, the day the Nebraska Examiner reported that she and seven other women had accused the Republican businessman of groping them.
“As I was ... walking to my table, I felt a hand reach up my skirt, up my dress and the hand was Charles Herbster’s,” Slama said in an interview on News Radio KFAB in Omaha. “I was in shock. I was mortified. It’s one of the most traumatizing things I’ve ever been through.”
Slama added: “I watched as five minutes later he grabbed the buttocks of another young woman. ... This was witnessed by several people at the event.”
Maybe the Human Race Doesn't Deserve to Survive
Federal officials in Texas are investigating beachgoers’ harassment of a stranded female dolphin that later died.
According to witnesses, some individuals on Quintana Beach on the Gulf of Mexico some 6 miles east of Freeport dragged the bottlenose dolphin back into the water last Sunday, then “attempted to swim with and ride the sick animal,” the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network said in a statement on Facebook.
“She ultimately stranded” again and was “further harassed by a crowd of people on the beach where she died before rescuers could arrive on scene,” the statement added.
They Sent the Fingerprints to the Crime Lab and Starting Singing "Some Day my Prints Will Come"
A California police department has launched an investigation into its own officers who were filmed blaring copyrighted Disney music in attempts to prevent residents from recording them. (Is there Disney music that isn't copyrighted?)
The incident in question occurred during a vehicle search on the night of 4 April, when residents in Santa Ana, a city near Los Angeles, woke up to a series of Disney songs being blasted outside their windows. The songs included Toy Story’s You Got a Friend in Me, Encanto’s We Don’t Talk About Bruno, Mulan’s Reflection and Coco’s Un Poco Loco.
According to a video posted on YouTube, the songs emerged from a police cruiser that belonged to police officers who were investigating a stolen vehicle.
In the video, a woman can be heard asking the officers, “What’s the music for?,” saying that she was unable to sleep.
Johnathan Hernandez, a Santa Ana city councilman, is later seen in the video, asking the police officers, “Guys, what’s going on with the music here?”
An unnamed officer told Hernandez that he was playing the music from his phone and on the cruiser’s PA system in an attempt to prevent a resident, who was recording him, from continuing to do so. The officer explained that it had to do with “copyright infringement.”
The QOP Loves to Hurt the Most Vulnerable
Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying groceries through the federal food stamp program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades.
The payments to low-income individuals and families are dropping as governors end COVID-19 disaster declarations and opt out of an ongoing federal program that made their states eligible for dramatic increases in SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture began offering the increased benefit in April 2020 in response to surging unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the country.
The result is that depending on the politics of a state, individuals and families in need find themselves eligible for significantly different levels of help buying food.
Nebraska took the most aggressive action anywhere in the country, ending the emergency benefits four months into the pandemic in July 2020 in a move Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts said was necessary to “show the rest of the country how to get back to normal.” (Hungry children must be normal in Nebraska.)
Since then, nearly a dozen states with Republican leadership have taken similar action, with Iowa this month being the most recent place to slash the benefits. Benefits also will be cut in Wyoming and Kentucky in the next month. Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Tennessee have also scaled back the benefits.
Republican leaders argue that the extra benefits were intended to only temporarily help people forced out of work by the pandemic. Now that the virus has eased, they maintain, there is no longer a need to offer the higher payments at a time when businesses in most states are struggling to find enough workers.
But the extra benefits also help out families in need at a time of skyrocketing prices for food. Recipients receive at least $95 per month under the program, but some individuals and families typically eligible for only small benefits can get hundreds of dollars in extra payments each month.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
No Nominees
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Invasions Have Consequences
Will the Pincer Pinch?
Russia thinks taking Mariupol will free up its forces to work their way up into a pincer maneuver, surrounding Ukrainian troops dug in hard along the Donbas front line.
All those Russian troops that failed to advance around Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy are moving toward Izyum and the rest of the Donbas front (purple areas). Well, the ones Russia can threaten, beg, and cajole into heading back into Ukraine. They’ve had some issues, such that of the 120 or so battalion tactical groups (BTG) Russia had at the start of the war (around 800 soldiers each, on paper), only 65 remain in the country according to the Pentagon. And as we’ve seen, many, if not most of those BTG were, and remain, severely undermanned.
The Pentagon, Ukrainian military, and every Very Serious Military Analyst is convinced Russia is massing troops to execute that pincer maneuver in the Mother of all offensives. Just you wait for the hellish shock-and-awe Russia has in store! The Pentagon even thinks Russia has eyes on Dnipro further west, which is so implausible and stupid, Russia just might give it a shot.
Yet every day that goes by, any such massive offensive seems less and less likely. And not just because of the rain that has made a slurry of all ground off the major roads, and will keep it that way for at least the next several weeks. Russia’s fundamental problem is that it keeps executing the exact same tactics that failed around Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy.
Russian forces continued small-scale, tactical attacks on the Izyum and Severodonetsk axes; additional reinforcements to date have not enabled any breakthroughs of Ukrainian defenses. Russian forces continue to deploy reinforcements to eastern Ukraine but show no indication of taking an operational pause. The Russian military appears to be carrying out an approach in eastern Ukrainian similar to its failed efforts north of Kyiv in early March—continuing to funnel small groups of forces into unsuccessful attacks against Ukrainian defensive positions without taking the operational pause that is likely necessary to prepare for a more successful offensive campaign.
