The Full Belmonte, 4/4/2022
A soldier snaps a comrade posing with a destroyed Russian tank in Bucha, Ukraine, yesterday. Photo: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
“Russia retreated from Kyiv, leaving evidence of what Ukraine is calling a civilian massacre — and numerous European officials called atrocities that should be investigated as war crimes.
News photos show unarmed Ukrainians — a threat to no one — strewn in the street, shot dead with their hands bound.
On CBS' ‘Face the Nation,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced what he called the effort to eliminate ‘the whole nation,’ and said: ‘This is genocide.’
‘We are citizens of Ukraine and we don't want to be subdued,’ he told Margaret Brennan. ‘This is the reason we are being destroyed and exterminated. And this is happening in the Europe of the 21st century.’
The big picture: Ukraine says its forces have retaken all areas around the capital, reclaiming complete control of the region for the first time since Russia invaded on Feb 24, Reuters reports.
Ukrainian servicemen check streets for booby traps in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Photo: Vadim Ghirda/AP
Ukrainian troops used cables to pull the bodies of some civilians off streets, for fear Russian forces left them booby-trapped. (AP)
You're going to hear a lot about Bucha: The mayor of Bucha, a town 20 miles outside the capital, said 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army. Reuters saw victims in a mass grave and still lying on the streets.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken told Dana Bash on CNN's ‘State of the Union’ that the Bucha images are ‘a punch to the gut. ... [W]e’ve come out and said that we believe that Russian forces have committed war crimes and we've been working to document that.’
Europe unites on ‘war crimes’: U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Russia's ‘indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians ... must be investigated as war crimes.’
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN this is ‘brutality against civilians’ not seen in Europe for decades.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted today that the images emerging from Bucha are ‘unbearable.’ ‘Those responsible for these war crimes must be held accountable,’ she added in another tweet.
Watch video of Zelensky.” Read more at Axios
FILE - Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson smiles as Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., arrives for a meeting in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 31, 2022. Democrats are launching a whirlwind of votes and Senate floor action Monday with the goal of confirming Judge Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court by the end of the week. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are launching a whirlwind of votes and Senate floor action Monday with the goal of confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court by the end of the week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee kicks off Monday morning with a vote on whether to move Jackson’s nomination to the Senate floor. Democrats will then wind the nomination through the 50-50 Senate, with a final vote in sight for President Joe Biden’s pick to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
After more than 30 hours of hearings and interrogation from Republicans over her record, Jackson is on the brink of making history as the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court’s more than 200-year history. Democrats — and at least one Republican — tout her deep experience in her nine years on the federal bench and the chance to for her to become the first former public defender on the court.” Read more at AP News
“COVID hospitalizations in the U.S. have plunged to their lowest levels for the first time since comprehensive national data became available, AP reports:
The average number of Americans hospitalized with COVID in the past week nationwide dropped to 11,860 on Friday — the lowest since 2020, and a steep decline from the peak of 145,000+, set in mid-January.
The previous low was 12,041 last June, before Delta took hold.
Some hospitals are going days without a single COVID-19 patient in the ICU for the first time since early 2020.
Reality check: Another wave is coming (Omicron subvariant BA.2).
Headline from London yesterday: ‘UK hits record COVID-19 levels; nearly 5 million infected.’
One of the top trending stories on The New York Times this weekend is: ‘A New Wave of Covid-19 Is Coming. Here’s How to Prepare’
Spoiler: Watch stats on your area rather than wait for official warnings ... stock up on tests and masks ... get boosted ... get a pulse oximeter (available on Amazon).” Read more at Axios
“Federal Covid-19 funds are drying up across the US, making it tougher for uninsured Americans to get access to the free resources they need to help fight the virus. Many will now have to shell out money to get a coronavirus test or receive treatment if they are sick due to the looming end of the federal program that reimburses pharmacies, clinics, doctors, hospitals and other providers for testing and treating uninsured patients. The program specifically stopped accepting new claims last week due to insufficient funds and will stop taking new claims for vaccinating the uninsured beginning tomorrow, officials said. Several industry groups representing providers are urging lawmakers to revive the effort, especially as cases of the BA.2 subvariant rise in Europe and Asia.” Read more at CNN
“SACRAMENTO — After more than two years of empty streets and withering commerce, California’s capital city seemed to be getting back to its pre-pandemic self this weekend. Thousands turned out for a concert at the downtown Golden 1 Center featuring Tyler, the Creator, and crowds filled the nearby bars, spilling into the spring night.
