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RSN: FOCUS: New Effort Races to Rescue Civilians From Mariupol Plant

 

 

06 May 22

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FOCUS: New Effort Races to Rescue Civilians From Mariupol Plant
Elena Becatoros and Jon Gambrell, Associated Press
Excerpt: "The United Nations raced Friday to rescue more civilians from the tunnels under a besieged steel plant in Mariupol and the city at large, even as fighters holed up at the sprawling complex made their last stand to prevent Moscow's complete takeover of the strategic port."

The United Nations raced Friday to rescue more civilians from the tunnels under a besieged steel plant in Mariupol and the city at large, even as fighters holed up at the sprawling complex made their last stand to prevent Moscow’s complete takeover of the strategic port.

The fight for the last Ukrainian stronghold in a city reduced to ruins by the Russian onslaught appeared increasingly desperate amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to finish the battle for Mariupol so he can present a triumph to the Russian people in time for Monday’s Victory Day, the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar.

Some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, by Russia’s most recent estimate, are holed up in the vast maze of tunnels and bunkers beneath the Azovstal steelworks, and they have repeatedly refused to surrender. Ukraine has said a few hundred civilians were also trapped there, and fears for their safety has grown as the battle has grown fiercer in recent days.

Officials said Thursday that the U.N. was launching a third effort to evacuate citizens from the plant and the city. But on Friday, the organization did not divulge any new details of the operation; it has been similarly quiet about previous ones while they were ongoing.

Kateryna Prokopenko, whose husband Denys Prokopenko commands theAzov Regiment troops inside the plant, issued a desperate plea to save the regiment, saying they’d be willing to go to a third country to wait out the war but would never surrender to Russia because that would mean “filtration camps, prison, torture, and death.”

If nothing is done to save them, her husband and his men will “stand to the end without surrender,” she told The Associated Press by phone Friday as she and relatives of some of the other members of the regiment drove from Italy to Poland.

“We just need to save everyone’s life,” she said.

It could takes days to know whether the latest U.N. effort succeeded, since people escaping Mariupol typically have to pass through contested areas and many checkpoints before reaching relative safety in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) to the northwest, where many have gathered.

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said Friday on the Telegram messaging app that another “complex operation to evacuate people from Mariupol and Azovstal” was conducted and that nearly 500 civilians were rescued. Two previous evacuations negotiated by the U.N. and the Red Cross brought roughly 500 people from the steel plant and elsewhere in Mariupol. It was not clear if Yermak was saying more people had since been rescued.

Some of the plant’s evacuees spoke to the AP about the horrors of being surrounded by death in the moldy, underground bunker with little food and water and diminishing hope. Some said they felt guilty for leaving others behind.

“People literally rot like our jackets did,” said 31-year-old Serhii Kuzmenko, who fled along with his wife, 8-year-old daughter and four others from their bunker, where 30 others were left behind. “They need our help badly. We need to get them out.”

Fighters defending the plant said Friday on Telegram that Russian troops fired on an evacuation vehicle on the plant’s grounds. They said the car was moving toward civilians when it was hit by shelling, and that one soldier was killed and six were wounded.

Moscow didn’t immediately acknowledge renewed fighting there Friday.

Ahead of Victory Day — which marks the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany — municipal workers and volunteers cleaned up what remains of Mariupol, a city that is now under Russia’s control apart from the steel plant. Bulldozers scooped up debris and and people swept streets — with a backdrop of buildings hollowed out by shelling. Workers repaired a model of a warship, and Russian flags were hoisted on utility poles.

The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to fight elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin says is now its chief objective. Its capture also holds symbolic value since the city has been the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war and a surprisingly fierce resistance.

While they pounded away at the plant, Russian forces struggled to make significant gains elsewhere, 10 weeks into a devastating war that has killed thousands of people, forced millions to flee the country and flattened large swaths of cities.

The Ukrainian military’s general staff said Friday that its forces repelled 11 attacks in the Donbas and destroyed tanks and armored vehicles, further frustrating Putin’s ambitions after his abortive attempt to seize Kyiv. Russia gave no immediate acknowledgement of those losses.

Ukraine’s chief of defense Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, meanwhile, said Thursday that a counteroffensive could begin to push Russian forces away from Kharkiv and Izyum — two cities key to the Russian campaign in the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops for eight years. Already, Ukrainian fighters have driven Russian troops some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Kharkiv in recent days.

The goal could be to push Russian forces out of artillery range of the city, which has been pummeled by strikes, as well as forcing Moscow to divert troops from other areas of the front line, according to an assessment from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War on Thursday.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces are making only “plodding” progress in the Donbas.

The British Defense Ministry said Russia may be struggling to execute its plan in the Donbas partly because it’s bogged down at the plant in Mariupol. The fighting at the plant “has come at personnel, equipment and munitions cost to Russia,” it said. “Whilst Ukrainian resistance continues in Avozstal, Russian losses will continue to build and frustrate their operational plans in southern Donbas.”

The Russians have pulverized much of Mariupol, which had a prewar population of over 400,000, and a two-month siege that has trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians with little food, water, electricity or heat. Civilians sheltering inside the plant have perhaps suffered even more — hunkering underground without seeing daylight in months.

Asked whether Russia would soon take full control of Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “Mariupol will never fall. I’m not talking about heroism or anything.”

“It is already devastated,” he told a meeting at London’s Chatham House think tank. He also said he remains open to negotiations with Russia, but repeated that Moscow must withdraw its forces.

The Russians managed to get inside the plant Wednesday with the help of an electrician who knew the plant’s layout and showed them the underground tunnels, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry.

The Kremlin has denied its troops were storming the plant, and Russia has also accused the fighters of preventing the civilians from leaving.

