Post by mhbruin on May 10, 2022 10:58:24 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 580 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday May 3)
We had some rain up north this week.
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I Married a Pirate With a Patch. He's the One-Eye Love.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Did You Know You Stand With Putin? Maybe You Do.
Indian influencer ER Yamini has never tweeted in her life - she prefers to cultivate her big fan bases on Instagram and YouTube.
But in early March, a Twitter account using her picture tweeted: "#IStandWithPutin. True Friendship" accompanied by a video showing two men hugging - one representing India, the other, Russia.
Yamini says she doesn't support either country in the Russia-Ukraine war, and worries about her fans.
"If they see that tweet, what will they think about me?" she asks, "I wish they wouldn't use my photo on that profile."
The fake account is part of a network promoting Russian president Vladimir Putin on Twitter, which used the hashtags #IStandWithPutin and #IStandWithRussia on 2 and 3 March. This led to trending topics in different regions - particularly in the global south, apparently showing support for the war, in countries including India, Pakistan, South Africa and Nigeria.
Hashtags #IStandwithPutin and #IStandwithRussia became trending topics in several countries, but some accounts tweeting it were inauthentic
Part of the activity tracked was organic - in other words, produced by real people - reflecting genuine support in some countries for Mr Putin and Russia.
But many other profiles appear to have been inauthentic. They retweeted messages in high quantities, produced few original messages, and were created very recently.
"They were likely produced by bots, fake profiles or compromised accounts, artificially amplifying support for Putin in these countries," says Carl Miller, co-founder of CASM Technology, a company that researches online harms and disinformation.
It tracked 9,907 profiles promoting support for Russia on 2 and 3 March, in several different languages. CASM found more than 1,000 of those accounts had spam-like characteristics.
Let's Be Honest Here. Rick Scott's Unfit for Office.
In a blistering statement released Tuesday morning, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott said this of President Joe Biden:
"Let's be honest here. Joe Biden is unwell. He's unfit for office. He's incoherent, incapacitated and confused. He doesn't know where he is half the time. He's incapable of leading and he's incapable of carrying out his duties. Period. Everyone knows it. No one is willing to say it. But we have to, for the sake of the country. Joe Biden can't do the job."
This unproven notion -- that Biden is somehow enfeebled -- has been kicking around conservative media and Trump-allied circles for some time now. The evidence usually revolves around clips of Biden misspeaking or stumbling over his words -- and the fact that, at age 79, he is the oldest person ever to serve as president.
You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know there is a Racist Wind Blowing Through This Country.
A weatherman for Fox13 in Memphis likened Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green to a gorilla, prompting the station to clarify that the racist comment “does not reflect” its values.
Joey Sulipeck, who has since deleted the tweet along with his Twitter account, complained that during the Memphis Grizzlies’ Game 3 playoff loss to the Warriors on Saturday, “Green runs his knuckle-dragging mouth ALL GAME LONG, but mild-mannered Kyle Anderson disputes one call and gets ejected?”
"The Public Needs to Know, Because I Need the Royalty Check"
Former Trump White House officials who saved damning details about Donald Trump’s administration for their tell-all books got the treatment from “The Daily Show” correspondent Michael Kosta on Monday.
“I thought the public needs to know about this right now, which is why I’m releasing this book right now, three years after it happened,” Kosta said, mocking the legions of former Trump officials whose memoirs call out the former president’s outrageous behavior long after the fact.
Just What Every Poor Person Needs. A Speech by Brett Farve
The Mississippi Department of Human Services on Monday sued former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre and three former pro wrestlers along with several other people and businesses to try to recover millions of misspent welfare dollars that were intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S.
The lawsuit said the defendants "squandered" more than $20 million in money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families anti-poverty program.
In early 2020, Nancy New, Zachary New, former Mississippi Department of Human Services executive director John Davis and three other people were charged in state court, with prosecutors saying welfare money had been misspent on items such as drug rehabilitation in Malibu, California, for former pro wrestler Brett DiBiase.
DiBiase is a defendant in the lawsuit filed Monday in Hinds County Circuit Court, as are his father and brother who were also pro wrestlers, Ted DiBiase Sr. and Ted "Teddy" DiBiase Jr.
Ted DiBiase Sr. was known as the "The Million Dollar Man" while wrestling.