In an explosion of violence with echoes across the country,however, that buoyant mood was shattered early Sunday with a barrage of gunfire as revelers were leaving nightclubs. At least six people were killed and at least 12 were wounded in the largest mass shooting in Sacramento history, authorities said.
The mass shooting, which appeared to span a two-square-block area of downtown Sacramento not far from the Capitol building, happened shortly after 2 a.m., as clubs closed.
Chief of Police Kathy Lester — a veteran of the force who was sworn into office just two weeks ago, promising to make gun violence a priority — said it was unclear what had led to the violence.” Read more at New York Times
“Police are also working to uncover details from a shooting that occurred at a concert in Dallas on Saturday that left one person dead and at least 10 others wounded. On the same day, a shooting at a Virginia mall also left one person dead and two others injured. Investigations for all of these recent shootings are ongoing.” Read more at CNN
“Jury selection begins Monday for Parkland school shooter’s death-penalty trial. Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty in October to murdering 17 people and the attempted murder of 17 others. Under Florida law, the 23-year-old now faces a separate jury trial to determine whether he is sentenced to death or given life in prison without the possibility of parole.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Former president Donald Trump on Sunday endorsed Sarah Palin for Alaska’s lone congressional seat, throwing his weight behind the ex-governor who embraced Trump before he came to dominate the GOP.
Palin announced Friday that she is running for the seat vacated by Republican Rep. Don Young, who died last month after representing Alaska for nearly a half-century. Trump’s approval could boost the former vice-presidential candidate’s standing in a field of more than 50 candidates.” Read more at Washington Post
“An Ohio appeals court on Thursday upheld a 2019 ruling where Oberlin College must pay nearly $32 million in response to a lawsuit, filed by the owners of a nearby bakery, alleging that college administrators had disrupted their business by supporting student protests based in unfounded accusations of racism following a shoplifting incident and subsequent scuffle.
The 2016 arrest of three Black students outside Gibson’s Bakery led to charges of racism from Oberlin students who, days removed from the election of former President Donald Trump, surrounded the bakery and urged people not to enter.
The college, in support of student activists, suspended its relationship with the longstanding bakery. It stopped purchasing goods from the storefront for a month after the incident and supported student activists who told shoppers to take their money elsewhere. At least one administrator attended the protests at which fliers were distributed that accused the bakery of a history of racism. The college’s Student Senate passed a resolution calling for a boycott of the store, and college leaders said in an email that they were ‘grateful’ for the determination of the students.
The students who were arrested pleaded guilty to charges that didn’t carry jail time on the condition that they state in court that the actions of the member of the Gibson family who chased one of the students out of the store weren’t racially motivated.
The shop’s owners said their business had suffered, and they sued the college for defamation. ‘We’re going to send a message not only to this school but to all schools that we expect you to be the adult in the room,’ said Lee Plankas, lead lawyer for the Gibsons, when he argued their case in 2017. He claimed that Oberlin saw a business opportunity in appealing to leftist students. The college disputed that charge, arguing that much of the speech at issue was protected by the First Amendment, and that the college wasn’t the “publisher.”
In 2019, Lorain County Judge John Miraldi ruled against Oberlin and ordered the college to pay more than $40 million in damages. That figure was later reduced to $25 million in addition to $6.2 million for lawyer fees.
