The Full Belmonte, 3/12/2022
An explosion yesterday after a Russian tank fired on an apartment building in Mariupol, Ukraine.Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
“Russia widened its bombardment of Ukrainian cities and hit civilian targets including a shoe factory, a psychiatric hospital and an apartment building.” Read more at New York Times
“Devastating economic sanctions from the U.S. and its allies haven't stopped Russia's assault on Ukraine, which resulted in damage to another hospital — this time a cancer hospital in the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian officials reported Saturday. Several hundred patients were in the hospital during the attack but no one was killed, according to the hospital’s head doctor, Maksim Beznosenko. Several residential buildings in that city also were damaged from shelling from heavy artillery. Ukraine's emergency services also reported Saturday that the bodies of five people were pulled from an apartment building that was struck by shelling in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, including two women, a man and two children. Russia also appears to be regrouping from recent losses and possibly gearing up for operations against Kyiv, Ukraine's capital city. Fighting has intensified close to Kyiv, where doctors are bracing for the prospect of widespread casualties from war.” Read more at USA Today
“Russian forces’ size makes them less mobile and more open to attack.” Read more at New York Times
“The invasion has transformed Europe’s trains into a network that carries supplies into Ukraine and residents out.” Read more at New York Times
“Western leaders said they would end normal trade relations with Russia and take other steps to isolate it from the world economy.” Read more at New York Times
“Money helped the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich secure elite status in the West. Now it has made him a target.” Read more at New York Times
“A late-winter storm was forecast to dump snow and other precipitation from Tennessee to Maine today.” Read more at New York Times
“A judge ordered Texas officials to stop investigating parents of transgender children for possible child abuse.” Read more at New York Times
“The Texas Supreme Court on Friday effectively shut down a federal challenge to the state’s novel and controversial ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, closing off what abortion rights advocates said was their last, narrow path to blocking the new law.
The decision was the latest in a line of blows to the constitutional right to abortion that has prevailed for five decades.
The Texas law, which several states are attempting to copy, puts enforcement in the hands of civilians. It offers the prospect of $10,000 rewards for successful lawsuits against anyone — from an Uber driver to a doctor — who ‘aids or abets’ a woman who gets an abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected.
It is the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, and flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which prohibits states from banning the procedure before a fetus is viable outside the womb, which is currently about 23 weeks of pregnancy.” Read more at New York Times
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is emerging as a serious test for Donald Trump and his ‘America First’ approach to the world, as rising public support in the U.S. for the effort to counter Moscow threatens to undermine a key pillar of the former president’s political brand.
Trump’s long-held grievances about NATO and other multinational partnerships – grievances that came to define the modern GOP’s approach to foreign policy – have suddenly put him out of step with many in his party, who have begun calling for the U.S. to take a more active leadership role in the crisis in Ukraine.
At the same time, his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn rare bipartisan criticism, with even former Vice President Mike Pencespeaking out against ‘apologists for Putin’ within the GOP. Others have also struck a more hawkish tone. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said last week, for instance, that deploying U.S. ground forces to Ukraine shouldn’t be taken ‘off the table.’
The rhetoric marks a rare break between Republicans and a former president who has maintained a vise-like grip over GOP orthodoxy and ideology since first clinching the party’s presidential nomination in 2016. And as he eyes another bid for the White House in 2024, the shifting sentiment on the United States’ role in the world could pose a challenge for Trump.” Read more at The Hill
“PHILADELPHIA — House Democrats planned a retreat here this week hoping for a reset after a difficult period during which President Biden has been buffeted by rising gas prices, soaring inflation and sagging approval ratings.
Instead, they arrived in buses in the middle of the night after the president’s latest coronavirus aid package collapsed in Congress late Wednesday, a grim reminder that his legislative agenda has stalled on Capitol Hill as they head into a midterm election season in which they are bracing for big losses.
One year to the day after the enactment of Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan — a law that remains broadly popular even if the president, at the moment, is not — Democrats are toiling to retool their message and refocus their agenda. They are worried that the accomplishments they helped deliver to Mr. Biden are being drowned out by concern over the rising price of gas and a focus on their legislative failures.
And they are looking to the president, who addressed them at the retreat on Friday, to help them reframe the conversation.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — American officials are examining the ownership of a $700 million superyacht currently in a dry dock at an Italian seacoast town, and believe it could be associated with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to multiple people briefed on the information.
United States intelligence agencies have made no final conclusions about the ownership of the superyacht — called the Scheherazade — but American officials said they had found initial indications that it was linked to Mr. Putin. The information from the U.S. officials came after The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Italian authorities were looking into the 459-foot long vessel’s ownership and that a former crew member said it was for the use of Mr. Putin.
