Monday, April 3, 2023

4/3 Wake-Up Call: Bakhmut Falls To The Russians


Fighting around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut remained "particularly hot", President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, giving no indication the city had finally fallen to Russia as claimed by the founder of the Wagner mercenary force. Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops, involved in a months-long effort to encircle and capture the bombed-out city, had raised a Russian flag on its administrative building.


 "From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western parts," Prigozhin said in video posted on his press service's Telegram account on Sunday. But there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut, a town of 70,000 before the Russian invasion launched over a year ago, had fallen into Russian hands. Prigozhin has previously made claims that were premature.

➤TRUMP FLIES TO NYC MONDAY: Former U.S. President Donald Trump is set to fly from Florida to New York City on Monday, ahead of his scheduled arraignment related to hush money paid to a porn star before the 2016 election, as security tightens in Manhattan. Trump, the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, is due to be arraigned, fingerprinted and photographed at the downtown Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday. His lawyers have said he will enter a plea of not guilty.  The specific charges included in the grand jury indictment have not been disclosed; Tuesday's arraignment marks Trump's first appearance in court and in front of a judge in the case. The Republican businessman-turned-politician plans to travel from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach midday on Monday, arriving later in the day in New York and spending the night at Trump Tower in Manhattan before arriving at the courthouse on Tuesday morning, an adviser said.

A court official said the arraignment is planned for 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Trump then will return to Florida and deliver remarks at Mar-a-Lago at 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday, his office said.

➤'NOT GUILTY': Donald Trump will plead not guilty when he appears in a Manhattan state court Tuesday to face criminal charges, his defense lawyer said.  “We will very loudly and proudly say ‘not guilty,’” Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said on an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg convened the grand jury in January to investigate Trump’s role in hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. The panel on Thursday voted to indict Trump but the charges remain under seal.  Tacopina said he believes Trump faces several misdemeanor charges and signaled a defense the former president is likely to launch, including assailing Bragg’s authority to bring state charges tied to a federal election. He said the payments were previously investigated by the Federal Election Commission and Justice Department which he said concluded there were “no violations.” 


🛢OIL PRICES SURGE: Oil surged at the week’s open after OPEC+ unexpectedly announced crude output cuts that threaten to tighten the market, delivering a fresh inflationary jolt to the world economy and irking the White House. West Texas Intermediate soared as much as 8%, the biggest intraday move in more than a year, and traded at $79.81 a barrel, while in wider markets the dollar advanced with Treasury yields. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia pledged on Sunday to make the cuts from next month that will exceed 1 million barrels a day, with Saudi Arabia leading the way with 500,000 barrels. Traders had expected OPEC+ to hold output steady. The shock move came outside the group’s scheduled timetable for reviewing the market and members’ supply.
➤BIDEN TO SKIP KING CHARLES' CORONATION AS HE IS 'TOO OLD' TO TRAVEL TO MUCH: U.S. President Joe Biden will not attend the coronation of King Charles next month due to claims of concerns that he is too old to travel across the Atlantic twice in a month, and wants instead to prioritize an April 11 trip to Northern Ireland. Biden is “not expected” to join dozens of heads of state for the event and will send a delegation featuring “high-profile representatives” in his place. First Lady Jill Biden may go, with her husband reportedly keen to avoid any sense the event is being snubbed.

➤FOUR DEAD, THREE INJURED AFTER WEEKEND SHOOTINGS AT BAR, PARKING LOT IN OKLAHOMA CITY: At least three people are dead and another three were injured after a shooting inside a southwest Oklahoma City bar Saturday night, police said.

Six people were shot inside the Whiskey Barrel Saloon about 9 p.m. Saturday night, police Lieutenant Jeff Cooper said. Three were pronounced dead inside the bar while three were transported to the hospital, one in critical condition and two with non-life threatening injuries.