In Thursday’s ruling, Ohio’s Ninth District Court of Appeals agreed with the prior ruling. Among other things, it cited evidence suggesting that an administrator had helped distribute at least one of the fliers that accused the shop of racism. It also cited ‘the active role that Oberlin played in the publication of the Senate Resolution’ that called for the boycott.” Read more at Chronicle of Higher Education
“A prosecutor urged jurors Friday to convict four men in a plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying they were anti-government extremists ‘filled with rage’ and intent on touching off a civil war in the final weeks of the polarizing 2020 general election. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler summed up the evidence on the 15th day of trial, tracing the group's secretly recorded words as well as testimony from agents, an extraordinary informant and two star witnesses who pleaded guilty. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, panned the government's case: One said the men were turned into ‘terrorists’ by rogue investigators, while another pleaded with jurors to put the brakes on the FBI. After listening to hours of closing arguments, the weary jury said its deliberations would start Monday. Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta – who were arrested in October 2020 – are charged with conspiracy to kidnap. Three of them also face charges related to weapons.” Read more at USA Today
“SACRAMENTO — After the governor of Texas ordered state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide certain medical treatments to their transgender children,California lawmakers proposed a law making the state a refuge for transgender youths and their families.
When Idaho proposed a ban on abortions that empowers relatives to sue anyone who helps terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, nearby Oregon approved $15 million to help cover the abortion expenses of patients from out-of-state.
As Republican activists aggressively pursue conservative social policies in state legislatures across the country, liberal states are taking defensive actions. Spurred by a U.S. Supreme Court that is expected to soon upend an array of longstanding rights, including the constitutional right to abortion, left-leaning lawmakers from Washington to Vermont have begun to expand access to abortion, bolster voting rights and denounce laws in conservative states targeting L.G.B.T.Q. minors.
The flurry of action, particularly in the West, is intensifying already marked differences between life in liberal- and conservative-led parts of the country. And it’s a sign of the consequences when state governments are controlled increasingly by single parties. Control of legislative chambers is split between parties now in two states — Minnesota and Virginia — compared with 15 states 30 years ago….
With some 30 legislatures in Republican hands, conservative lawmakers, working in many cases with shared legislative language, have begun to enact a tsunami of restrictions that for years were blocked by Democrats and moderate Republicans at the federal level. A recent wave of anti-abortion bills, for instance, has been the largest since the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.
Similar moves have recently been aimed at L.G.B.T.Q. protectionsand voting rights. In Florida and Texas, teams of ‘election police’ have been created to crack down on the rare crime of voter fraud, fallout from former President Donald J. Trump’s specious claims after he lost the 2020 presidential election.
Carrying concealed guns without a permit is now legal in nearly half of the country. “Bounty” laws — enforced not by governments, which can be sued in federal court, but by rewards to private citizens for filing lawsuits — have proliferated on issues from classroom speech to vaccination since the U.S. Supreme Court declined to strike down the legal tactic in Texas.
The moves, in an election year, have raised questions about the extent to which they are performative, as opposed to substantial. Some Republican bills are bold at first glance but vaguely worded. Some appear designed largely to energize base voters.
Many, however, send a strong cultural message. And divisions will widen further, said Peverill Squire, an expert on state legislatures at the University of Missouri, if the Supreme Court hands more power over to the states on issues like abortion and voting, as it did when it said in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering was beyond federal jurisdiction.
Some legal analysts also say the anticipated rollback of abortion rights could throw a host of other privacy rights into state-level turmoil, from contraception to health care. Meanwhile, entrenched partisanship, which has already hobbled federal decision making, could block attempts to impose strong national standards in Congress.” Read more at New York Times
“FRANKFORT, Ky. — Gov. Andy Beshear has been toting oversize checks around his state in recent weeks, handing them out to city and county officials for desperately needed water improvements.
The tiny city of Mortons Gap got $109,000 to bring running water to six families who do not have it. The people of Martin County, whose water has been too contaminated to drink since a coal slurry spill two decades ago, got $411,000. The checks bear Mr. Beshear’s signature, but the money comes from the federal government, part of a huge infusion of coronavirus relief aid that is helping to fuel record budget surpluses in Kentucky and many other states.