The reality of redeploying a defeated and exhausted army is now becoming apparent to those who talked about the Russians redeploying their Kyiv forces to the Donbas. It’s now been a [week] since Russian forces were almost all out of Kyiv and Chernihiv.
Where are those forces now. Well best intelligence has them on their way from their withdrawal points to around Belgorod, in Russia, for rest and refit. In the US DOD briefing two days ago it was stated that these forces were still on their way.
And there are these persistent reports that Russian forces are finding ways to avoid going back to Ukraine.
Add this to the fact that these forces, if they can be rested refitted, will need a significant period to deploy into Ukraine, as the road system is still working against them.
Hidden in Plain View
A dozen sanctioned Russians are linked to an estimated £800m worth of property in the UK, analysis by the BBC reveals.
Multi-million pound country manors in the south of England and luxury flats in London's most expensive areas are among the homes which have been snapped up by figures linked to Vladimir Putin.
Some of the individuals deny ownership of the mansions, which may mean they are beyond the reach of the sanctions.
To get to the bottom of who owns what, we carried out a detailed trawl of leaked offshore documents, the Land Registry and court papers - as well as previous reporting.
Our findings highlight the UK's status as a place for super-rich Russians to set up home, and the difficulties of identifying the true owners of properties bought by offshore firms in tax havens.
Here's What £65m Will Get You
Is Davy Jones Locker the Same as Hell?
Russia's flagship Black Sea missile cruiser, the Moskva, has sunk after being "seriously damaged".
That is as far as the warring sides may agree on - not what caused the sinking.
The Russian defence ministry said ammunition onboard exploded in an unexplained fire and the ship tipped over while being towed back to port.
Ukraine claims it struck the vessel with its Neptune missiles. Unnamed US officials have told US media they believe the Ukrainian version.
The 510-crew warship had led Russia's naval assault on Ukraine, which made it an important symbolic and military target.
Earlier in the conflict the Moskva gained notoriety after calling on Ukrainian border troops defending Snake Island in the Black Sea to surrender - to which they memorably radioed a message of refusal which loosely translates as "go to hell".
It Might Have Looked a Bit Like This (Real Footage of HMS Hood vs Bismark)
Of If You Prefer the 1960 Movie Sink the Bismarck
Armies Need to Want to Fight. Remember the Armies we Created in South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?
Good equipment and clever doctrine reveal little about how an army will perform in a war.
Let me tell you a story about a military that was supposedly one of the best in the world. This military had some of the best equipment: the heaviest and most modern tanks, next-generation aircraft, and advanced naval vessels. It had invested in modernization, and made what were considered some of Europe’s most sophisticated plans for conflict. Moreover, it had planned and trained specifically for a war it was about to fight, a war it seemed extremely well prepared for and that many, perhaps most, people believed it would win.
All of these descriptions could apply to the Russian army that invaded Ukraine last month. But I’m talking about the French army of the 1930s. That French force was considered one of the finest on the planet. Winston Churchill believed that it represented the world’s best hope for keeping Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany at bay. As he said famously in 1933, and repeated a number of times afterward, “Thank God for the French army.”
Of course, when this French army was actually tested in battle, it was found wanting.
I Might Find This Offensive, If Putin Hadn't Committed So Many War Crimes. You Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight
Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers
Ukrainian officials say the use of facial recognition software could help end the brutal war. But some experts call it ‘classic psychological warfare’ that sets a gruesome precedent.
Psst! Vlad! No One Wants to Fight For You.
But George W. Bush Looked in His Eyes and Saw His Soul.
What's In a Weapons Package?
This is a helpful list to understand what the US is sending to Ukraine, and what it indicates about the state of the war and, crucially what we can expect from the Ukrainian armed forces going forwards.
First, US is definitely upgrading Ukrainian capabilities. The MI 17 helicopters are interesting. Multipurpose so can’t say definitely what their use is. My best guess; to allow the Ukrainians to do more SF [special forces] work behind Russian lines.
Next, a big stress on protection to minimise Ukrainian casualties. From body armour to NBC protection to counter artillery systems there is stress on protecting Ukrainians. Smart; it’s extremely important to keep Ukrainian casualties down.
And, of course more anti air, but you don’t need to hear more from me about that.
So a clear package to extend Ukrainian ranged attacks while protecting Ukrainian forces. A sign of where they think the war is going. Ukraine will be expecting to be more offensive as the Russians bog down, but in being offensive they don’t want to suffer high casualties.
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The Truth Gets Shanghaied
Dozens of elderly patients at a hospital in Shanghai have died after contracting Covid-19, but official government figures claim no deaths in the city have been caused by the disease since 2020.
The BBC has spoken to a hospital manager and had access to correspondence sent to relatives of patients who've died during the Omicron outbreak that is sweeping through China's biggest city.
We've also had access to official documents that suggest at least 27 patients from a single hospital, who weren't vaccinated, have died from what it called "underlying health problems".
Shanghai is enforcing a mammoth lockdown as authorities try to contain a new wave of the virus. Most of the city's almost 25 million population have been ordered to stay inside for three weeks.
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Papers, Please.
An Algerian man who won €250,000 (£206,000; $270,000) on a €5 scratchcard in Belgium is struggling to claim his winnings because of his undocumented status.
The prize is too large to be paid in cash and the man does not have the papers he needs to open a bank account.
A friend who tried to claim the money for him was briefly detained on suspicion of theft.
The winner says he wants to use the money to build a life in Belgium.