➤WOUNDED MAN ARRESTED FOR DEFENDING HIMSELF: The Manhattan parking-garage worker who was initially hit with an attempted-murder rap for shooting an armed would-be thief wept as he lay handcuffed to his hospital bed Sunday, stunned at his fate. “I got bullets in me, and I’m chained to a hospital bed, but I didn’t do anything wrong,” Moussa Diarra, 57, lamented, according to Meyers Parking’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Carolan, who spoke to The Post.

Diarra was shot twice during a tussle with suspected thief Charles Rhodie at Carolan’s West 31st Street garage early Saturday before using the accused man’s weapon to shoot him back. Diarra was initially charged by cops in the case, including with criminal possession of a weapon for having Rhodie’s gun at one point, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office Sunday dropped the raps. Rhodie still faces charges including attempted murder. Before Diarra was cleared, he looked absolutely crestfallen in a photo at Bellevue Hospital.

➤LAYOFFS EXPECTED AT MICKEY D's HQ: McDonald's has temporarily shut down all of their U.S. offices as they prepare to deliver layoff messages online to an unknown number of their employees across the country. According to a new report from WSJ, the layoffs - part of a company restructuring - will begin Monday after they told employees to work from home so they can deliver layoffs virtually.  'During the week of April 3, we will communicate key decisions related to roles and staffing levels across the organization,' McDonald's officials said in a memo. The company in their email shared that they made the decision to announce cuts virtually due to an anticipated busy travel week. It's unclear at this time how many employees are set to be laid off, however, CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a January email there would be 'difficult discussions and decisions ahead.'

➤FETTERMAN TALKS ABOUT HIS DEPRESSION: Sen. John Fetterman in a Sunday interview opened up about the "downward spiral" that led him to seek treatment in February for clinical depression. 

John Fetterman
The first-term Pennsylvania Democrat, who was discharged from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday, told CBS "Sunday Morning" host Jane Pauley two days before returning home that even though he had won the hard-fought 2022 Senate race against Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, the depression that he experienced made him feel otherwise. "It's like, you just won the biggest race in the country," Fetterman said. "The whole thing about depression is that objectively, you may have won, but depression can absolutely convince you that you actually lost. And that's exactly what happened. And that was the start of a downward spiral." Fetterman revealed that between the November 2022 election and his swearing-in ceremony in January 2023, his depression began to accelerate. "I had stopped leaving my bed. I had stopped eating. I was dropping weight," he told Pauley.

➤MISSING 2-YEAR-OLD FOUND DEAD: The body of a 2-year-old Florida boy who had been missing since his mother was found slain Thursday was also discovered dead in the mouth of an alligator Friday, police said. Police were waiting for the medical examiner to examine the body of Taylen Mosley to determine the cause of death, St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway said Friday. However, Holloway said the boy's father, Thomas Mosley, 21, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the death of the boy’s mother, 20-year-old Pashun Jeffery, and their young son, Taylen. The department posted the news on its Facebook page. A frantic daylong search involving local, state and federal authorities including dive teams and officers using drones, had been ongoing since the boy's mother’s body was found stabbed to death in her St. Petersburg apartment Thursday afternoon.


➤WALKING 8,000 STEPS TWICE A WEEK COULD PROLONG YOUR LIFE, STUDY FINDS: Current recommendations urge Americans to get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise over the span of a week, and it makes sense to interpret that as needing to work out most days of the week. Now, a new study suggests you shouldn’t stress if you can only fit in a good fitness effort a few days a week, specifically 8,000 steps once or twice a week may suffice. A study published in JAMA analyzed data from 3,101 adults who wore an accelerometer for one week in 2005-2006 and tracked their step counts against their mortality data through 2019. The study found that people who walked 8,000 or more steps a day once or twice a week had lower mortality rates similar to those who walked that distance every day, and also had cardiovascular benefits. The researchers concluded that even occasional physical activity can be beneficial for health.

