The Full Belmonte, 4/9/2022
Police and rescuers on the scene of Friday’s missile strike on a train station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, in a photo provided by regional officials.
PHOTO: DONETSK REGIONAL STATE ADMINISTRATION/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
“A rocket strike targeting a train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk Friday killed at least 50 people and injured dozens who were attempting to fleeamid Russia's new focus on the region, Ukrainian officials said. Five children were among those killed, the regional governor of Donetsk said. About 4,000 civilians were inside and around the station when it was hit. Photos from the scene showed bodies covered in tarps, surrounded by blood. Remnants of a rocket with the words ‘For the children’ painted on it in Russian were also seen in photos. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the strike another Russian war crime and said Ukraine expects a tough global response. Ukraine's railway operator said Saturday operations are halted at the Kramatorsk station, but civilian evacuations will continue through other stations. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, added Saturday that 10 humanitarian corridors for civilian evacuations will open in the eastern area of the nation.” Read more at USA Today
A destroyed Russian tank in Borodianka, Ukraine. Photograph: Ceng Shou Yi/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
“A phone camera pans slowly across the portraits of 55 men, each wearing the dress uniform of Russia’s elite airborne units. Small candles have been placed by the photographs of the men, as have sky blue berets and the blue-and-white striped undershirts worn by the paratrooper units who led Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The video of the memorial for the soldiers of the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment is unverified – it was first published by Russia’s iStories news outlet, which said it was submitted by a reader.
But the footage adds weight to a growing consensus that the numbers of Russian casualties – especially among elite units such as the Russian airborne – are far higher than officials have so far admitted.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said on Thursday that the country had “significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us” during an interview on Sky News.
The frank admission of the scale of Russian losses is rare among government officials, who have consistently assured the public and Vladimir Putin that Russia’s ‘special operation’ is going according to plan.
In an attempt at damage control on Friday, Peskov said he was referring to the official defence ministry numbers of 1,351 soldiers killed since Russia launched its invasion on 24 February.
‘You and I have the same numbers as those published by the defence ministry,’ Peskov said. ‘This is a substantial number.’
Ukraine has estimated that 18,900 Russian soldiers have died since the beginning of the war, citing its own recovery of bodies and intercepted Russian communications. Russia has called the Ukrainian numbers inflated.
But questions about the Russian military’s accounting practices remain, as official statistics may not count soldiers missing in action, and critics have accused the Kremlin of intentionally covering up the high number of war dead to prevent discontent at home.
And growing evidence suggests high numbers of casualties among the units that led Russia’s invasion in February, including paratrooper units considered to be the ‘tip of the spear’.
The video of the memorial for the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment, which is based in Stavropol, Russia, showed a number of men whose deaths have already been confirmed through public accounts.
Another video from a nearby cemetery that is used by the unit, along with others, showed a long row of funeral wreaths.
The unit was reported to have fought in southern Ukraine near the city of Kherson, which has been held by the Russian army since late February. A Ukrainian counter-attack near Kherson has led to heavy losses for Russian troops there.
Last month, Russia reported the death of the commander of the regiment, Col Konstantin Zizevsky, one of at least eight Russian colonels to have been killed during the war in Ukraine.
BBC Russian, which has kept a confirmed count of the number of Russian losses, has said that 217 of its 1,083 confirmed Russian war dead were officers, from junior lieutenants to generals. Senior Russian officers often fight alongside their units because decisions must be confirmed by higher-ranking personnel.
Of the confirmed deaths in the military, more than 15% come from Russia’s elite airborne, or VDV, units. The high number of losses among those units has also been accompanied by reports of desertions.
According to the opposition Pskovskaya Guberniya newspaper, about 60 Russian paratroopers are facing disciplinary action after refusing to travel from Belarus, where many had been dispatched for what they believed were exercises, into Ukraine. Those reports have not been confirmed.
But Russian media have also reported on members of two national guards units that have refused to fight in Ukraine. And lawyers say that soldiers from more than 17 cities have requested aid to either avoid being sent to Ukraine or ask for help in returning home.
‘They’re all reporting being pressured, facing the threat of criminal charges, being discharged, or having their documents withheld,’ wrote Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora international human rights group. ‘For protection from a possible criminal investigation, please contact our lawyers.’” Read more at The Guardian
Ali Alexander, center, returns to a conference room for a deposition meeting in December with the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“Ali Alexander, the prominent pro-Trump activist, will cooperate with the justice department investigation into the Capitol attack, making him the first high-profile political figure to agree to assist the government’s criminal inquiry into the events of January 6.
The move is likely to give initial momentum to the newly expanded justice department investigation running in parallel to the House select committee investigation examining Donald Trump and the Capitol attack.