He is a Christian evangelist and motivational speaker, and he ran Heart of David Ministries Inc., which received $1.7 million in welfare grant money in 2017 and 2018 for mentorship, marketing and other services, according to the lawsuit.
White last year demanded repayment of $77 million of misspent welfare funds from several people and groups, including $1.1 million paid to Favre, who lives in Mississippi.
White said Favre was paid for speeches but did not show up.
Poor Susan. People Are Being So Mean!
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of just two nominally pro-choice Republicans left in the Senate, called the cops on Saturday night over a pro-abortion rights message written in chalk in front of her house in Bangor.
According to Bangor Daily News, officers responded to a call at 9:20 pm on Saturday after the message "Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —–> vote yes, clean up your mess" appeared on a public sidewalk on West Broadway street.
"WHPA" is a reference to the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill that would codify the right to an abortion afforded by Roe v. Wade into federal law. Senate Democrats have teed up a vote on Wednesday on the bill — which was passed by the House in September — in the wake of the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe.
"The message was not overtly threatening," Wade Betters, a spokesperson for the Bangor Police Department, told the outlet, which also reported that the message was no longer visible by Monday afternoon.
"We are grateful to the Bangor police officers and the City public works employee who responded to the defacement of public property in front of our home," the senator told the Bangor Daily News.
They Won't Burn Books. They Will Just "Edit" Them
Yearbooks at a central Florida high school won't be distributed until images of students holding rainbow flags and a “love is love” sign while protesting the state's so-called “Don't Say Gay” law can be covered up.
District officials said they don't want anyone thinking that the school supported the students' walkout.
Lyman High School Principal Michael Hunter said in a statement on Monday that “pictures and descriptions" documenting a student walk-out in March in response to Florida's Parental Rights in Education law should have been “caught earlier in the review process."
The bill, signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through 3.
“Rather than reprinting the yearbook at substantial cost and delay, we have elected to cover that material that is out of compliance with board policy so that yearbooks can be distributed as soon as possible," the principal's statement said.
In an email on Tuesday, school district spokesman Michael Lawrence said the issue wasn't with the protest but how its depiction in the yearbook could be interpreted as being endorsed by the school, which would be in violation of the school board's policy.
Lawrence noted that the yearbook dedicates a separate page to the school's Gay Straight Alliance Club and elsewhere shows students at a pride march and holding rainbow flags, and he said these depictions do comply with the policy.
Do You Care What Happens to the Hillbilly Wannabe?
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
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Invasions Have Consequences
The Grain From Ukraine Is Found Mainly in the Mediterranean
Ukrainian intelligence says grain stolen by Russians is already in the Mediterranean
The intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defense ministry said that grain stolen by Russian troops in occupied areas is already being sent abroad.
The intelligence directorate claimed that a "significant part of the grain stolen from Ukraine is on dry cargo ships under the Russian flag in the Mediterranean."
"The most likely destination is Syria. Grain may be smuggled from there to other countries in the Middle East," it said.
The directorate also said the Russians "continue to export food stolen in Ukraine to the territory of the Russian Federation and the occupied Crimea."
It said that in one of the main grain-producing areas — around Polohy in the Zaporizhzhia region — grain and sunflower seeds in storage are being prepared for transportation to Russia.
A column of Russian trucks has left the town of Enerhodar, which is also in the Zaporizhzhia region, under the guard of the Russian military, the directorate claimed. The final destination of the column was Crimea, it said.
Grain was also being stolen in the Kharkiv region, and 1,500 tons of grain had been taken from the village of Mala Lepetykha in the Kherson region to Crimea.
Last week, the defense ministry said nearly half a million metric tons of Ukrainian grain had already been stolen.
They Shouldn't Beware of Greeks Bearing Gas
In about a month, Greece will finish building a pipeline to Bulgaria that will end Russia’s gas monopoly there and in southeast Europe.
Russia has supplied 90 percent of Bulgaria’s gas until now, but on April 27, it cut Bulgaria off after Sofia said it would not renew its contract with Russian gas giant Gazprom at the end of the year.
Poland said the same, and suffered the same fate.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin didn’t want it to seem as though he’d lost clients, so he threw them out early,” said Mike Myrianthis, an oil industry veteran and analyst.
Bulgaria is now looking to the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, as the new pipeline is called, to supply it with gas from Azerbaijan, which Greece receives via the Trans-Anatolian pipeline that traverses the Caucasus and Turkey.