"When I get the money, I am going to buy a place to live in Brussels. And maybe a car," the man, whose identity has not been revealed, told Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
However, first he has to find a way to claim the money.
The 28-year-old man has no valid identity papers nor a permanent place to live, according to Belgian broadcaster VRT.
Because he cannot open a bank account, the lottery company will not make the payment, the man's lawyer, Alexander Verstraete, said.
Can't He Open an Account in Algeria?
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There Never Was Herd Immunity for COVID. Herd Resistance Was the Best We Could Achieve
This time last year, the brand new, stunningly effective Covid-19 vaccines were rolling out across the country, injecting a strong note of optimism into the United States' once fumbling pandemic response.
Millions of people were lining up daily to get their shots. Instead of the steady drumbeat of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, we were tracking a new number: the percentage of Americans who had been vaccinated. This number, we believed, was our best chance to beat the virus.
The US was caught up in a fever dream of reaching herd immunity, a threshold we might cross where vulnerable individuals -- including those too young to be vaccinated or those who didn't respond well to the vaccines -- might be protected anyway because, as a community, we would weave an invisible safety net around them.
With herd immunity, if someone does get infected by a virus, they are surrounded by enough people who are shielded against infection that the virus has nowhere to go. It fails to spread.
As a country, we had reached this point against some formidable viruses, such as rubella and measles. We thought we could get there with Covid-19. We were probably wrong.
"The concept of classical herd immunity may not apply to Covid-19," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with CNN.
And that "means we're not going to be without SARS-CoV-2 in the population for a considerable period of time," said Fauci, who recently co-authored a paper on herd immunity for the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
With New Variants Popping Up, No One is Immune.
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Have You Been Waiting for the Planets to Align?
Skywatchers are in for a cosmic treat this month: a rare alignment of four planets in the predawn sky.
Beginning around Sunday morning, stargazers will be able to see Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn appear in a straight line across the southeastern sky before sunrise. The midmonth alignment is a relatively unusual opportunity for people to see multiple planets in the sky with the naked eye — and it's a prelude to an even rarer planetary alignment that will happen this summer.
To see the planetary quartet, skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere should head outside about an hour before the sun comes up and gaze southeast, in the direction of the sunrise.
Looking east at a flat horizon, Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn will appear "strung out in a line across the morning sky," according to NASA. If conditions are clear, all four planets will be bright enough to see with the naked eye, without the aid of binoculars or telescopes.
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Before Putin Invades Sweden He Should Remember: They Have Handbags.
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Are We Being Invaded by Terrorists?
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Anyone Want a Slightly Used Tweet?
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet sold as an NFT (nonfungible token) was put up for sale by the buyer for a whopping $48 million — and drew an astoundingly measly maximum offer of less than $280 by the deadline this week.
That’s when the seller reached out to would-be Twitter owner Elon Musk, urging him to bid — without success.
Granted, entrepreneur Sina Estavi, chief executive at Malaysian crypto project Bridge Oracle, was looking for a massive return. He purchased Dorsey’s message as an NFT — a unique crypto asset — for $2.9 million just over a year ago — then listed the NFT for sale at $48 million last week. He promised to give half of the proceeds to a charity.
The world’s first-ever tweet, by Dorsey (written on March 21, 2006), modestly declares: “just setting up my twttr.”
But offers for it ranged from nearly $6 to about $277 by Wednesday’s deadline, reported Coin Desk. After the deadline passed, the best offer by Thursday was reportedly up to $10,000.
What Do You Do With a NFT, Anyway?
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None of This Explains Her Votes for the Bush Tax Cuts, The Iraq War, TARP, or Her Continues Support of the Fillibuster
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended her ability to serve as the oldest member of the U.S. Senate on Thursday following a report from the San Francisco Chronicle that asserted her health may be in decline.
The Chronicle report anonymously quoted four senators, including three fellow Democrats, along with a House Democrat and three people who formerly worked in Feinstein’s office. The sources agreed that the senator, age 88, could no longer entirely fulfill her job duties as her memory was “rapidly deteriorating,” according to the story.
Her term is up in January 2025, at which point she will be 91.
In a statement issued late Thursday, Feinstein said, “I remain committed to do what I said I would when I was re-elected in 2018: fight for Californians, especially on the economy and the key issues for California of water and fire.”
She previously said she has no intention to retire early.
Feinstein’s health has occasionally come into question in recent years; in November 2020, for example, she repeated a question for Twitter executive Jack Dorsey in a public hearing word for word without seemingly realizing it. The New Yorker reported at the time that Feinstein’s short-term memory had “grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have.” Feinstein even figured into the California gubernatorial recall election last fall, as the prospect loomed that a Republican governor could end up replacing her were she to retire early.
The Chronicle reported this week that everyone who expressed concerns about her did so with a great amount of respect for her long career, which included serving as San Francisco’s first female mayor, but they observed Feinstein’s memory to be failing. She sometimes did not appear to recognize colleagues, they told the paper.
I Don't Think She Was Ever a Great Senator
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Just In Case Vlad the Invader Decides to Pick on Somebody His Own Size
In the dusty California desert, U.S. Army trainers are already using lessons learned from Russia's war against Ukraine as they prepare soldiers for future fights against a major adversary such as Russia or China.
