Weds - How to Lose $600 Million in a Day. Mercedes Bends.

Ukraine Update

As Russia’s war in Ukraine dragged into a ninth month, its army’s weaknesses became clearer with an apparent reliance on Iranian support growing stronger.

Ukrainian civilians are brushing off attacks, widely understood to be carried out with Iranian-made Shahed-136 “suicide” drones despite Tehran’s insistence otherwise, and Ukrainian forces are taking more territory in the south and east.

Also this past week, Russian forces pummelled Bakhmut in the east, without breaking Ukraine’s defences.

In the Luhansk region, Ukrainian forces reportedly captured a highway linking Kreminna to Svatove, two towns unlocking the way to Starobilsk, a major logistics centre.

The efforts of Russian troops to retake the offensive in Kharkiv, where they recently lost more than 8,000 square kilometres (3,088 square miles) of ground, were ineffective. Ukrainian forces say they have now retaken 544 settlements in the region, with just 32 remaining under occupation.

It is Kherson, in the south, where Russian forces have reportedly amassed 45 battalion tactical groups, that the next major – and possibly pivotal – action is expected to be fought.

Russian forces mined crossings and bridges across the Dnieper River in expectation of a Ukrainian counterattack, according to Kyiv.

“Engineering and sapper units of the Russian occupying forces mine the [east bank of the Dnieper River], leaving small passages for a potential retreat of their troops from the right bank,” said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The staff said Russia had sent 2,000 newly mobilised personnel to supervise the evacuation of doctors, teachers and bankers from western Kherson.

Russia’s Tass news agency reported that Moscow’s forces were preparing Kherson city for street battles, as “authorities” evacuated doctors, teachers and bankers from the wider area.
................
Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces in the southern Kherson region is proving more difficult than it was in the northeast because of wet weather and the terrain, Ukraine’s defence minister has said.

Kyiv’s forces are piling pressure on Russian troops in the strategically important Kherson region, which has been partially occupied by Moscow since the start of its invasion, threatening Russian President Vladimir Putin with another big battlefield setback.

“First of all, the south of Ukraine is an agricultural region, and we have a lot of irrigation and water supply channels, and the Russians use them like trenches,” Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov told a news conference on Wednesday. “It’s more convenient for them.”

“The second reason is weather conditions. This is the rainy season, and it’s very difficult to use fighting carrier vehicles with wheels,” he said, adding that this reduced the options for Ukraine’s armed forces.

“The counteroffensive campaign in the Kherson direction is more difficult than in the Kharkiv direction,” he added.



Many of those who are the targets of this Russian outreach are the same Afghan soldiers who fought with the U.S. to remove the Taliban government and install the short-lived Republic that seemingly beat U.S. forces to the planes in an effort to get out of Kabul.

Somewhere north of 20,000 members of the Afghan National Army Commando Corps were left behind when the U.S. departed. These are the elite of the Afghan military, with U.S. training, familiarity with combined arms tactics, knowledge of U.S. systems, and long experience in fighting in harsh conditions.

Now, they are jobless and hopeless, many commandos still waiting for resettlement in the United States or Britain, making them easy targets for recruiters who understand the “band of brothers” mentality of highly skilled fighting men. This potentially makes them easy pickings for Russian recruiters, said Afghan security sources. A former senior Afghan security official, who requested anonymity, said their integration into the Russian military “would be a game-changer” on the Ukrainian battlefield, as Russian President Vladimir Putin struggles to recruit for his faltering war and is reportedly using the notorious mercenary Wagner Group to sign up prisoners.

Who Doesn't Hate Junk Fees?

The Biden administration announced new measures intended to crack down on so-called junk fees charged by banks and other companies as part of a wider effort to try to lower costs for Americans with the highest inflation in decades.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued new guidance on Wednesday making it illegal for banks to charge overdraft fees when at the time of purchase the bank website or ATM balance showed the customer had enough money in their account. The agency will also make it unlawful for banks to charge a fee to a customer who deposits a check that then bounces.

“Each year these junk fees that companies charge cost Americans tens of billions of dollars, weighing down family budgets and making it harder for people to pay the bills so my administration has taken action to eliminate these,” Biden said in remarks from the White House Wednesday.

In his remarks, the president also highlighted new rule requirements put into place last month on airlines and online travel websites to disclose fees for picking a seat, checking a bag and other add-ons fees.

Biden said his broader plan would tackle hidden hotel booking fees, termination charges put in place by cable and internet companies and other “surprise charges, the companies sneaking the bills because they can.”

Everette Stern Takes the High Road.  "Who is Everette Stern?", You Ask.

If you are like me you didn’t realize there was even a third party candidate running for Senate in PA. Well apparently there is. Everette Stern. Stern is a Republican who had intended to run in 2016 in the primary against Pat Toomey, before withdrawing. He also tried in the Republican primary this cycle before deciding to run as an independent.

Now, I don’t mean for my ignorance to belittle Stern, he just isn’t getting a lot of media coverage and I wasn’t following any of the candidates, except for Oz and Fetterman, so I hadn’t really heard of him. But, while he isn’t getting much media attention, what Stern is getting, is about 3% of the vote.

He was polling at 3% and dropped out because, he felt he was siphoning votes away from Fetterman which he felt puts our Democracy risk. Here is his statement:


This guy is a staunch conservative. Pro-gun, Anti-regulation etc. Apparently, he has some value for Democracy though. Here is to hoping his followers, follow his endorsement!

Today's New Word:  "Tripledemic"

As summer ended and the United States headed into the fall and winter, doctors were worried Americans would see a "twindemic" -- a situation in which both flu and COVID-19 spread at the same time.

But experts told ABC News the country may now be facing the threat of a "tripledemic" as doctors see an early rise in other pediatric respiratory viruses, particularly respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, respiratory illnesses are appearing earlier, and in more people, than in recent years.

The federal health agency says there has also been early increases in flu activity across most of the U.S. with indications that this season could be much more severe than the previous two seasons.

As of Monday afternoon, pediatric bed occupancy in the U.S. is the highest it's been in two years with 75% of the estimated 40,000 beds filled with patients, according to an ABC News analysis.

Desperately Seeking Tweeters

Twitter's "heavy tweeters" — who make up less than 10% of users but post 90% of the platform's tweets — are disappearing from the site, says an internal company research report, according to Reuters.

The internal report, titled: "Where did the Tweeters Go?," said heavy tweeters have been in "absolute decline" since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters' Sheila Dang wrote in an exclusive report on Tuesday.

It defines heavy tweeters as users who log in to Twitter six or seven days per week and tweet around three to four times per week, Reuters reported.

This dwindling population of active users generates half of Twitter's global revenue, the report added, per Reuters.