“Since a few days ago, Bulgaria is already out of the [Russian] pipeline system and fully dependent on Greece [for gas]. That has never happened before. Greece has never been responsible for securing another country’s energy security,” said Michalis Mathioulakis, who heads the Greek Energy Forum, a think-tank.
You've Just Relieved Kharkiv. What Are You Doing Next? Here's a Hint: You Are Not Going to Disneyland.
It was an eventful weekend in Ukraine. In short, Ukraine is on the move around Kharkiv, pushing Russian forces to their side of the international border, while Russia is on the move in Donbas, picking up a stray kilometer here and there.
Ukraine advanced 30 miles in one week, while Russia managed “single digit” miles in the last what, two to three weeks? At this pace, it will only take a few millennia to accomplish their (supposed) strategic goal—to push Ukraine out of the 5,000+ square miles of Ukrainian-held territory inside the administrative boundaries of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (collectively, the Donbas). Meanwhile, Russia will have to decide what to do about those frisky Ukrainians up north. Heck, the Ukrainians will have to decide what to do up north as well.
As you can see in the map below, there are two potential targets—Vovchansk to the northeast, or Kupiansk to the southeast.
The purple arrows denote the three rail lines feeding into Kupiansk, which in turn feeds the Russian advance in both the Izyum salient, as well as the approach down the east bank of the Oskil reservoir (directly south of Kupiansk). In an ideal world, Ukraine would hit both targets. In the real world, it’s a wonder Ukraine has managed to get as far as it has. Theirs is still not an army fully built for offensive operations.
Once Ukraine secures the areas around Kharkiv, digging new defensive emplacements and manning them with territorial defense forces, where does Ukraine go? Vovchansk is attractive as it would 1) cut off a major source of resupply to the war front, all the stuff arriving from Belgorod, and 2) place more Ukrainian artillery in range of Belgorod. On the other hand, every bridge over the Donets has been reportedly blown, and it’s doubtful Ukraine has extensive river-fording capabilities. But a Ukrainian presence in Vovchansk would force Russia to reinforce its border, “fixing” Russian troops in a defensive posture inside Russia, rather than gaining inches down in the Donbas front.
What about Kupiansk, then? This strategic city would, by far, be the most impactful of the two, cutting off all the supply lines to the northern edge of Russia’s main war effort, crippling a fatal blow to Russians on the Izyum salient, and severely hampering resupply of Russian forces directly to its east. Easy call, right? Except that Russia reportedly has around 22 battalion tactical groups (BTG) in the region that could pivot and potentially deal substantial losses to any under-resourced Ukrainian approach. (On paper, a BTG is 800-1,000 men, 10 tanks, 40 infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery and air defense support. In reality, current BTGs are operating at dramatically lower manpower.) There are also no natural defensive barriers in the way—great for avoiding rivers, but not-so-great for avoiding Russian air power. This is close enough to Russian-held territory that its timid air force could venture out and cause trouble in those wide open fields.
Here Come the Big Guns
Big Guns Go Boom! (Ukraine Likes a Soundtrack)
Another One Bites the Dust
It's Not a Morgue. It's a Dump
Groups in Ukraine have set up “help lines” for Russian families, both with the purpose of helping locate soldiers who have gone silent after crossing into Ukraine, and driving home the point that Russian soldiers are dying in Putin’s illegal invasion in large numbers. Meanwhile, the Kremlin not only continues to report low numbers of casualties overall, but to list large numbers of troops as simply “missing in action,” sometimes with a hint of accusation that those missing are actually AWOL.
In this translation, a woman is looking for her brother, who has been among the missing in Ukraine. After a long search, his sister has found him. Though not in a way that anyone would want to find a family member.
Man: His sister, she went to Donetsk … there was a, basically a dump.
Woman: Oh, fuck.
Man: She paid money [to let them search through the bodies]. They are stacked on top of one another.
Woman: Oh, fuck.
Man: … She paid money, good money, so they moved the bodies around until they found him. … She says it’s a pile there. There’s nowhere else to put them. It’s a dump. I’m telling you in Russian — a dump.
Woman: Oh, fuck. Shit …
Man: She says thousands. Thousands. They are thrown here and there, for them it’s easier to make it look like they are missing in action. … It’s not a morgue. It’s a dump.