An attorney for Alexander – the organizer of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement – told the Guardian that he had agreed to cooperate with the justice department after being issued a grand jury subpoena but informed he was not a target of the investigation.” Read more at The Guardian
An electron-microscope image shows a SARS-CoV-2 particle isolated from a patient.
PHOTO: NIAID/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“The Omicron BA.2 subvariant could cause Covid-19 cases to rise.
Research suggests that BA.2 is about 30% more transmissible than BA.1, the Omicron version that contributed to this winter’s surge. BA.2 made up less than 10% of U.S. Covid-19 cases at the end of February, but this week, it was close to 75%, the CDC said. Omicron has significantly more mutations than earlier versions of the virus, which could make it better at infecting cells and evading vaccines and treatments. However, some scientists are optimistic that being fully vaccinated and boosted protects against severe disease. Schools in areas of the country that are already seeing BA.2 cases take off, like New York City and Philadelphia, aren’t reinstituting mask mandates, because they say kids aren’t getting very sick and vaccines are protecting both students and teachers.”
“Former President Donald J. Trump’s eldest son sent the White House chief of staff a text message two days after Election Day in 2020 that laid out strategies for declaring his father the winner regardless of the electoral outcome, people familiar with the exchange said on Friday.
The text, which was reported earlier by CNN, was sent two days before Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner of the election. The recipient, Mark Meadows, turned a cache of his text messages over to the House committee investigating the events leading up to the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as the Electoral College results in Mr. Biden’s favor were being certified.
‘It’s very simple,’ Donald Trump Jr. wrote to Mr. Meadows on Nov. 5, 2020. He wrote at another point, ‘We have multiple paths We control them all.’
The message went on to lay out a variety of options that Mr. Trump or his allies ultimately employed in trying to overturn the results of the election, from legal challenges to promoting alternative slates of electors to focusing efforts on the statutory date of Jan. 6 for certification of the Electoral College results.” Read more at New York Times
“Starbucks is hiring a chief strategy officer who specializes in worker relations as more baristas seek to unionize.
Interim CEO Howard Schultz, who returned on Monday to lead the company he built, said the new strategy chief is Frank Britt, most recently CEO of the Boston-based Penn Foster workforce-development organization. The appointment comes as three New York state cafes voted Thursday to join Starbucks Workers United, the union formed to help the first Buffalo, N.Y.-area locations organize in late 2021. More votes are scheduled to be counted Friday for Starbucks locations in the Ithaca, N.Y., and Kansas City areas, and additional tallies are slated for next week at cafes in Massachusetts, Oregon and Virginia. Schultz said Monday that he wouldn’t have been able to grow the company with labor unions.”
Julie Bennett/Getty Images
“Alabama lawmakers voted on Thursday to criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender youth, effectively outlawing it. LGBTQ advocates have described the law as one of the most ‘hostile’ anti-trans laws in the nation.” [Vox] Read more at Associated Press / Kim Chandler
“Called the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, the bill prohibits doctors and nurses from providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors, including treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy, as well as performing gender-affirming surgeries.” [Vox] Read more at AL.com / Mike Cason
“Providers who ignore the law face the threat of a felony conviction of up to 10 years in prison.” [Vox] Read more at Guardian / Oliver Laughland
“Medical professionals have criticized the bill, arguing that it distorts gender affirming care for youth and spreads misinformation about what that care entails.” [Vox] Read more at ABC News / Kiara Alfonseca
“The bill is currently being reviewed by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who has not yet indicated whether she will sign it into law.” [Vox] Read more at Montgomery Advertiser / Brian Lyman
“Alabama’s potential law follows other anti-trans policies in states like Arkansas, Arizona, and Tennessee.” [Vox] Read more at New York Times / Rick Rojas and Tariro Mzezewa
“Former President Donald Trump will return to North Carolina Saturday for a rally in the town of Selma in rural Johnston County. Candidates Trump has endorsed competing in contested Republican primaries across the state are expected to speak at the event. They include Rep. Ted Budd, a little-known congressman running for a Senate seat who won a surprise endorsement from Trump, and Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who continues to have Trump's support even though he has faced backlash from members of his own party over various recent incendiarycomments. Saturday's rally comes amid questions over whether Trump's influence is fading amid stumbles in other states. Last month, he withdrew his endorsement of Rep. Mo Brooks, who was struggling to gain traction in Alabama's Senate primary. Also, Trump's efforts to shape Georgia's race for governor has not been going according to plan as his candidate for the Republican primary, former Sen. David Perdue, is trailing incumbent Brian Kemp in at least one recent poll.” Read more at USA Today
“Elon Musk will speak to Twitter employees during a town hall meeting. The social-media platform didn’t share the date of the planned AMA session with its newest board member and largest shareholder. Musk, whose day job is Tesla chief executive, has already pushed for a Twitter edit button, which the company said it is developing.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday overturned Prime Minister Imran Khan’s move to dissolve Parliament, setting the stage for a no-confidence vote widely expected to remove him from office and offering a major victory to opposition leaders, who said that Mr. Khan had attempted an ‘open coup.’
