Pink Hearts, Yellow Moons, Orange Stars, and Green Clovers
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned his people early Saturday that retreating Russian forces were creating “a complete disaster” outside the capital as they leave mines across “the whole territory,” including around homes and corpses.
He issued the warning as the humanitarian crisis in the encircled city of Mariupol deepened, with Russian forces blocking evacuation operations for the second day in a row. Meanwhile, the Kremlin accused the Ukrainians of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.
Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast, but if Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it would be the war’s first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.
“Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, five weeks after Moscow began sending upwards of 150,000 of its own troops across Ukraine’s border.
HALPERIN SAYS: Collectively, we are now where we were at about this point at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 – there are known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns, and none of us really know the difference between the four on any given day.
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Tehran’s demand that the United States lift its designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, and U.S. refusal so far to do that, have brought the year-long negotiations over reviving the Iran nuclear deal to a halt, with no new meetings scheduled and little obvious room for compromise.
Since talks being held in Vienna adjourned last month, European participants have shuttled between Washington and Tehran in a vain search for accommodation from both sides. “At this point, nothing mutually acceptable” has been proposed, according to a U.S. official knowledgeable about the issue who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic and political matter.
HALPERIN SAYS: This is either the right deal at the wrong time or the wrong deal at the wrong time, but either way it remains hard to see how an agreement could be struck at this point – and even harder to see how the West stops Iran’s nuclear program or terrorist activities if the talks collapse (a/k/a between Iran and a hard place).
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The Washington Post editorial board sounds about two notches away from the Wall Street Journal editorial board in a para-scathing piece about how ill-prepared Team Biden is to deal with an expected surge of immigrants over the Mexican border.
HALPERIN SAYS: The failure to put a workable immigration policy in place after more than a year says more about the Biden administration than all but four other things, none of which I will enumerate today (but stay tuned!).
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HALPERIN SAYS: Cue the Tina Fey classics; we are waiting on Ladbrokes and Amy Walter to tell us what the former governor’s chances are. Good rule of thumb: Santas rarely win contested primaries. Another good rule of thumb: Using the mushers number as the over/under is very clever.
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Lucky Charms — the sugary breakfast cereal made by General Mills that has long used a leprechaun mascot — is believed to be making people sick nationwide, The Post has learned from reports on a consumer complaint website.
At least 139 consumers across the country reported they vomited and had diarrhea after eating a bowl of the cereal that’s marketed to kids, according to iwaspoisoned.com, a platform that tracks food-borne illnesses.
In March, Jan Judd of Heber City, Utah, said she ate a bowl as a snack one evening and a few hours later she was cramping up, nauseous and up much of the night with diarrhea.
“I felt lousy for 24 hours, even worse than I felt when I had COVID-19,” Judd told The Post.
HALPERIN SAYS: Not very magically delicious; I suspect the yellow moons.
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