Some Russian Officers Don't Want to End Up in a Dump
Asenior official from the U.S. Department of Defense on Monday said officers in Russian President Vladimir Putin's military have joined soldiers in refusing to follow orders in Ukraine.
During a background briefing, the senior official at the Department of Defense told Newsweek that the agency had received anecdotal reports of poor morale among Russian troops in Ukraine as well as reports that Russian military officers had been disobeying orders. The U.S. government official further characterized the Russian leadership on the ground as not being sound or in control.
The official added that the reports the department has received about Russian dissidence involved mid-grade officers, including some at the battalion level. He said that the reports indicated that some of these officers either refused to obey orders they were given or had not followed through with the orders to the level at which they had likely been expected to respond.
The reports could not be independently confirmed.
The US Has a De-Nazification Program
Washington sought to portray a united front against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan measure to reboot the World War II-era “lend-lease” program, which helped defeat Nazi Germany, to bolster Kyiv and Eastern European allies.
The signing Monday came as the U.S. Congress is poised to unleash billions more to fight the war against Russia — with Democrats preparing $40 billion in military and humanitarian aid, larger than the $33 billion package Biden has requested.
It all serves as a rejoinder to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has seized on Victory in Europe Day — the anniversary of Germany's unconditional surrender in 1945 and Russia's biggest patriotic holiday — to rally his people behind the invasion.
“This aid has been critical to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden said it was urgent that Congress approve the next Ukraine assistance package to avoid any interruption in military supplies being sent to help fight the war, with a crucial deadline coming in 10 days.
"We cannot allow our shipments of assistance to stop while we await further Congressional action,” he said. He urged Congress to act — and “to do so quickly.”
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It's Still Ridiculously Overpriced
Crypto assets bled nearly $800 billion in market value over the past month, touching a low of $1.4 trillion on Tuesday, according to the data site CoinMarketCap, as the end of easy monetary policy diminishes appetite for risk assets.
Bitcoin, which makes up for nearly 40 percent of the crypto market, hit a 10-month low earlier on Tuesday, before rebounding to $31,450, just six days after touching $40,000. It was more than 54 percent below its Nov. 10 all-time high of $69,000.
Digital asset prices have slumped, mirroring a plunge in equities on fears of aggressive interest rate hikes across the globe to stave off decades-high inflation. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 28 percent from its November 2021 record high.
Total crypto market value was at $2.2 trillion on April 2, well off of its all-time peak of $2.9 trillion in early November, as per CoinMarketCap.
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10 Million Hungry Children
About 9.6 million children in Afghanistan have been unable to secure food on a daily basis due to a deepening economic crisis in the country, the impact of the Ukraine war, and continuing drought, Save the Children has said.
In a report published on Tuesday, the international NGO called for “immediate food assistance” to save lives in the short-term, adding however that aid alone was “not enough to tackle the country’s worst hunger crisis on record”.
“Despite a significant amount of food aid reaching families in recent months, 19.7 million children and adults, almost 50 percent of the population, are still going hungry and need urgent support to survive,” said the report.
According to the report, about 20,000 people were pushed into famine during the past two to three months alone.
