Friday, March 10, 2023

Wake-Up Call: Ukranian Defense Of Bakhmut Holds


Russia's first missile blitz on Ukrainian cities in weeks was met with defiance and disgust over the targeting of civilians, while Ukrainian forces defending the eastern town of Bakhmut continued to thwart Russian attempts to break through. The pre-dawn barrage on Thursday killed at least nine civilians and cut electricity supplies in several cities, but there was relief that the risk of a catastrophic meltdown at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was averted as power was restored after a temporary disconnection from the Ukrainian grid.

Ukraine said its air defenses shot down many drones and missiles during the wave of attacks, but said the Russian forces also fired six Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missiles, which they have no way to stop. Moscow confirmed it had used hypersonic Kinzhal - Russian for dagger - missiles in Thursday's attack. The mass strikes on targets far from the front were the first such wave since mid-February, breaking a lull in the air campaign against Ukraine's civil infrastructure that Russia launched five months ago.

The missiles killed villagers in the western Lviv region, and closer to the frontline in the central Dnipro region, while Russian artillery also killed at least three people in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Moscow says such hits are intended to reduce Ukraine's ability to fight. Kyiv says the air strikes have no military purpose and aim to harm and intimidate civilians, a war crime.


On the battlefield, the week has seen an apparent shift as Ukraine has decided to fight on in Bakhmut, a town that has borne the brunt of a Russian winter offensive in the bloodiest fighting of the war. Moscow says Bakhmut is important as a step to securing the surrounding Donbas region, a major war aim. The West says the ruined city has little value and Russian forces are sacrificing lives to give Putin his only victory since sending hundreds of thousands of reservists into battle at the end of last year.

➤JOE'S GOT PLANS TO SPEND YOUR MONEY: President Joe Biden’s spending blueprint touted his ideas to shrink the budget deficit but couldn’t erase the harsh arithmetic of government debt: It’s going to get worse. His record so far is partially a mirage rather than a signal of a strong balance sheet: the $1.7 trillion reduction in the annual deficit under Biden is relative to extraordinary one-time costs of the pandemic, and many of his legislative accomplishments have expanded the shortfall.

The proposals include:
  • A 28% corporate income tax, which reverses a tax cut made during the Trump years.
  • A “billionaire minimum tax” of 25% on households with a net worth of more than $100 million.
  • A top tax rate of 39.6% on individuals making more than $400,000 a year and couples earning more than $450,000. That’s another reversal of a Trump-era tax break.
  • An elimination of tax breaks for oil and gas companies.
  • An increase in the capital gains tax rate for those with incomes above a million dollars a year.
The proposal is something of an opening salvo. Budget Director Shalanda Young called it “the start of a healthy dialogue.”

The budget Biden unveiled Thursday would trim $3 trillion from deficits over the next decade — but has little chance of being adopted by Congress. And the president’s own budget projections would see the deficit increasing next year, from $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion. The gross federal debt would swell from $33 trillion this year to $51 trillion after a decade. His administration has jabbed Republicans for having not yet disclosed their own plan as calls grow for bipartisan action to address the gaps. 


Joe Biden's budget text was heavy on words such as 'equity', 'transgender' and 'queer', but less focused on topics such as 'border', 'opioids' and 'fentanyl'. 'Equity', a key focus, was mentioned in the context of racial equity, equal access to healthcare, and equity for veterans. The language audit by Fox News has sparked criticism from some conservatives that Biden continues to be led by the most progressive elements of his White House cabinet. 

➤JOBLESS CLAIMS JUMP: Initial jobless claims saw the biggest week-to-week increase since early October. The proxy for layoffs grew by 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 last week, the Labor Department said. Despite the jump, worker filings for unemployment benefits remained historically low, as demand for labor outpaces the number of job hunters. Meanwhile, more employed people might soon enjoy on-site daycare, thanks to new government incentives and companies’ desire to attract and retain talent. Fewer than 6% of employers offer it at or near their workplaces, according to a recent survey. Working parents feel the sting of the daycare-worker shortage that became acute during the Covid-19 pandemic.