🏀LSU WINS CHAMPIONSHIP: Kim Mulkey returned home to Louisiana wanting to bring LSU its first basketball championship. The Hall of Fame coach did just that in only her second year at the school. Her Tigers used a record offensive performance to beat Caitlin Clark and Iowa 102-85 on Sunday and win the first basketball title, men’s or women’s, in school history. 

“I turn around and look at the Final Four banners (in the home arena), nowhere did it say national champion,” Mulkey said. “That’s what I came home to do.” The victory made Mulkey the first women’s coach to win national titles at two different schools. She won three at Baylor before leaving for LSU two years ago. “Coaches coach a lifetime and this is the fourth time I’ve been blessed,” Mulkey said. “Never in the history of LSU basketball, men or women, has (anybody) ever played for a championship.”

🏀LSU PLAYED CRITICIZED FOR TAUNTING: LSU’s Angel Reese waved her hand in front of her face while staring down Caitlin Clark, then pointed toward her finger as if to say a ring was coming while walking toward the Iowa star. The gestures late in the Tigers’ 102-85 victory in the NCAA championship game Sunday lit up social media, with comments supporting the “Bayou Barbie” for trash talk that’s just part of the game and condemning her for lacking grace in victory. The bubbly junior from Baltimore, who transferred from Maryland to join flamboyant LSU coach Kim Mulkey, was unapologetic in the postgame news conference. “All year, I was critiqued about who I was,” Reese said. “I don’t fit in a box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. But when other people do it, y’all say nothing. So this was for the girls that look like me, that’s going to speak up on what they believe in. It’s unapologetically you.”

⚾ANTHONY RENDON 'CAN'T COMMENT' ON ALTERCATION AMID MLB INQUIRY: Anthony Rendon wasn't very talkative Saturday, two days after video surfaced of the Los Angeles Angels All-Star swiping at an Oakland fan following an Opening Day loss to the Athletics. "I'm sorry. I can't comment," the third baseman told reporters Saturday during a news conference on the field at the Oakland Coliseum that lasted fewer than five minutes. Rendon was removed from the lineup in the bottom of the sixth inning on Saturday after running into a rolled-up tarp in foul territory earlier in the game.

🏀GREGG POPOVICH, DIRK NOWITZKI, DWYANE WADE INTO HALL OF FAME: The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame made it official Saturday, three of the NBA's all-time international greats, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker and Pau Gasol, joining Dwyane Wade, Becky Hammon and Gregg Popovich as the headliners of the 2023 class that will be enshrined on Aug. 11 and 12 at ceremonies in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

⚾SAN DIEGO PADRES SIGN JAKE CRONENWORTH TO 7-YEAR EXTENSION: Jake Cronenworth has signed a seven-year extension with the San Diego Padres through the 2030 season, the team announced Saturday. The extension, which begins next season and buys out five free agent seasons, is worth $80 million. Cronenworth was set to become a free agent after the 2025 season. He will make $4.23 million this year, his first as an arbitration-eligible player.

🏀NBA, NBPA AGREE ON NEW 7-YEAR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT: The NBA and National Basketball Players Association have reached agreement on a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement, promising labor peace through the rest of the decade. The tentative deal, which starts with the 2023-24 season, was announced by the league and union and is expected to be ratified by league governors and players in the coming weeks. The deal includes a mutual opt-out after the sixth year.

➤WICKED TORNADOS BRING DEATH: At least 30 people are dead after powerful tornadoes ripped through parts of the Midwest and South over the weekend. Confirmed or suspect tornadoes in 11 states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees and laid waste to neighborhoods on Friday night. It could take days to make a count of all the tornadoes from recent days. Among the five dead in Indiana are Brett Kincaid, 53, and Wendy Kincaid, 47, from Rossville, Indiana, whose bodies were found at the McCormick's Creek State Park campground, where they had been camping, multiple local news outlets reported. Thirteen deaths were reported in Tennessee, where an EF-2 tornado tore through several counties, according to the National Weather field office in Nashville.



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