Afghanistan has 38 Million People. Half are Going Hungry
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| May 9 | 74,712 | 323 | |
| May 8 | 66,564 | 323 | 2,510 |
| May 7 | 67,561 | 335 | 2,310 |
| May 6 | 68,807 | 340 | 2,396 |
| May 5 | 67,263 | 341 | 2.363 |
| May 4 | 64,780 | 334 | 2,267 |
| May 3 | 61,712 | 325 | 2,219 |
| May 2 | 60,410 | 318 | 2.214 |
| May 1 | 57,020 | 307 | 2,072 |
| Apr 30 | 56,581 | 310 | 1,882 |
| Apr 29 | 56,166 | 308 | 1,946 |
| Apr 28 | 54,696 | 311 | 1,955 |
| Apr 27 | 53,133 | 334 | 1,941 |
| Apr 26 | 48,692 | 299 | 1,889 |
| Apr 25 | 47,407 | 330 | 1,840 |
| Apr 24 | 44,416 | 314 | 1,779 |
| Apr 23 | 45,413 | 315 | 1,629 |
| Apr 22 | 44,308 | 311 | 1,642 |
| Apr 21 | 40,744 | 346 | 1,647 |
| Apr 20 | 42,604 | 375 | 1,609 |
| Apr 19 | 40,985 | 385 | 1,582 |
| Apr 18 | 37,132 | 380 | 1,564 |
| Apr 17 | 35,212 | 373 | 1,542 |
| Apr 16 | 34,972 | 379 | 1,532 |
| Apr 15 | 34,778 | 399 | 1,510 |
| Apr 14 | 35,475 | 446 | 1,490 |
| Apr 13 | 31,391 | 409 | 1,477 |
| Apr 12 | 29,401 | 452 | 1,463 |
| Apr 11 | 30,208 | 483 | 1.447 |
| Apr 10 | 28,927 | 500 | 1,443 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.7% | 66.3% | 45.9% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.6% | 70.4% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 87.4% | 74.7% | 47.7% |
| % of Population 18+ | 89.1% | 76.2% | 49.5% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 90.4% | 68.8% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday May 3)
We had some rain up north this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | 2 Weeks Ago | 3 Weeks Ago | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 80% (74%) | 81% (74%) | 79% (70%) | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 66% (61%) | 67% (61%) | 65% (58%) | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 61% (57%) | 62% (57%) | 60% (54%) | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 20% | 29% | 15% | |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 27% | 33% | 27% | |
| Snow Water Content - South | 17% | 23% | 24% |
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I Married a Pirate With a Patch. He's the One-Eye Love.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Did You Know You Stand With Putin? Maybe You Do.
Indian influencer ER Yamini has never tweeted in her life - she prefers to cultivate her big fan bases on Instagram and YouTube.
But in early March, a Twitter account using her picture tweeted: "#IStandWithPutin. True Friendship" accompanied by a video showing two men hugging - one representing India, the other, Russia.
Yamini says she doesn't support either country in the Russia-Ukraine war, and worries about her fans.
"If they see that tweet, what will they think about me?" she asks, "I wish they wouldn't use my photo on that profile."
The fake account is part of a network promoting Russian president Vladimir Putin on Twitter, which used the hashtags #IStandWithPutin and #IStandWithRussia on 2 and 3 March. This led to trending topics in different regions - particularly in the global south, apparently showing support for the war, in countries including India, Pakistan, South Africa and Nigeria.
Hashtags #IStandwithPutin and #IStandwithRussia became trending topics in several countries, but some accounts tweeting it were inauthentic
Part of the activity tracked was organic - in other words, produced by real people - reflecting genuine support in some countries for Mr Putin and Russia.
But many other profiles appear to have been inauthentic. They retweeted messages in high quantities, produced few original messages, and were created very recently.
"They were likely produced by bots, fake profiles or compromised accounts, artificially amplifying support for Putin in these countries," says Carl Miller, co-founder of CASM Technology, a company that researches online harms and disinformation.
It tracked 9,907 profiles promoting support for Russia on 2 and 3 March, in several different languages. CASM found more than 1,000 of those accounts had spam-like characteristics.
Let's Be Honest Here. Rick Scott's Unfit for Office.
In a blistering statement released Tuesday morning, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott said this of President Joe Biden:
"Let's be honest here. Joe Biden is unwell. He's unfit for office. He's incoherent, incapacitated and confused. He doesn't know where he is half the time. He's incapable of leading and he's incapable of carrying out his duties. Period. Everyone knows it. No one is willing to say it. But we have to, for the sake of the country. Joe Biden can't do the job."
This unproven notion -- that Biden is somehow enfeebled -- has been kicking around conservative media and Trump-allied circles for some time now. The evidence usually revolves around clips of Biden misspeaking or stumbling over his words -- and the fact that, at age 79, he is the oldest person ever to serve as president.
You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know there is a Racist Wind Blowing Through This Country.
A weatherman for Fox13 in Memphis likened Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green to a gorilla, prompting the station to clarify that the racist comment “does not reflect” its values.
Joey Sulipeck, who has since deleted the tweet along with his Twitter account, complained that during the Memphis Grizzlies’ Game 3 playoff loss to the Warriors on Saturday, “Green runs his knuckle-dragging mouth ALL GAME LONG, but mild-mannered Kyle Anderson disputes one call and gets ejected?”
"The Public Needs to Know, Because I Need the Royalty Check"
Former Trump White House officials who saved damning details about Donald Trump’s administration for their tell-all books got the treatment from “The Daily Show” correspondent Michael Kosta on Monday.