➤VA GOVERNOR WANTS PARENTS AT THE TABLE: Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, said “parents deserve to have the head seat at the table,” as he headlined a town hall on education, an issue that has resonated with Republican voters. “There’s a basic rule here — children belong to parents, not to the state, not to schools, not to bureaucrats, but to parents, Youngkin said on CNN on Thursday night and is regarded as among the rising stars in the Republican party, appeared to enjoy discussing his favorite issue.  Education debates played a central role in his upset Virginia gubernatorial victory against former Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, in 2021. In that campaign, Youngkin touted his “parents’ choice” agenda as he sought to harness anger with local school boards over pandemic-related school closures, teachings about race, and the rights of transgender children. Those issues have been embraced by other Republicans seizing on cultural and social issues, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to run in 2024.

➤TRUMP LIKELY TO FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES OVER PORN STAR PAYOFF: The Manhattan district attorney’s office has sent a signal to ex-President Trump that it is likely to indict him on criminal charges related to a payment of hush money to a porn star with whom he allegedly had an affair, according to a report in The New York Times. The signal was an offer to testify next week before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence. New York law gives defendants the right to answer questions before they are indicted.Trump responded to the news with a furious Tweet, condemning the investigation as “simply insane.”

➤ANOTHER NORFOLK SOUTHERN TRAIN DERAILS: Another Norfolk Southern train went off the rails in Alabama yesterday, hours before the company’s CEO was to appear before Congress to answer questions about the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. In the latest incident, some 37 train cars came off the tracks in Piedmont, Alabama. Local officials said there were no injuries and no reports of leaks of hazardous materials. In his testimony, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw said that he was “deeply sorry” for the train derailment in East Palestine but he did not commit the company to pay for long-term damage to the community or endorse tougher rail safety legislation.

➤IGER ADMITS PARK PRICE GOUGING: Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted Disney had been charging customers too much at its parks. He said the company had been so focused on growing profits it forgot its fanbase. Some of those rip-offs included the park's top access tickets being hiked to $244 for a single day's pass - a ticket which in 2017 cost just $124. Iger said his focus was going to be on cost cutting measures at Disney to make it more affordable for customers, and announced a plan to reorganize the company and find $5billion in savings. Part of that plan is to cut 7,000 jobs.

➤CARTEL 'APOLOGIZES' FOR DEATH OF AMERICANS: A Mexican cartel has turned over five of its members who kidnapped four Americans - including two who were murdered - and also shot dead an innocent bystander in the northern border city of Matamoros last Friday. The five purported members of the Gulf Cartel's Scorpions Group armed wing were found by security forces tied up and dumped next to a SUV on a Matamoros street. The criminal organization apologized to the families of the victims for the broad daylight assault that shook the border town across from Brownsville, Texas.

✞ACTOR ROBERT BLAKE DIES: Robert Blake has died at the age of 89 after a battle with heart disease, according to his family. Blake worked for more than 60 years in Hollywood, starring in classics like Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Humphrey Bogart and In Cold Blood with John Forsythe. But his career derailed in the early 2000s when he was charged with the murder of his wife Bonny Lee Bakley, along with solicitation of murder, conspiracy and special circumstances of lying in wait. A jury, though, found him not guilt of soliciting a former stuntman to kill his spouse, and her murder remains unsolved.

➤KAEPERNICK WHINES ABOUT HIS WHITE PARENTS: Kaepernick was adopted as an infant by Rick and Teresa Kaepernick, a white couple from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. They moved to California when he was four. They had two biological children but lost two sons to congenital heart defects. Kaepernick - a former NFL player who led the charge with the take-a-knee movement - says that while he knew they 'loved him', there were 'very problematic things' that he 'went through'. Speaking to CBS to promote his new graphic comic memoir, Kaepernick gave the example of his mother telling him corn rows were not professional.