Army vehicles on the ridge, as soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, prepare to attack the enemy in the town nearby, during an early morning training exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., April 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Lolita C. Baldor)
© Provided by Associated Press
Army vehicles on the ridge, as soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, prepare to attack the enemy in the town nearby, during an early morning training exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., April 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Lolita C. Baldor)
The role-players in this month's exercise at the National Training Center speak Russian. The enemy force that controls the fictional town of Ujen is using a steady stream of social media posts to make false accusations against the American brigade preparing to attack.
In the coming weeks, the planned training scenario for the next brigade coming in will focus on how to battle an enemy willing to destroy a city with rocket and missile fire in order to conquer it.
If the images seem familiar, they are, playing out on televisions and websites worldwide right now as Russian forces pound Ukrainian cities with airstrikes, killing scores of civilians. The information war on social media has showcased impassioned nightly speeches by Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Russian efforts to accuse Ukraine's forces of faking mass killings in towns such as Bucha — massacres that the West blames on Moscow's troops.
“I think right now the whole Army is really looking at what’s happening in Ukraine and trying to learn lessons,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Those lessons, she said, range from Russia's equipment and logistics troubles to communications and use of the internet.
“The Russia-Ukraine experience is a very powerful illustration for our Army of how important the information domain is going to be," said Wormuth, who spent two days at the training center in the Mojave Desert watching an Army brigade wage war against the fictional “Denovian” forces.
"We’ve been talking about that for about five years. But really seeing it and seeing the way Zelenskyy has been incredibly powerful. ... This is a world war that the actual world can see and watch in real time. ”
At the center, the commander, Brig. Gen. Curt Taylor, and his staff have ripped pages out of the Russian playbook to ensure that U.S. soldiers are ready to fight and win against a sophisticated near-peer enemy.
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The Price of Clogging Your Arteries is Going Up
The price of eggs has soared in recent weeks in part because of a huge bird flu wave that has infected nearly 27 million chickens and turkeys in the United States, forcing many farmers to “depopulate” or destroy their animals to prevent a further spread.
The virus has impacted many different bird species, including penguins and bald eagles. But its spread among poultry has been tremendous, particularly among chickens raised for their eggs.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced yet another outbreak, this one in two flocks in Idaho, making that the 27th state in which the virus has been found since February.
According to the USDA, the price of a dozen eggs in November hovered around $1. Right now, that price is $2.95 and rising.
Which Price Went Up First, the Chicken's or the Egg's?
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Sorry I Missed a Day. I Am Told This Will be the Reaction to Posting This
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 15 | 34,778 | 399 |
| Apr 14 | 35,475 | 446 |
| Apr 13 | 31,391 | 409 |
| Apr 12 | 29,401 | 452 |
| Apr 11 | 30,208 | 483 |
| Apr 10 | 28,927 | 500 |
| Apr 9 | 28,339 | 509 |
| Apr 8 | 28,169 | 516 |
| Apr 7 | 26,286 | 471 |
| Apr 6 | 26,595 | 496 |
| Apr 5 | 26,845 | 533 |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 |
| Mar 24 | 27,235 | 732 |
| Mar 23 | 27,134 | 753 |
| Mar 22 | 27,545 | 787 |
| Mar 21 | 28,657 | 861 |
| Mar 20 | 27,786 | 901 |
| Mar 19 | 27,747 | 909 |
| Mar 18 | 28,274 | 972 |
| Mar 17 | 29,317 | 1,035 |
| Mar 16 | 30,040 | 1,052 |
| Mar 15 | 30,934 | 1,107 |
| Mar 14 | 32,458 | 1,186 |
| Mar 13 | 34,113 | 1,187 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.2% | 65.8% | 45.3% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.1% | 70.0% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 86.9% | 74.2% | 47.0% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.6% | 75.7% | 48.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 89.5% | 67.2% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 12)
There is some rain and snow in Northern California this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 15% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 27% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 24% |
Before the Crowbar Was Invented, Crows Had to Drink At Home.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Florida Must be So Proud
Assets Are Not Money
Somebody Should Throw Rotten Vegetables As Ab-Butt. He Made Sure There Will Be a Good Supply
A weeklong protest by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott against President Biden's recent immigration policy reached a resolution on Friday, but the gridlock it created has resulted in hundreds of millions of lost dollars and delays in shipments of everything from avocados to automobile parts that will have a longer-term impact.
On Friday, Abbott reversed course on an order he put in place last week that required lengthier "enhanced safety inspections" of commercial vehicles entering Texas. The efforts, he said, were to help stop the flow of illegal contraband and human trafficking.
Abbott's move, which Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller criticized as "political theater," ultimately created a logjam of trucks between the US and its largest goods trading partner. Vegetable producers say their produce is spoiling in idling trucks and they are losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mexico is a critical supplier of vehicles, automotive parts, electrical machinery, chemicals and agricultural goods. Nearly $9 billion of fresh produce crosses the Texas border from Mexico each year, said Dante L. Galeazzi, CEO and president of the Texas International Produce Association.
And for the past week, that produce has been held hostage, with businesses and goods "being used as bargaining chips," Galeazzi said.
What used to be a routine border crossing turned into a 30-hour wait for some trucks. Meanwhile, the fruits and vegetables in those trucks spoiled, leaving some produce department shelves sparse or empty in advance of the holiday weekend, he said.
Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has spent his short life mostly lying about himself, his accomplishments, his integrity, and just about anything one could lie about. He has done so in order to make himself money. After becoming a member of the U.S. Congress, Cawthorn has continued to say outlandish thing after outlandish thing in the service of fundraising and promoting himself as a brand. A brand of what? Who knows? Whatever he and Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are selling. Madness, mostly.