“I thought the public needs to know about this right now, which is why I’m releasing this book right now, three years after it happened,” Kosta said, mocking the legions of former Trump officials whose memoirs call out the former president’s outrageous behavior long after the fact.
Just What Every Poor Person Needs. A Speech by Brett Farve
The Mississippi Department of Human Services on Monday sued former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre and three former pro wrestlers along with several other people and businesses to try to recover millions of misspent welfare dollars that were intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S.
The lawsuit said the defendants "squandered" more than $20 million in money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families anti-poverty program.
In early 2020, Nancy New, Zachary New, former Mississippi Department of Human Services executive director John Davis and three other people were charged in state court, with prosecutors saying welfare money had been misspent on items such as drug rehabilitation in Malibu, California, for former pro wrestler Brett DiBiase.
DiBiase is a defendant in the lawsuit filed Monday in Hinds County Circuit Court, as are his father and brother who were also pro wrestlers, Ted DiBiase Sr. and Ted "Teddy" DiBiase Jr.
Ted DiBiase Sr. was known as the "The Million Dollar Man" while wrestling.
He is a Christian evangelist and motivational speaker, and he ran Heart of David Ministries Inc., which received $1.7 million in welfare grant money in 2017 and 2018 for mentorship, marketing and other services, according to the lawsuit.
White last year demanded repayment of $77 million of misspent welfare funds from several people and groups, including $1.1 million paid to Favre, who lives in Mississippi.
White said Favre was paid for speeches but did not show up.
Poor Susan. People Are Being So Mean!
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of just two nominally pro-choice Republicans left in the Senate, called the cops on Saturday night over a pro-abortion rights message written in chalk in front of her house in Bangor.
According to Bangor Daily News, officers responded to a call at 9:20 pm on Saturday after the message "Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —–> vote yes, clean up your mess" appeared on a public sidewalk on West Broadway street.
"WHPA" is a reference to the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill that would codify the right to an abortion afforded by Roe v. Wade into federal law. Senate Democrats have teed up a vote on Wednesday on the bill — which was passed by the House in September — in the wake of the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe.
"The message was not overtly threatening," Wade Betters, a spokesperson for the Bangor Police Department, told the outlet, which also reported that the message was no longer visible by Monday afternoon.
"We are grateful to the Bangor police officers and the City public works employee who responded to the defacement of public property in front of our home," the senator told the Bangor Daily News.
They Won't Burn Books. They Will Just "Edit" Them
Yearbooks at a central Florida high school won't be distributed until images of students holding rainbow flags and a “love is love” sign while protesting the state's so-called “Don't Say Gay” law can be covered up.
District officials said they don't want anyone thinking that the school supported the students' walkout.
Lyman High School Principal Michael Hunter said in a statement on Monday that “pictures and descriptions" documenting a student walk-out in March in response to Florida's Parental Rights in Education law should have been “caught earlier in the review process."
The bill, signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through 3.
“Rather than reprinting the yearbook at substantial cost and delay, we have elected to cover that material that is out of compliance with board policy so that yearbooks can be distributed as soon as possible," the principal's statement said.
In an email on Tuesday, school district spokesman Michael Lawrence said the issue wasn't with the protest but how its depiction in the yearbook could be interpreted as being endorsed by the school, which would be in violation of the school board's policy.
Lawrence noted that the yearbook dedicates a separate page to the school's Gay Straight Alliance Club and elsewhere shows students at a pride march and holding rainbow flags, and he said these depictions do comply with the policy.
Do You Care What Happens to the Hillbilly Wannabe?
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
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Invasions Have Consequences
The Grain From Ukraine Is Found Mainly in the Mediterranean
Ukrainian intelligence says grain stolen by Russians is already in the Mediterranean
The intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defense ministry said that grain stolen by Russian troops in occupied areas is already being sent abroad.
The intelligence directorate claimed that a "significant part of the grain stolen from Ukraine is on dry cargo ships under the Russian flag in the Mediterranean."
"The most likely destination is Syria. Grain may be smuggled from there to other countries in the Middle East," it said.
The directorate also said the Russians "continue to export food stolen in Ukraine to the territory of the Russian Federation and the occupied Crimea."
It said that in one of the main grain-producing areas — around Polohy in the Zaporizhzhia region — grain and sunflower seeds in storage are being prepared for transportation to Russia.
