Wed: Democrats Win! Democrats Win!

Dying for Putin

Russia's military death toll in Ukraine has now passed the 50,000 mark, the BBC can confirm.

In the second 12 months on the front line - as Moscow pushed its so-called meat grinder strategy - we found the body count was nearly 25% higher than in the first year.

BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022.

New graves in cemeteries helped provide the names of many soldiers.

Our teams also combed through open-source information from official reports, newspapers and social media.

More than 27,300 Russian soldiers died in the second year of combat - according to our findings - a reflection of how territorial gains have come at a huge human cost.

Letting the Terrorists Win.

Earlier this month, the University of Southern California announced that Asna Tabassum would be the Class of 2024′s valedictorian, with a 3.98 GPA and in recognition of her community service and leadership skills. She is graduating with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in resistance to genocide.

But on Monday, USC canceled the speech.

In an announcement dated Monday, Provost Andrew Guzman said the “intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East” has “created substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.”

“After careful consideration, we have decided that our student valedictorian will not deliver a speech at commencement. While this is disappointing, tradition must give way to safety,” he wrote. “This decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech. There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement. The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period.”

What If UCLA Invited Her to Speak at the UCLA Graduation?

Speaking of Ways to Bleed Money ...

Tesla has asked shareholders to vote again on Elon Musk's enormous pay package, which was previously overturned by a court.

The carmaker announced its plans for another vote in a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

"Because the Delaware Court second-guessed your decision, Elon has not been paid for any of his work for Tesla for the past six years that has helped to generate significant growth and stockholder value," the proxy statement reads.

It adds: "That strikes us — and the many stockholders from whom we already have heard — as fundamentally unfair, and inconsistent with the will of the stockholders who voted for it."

Tesla said that when 73% of shareholders voted for the pay package in 2018, it was a "big risk" targeting "unprecedented growth."

But in January, a Delaware judge sided with a Tesla shareholder who argued in a lawsuit that Musk's pay package was excessive.

Who Makes These Things?  Boeing?

Less than two weeks after Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was destroyed by an out-of-control cargo ship, another huge container ship passed beneath a busy bridge connecting New York and New Jersey and then suddenly decelerated in a narrow artery of one of the nation’s largest ports.

“We’re a dead ship,” said a voice over the maritime radio a short time later, invoking an industry term that often refers to a ship that is unable to move on it own.

Three tug boats helped shepherd the APL Qingdao — a vessel more than 1,100 feet long and flying under the flag of Malta — from where it lost propulsion near the Bayonne Bridge to a safe location, authorities said. The ship dropped anchor just upstream from the even busier Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, which carries about 200,000 vehicles per day.

The April 5 incident is one of hundreds in which massive cargo ships lost propulsion, many near bridges and ports, according to a Washington Post analysis of Coast Guard records.

The findings indicate that the kind of failure that preceded the March 26 Baltimore bridge collapse — the 984-foot Dali is believed to have lost the ability to propel itself forward as it suffered a more widespread power outage — was far from a one-off among the increasingly large cargo ships that routinely sail close to critical infrastructure.

Hundreds of cargo ships lost propulsion in U.S. waters in recent years

A Once Proud US Comany is Now the Butt of Jokes. Sad!