Therein lies a Washington controversy. The funds, which Congress approved at a moment when the pandemic was still raging, are allowed to be used for far broader purposes than combating the virus, including water projects like those in Kentucky. Most states will get another round of ‘fiscal recovery funds’ — part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan — next month.
But in Washington, Mr. Biden is out of money to pay for the most basic means of protecting people during the pandemic — medications, vaccines, testing and reimbursement for care. Republicans have refused to sign off on new spending, citing the state recovery funds as an example of money that could be repurposed for urgent national priorities.” Read more at New York Times
“ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Prime Minister Imran Khan dissolved Pakistan’s National Assembly and called for new elections on Sunday, blocking a no-confidence vote that had been widely expected to remove him from office and plunging the country into a constitutional crisis.
The extraordinary move deepened the political turmoil that has gripped Pakistan since Mr. Khan, the international cricket star turned politician, lost the backing of the country’s powerful military and a coalition of opposition parties.
The crisis has been escalating for weeks, but its latest turn threatens to destabilize the fragile democracy in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation that supports the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan and has struggled with instability and military coups since its founding 75 years ago. Still, even in a country accustomed to turmoil, Sunday’s events were stunning.” Read more at New York Times
“Hungary's authoritarian leader and longtime Russian ally, Viktor Orban, has declared victory in the country's parliamentary elections, clinching a fourth consecutive term in power. His election campaign was dominated by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which put Orban's lengthy association with Russian President Vladimir Putin under scrutiny. In his victory speech, Orban called Ukrainian President Zelensky an ‘opponent’ that he had to overcome during the campaign. Despite opinion polls forecasting a tighter race, Orban's party won comfortably across much of the country and had a commanding lead yesterday evening with 71% of the votes counted, Hungary's national elections board said. On the other hand, opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay failed to win in his own district, where he had served as mayor.” Read more at CNN
“PARIS — At last, Emmanuel Macron stepped forth. The French president entered a vast arena this weekend, plunged into darkness and lit only by spotlights and glow sticks, before a crowd of 30,000 supporters in a domed stadium in the Paris suburbs.
It was a highly choreographed appearance — his first campaign rally for an election now less than a week away — with something of the air of a rock concert. But Mr. Macron had come to sound an alarm.
Do not think ‘it’s all decided, that it’s all going to go well,’ he told the crowd, a belated acknowledgment that a presidential election that had seemed almost certain to return him to power is suddenly wide open.The diplomatic attempt to end the war in Ukraine has been time-consuming for Mr. Macron, so much so that he has had little time for the French election, only to awaken to the growing danger that France could lurch to the anti-immigrant right, with its Moscow-friendly politics and its skepticism of NATO.
Marine Le Pen, the hard-right leader making her third attempt to gain power, has surged over the past couple of weeks, as her patient focus on cost-of-living issues has resonated with the millions of French people struggling to make ends meet after an increase of more than 35 percent in gas prices over the past year.
The most recent poll from the respected Ifop-Fiducial group showed Ms. Le Pen gaining 21.5 percent of the vote in the first round of voting next Sunday, almost double the vote share of the fading extreme-right upstart Éric Zemmour, with 11 percent, and closing the gap on Mr. Macron with 28 percent. The two leading candidates go through to a runoff on April 24.” Read more at New York Times
“HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Monday she wouldn’t seek a second term after a rocky five years marked by huge protests calling for her resignation, a security crackdown that has quashed dissent and most recently a COVID-19 wave that overwhelmed the health system.