A column of Russian trucks has left the town of Enerhodar, which is also in the Zaporizhzhia region, under the guard of the Russian military, the directorate claimed. The final destination of the column was Crimea, it said.
Grain was also being stolen in the Kharkiv region, and 1,500 tons of grain had been taken from the village of Mala Lepetykha in the Kherson region to Crimea.
Last week, the defense ministry said nearly half a million metric tons of Ukrainian grain had already been stolen.
They Shouldn't Beware of Greeks Bearing Gas
In about a month, Greece will finish building a pipeline to Bulgaria that will end Russia’s gas monopoly there and in southeast Europe.
Russia has supplied 90 percent of Bulgaria’s gas until now, but on April 27, it cut Bulgaria off after Sofia said it would not renew its contract with Russian gas giant Gazprom at the end of the year.
Poland said the same, and suffered the same fate.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin didn’t want it to seem as though he’d lost clients, so he threw them out early,” said Mike Myrianthis, an oil industry veteran and analyst.
Bulgaria is now looking to the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, as the new pipeline is called, to supply it with gas from Azerbaijan, which Greece receives via the Trans-Anatolian pipeline that traverses the Caucasus and Turkey.
“Since a few days ago, Bulgaria is already out of the [Russian] pipeline system and fully dependent on Greece [for gas]. That has never happened before. Greece has never been responsible for securing another country’s energy security,” said Michalis Mathioulakis, who heads the Greek Energy Forum, a think-tank.
You've Just Relieved Kharkiv. What Are You Doing Next? Here's a Hint: You Are Not Going to Disneyland.
It was an eventful weekend in Ukraine. In short, Ukraine is on the move around Kharkiv, pushing Russian forces to their side of the international border, while Russia is on the move in Donbas, picking up a stray kilometer here and there.
Ukraine advanced 30 miles in one week, while Russia managed “single digit” miles in the last what, two to three weeks? At this pace, it will only take a few millennia to accomplish their (supposed) strategic goal—to push Ukraine out of the 5,000+ square miles of Ukrainian-held territory inside the administrative boundaries of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (collectively, the Donbas). Meanwhile, Russia will have to decide what to do about those frisky Ukrainians up north. Heck, the Ukrainians will have to decide what to do up north as well.
As you can see in the map below, there are two potential targets—Vovchansk to the northeast, or Kupiansk to the southeast.
The purple arrows denote the three rail lines feeding into Kupiansk, which in turn feeds the Russian advance in both the Izyum salient, as well as the approach down the east bank of the Oskil reservoir (directly south of Kupiansk). In an ideal world, Ukraine would hit both targets. In the real world, it’s a wonder Ukraine has managed to get as far as it has. Theirs is still not an army fully built for offensive operations.
Once Ukraine secures the areas around Kharkiv, digging new defensive emplacements and manning them with territorial defense forces, where does Ukraine go? Vovchansk is attractive as it would 1) cut off a major source of resupply to the war front, all the stuff arriving from Belgorod, and 2) place more Ukrainian artillery in range of Belgorod. On the other hand, every bridge over the Donets has been reportedly blown, and it’s doubtful Ukraine has extensive river-fording capabilities. But a Ukrainian presence in Vovchansk would force Russia to reinforce its border, “fixing” Russian troops in a defensive posture inside Russia, rather than gaining inches down in the Donbas front.
What about Kupiansk, then? This strategic city would, by far, be the most impactful of the two, cutting off all the supply lines to the northern edge of Russia’s main war effort, crippling a fatal blow to Russians on the Izyum salient, and severely hampering resupply of Russian forces directly to its east. Easy call, right? Except that Russia reportedly has around 22 battalion tactical groups (BTG) in the region that could pivot and potentially deal substantial losses to any under-resourced Ukrainian approach. (On paper, a BTG is 800-1,000 men, 10 tanks, 40 infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery and air defense support. In reality, current BTGs are operating at dramatically lower manpower.) There are also no natural defensive barriers in the way—great for avoiding rivers, but not-so-great for avoiding Russian air power. This is close enough to Russian-held territory that its timid air force could venture out and cause trouble in those wide open fields.