People briefed on the intelligence would not describe what information they had that indicated the superyacht is associated with Mr. Putin. If American officials know whether or how often Mr. Putin uses the yacht, the people briefed on the information would not share it.
American officials said Mr. Putin kept little of his wealth in his own name. Instead he uses homes and boats nominally owned by Russian oligarchs. Still, it is possible that through various shell companies, Mr. Putin could have more direct control of the Scheherazade.” Read more at New York Times
“BRUSSELS — Russian demands that a revised nuclear agreement with Iran shield it from sanctions imposed because of its war in Ukraine halted efforts to revive the deal on Friday, just as negotiators said they had all but finalized the agreement.
The breakdown in talks delays any prospect of a deal, and risks scuttling it entirely, allowing Iran to move closer to the ability to build a nuclear bomb.
More immediately, the lack of a deal also delays the resumption of Iran’s ability to sell oil on the world market, which Western countries hoped would ease soaring energy prices.
For 11 months, negotiators have been working to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement, which placed important limits on Iran’s nuclear program and lifted punishing economic sanctions on Iran imposed by the United States.” Read more at New York Times
“Alec Baldwin is seeking to avoid liability in the fatal ‘Rust’ shooting.” Read more at New York Times
“HOUSTON — Deshaun Watson, the 26-year-old N.F.L. quarterback who has been accused by two dozen women of sexual misconduct during massage appointments, will not be criminally charged in Houston, a grand jury decided Friday.
The district attorney’s office in Harris County, Texas, presented evidence to the 12-person grand jury for over six hours on Friday related to nine of the 10 criminal complaints filed against Watson last year, which described a range of actions including his exposing himself, purposely touching therapists’ hands with his penis and sexual assault.
The grand jury rejected all nine cases — Harris County prosecutors did not present the tenth — indicating it did not believe the evidence presented by prosecutors had shown probable cause to support criminal charges.
‘We respect the grand jury’s decision,’ said Johna Stallings, division chief of the adult sex crimes and human trafficking unit at the Harris County District Attorney’s office. ‘We will conclude the criminal proceedings in Harris County.’” Read more at New York Times
“Disney’s C.E.O. said it was ‘opposed’ to Florida’s bill banning classroom discussion about sexual orientation after criticism of the company’s previous silence.” Read more at New York Times
“Chowhound, a digital gathering place for obsessive food lovers, will close after 25 years.” Read more at New York Times
Baylor won the men’s national basketball championship last year.Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports
“College basketball’s big weekend: Over the next two days, dozens of men’s and women’s college basketball teams will play in their conference championship games. The stakes are high: Winning means automatic entry into the N.C.A.A. tournament. For smaller schools, it’s often the only route to March Madness, so expect intense games — and, with luck, a few buzzer beaters. Tournament games begin at 11 a.m. Eastern today and air on ESPN, CBS, Fox and Fox Sports. They conclude with the announcements of the N.C.A.A. brackets tomorrow evening.” Read more at New York Times
“Rusty Mae Moore, a transgender educator and activist who housed numerous transgender people in the 1990s and 2000s in her Brooklyn home, a de facto shelter that became known as Transy House, died on Feb. 23 at her home in Pine Hill, N.Y., in the Catskills. She was 80.
Her wife, Chelsea Goodwin, said the cause was cardiovascular complications.
Ms. Moore, a longtime professor of international business, was a fixture in New York City’s transgender community. After she transitioned in the early 1990s, she purchased a rowhouse in the Park Slope neighborhood, where she sheltered up to a dozen people at a time who would have otherwise been homeless.
Among them were Sylvia Rivera, herself an important figure in New York’s transgender history, who stayed with Ms. Moore for more than a decade, taking on a motherly role by doling out wisdom, advice and loans to other residents.
Transy House was modeled after a shelter that Ms. Rivera had run with Marsha P. Johnson in the 1970s through their organization Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, first in a trailer truck in Greenwich Village and later in a former tenement building in the East Village.” Read more at New York Times
Elsa Klensch, who for two decades produced and hosted the fashion news program ‘Style With Elsa Klensch’ on CNN, becoming one of the cable channel’s early stars, died on March 4 at her home in Manhattan. She was 89.
The death was confirmed by her friend and lawyer Jayne Kurzman.
Ms. Klensch’s weekly show made its debut in 1980 — on the same day the Cable News Network first went on the air — offering pioneering coverage of designers, models and haute couture runway shows for a mass television audience.
With her signature bob and distinctive Australian accent — she grew up in Australia — she became a familiar figure, reporting from London, Paris, New York and Milan with interviews and video of runway collections. She attended thousands of shows for CNN, and designers like Marc Jacobs, Carolina Herrera, Anna Sui, Karl Lagerfeld and Miuccia Prada appeared regularly on her program.” Read more at New York Times