Her successor will be picked in May and the city’s security chief during the 2019 protests is among the possible choices.” Read more at AP News
“Economic roil | A clutch of Sri Lankan ministers and the central bank governor resigned, exacerbating the nation’s worst crisis in decades as anger grows over Asia’s fastest inflation and deteriorating living conditions. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has now invited members of all political parties to come together to resolve the island nation’s economic and political problems.” Read more at Bloomberg
Protesters set a bus on fire during a demonstration outside the president’s home in Colombo on March 31. Photographer: Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images
“Former World Bank economist Rodrigo Chaves won Costa Rica’s presidential election with promises of fiscal discipline as his rival Jose Maria Figueres conceded.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Southern African nations are expected to extend the deployment of troops fighting an Islamic State-linked insurgency in Mozambique that’s put billions of dollars of natural gas projects at risk.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Colombian leftist leader Gustavo Petro no longer enjoys a clear path to victory in the upcoming presidential election, according to polls published over the weekend.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian says he is waiting for the U.S. to respond to Tehran’s suggestions for resolving the roadblocks to a revived nuclear deal.” Read more at Bloomberg
“From vodka to jet fuel and perfume — a growing number of companies are turning carbon dioxide captured from the air or factory smokestacks into everyday products so the greenhouse gas doesn’t escape into the atmosphere and heat the planet. As Sylvia Klimaki and Ryan Hesketh report, the non-governmental organization Carbon180 says there’s a potential $1 trillion market in the U.S. alone for products made from captured CO₂, ranging from plastics and building materials to food and drinks.” Read more at Bloomberg
Alcohol made mixing captured CO₂ with hydrogen derived from water and wind power. Source: Air Company
Emrah Gurel/AP
“1.8 billion Muslims around the world began their observance of Ramadan this weekend. The month of fasting, reflection and self-development is one of the most holy in the Islamic calendar. Photos show how Muslims worldwide ushered in the holiday.” Read more at NPR
“Putin’s fifth column
“President Biden has described the world as being engaged in a ‘battle between democracy and autocracy,’ and Ukraine has become the central front.
There, Vladimir Putin, the autocratic head of Russia, launched a military invasion meant to destroy a democracy, and his military appears to be committing horrific atrocities in the process. A crucial part of Russia’s war effort is the economic help that it is receiving from another authoritarian government, China. On the other side of the fight, many democracies — including the U.S. and much of Europe — have rallied to support Ukraine, supplying it with arms and placing harsh economic sanctions on Russia.
But Ukraine is not the only place where the contest between autocracy and democracy is taking place. It is also happening within several European democracies, through elections rather than military conflict. In these countries, politicians who are friendly to Putin — and share his right-wing, nationalist outlook — are trying to win power.
Two of them appear to have succeeded yesterday. In both Hungary and Serbia, incumbent leaders who are supportive of Putin won re-election. A bigger test will occur this month in France, which will hold its own presidential election — and where a victory by the far-right candidate would be a geopolitical earthquake.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, at a rally on Friday.Petr David Josek/Associated Press
Hungary
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Putin-friendly prime minister, appears to have won re-election there. ‘We won a victory so big that you can perhaps see it from the moon, and certainly from Brussels,’ Mr. Orban told supporters last night, taking a dig at the European Union.
Hungary is the purest example of a democracy sliding toward autocracy. After taking power in 2010 with a legitimate election victory, Orban set about changing the rules to remain in power. He has stacked the courts with allies and used lawsuits to quash critical media coverage. He has aggressively changed election rules, as my colleagues Matt Apuzzo and Benjamin Novak reported.
In each of the past two national elections, Orban’s party, Fidesz, received less than half the votes, yet still won a two-thirds supermajority in Parliament. After yesterday’s election, Fidesz appears to be on track to win 135 seats of the 199-seat parliament.
Orban has overseen a government that combines cultural nationalism, economic populism and high-level corruption. His policies have lifted the incomes of many Hungarians, including in the more rural areas that make up his base, while stoking fears of immigrants and, more recently, L.G.B.T.Q. people.
All of which aligns him with Putin. In recent weeks, Orban has tried to cast himself as a neutral peacemaker in Ukraine, knowing that many Hungarians have long feared Russia. But he has mostly taken Putin’s side.