Here Come the Big Guns
Big Guns Go Boom! (Ukraine Likes a Soundtrack)
Another One Bites the Dust
It's Not a Morgue. It's a Dump
Groups in Ukraine have set up “help lines” for Russian families, both with the purpose of helping locate soldiers who have gone silent after crossing into Ukraine, and driving home the point that Russian soldiers are dying in Putin’s illegal invasion in large numbers. Meanwhile, the Kremlin not only continues to report low numbers of casualties overall, but to list large numbers of troops as simply “missing in action,” sometimes with a hint of accusation that those missing are actually AWOL.
In this translation, a woman is looking for her brother, who has been among the missing in Ukraine. After a long search, his sister has found him. Though not in a way that anyone would want to find a family member.
Man: His sister, she went to Donetsk … there was a, basically a dump.
Woman: Oh, fuck.
Man: She paid money [to let them search through the bodies]. They are stacked on top of one another.
Woman: Oh, fuck.
Man: … She paid money, good money, so they moved the bodies around until they found him. … She says it’s a pile there. There’s nowhere else to put them. It’s a dump. I’m telling you in Russian — a dump.
Woman: Oh, fuck. Shit …
Man: She says thousands. Thousands. They are thrown here and there, for them it’s easier to make it look like they are missing in action. … It’s not a morgue. It’s a dump.
Some Russian Officers Don't Want to End Up in a Dump
Asenior official from the U.S. Department of Defense on Monday said officers in Russian President Vladimir Putin's military have joined soldiers in refusing to follow orders in Ukraine.
During a background briefing, the senior official at the Department of Defense told Newsweek that the agency had received anecdotal reports of poor morale among Russian troops in Ukraine as well as reports that Russian military officers had been disobeying orders. The U.S. government official further characterized the Russian leadership on the ground as not being sound or in control.
The official added that the reports the department has received about Russian dissidence involved mid-grade officers, including some at the battalion level. He said that the reports indicated that some of these officers either refused to obey orders they were given or had not followed through with the orders to the level at which they had likely been expected to respond.
The reports could not be independently confirmed.
The US Has a De-Nazification Program
Washington sought to portray a united front against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan measure to reboot the World War II-era “lend-lease” program, which helped defeat Nazi Germany, to bolster Kyiv and Eastern European allies.
The signing Monday came as the U.S. Congress is poised to unleash billions more to fight the war against Russia — with Democrats preparing $40 billion in military and humanitarian aid, larger than the $33 billion package Biden has requested.
It all serves as a rejoinder to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has seized on Victory in Europe Day — the anniversary of Germany's unconditional surrender in 1945 and Russia's biggest patriotic holiday — to rally his people behind the invasion.
“This aid has been critical to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden said it was urgent that Congress approve the next Ukraine assistance package to avoid any interruption in military supplies being sent to help fight the war, with a crucial deadline coming in 10 days.
"We cannot allow our shipments of assistance to stop while we await further Congressional action,” he said. He urged Congress to act — and “to do so quickly.”
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It's Still Ridiculously Overpriced
Crypto assets bled nearly $800 billion in market value over the past month, touching a low of $1.4 trillion on Tuesday, according to the data site CoinMarketCap, as the end of easy monetary policy diminishes appetite for risk assets.
Bitcoin, which makes up for nearly 40 percent of the crypto market, hit a 10-month low earlier on Tuesday, before rebounding to $31,450, just six days after touching $40,000. It was more than 54 percent below its Nov. 10 all-time high of $69,000.
Digital asset prices have slumped, mirroring a plunge in equities on fears of aggressive interest rate hikes across the globe to stave off decades-high inflation. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 28 percent from its November 2021 record high.
Total crypto market value was at $2.2 trillion on April 2, well off of its all-time peak of $2.9 trillion in early November, as per CoinMarketCap.
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10 Million Hungry Children
About 9.6 million children in Afghanistan have been unable to secure food on a daily basis due to a deepening economic crisis in the country, the impact of the Ukraine war, and continuing drought, Save the Children has said.
In a report published on Tuesday, the international NGO called for “immediate food assistance” to save lives in the short-term, adding however that aid alone was “not enough to tackle the country’s worst hunger crisis on record”.
“Despite a significant amount of food aid reaching families in recent months, 19.7 million children and adults, almost 50 percent of the population, are still going hungry and need urgent support to survive,” said the report.
According to the report, about 20,000 people were pushed into famine during the past two to three months alone.
Afghanistan has 38 Million People. Half are Going Hungry
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