➤MOM, DAUGHTERS AWARDED $8M+: A black mother and her two daughters from Las Vegas were awarded $8.25 million in damages after a jury found they were detained unlawfully by two white deputies on suspicion of car theft. Aasylei Loggervale was traveling with her daughters Aaottae, then 17, and 19-year-old Aasylei Hardege-Loggervale in September 2019 when they stopped at the Castro Valley Starbucks. The trio were en route to Berkeley City College, where one of the teenagers was due to sit a math test. They stopped for coffee and a rest, and were confronted by two Alameda County deputies, Steven Holland and Monica Pope - both of whom were white.

➤COLLEGE ENROLLMENT DROPS: Students are electing to avoid college in the hundreds of thousands since before the pandemic, with many electing to take hourly jobs amid fears of tuition and debt. What first looked like a pandemic blip has turned into a crisis. Nationwide, undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022, with declines even after returning to in-person classes , according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse. The slide in the college-going rate since 2018 is the steepest on record, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

➤RUSH'S 'SOUTHERN COMMAND' SOLD: Rush Limbaugh’s widow, Kathryn Adams Limbaugh, has sold her husband’s longtime Florida compound of 20-plus years for a whopping $155 million. This marks a record for the Palm Beach area, which has seen a slew of of big-time deals in the past few years, according to the Wall Street Journal. Comprising 2.7 acres, the waterfront property was quietly shopped off the market for the past eight months. Limbaugh bought the homes back in 1998 for $3.9 million when he was married to his third wife, Marta Fitzgerald. Kathryn, his fourth and final wife, met Limbaugh in 2004. But Limbaugh never had children. Kathryn, 46, married Limbaugh in 2010 in a lavish Hawaiian-themed wedding bash headlined by none other than Sir Elton John.


🏀GEORGETOWN FIRES PATRICK EWING: Georgetown has fired men’s basketball head coach Patrick Ewing after six years as head coach of the team that gave him his start. The firing came shortly after Georgetown was defeated 80-48 by Villanova in the first round of the Big East Tournament this week. Georgetown was 6-25 in 2022 and finished this season with a 2-18 Big East record. Ewing is an 11-time NBA All-Star, mainly while playing for the New York Knicks.CHECK IT OUT: Click here for this weekend’s Big Ten Tournament schedule from CBS Sports.

🎾EMMA RADUCANU BATTLES BACK: Former U.S. Open women's tennis champion Emma Raducanu defeated Danka Kovinic 6-2, 6-3 yesterday at the Indian Wells tournament. That gets her to the second round of the BNP Paribas Open. Raducanu had to sit out a couple of recent events due to tonsilitis and wrist pain.

🏀SUNS’ KEVIN DURANT COULD BE OUT FOR THE SEASON: Kevin Durant of the Phoenix Suns didn’t just miss this week’s NBA match against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He could miss the rest of the regular season due to an ankle sprain suffered during a workout on Wednesday. He is expected to be reevaluated two weeks from now.

🏀BRITTNEY GRINER’S WNBA RETURN TO AIR ON ESPN: Brittney Griner will return to the WNBA with the Phoenix Mercury in two upcoming games, both to be broadcast live on ESPN. The Mercury and the Los Angeles Sparks face off on May 19 in Los Angeles. The team’s home opener against the Chicago Sky is set for May 21. Griner, a seven-time All-Star, spent the 2022 season imprisoned in Russia before being freed in a prisoner exchange.

➤MORE WEATHER WOES FOR CALI: Heavy rains and damaging winds swept into California as the first of two back-to-back atmospheric rivers brought the renewed threat of flooding and mudslides to a state already battered by deadly winter storms. Thursday’s storm will likely be followed Monday by another atmospheric river, a weather system that delivers a focused plume of moisture off the ocean. And long-range forecasts suggest two more could strike California later this month, State Climatologist Michael Anderson said Thursday.  The storms arrive even as parts of the state continue digging out from heavy snows that trapped many mountain residents in their homes. Thursday’s atmospheric river, drawing warm Pacific air from south of Hawaii, will melt some of that snow, raising flooding risks. Officials this week increased the amount of water being released from foothill reservoirs to make room and warned residents to keep a close eye on local conditions.



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