Hungary has not joined Western Europe’s efforts to provide Ukraine with weapons, and he has opposed efforts within the E.U. to ban the import of Russian energy. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, yesterday described Orban as ‘virtually the only one in Europe to openly support Mr. Putin.’
Hungary has become the closest thing to a fifth column within NATO and the European Union. It is officially a Western democracy — yet effectively a Putin ally.
A cameraman in Belgrade in front of a picture of Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s president.Darko Vojinovic/Associated Press
Serbia
Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, has used both Putin and Orban as role models. After becoming president in 2017, Vucic helped turn Serbia’s once-independent media into something more akin to a propaganda machine. In recent months, it has aired rants by pro-Russian commentators and boosted Putin’s lies about Ukraine being a nest of Nazis, The Times’s Andrew Higgins wrote.
Serbia is not a member of either NATO or the E.U., and many of its citizens share Russia’s distrust of the West.
But the country is not strictly pro-Russia. Although Vucic has not imposed sanctions on Russia or suspended flights to Moscow, his government did vote in favor of a U.N. resolution condemning the invasion.
In yesterday’s election, voter turnout was high, but opposition politicians said that they were concerned about foul play. Vucic’s party is on track to keep its hold on Parliament, but with a reduced majority, exit polls indicated.
Marine Le Pen meeting supporters last week.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times
France
French voters will go to the polls for the first round of a presidential election on Sunday. If no candidate receives a majority — and none is likely to — a two-person runoff will take place two weeks later on April 24.
The favorite is the incumbent, Emmanuel Macron. But his lead in the polls is not huge, and the war in Ukraine seems to be hurting him. Inflation was already fairly high in Europe, as it is in much of the world, because of the pandemic. The war has caused prices to rise even further, mostly because of sanctions on Russian oil.
While Macron has focused on trying to find a diplomatic solution in Ukraine — and is failing, so far — his leading opponent has instead focused on the French economy, my colleague Roger Cohen explains in a preview of the election. That opponent is Marine Le Pen, a hard-right candidate.
As Roger writes, ‘Her patient focus on cost-of-living issues has resonated with the millions of French people struggling to make ends meet after an increase of more than 53 percent in gas prices over the past year.’
Le Pen has a long history of friendliness to Putin. Her party has taken loans from a Russian bank, and she met with him in 2017 in an attempt to strengthen her political image, Elisabeth Zerofsky writes in a Times Magazine story about the French far right. Until the invasion, Le Pen largely supported Putin’s policies. Even now, she largely opposes hard-line policies toward Putin.
Le Pen trails in the polls by roughly six percentage points — a small enough margin for an upset to be conceivable. If she wins, the autocracy-friendly caucus within Europe’s democracies would become far larger than it already is.
‘A victory by her,’ Roger writes, ‘would threaten European unity, alarm French allies from Washington to Warsaw, and confront the European Union with its biggest crisis since Brexit.’
Related:
In China, Xi Jinping’s government is trying to build popular support for Russia by spreading the message that both countries face the same threat: Western-led insurrection.
Donald Trump and a small number of House Republicans have also praised Putin and expressed skepticism about supporting Ukraine. Representative Liz Cheney has described them as ‘the Putin wing of the GOP.’” Read more at New York Times
“The 64th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night featured major wins by Silk Sonic, Jon Batiste and Olivia Rodrigo, elaborate performances from a music industry struggling to emerge from the pandemic and an impassioned plea for help from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
The show, broadcast from Las Vegas, opened with Silk Sonic, the retro soul-funk project of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, playing ‘777,’ about the high-rolling, Sin City side of Las Vegas. Moments later, the group won song of the year for ‘Leave the Door Open,’ a throwback to smooth early ’70s soul.
‘Leave the Door Open’ also won record of the year, as well as best R&B song. Silk Sonic also tied Jazmine Sullivan for best R&B performance.