People Gave This Clown $3.5 Million?
Not a good look for the guy who spent time disrespecting veterans during committee hearings, choosing to clean his gun instead of pay attention to their testimony. It’s an even worse look for the North Carolina representative who then voted against the Honoring our PACT Act, which looked to over the costs military personnel incur after being poisoned by toxic burn pits during their service to our country.
Previous Guy Will Endorse Anyone Who Exaggerates Their Wealth
Former NFL star Herschel Walker has made millions in business ventures since he retired in 1997, and he claims to be worth more than $29 million today.
But despite that success, the Republican Senate hopeful and longtime friend of Donald Trump has, for whatever reason, chosen to dramatically inflate his business record, according to a Daily Beast investigation. In doing so, Walker has established a parallel record of demonstrably false claims, many of which appear to bear no resemblance to reality whatsoever.
While Walker’s business record has been picked over before—including in an Associated Press review of “exaggerated claims of financial success”—The Daily Beast has reviewed documents and other records that shine new light on previously unexamined, and particularly egregious, false claims.
Those claims include running the largest minority-owned food company in the United States; owning multiple chicken plants in another state; and starting and owning an upholstery business which was also, apparently, at one point in his telling, the country’s largest minority-owned apparel company.
While the chasm between Walker’s vision and reality often appears staggering—and applies not just to business but to multiple dimensions of his personal life as well—he might be playing fast and loose with the concept of “ownership.” But it’s unclear whether he transposed this fanciful structure onto his candidate financial disclosure, which claims a net worth of between $29 million and $65 million, and which, according to a Georgia Public Broadcasting report, merits further scrutiny.
The Deets
Why Should You Care About a Brazilian Election?
Since taking office in 2019, far-right Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has presided over record levels of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. He loosened laws and regulations meant to protect the forest from landgrabbers, miners and loggers who’ve declared open season on the Amazon and the Indigenous peoples who live within it. He pursued a ruthless policy of extraction and demolition. He made Brazil a pariah on the world stage, earned the title as the planet’s most dangerous climate change denier, and generated charges that he is guilty of crimes against humanity.
That predictable record of destruction put the future of the Amazon rainforest on the ballot in Brazil’s looming October presidential election, in which Bolsonaro is seeking a second term.
The stakes for the forest and the planet could not be higher. Bolsonaro is currently trailing leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in early election polls, fueling hopes among environmentalists, Indigenous leaders and his opponents that the world’s largest rainforest — the preservation of which is vital to stave off global climate catastrophe — may soon get a chance to breathe and even begin to recover.
The nightmare scenario, though, is a Bolsonaro victory that could unleash four more years of destruction that the Amazon simply cannot withstand.
Herbster is Not a Nickname for Kirk Herbstreit. He's a Predator. He Belongs in the Slammer, Not Near Slama.
Nebraska Republican state Sen. Julie Slama said she was “in shock” when Donald Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster allegedly put his hand “up my dress” at a GOP dinner.
Slama detailed what she has described as an “assault” in 2019 in an interview Thursday, the day the Nebraska Examiner reported that she and seven other women had accused the Republican businessman of groping them.
“As I was ... walking to my table, I felt a hand reach up my skirt, up my dress and the hand was Charles Herbster’s,” Slama said in an interview on News Radio KFAB in Omaha. “I was in shock. I was mortified. It’s one of the most traumatizing things I’ve ever been through.”
Slama added: “I watched as five minutes later he grabbed the buttocks of another young woman. ... This was witnessed by several people at the event.”
Maybe the Human Race Doesn't Deserve to Survive
Federal officials in Texas are investigating beachgoers’ harassment of a stranded female dolphin that later died.
According to witnesses, some individuals on Quintana Beach on the Gulf of Mexico some 6 miles east of Freeport dragged the bottlenose dolphin back into the water last Sunday, then “attempted to swim with and ride the sick animal,” the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network said in a statement on Facebook.
“She ultimately stranded” again and was “further harassed by a crowd of people on the beach where she died before rescuers could arrive on scene,” the statement added.
They Sent the Fingerprints to the Crime Lab and Starting Singing "Some Day my Prints Will Come"
A California police department has launched an investigation into its own officers who were filmed blaring copyrighted Disney music in attempts to prevent residents from recording them. (Is there Disney music that isn't copyrighted?)
The incident in question occurred during a vehicle search on the night of 4 April, when residents in Santa Ana, a city near Los Angeles, woke up to a series of Disney songs being blasted outside their windows. The songs included Toy Story’s You Got a Friend in Me, Encanto’s We Don’t Talk About Bruno, Mulan’s Reflection and Coco’s Un Poco Loco.
According to a video posted on YouTube, the songs emerged from a police cruiser that belonged to police officers who were investigating a stolen vehicle.
In the video, a woman can be heard asking the officers, “What’s the music for?,” saying that she was unable to sleep.
Johnathan Hernandez, a Santa Ana city councilman, is later seen in the video, asking the police officers, “Guys, what’s going on with the music here?”
An unnamed officer told Hernandez that he was playing the music from his phone and on the cruiser’s PA system in an attempt to prevent a resident, who was recording him, from continuing to do so. The officer explained that it had to do with “copyright infringement.”
The QOP Loves to Hurt the Most Vulnerable
Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying groceries through the federal food stamp program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades.
