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Overview * The Ukrainian “offensive” in the south has been underway for 18 days as of today. As an American military intelligence officer observed, “I’m reminded of Lincoln’s comment about McClellan: ‘He has a case of the slows.’” More on this propaganda offensive below. * In the principal theaters of action, the mouth of the Donbas salient, the line of Ukrainian fortifications near Avdivka, west of the city of Donetsk, and the areas west and north-west of Kherson, there is heavy and stepped-up Russian artillery shelling accompanied by multiple missile attacks throughout Ukraine. * Russian forces are within 2-3 kilometers...

Tensions are mounting around the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, an isolated but strategically significant territory on the Baltic coast that could soon be dragged into the Kremlin’s war. Russia has reacted furiously after Lithuania banned the passage of sanctioned goods across its territory and into Kaliningrad. But Lithuania says it is merely upholding European Union sanctions, and the European bloc has backed it. The row now threatens to escalate strains between Moscow and the EU, which has unveiled several packages of sanctions on Russian goods. Here’s what you need to know about Kaliningrad, its history and its importance to Russia....

https://twitter.com/marcusreports/status/1518937847201476611 https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-stingers-idINL2N2VR2OF Raytheon just said they cannot make any more stinger missiles, all of them have been given to Ukraine and no more can be made because certain parts require rare minerals that are only found in Russia.

Fuel Cell Being Tested The new fuel cell being tested in the lab. Credit: Imperial College London Imperial researchers have developed a new hydrogen fuel cell that uses iron instead of rare and costly platinum, enabling greater use of the technology. Hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen to electricity with just water vapor as a byproduct, making them an appealing green alternative for portable power, particularly for vehicles. However, the expense of one of the primary components has impeded its broad adoption. The fuel cells rely on a catalyst made of platinum, which is expensive and scarce, to assist the reaction...

Former Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman said Saturday that former President Donald Trump "bears enormous burden of responsibility" for the Russia-Ukraine war. Vindman, who testified in the House during the first impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2019, appeared on MSNBC when he was asked about how the situation in Ukraine ties to the actions of the Trump administration. "What is happening on the other side of the world in Ukraine, a country from which you hail, is directly tied to the attacks on democracy that you witnessed in the White House while you were the director for European affairs at...

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court has refused to revisit a ruling that struck down a key permit for a proposed natural gas pipeline running through Virginia and West Virginia. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday that it would not revisit a February ruling by a three-judge panel that invalidated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s opinion that the Mountain Valley Pipeline would not jeopardize two endangered fish species. The panel found “serious errors” with the agency’s conclusion that construction of the pipeline wouldn’t pose a threat to the Roanoke logperch or the candy darter....

MSNBC host Al Sharpton said Tuesday on “Deadline ” that even though President Joe Biden signed into law the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, America had a “long way to go” on race issues given Republican senators “bogus questions” during the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sharpton said, “I think that it was hopeful to be able to see this legislation finally pass.”

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sits on a board of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-conservative organization that encourages political leaders to contest the 2020 election results. As such, she signed an open letter in December calling for the removal of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican party for joining the House Jan. 6 Committee. That is no surprise, as Thomas consistently shares the political viewpoint of the loony aunt who lives in the basement. She believes that America is under threat from the “deep state” and the “fascist left” and from...

Many Americans have grown increasingly numb from a seemingly endless stream of dispiriting stories highlighting our political leaders’ fading commitment to democracy. However, if anything has the potential to awaken us from our stupor of exhaustion, it must be the recent news that Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, attended the Jan. 6 populist rally at the Ellipse in Washington, which preceded that day's Capitol riot. Thomas and her political activities have long raised eyebrows. Thomas is a conservative activist, with close ties to organizations that support many causes and positions that parallel cases that have appeared,...

'When you look at all of the evidence together, it's an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market,' Worobey told the New York Times. Worobey and his team said that they focused on about 156 cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan in December 19. They continued by mapping cases in January and February using data from Chinese researchers of over 700 cases that popped up away from the market in Wuhan, particularly those with a lot of older residents. The team then studied mutations in what's known as the virus' family tree and concluded that they had...

Places with highest daily reported cases per capita Seven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

One year after the storming of the Capitol, six out of 10 Americans believe the country's democracy is in danger of collapse, according to a poll released Wednesday. Seventy-six percent of those surveyed in the poll by Quinnipiac University said they think political instability in the United States is a bigger danger than foreign threats. A majority of those polled -- 58 percent -- said they think the nation's democracy is in danger of collapse. Thirty-seven percent disagreed.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday said the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol already has a “powerful and substantive narrative,” months into its probe of the fatal riots. Asked by moderator Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” how much of the Jan. 6 story the panel would have today if it did not receive any additional information, Kinzinger said the congressional investigators “know a lot of the narrative.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday recounted being evacuated from the Senate chamber during the Jan. 6 attack, including a close brush with rioters who he was told made antisemitic remarks about him. "I was within 30 feet of these nasty, racist, bigoted insurrectionists. Had someone had a gun, had two of them blocked off the door, who knows what would have happened. I was told later that one of them reportedly said, 'There's the big Jew. Let's get him,' " Schumer said. "Bigotry against one is bigotry against all. And I saw something that I had been...

Democrats are planning more tarnishing of Republicans and former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. But, she told Newsmax on Tuesday night that she is going to get to the truth of what happened in the storming of the Capitol. "With Nancy Pelosi and her awful Jan. 6 committee, it's nothing but Russia collusion 2.0, and they're going to continue to run it into the ground day in and day out, trying to hurt Republicans going into the midterm elections," Greene said on Tuesday's ''Cortes & Pellegrino.'' She was referring to the House...

As we await findings and conclusions of the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack, let's take a moment and do our own soul-searching about what is going on. The House Select Committee is engaged in Washington's favorite pastime -- looking for whom to blame. The sidelight of this pastime is the pretense that things that are very complicated can be made clear and simple. And the other side of the coin of the search for whom to blame is the refusal to step up and take personal responsibility. The latter, unfortunately, is increasingly becoming a hallmark of today's...

As the anniversary of the Capitol Hill riot from January 6 approaches, the media have ramped up their efforts to remind us about that day. Every Sunday show featured someone involved with the U.S. Capitol. While "Fox News Sunday" spoke with chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Thomas Manger, who took on such a role in July. The other shows featured members from the select committee on January 6, including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Liz Cheney (R-WY), and Bennie Thompson (D-MS). NBC's "Meet the Press" had a "special edition" episode on "January 6: One Year Later." During that "special edition" episode,...

The World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) warned Tuesday there is too much at stake to celebrate Christmas this year, cautioning it is better to either cancel or postpone the annual festivities than risk the death of a loved one. W.H.O. director-general and Ethiopian biologist Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in Geneva the “fastest way” to “get back to normal” is for people to cancel or delay Christmas events, the Daily Mail reports. Dr Ghebreyesu continued to say, “an event cancelled is better than a life cancelled. It’s better to cancel now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and grieve...

Stock futures tumbled Monday and global shares dropped amid a surge in Covid-19 cases and as President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion tax-and-spending package looked dead after Sen. Joe Manchin said he wouldn’t support the plan. Contracts linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 350 points, or 1%, S&P 500 futures declined 1.1% and Nasdaq futures were down 1.23%. Futures came off earlier lows after Moderna (ticker: MRNA) said a booster dose of its Covid-19 vaccine increased neutralizing antibody levels against the Omicron variant. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was at 1.385% after falling Friday to 1.401%, the...

In Colorado, there is a backlash from people who can't get into hospitals because they are full of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. Administrators say facilities "are on the verge of collapse."