Grammys 2022 Winners: The Complete List” Read more at New York Times
“MINNEAPOLIS — It was a 40-minute championship game, yes.
But if South Carolina set out on Sunday to show that an N.C.A.A. title could be all but won in a contest’s first four minutes, even against a mighty, sporadically feisty Connecticut, consider the hypothesis pressure-tested and proven on the sport’s greatest stage.
The makings of a rout would ebb in certain moments, but the Gamecocks eventually defeated the Huskies with ease, 64-49, to claim the second national championship in their history.
The principal trouble for UConn on a night full of them was that there was barely any room for a sustained fight in a game that quickly rocketed out of reach, playing out like a mismatch.” Read more at New York Times
“Kansas and North Carolina will battle it out for the men's college basketball national championship Monday night (9:20 p.m. ET, TBS). Saturday, the No. 1-seeded Jayhawks played the part as the favorite in dispatching Villanova, while the No. 8-seeded Tar Heels escaped with a thrilling win over rival Duke. The Blue Devils' loss capped an emotional ending to Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski's storied careerand a chance at winning a sixth title. Which team will come out on top tonight? USA TODAY's Scott Gleeson looks at the keys to victory for each team.” Read more at USA Today
“Tiger Woods will make a ‘game-time decision’ about playing in the Masters. Almost 14 months after a near-fatal car crash, the golf legend said he is going to Augusta this week to continue his preparation to try to compete in the major. But he stopped short of saying he will play.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Chris Smalls led a walkout in 2020 to protest working conditions at a New York Amazon facility and was fired. Now, he’s leading one of the most dramatic and successful grassroots union drives in recent history.” Read more at NPR
“Estelle Harris, the actress known for playing George Costanza's mother on ‘Seinfeld,’ died yesterday, her agent told CNN. She was 93. Harris, whose distinctive voice was sought after in various roles, unforgettably played Estelle Costanza on the 90s sitcom, often bickering with her on-screen husband Jerry Stiller and her fictional son, Jason Alexander.” Read more at CNN
“Thomas F. Staley, who as the director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin elevated its standing as a go-to home for the literary archives of major writers like Norman Mailer, David Foster Wallace and Don DeLillo, died on Tuesday at his home in Austin. He was 86.
His son Tim said the cause was bladder cancer.
Dr. Staley, a scholar of James Joyce, arrived at the university in 1988. Over the next 25 years, he brought a literary sensibility and a competitive zeal to acquiring collections — and keeping them from going to universities like Harvard and Yale.” Read more at New York Times
“Bill Fries, the deep-voiced country singer known as C.W. McCall, who turned an ad campaign for an Iowa bread company into the outlaw trucker anthem, ‘Convoy,’ which reached No. 1 on the charts in 1976 and inspired a Sam Peckinpah movie, died on Friday at his home in Ouray, Colo. He was 93.” Read more at New York Times
“University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will soon require diversity-contribution statements from all faculty members for tenure and promotion.” Read more at Inside Higher Ed
“Lincoln College, in Illinois, will close after 157 years.” Read more at Inside Higher Ed
“After a year of contentious discussions and debates, University of Richmond leaders decided to remove the names of controversial figures from six campus buildings.” Read more at Inside Higher Ed
“George Washington will be sharing some space with a native Hawaiian hula teacher next year.
The space is the flip side of the quarter — the coin that, since 1932, has included a likeness of the country’s first president. The teacher is one Edith Kanaka‘ole, a native Hawaiian hula teacher who celebrated ancient traditions and language.
She is among five women whose faces will be pressed on the quarter next year as part of a four-year program that began this year to honor a series of women with diverse backgrounds in fields like abolition, government, women’s suffrage, civil rights, science and the arts, the U.S. Mint announced this week.
Next year’s other honorees will be Bessie Coleman, the first Black and first Native American female pilot; Jovita Idár, a Mexican American journalist and activist; Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady and human rights activist; and Maria Tallchief, the first Native American prima ballerina.” Read more at New York Times