The payments to low-income individuals and families are dropping as governors end COVID-19 disaster declarations and opt out of an ongoing federal program that made their states eligible for dramatic increases in SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture began offering the increased benefit in April 2020 in response to surging unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the country.
The result is that depending on the politics of a state, individuals and families in need find themselves eligible for significantly different levels of help buying food.
Nebraska took the most aggressive action anywhere in the country, ending the emergency benefits four months into the pandemic in July 2020 in a move Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts said was necessary to “show the rest of the country how to get back to normal.” (Hungry children must be normal in Nebraska.)
Since then, nearly a dozen states with Republican leadership have taken similar action, with Iowa this month being the most recent place to slash the benefits. Benefits also will be cut in Wyoming and Kentucky in the next month. Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Tennessee have also scaled back the benefits.
Republican leaders argue that the extra benefits were intended to only temporarily help people forced out of work by the pandemic. Now that the virus has eased, they maintain, there is no longer a need to offer the higher payments at a time when businesses in most states are struggling to find enough workers.
But the extra benefits also help out families in need at a time of skyrocketing prices for food. Recipients receive at least $95 per month under the program, but some individuals and families typically eligible for only small benefits can get hundreds of dollars in extra payments each month.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
No Nominees
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Invasions Have Consequences
Will the Pincer Pinch?
Russia thinks taking Mariupol will free up its forces to work their way up into a pincer maneuver, surrounding Ukrainian troops dug in hard along the Donbas front line.
All those Russian troops that failed to advance around Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy are moving toward Izyum and the rest of the Donbas front (purple areas). Well, the ones Russia can threaten, beg, and cajole into heading back into Ukraine. They’ve had some issues, such that of the 120 or so battalion tactical groups (BTG) Russia had at the start of the war (around 800 soldiers each, on paper), only 65 remain in the country according to the Pentagon. And as we’ve seen, many, if not most of those BTG were, and remain, severely undermanned.
The Pentagon, Ukrainian military, and every Very Serious Military Analyst is convinced Russia is massing troops to execute that pincer maneuver in the Mother of all offensives. Just you wait for the hellish shock-and-awe Russia has in store! The Pentagon even thinks Russia has eyes on Dnipro further west, which is so implausible and stupid, Russia just might give it a shot.
Yet every day that goes by, any such massive offensive seems less and less likely. And not just because of the rain that has made a slurry of all ground off the major roads, and will keep it that way for at least the next several weeks. Russia’s fundamental problem is that it keeps executing the exact same tactics that failed around Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy.
Russian forces continued small-scale, tactical attacks on the Izyum and Severodonetsk axes; additional reinforcements to date have not enabled any breakthroughs of Ukrainian defenses. Russian forces continue to deploy reinforcements to eastern Ukraine but show no indication of taking an operational pause. The Russian military appears to be carrying out an approach in eastern Ukrainian similar to its failed efforts north of Kyiv in early March—continuing to funnel small groups of forces into unsuccessful attacks against Ukrainian defensive positions without taking the operational pause that is likely necessary to prepare for a more successful offensive campaign.
The reality of redeploying a defeated and exhausted army is now becoming apparent to those who talked about the Russians redeploying their Kyiv forces to the Donbas. It’s now been a [week] since Russian forces were almost all out of Kyiv and Chernihiv.
Where are those forces now. Well best intelligence has them on their way from their withdrawal points to around Belgorod, in Russia, for rest and refit. In the US DOD briefing two days ago it was stated that these forces were still on their way.
And there are these persistent reports that Russian forces are finding ways to avoid going back to Ukraine.
Add this to the fact that these forces, if they can be rested refitted, will need a significant period to deploy into Ukraine, as the road system is still working against them.
Hidden in Plain View
A dozen sanctioned Russians are linked to an estimated £800m worth of property in the UK, analysis by the BBC reveals.
Multi-million pound country manors in the south of England and luxury flats in London's most expensive areas are among the homes which have been snapped up by figures linked to Vladimir Putin.
Some of the individuals deny ownership of the mansions, which may mean they are beyond the reach of the sanctions.
To get to the bottom of who owns what, we carried out a detailed trawl of leaked offshore documents, the Land Registry and court papers - as well as previous reporting.
Our findings highlight the UK's status as a place for super-rich Russians to set up home, and the difficulties of identifying the true owners of properties bought by offshore firms in tax havens.
Here's What £65m Will Get You
Is Davy Jones Locker the Same as Hell?
Russia's flagship Black Sea missile cruiser, the Moskva, has sunk after being "seriously damaged".
That is as far as the warring sides may agree on - not what caused the sinking.
The Russian defence ministry said ammunition onboard exploded in an unexplained fire and the ship tipped over while being towed back to port.
Ukraine claims it struck the vessel with its Neptune missiles. Unnamed US officials have told US media they believe the Ukrainian version.
The 510-crew warship had led Russia's naval assault on Ukraine, which made it an important symbolic and military target.
Earlier in the conflict the Moskva gained notoriety after calling on Ukrainian border troops defending Snake Island in the Black Sea to surrender - to which they memorably radioed a message of refusal which loosely translates as "go to hell".
It Might Have Looked a Bit Like This (Real Footage of HMS Hood vs Bismark)
Of If You Prefer the 1960 Movie Sink the Bismarck
Armies Need to Want to Fight. Remember the Armies we Created in South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?
Good equipment and clever doctrine reveal little about how an army will perform in a war.