Mr. Khan, the international cricket-star-turned-politician, and his allies dissolved Parliament on Sunday, effectively blocking a no-confidence vote. The move plunged the country into a constitutional crisis and sharply escalated the political instability that has embroiled Pakistan for weeks.
The recent developments have revived fears of unrest in the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million that has experienced repeated military coups since its founding 75 years ago.
The prospect of Mr. Khan being ousted by opposition parties, former allies and defectors from within his own party in Parliament is likely to damage his ability to rally widespread support ahead of the next elections. While no prime minister in Pakistan has ever completed a full five-year term in office, Mr. Khan would be the first to be removed in a no-confidence vote.” Read more at New York Times
“Emmanuel Macron’s Win This Sunday No Longer Looks a Done Deal
France votes in a presidential election tomorrow that’s far from certain to return incumbent Emmanuel Macron to power. As Ania Nussbaumand Samy Adghirni report, Macron’s attempt to portray himself as a potential peacemaker in Ukraine might not be enough to secure victory.” Read more at Bloomberg
Lara Logan, pictured here in 2013, has not appeared as a guest on Fox News since making the comment about Fauci. Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
“The former CBS reporter Lara Logan, who compared Dr Anthony Fauci to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, has claimed she was ‘pushed out’ at Fox News because the conservative network does not want ‘independent thinkers’.
‘I was definitely pushed out,’ Logan told Eric Metaxas, a conservative radio host, this week. ‘I mean, there is no doubt about that. They don’t want independent thinkers. They don’t want people who follow the facts regardless of the politics.’
Fox News has not commented on reports that it ‘quietly benched’ Logan over her remark about Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser. On Friday, a spokesperson for Fox News said the network would not comment.
Logan has not appeared as a guest on Fox News since making the comment about Fauci. There have been no new episodes of her show on the Fox Nation streaming service, Lara Logan Has No Agenda, which is still available.” Read more at The Guardian
“The 86th Masters golf tournament continues with the third round on Saturday (3 p.m. ET, CBS) and wraps up with the final round Sunday (2 p.m. ET, CBS). Only the top 50 players, including ties, made the cut to play this weekend and on that list is five-time champion Tiger Woods, who is playing in his first professional golf tournament since he was involved in a devastating auto accident in February 2021. Woods shot a 2-over 74 in his second round Friday despite his worst start ever at Augusta National Golf Club. Currently tied for 19th at 1 over for the tournament, Woods is scheduled to tee off Saturday at 1 p.m. ET alongside fellow American Kevin Kisner. The leader going into the weekend is American Scottie Scheffler who shot a 5-under-par Friday and will begin the third round five strokes ahead of four golfers tied for second place. Hideki Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters winner, is among those at 3 under. Scheffler's five-shot advantage is tied for the largest lead in Masters history after 36 holes.” Read more at USA Today
“Two Black coaches have joined a lawsuit filed in February by Brian Flores, the former head coach of the Miami Dolphins who accused the N.F.L. and its 32 teams of discriminating against African Americans in their hiring practices.
On Thursday, Steve Wilks, who was fired after one season as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, and Ray Horton, a longtime assistant coach and defensive coordinator, were added to the Flores complaint. A pretrial conference for the federal lawsuit is scheduled for April 29.
In the amended complaint, Wilks, 52, said that the Cardinals hired him as a ‘bridge coach’ in 2018 and that he was not given any meaningful chance to succeed under a general manager, Steve Keim, who ‘made poor personnel decisions.’
The Cardinals finished with a 3-13 record that season. Wilks was fired before the team drafted quarterback Kyler Murray with the No. 1 overall pick in 2019. Kliff Kingsbury, who is white and had no N.F.L. coaching experience, was hired from Texas Tech University to replace Wilks.” Read more at New York Times
“What's old is new! Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are engaged to be married, again.
Lopez shared a video to her On the JLo fan newsletter late Friday to announce the big news.
‘So I have a really exciting and special story to share,’ Lopez said in a video posted to her social media accounts with the caption ‘Major announcement!!!!’ as she pointed fans to onthejlo.com. ‘It is my inner circle where I share my more personal things and this one's definitely on the JLo.’
The video shows Lopez admiring the ring, whispering, ‘You're perfect.’ Affleck proposed with a ring featuring two smaller diamonds on each side of a large green diamond in the middle — a different shade from the pink diamond with which he proposed the first time in 2002.” Read more at USA Today