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Spurious though Moscow’s claims for a ‘responsibility to protect’ may be, its intervention in Ukraine has ultimately been based in equal measure on Russia’s purported historical, ethnic, and cultural claims to Crimea and (less explicitly) to large stretches of south-eastern Ukraine frequently referred to as ‘Novorossiya’.

Rus is very ill, with what looked like the flu but now seems to have evolved in pneumonia and he is in the hospital and having trouble breathing. There seems to be some renal failure and heart injury. He was moved to Buffalo General for more sophisticated treatment. Rus is a stalwart conservative and dedicated activist, loved by those who know him. Please give him your support in prayer.

A new report says that $64 million in federal stimulus money meant to bring broadband to rural parts of Gallatin County was awarded to an area that already had ample access to high-speed Internet service. Of the 9,035 households in Opticom's proposed service area, the report's authors claim, only 136 are "unserved" by broadband, according to definitions established by the USDA's Rural Utilities Service, or RUS, which awarded the stimulus money through its Broadband Initiatives Program. Two other broadband projects were highlighted in the report, one in northwestern Kansas and another in northeastern Minnesota. Together, the three projects analyzed account...

SNIPPET: "When including about $10.5 billion in matching funds committed by the applicants, the total price tag for the proposed broadband projects topped $38 billion. The Recovery Act provided a total of $7.2 billion to the two agencies to expand broadband services, of which NTIA will use $4.7 billion, largely to deploy broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas, and RUS will invest $2.5 billion to facilitate broadband deployment in primarily rural communities. Approximately $2.4 billion from RUS and up to $1.6 billion from NTIA is available in this first grant round."

GRASSY KEY, Florida (Reuters) - Deep in the heart of the Florida Keys, wildlife officials are laying bait laced with poison to try to wipe out a colony of enormous African rats that could threaten crops and other animals.

Ancient Russia (Rus) occupied the territory of Eastern Europe and lay on trade routes running from Christian West to Muslim East and back. So far treasures have been found on the ways where caravans moved along. Western travelers thought Medieval Rus as a country of vast woods and plains with settlements and villages widely separated, though Vikings took Rus differently: the most popular Volga Trade Route connecting countries lying to the North and the South was called the Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. Old Scandinavian sagas mention 12 big towns of Ancient Rus, among them: Novgorod, Kiev,...

Original Title: Who ordered the destruction of 'Rus'?Russian aces ask help from the president of RussiaSoon the precision flying group 'Rus' - one of the best in the world - may be deactivated. Is this a NATO plot? Or the army's slackness?V. Troyanov, who crashed our Su-27 on Lithuania, did it out of inexperience: this year the combat pilot had only 14 hours of flight training. Our aerial borders are watched by NATO aces who have 2-3 thousand flying hours. Compared to them, our Russian combat pilots are but 'green horns'. We have an excellent flight school in Vyazma, which...

KIEV, June 14 (Itar-Tass) - Ivan Simonenko, Vladimir Pashkov and Oleg Lyutikov, respective leaders of the Russo-Ukrainian Union Party, Russian Bloc Party, and the Russian Movement of Ukraine, have approved a draft agreement on cooperation and interaction within the “Rus” coalition of political and public organisations, Itar-Tass was told at the Press Service of the Russian Movement. In the opinion of “Rus” coalition members, one of their main tasks is to win official status for the Russian language, to support the canonical Orthodox Church, to help switch Ukraine over to a policy of rapprochement with Russia and Belarus, and to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT The pile-on of Donald Rumsfeld continues. (story) "U.S. Senator Trent Lott does not believe that Rumsfeld should resign immediately, but he does think that Rumsfeld should be replaced sometime in the next year." What's the difference? Lott said, "I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld." He mentioned this to the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce yesterday morning. "'I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers.' Rumsfeld has been criticized since a soldier asked him last week why the combat vehicles used in the war in Iraq don't have the proper armor. Both Rumsfeld and President Bush have...

Jacob Sullum'sSyndicated Column Gotta Hurt (3/5) Cover Charges (2/27) Ernest Money (2/20) Earlier Columns March 5, 2004 Gotta Hurt The irreconcilable conflict between drug control and pain control Jacob Sullum As part of its recently unveiled "strategy to confront the illegal diversion and abuse of prescription drugs," the federal government promises to close down pharmacies that sell narcotic painkillers online. After all, only druggies need to purchase Vicodin through the online "pill mills" that "bypass traditional regulations," selling to anyone who fills out a questionnaire. People with a legitimate medical need for such drugs can always get prescriptions from...

Russian Orthodox Church Cuts Ties with US Episcopals VOA News 17 Nov 2003, 20:54 UTC The Russian Orthodox Church has cut ties with the Episcopal Church in the United States over its ordination of an openly gay bishop. In a statement issued Monday in Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church said the ordination of a homosexual bishop makes any communications with the bishop or those who elected him impossible. The Russian Church went on to describe homosexuality as a grave sin, adding it could not show any sign of acceptance of a position that it considers un-Christian and blasphemous. The U.S....