Let me tell you a story about a military that was supposedly one of the best in the world. This military had some of the best equipment: the heaviest and most modern tanks, next-generation aircraft, and advanced naval vessels. It had invested in modernization, and made what were considered some of Europe’s most sophisticated plans for conflict. Moreover, it had planned and trained specifically for a war it was about to fight, a war it seemed extremely well prepared for and that many, perhaps most, people believed it would win.
All of these descriptions could apply to the Russian army that invaded Ukraine last month. But I’m talking about the French army of the 1930s. That French force was considered one of the finest on the planet. Winston Churchill believed that it represented the world’s best hope for keeping Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany at bay. As he said famously in 1933, and repeated a number of times afterward, “Thank God for the French army.”
Of course, when this French army was actually tested in battle, it was found wanting.
I Might Find This Offensive, If Putin Hadn't Committed So Many War Crimes. You Don't Bring a Knife to a Gunfight
Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers
Ukrainian officials say the use of facial recognition software could help end the brutal war. But some experts call it ‘classic psychological warfare’ that sets a gruesome precedent.
Psst! Vlad! No One Wants to Fight For You.
But George W. Bush Looked in His Eyes and Saw His Soul.
What's In a Weapons Package?
This is a helpful list to understand what the US is sending to Ukraine, and what it indicates about the state of the war and, crucially what we can expect from the Ukrainian armed forces going forwards.
First, US is definitely upgrading Ukrainian capabilities. The MI 17 helicopters are interesting. Multipurpose so can’t say definitely what their use is. My best guess; to allow the Ukrainians to do more SF [special forces] work behind Russian lines.
Next, a big stress on protection to minimise Ukrainian casualties. From body armour to NBC protection to counter artillery systems there is stress on protecting Ukrainians. Smart; it’s extremely important to keep Ukrainian casualties down.
And, of course more anti air, but you don’t need to hear more from me about that.
So a clear package to extend Ukrainian ranged attacks while protecting Ukrainian forces. A sign of where they think the war is going. Ukraine will be expecting to be more offensive as the Russians bog down, but in being offensive they don’t want to suffer high casualties.
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The Truth Gets Shanghaied
Dozens of elderly patients at a hospital in Shanghai have died after contracting Covid-19, but official government figures claim no deaths in the city have been caused by the disease since 2020.
The BBC has spoken to a hospital manager and had access to correspondence sent to relatives of patients who've died during the Omicron outbreak that is sweeping through China's biggest city.
We've also had access to official documents that suggest at least 27 patients from a single hospital, who weren't vaccinated, have died from what it called "underlying health problems".
Shanghai is enforcing a mammoth lockdown as authorities try to contain a new wave of the virus. Most of the city's almost 25 million population have been ordered to stay inside for three weeks.
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Papers, Please.
An Algerian man who won €250,000 (£206,000; $270,000) on a €5 scratchcard in Belgium is struggling to claim his winnings because of his undocumented status.
The prize is too large to be paid in cash and the man does not have the papers he needs to open a bank account.
A friend who tried to claim the money for him was briefly detained on suspicion of theft.
The winner says he wants to use the money to build a life in Belgium.
"When I get the money, I am going to buy a place to live in Brussels. And maybe a car," the man, whose identity has not been revealed, told Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
However, first he has to find a way to claim the money.
The 28-year-old man has no valid identity papers nor a permanent place to live, according to Belgian broadcaster VRT.
Because he cannot open a bank account, the lottery company will not make the payment, the man's lawyer, Alexander Verstraete, said.
Can't He Open an Account in Algeria?
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There Never Was Herd Immunity for COVID. Herd Resistance Was the Best We Could Achieve
This time last year, the brand new, stunningly effective Covid-19 vaccines were rolling out across the country, injecting a strong note of optimism into the United States' once fumbling pandemic response.
Millions of people were lining up daily to get their shots. Instead of the steady drumbeat of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, we were tracking a new number: the percentage of Americans who had been vaccinated. This number, we believed, was our best chance to beat the virus.
The US was caught up in a fever dream of reaching herd immunity, a threshold we might cross where vulnerable individuals -- including those too young to be vaccinated or those who didn't respond well to the vaccines -- might be protected anyway because, as a community, we would weave an invisible safety net around them.
With herd immunity, if someone does get infected by a virus, they are surrounded by enough people who are shielded against infection that the virus has nowhere to go. It fails to spread.
As a country, we had reached this point against some formidable viruses, such as rubella and measles. We thought we could get there with Covid-19. We were probably wrong.
"The concept of classical herd immunity may not apply to Covid-19," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with CNN.
And that "means we're not going to be without SARS-CoV-2 in the population for a considerable period of time," said Fauci, who recently co-authored a paper on herd immunity for the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
With New Variants Popping Up, No One is Immune.
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Have You Been Waiting for the Planets to Align?
Skywatchers are in for a cosmic treat this month: a rare alignment of four planets in the predawn sky.
Beginning around Sunday morning, stargazers will be able to see Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn appear in a straight line across the southeastern sky before sunrise. The midmonth alignment is a relatively unusual opportunity for people to see multiple planets in the sky with the naked eye — and it's a prelude to an even rarer planetary alignment that will happen this summer.
To see the planetary quartet, skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere should head outside about an hour before the sun comes up and gaze southeast, in the direction of the sunrise.
Looking east at a flat horizon, Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn will appear "strung out in a line across the morning sky," according to NASA. If conditions are clear, all four planets will be bright enough to see with the naked eye, without the aid of binoculars or telescopes.
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Before Putin Invades Sweden He Should Remember: They Have Handbags.
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Are We Being Invaded by Terrorists?
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Anyone Want a Slightly Used Tweet?
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet sold as an NFT (nonfungible token) was put up for sale by the buyer for a whopping $48 million — and drew an astoundingly measly maximum offer of less than $280 by the deadline this week.
That’s when the seller reached out to would-be Twitter owner Elon Musk, urging him to bid — without success.
Granted, entrepreneur Sina Estavi, chief executive at Malaysian crypto project Bridge Oracle, was looking for a massive return. He purchased Dorsey’s message as an NFT — a unique crypto asset — for $2.9 million just over a year ago — then listed the NFT for sale at $48 million last week. He promised to give half of the proceeds to a charity.
The world’s first-ever tweet, by Dorsey (written on March 21, 2006), modestly declares: “just setting up my twttr.”
But offers for it ranged from nearly $6 to about $277 by Wednesday’s deadline, reported Coin Desk. After the deadline passed, the best offer by Thursday was reportedly up to $10,000.
What Do You Do With a NFT, Anyway?
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None of This Explains Her Votes for the Bush Tax Cuts, The Iraq War, TARP, or Her Continues Support of the Fillibuster
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended her ability to serve as the oldest member of the U.S. Senate on Thursday following a report from the San Francisco Chronicle that asserted her health may be in decline.
The Chronicle report anonymously quoted four senators, including three fellow Democrats, along with a House Democrat and three people who formerly worked in Feinstein’s office. The sources agreed that the senator, age 88, could no longer entirely fulfill her job duties as her memory was “rapidly deteriorating,” according to the story.
Her term is up in January 2025, at which point she will be 91.
In a statement issued late Thursday, Feinstein said, “I remain committed to do what I said I would when I was re-elected in 2018: fight for Californians, especially on the economy and the key issues for California of water and fire.”
She previously said she has no intention to retire early.
Feinstein’s health has occasionally come into question in recent years; in November 2020, for example, she repeated a question for Twitter executive Jack Dorsey in a public hearing word for word without seemingly realizing it. The New Yorker reported at the time that Feinstein’s short-term memory had “grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have.” Feinstein even figured into the California gubernatorial recall election last fall, as the prospect loomed that a Republican governor could end up replacing her were she to retire early.
The Chronicle reported this week that everyone who expressed concerns about her did so with a great amount of respect for her long career, which included serving as San Francisco’s first female mayor, but they observed Feinstein’s memory to be failing. She sometimes did not appear to recognize colleagues, they told the paper.
I Don't Think She Was Ever a Great Senator
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Just In Case Vlad the Invader Decides to Pick on Somebody His Own Size
In the dusty California desert, U.S. Army trainers are already using lessons learned from Russia's war against Ukraine as they prepare soldiers for future fights against a major adversary such as Russia or China.
Army vehicles on the ridge, as soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, prepare to attack the enemy in the town nearby, during an early morning training exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., April 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Lolita C. Baldor)
© Provided by Associated Press
Army vehicles on the ridge, as soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, prepare to attack the enemy in the town nearby, during an early morning training exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., April 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Lolita C. Baldor)
The role-players in this month's exercise at the National Training Center speak Russian. The enemy force that controls the fictional town of Ujen is using a steady stream of social media posts to make false accusations against the American brigade preparing to attack.
In the coming weeks, the planned training scenario for the next brigade coming in will focus on how to battle an enemy willing to destroy a city with rocket and missile fire in order to conquer it.
If the images seem familiar, they are, playing out on televisions and websites worldwide right now as Russian forces pound Ukrainian cities with airstrikes, killing scores of civilians. The information war on social media has showcased impassioned nightly speeches by Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Russian efforts to accuse Ukraine's forces of faking mass killings in towns such as Bucha — massacres that the West blames on Moscow's troops.
“I think right now the whole Army is really looking at what’s happening in Ukraine and trying to learn lessons,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Those lessons, she said, range from Russia's equipment and logistics troubles to communications and use of the internet.
“The Russia-Ukraine experience is a very powerful illustration for our Army of how important the information domain is going to be," said Wormuth, who spent two days at the training center in the Mojave Desert watching an Army brigade wage war against the fictional “Denovian” forces.
"We’ve been talking about that for about five years. But really seeing it and seeing the way Zelenskyy has been incredibly powerful. ... This is a world war that the actual world can see and watch in real time. ”
At the center, the commander, Brig. Gen. Curt Taylor, and his staff have ripped pages out of the Russian playbook to ensure that U.S. soldiers are ready to fight and win against a sophisticated near-peer enemy.
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The Price of Clogging Your Arteries is Going Up
The price of eggs has soared in recent weeks in part because of a huge bird flu wave that has infected nearly 27 million chickens and turkeys in the United States, forcing many farmers to “depopulate” or destroy their animals to prevent a further spread.
The virus has impacted many different bird species, including penguins and bald eagles. But its spread among poultry has been tremendous, particularly among chickens raised for their eggs.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced yet another outbreak, this one in two flocks in Idaho, making that the 27th state in which the virus has been found since February.
According to the USDA, the price of a dozen eggs in November hovered around $1. Right now, that price is $2.95 and rising.
Which Price Went Up First, the Chicken's or the Egg's?
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Sorry I Missed a Day. I Am Told This Will be the Reaction to Posting This
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