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NHTSA: Important Recall Info That MAY Affect Your Vehicle TOYOTA TUNDRA RECALL

 

Your vehicle MAY be involved in a safety recall and MAY create a safety risk for you or your passengers. If left unrepaired, a potential safety defect could lead to injury or even death. Safety defects must be repaired by a dealer at no cost to you.

Why am I getting this email?
You are receiving this message because you requested to be notified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) if there is a safety recall that may affect your vehicle.

The following may apply to one or more of your vehicles if your vehicle is listed below. Click on the NHTSA Recall ID Number below to read more about the safety issue and the reason for the recall.

To find out if your specific passenger vehicle is included in the recall, use our VIN Look-up Tool.

NHTSA Recall ID Number :	22V285
Manufacturer :	Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing
Subject :	Rearview Camera Image May Not Display/FMVSS 111
	Make Model Model Years TOYOTA TUNDRA 2022

What is a recall?
When a manufacturer or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) determines that a vehicle creates an unreasonable risk to safety or fails to meet minimum safety standards, the manufacturer is required to fix that vehicle at no cost to the owner. That can be done by repairing it, replacing it, offering a refund (for equipment) or, in rare cases, repurchasing the car.

What should I do if my vehicle is included in this recall?
If your vehicle is included in this recall, it is very important that you get it fixed as soon as possible given the potential danger to you and your passengers if it is not addressed. You should receive a separate letter in the mail from the vehicle manufacturer, notifying you of the recall and explaining when the remedy will be available, whom to contact to repair your vehicle, and to remind you that the repair will be done at no charge to you. If you believe your vehicle is included in the recall, but you do not receive a letter in the mail from the vehicle manufacturer, please call NHTSA's Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236, or contact your vehicle manufacturer or dealership.

Thank you for your attention to this important safety matter and for your commitment to helping save lives on America's roadways.

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POLITICO NIGHTLY: Omicron’s befuddling evolution

 

View in browser   BY MYAH WARD Presented by VISA Inc. A medical worker administers tests at a Covid-19 testing site in Brooklyn in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images FAMILY EMERGENCY — The BA.2.12.1 Covid subvariant of BA.2, a subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron, is taking hold in the U.S. If you’re confused by the above sentence, you’re not alone.  It’s been hard enough to keep track of all the new variants of the coronavirus, from Alpha to Delta to Omicron. Now this year has seemed to bring on a new term for our brains to digest: subvariants. Even experts are a touch confused. One scientist joked with Nightly that he was having “trouble” with the long list of subvariant numerals, which begin to sound like a “bloody phone number.” Another, who wasn’t near a computer when we talked, said to check his numbers as he tried to list the “2.12.1” off the top of his head. When and why did we start talking about subvariants? What is a subvariant, what makes it different from a variant, and who the heck decides which is which? “What we call a new variant, or subvariant, is to some degree, arbitrary,” Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who studies the evolution of viruses, told Nightly. But it’s not totally made up, either. BA.2 and others have been named subvariants because they share important mutations that place them under the Omicron family tree, Bloom said. Before we go further, let’s take a look at this family tree: — BA.1 was what we called the original Omicron. — Soon after the discovery of BA.1, scientists identified BA.2 and BA.3. Bloom calls these “sister” lineages. Scientists know they’re “sisters” because they share common mutations but each have their own distinct mutations as well, which tells researchers that one wasn’t descended directly from the other. They’re each descendants of the original virus, SARS-CoV-2. — BA.3 failed to effectively transmit, but the fitter sister, BA.2, began to spur outbreaks in the U.S. this spring. — Then BA.2 went off and had kids of its own: It’s now evolved its own subvariant, BA.2.12.1, which appears to be even more transmissible and is leading to a rise in cases across the U.S. — In South Africa, scientists have identified BA.4 and BA.5, which by the names would lead you to think they’re also “sister” lineages descended from the original SARS-CoV-2. But with further study, Bloom said, scientists think it’s possible these, too, could be descendents of BA.2, just like BA.2.12.1. Weekly cases have tripled in the region over the last two weeks. So it makes sense that you’re confused. Why are these considered subvariants instead of new variants that get a new Greek letter? There’s no hard-and-fast rule. It’s a judgment call. “To a large degree, when WHO/CDC choose to name them as such,” William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Nightly. We’ll likely continue to call these Omicron offshoots “subvariants,” Hanage said, because the CDC and WHO decided to use the terminology for BA.2, even though it has “clinically significant mutations” that help it escape antibodies from vaccines and prior infection. BA.2 maybe should have been the Pi variant. And maybe one day BA.2 will graduate to variant status, Bloom said, if Omicron continues to perform as well as it has, overtaking other variants of Covid. If all the SARS-CoV-2 viruses become relatives of Omicron, experts might shift to using “variants” for the Omicron subvariants. No matter what we call it, the virus will continue its natural evolution, and we should expect the seasonality of Covid to play out in the U.S. as it did in 2020 and 2021, Hanage said. He’ll be closely watching states like Texas and Florida, to see if cases of BA.4 and BA.5 tick up throughout the summer months. “The next real crunch point — and this is even incorporating BA.4 and BA.5 — is probably going to be when we turn into the fall and winter,” he said. “People who were infected with BA.1, and BA.2, will be susceptible to infection again,” both from the continual evolving of the virus and the waning of immunity from vaccines and prior infections. Scientists are trying to figure out exactly where these variants came from in the first place, Hanage said. Preliminary evidence suggests at least some emerged from long-term Covid infections in immunocompromised patients. There’s a growing school of thought that BA.1 and BA.2, Hanage said, might have formed in the same person.  “In such cases, the virus can accumulate large amounts of variation and explore evolutionary space to get better at infecting cells and sidestepping the immune system,” Hanage said. “This is one of the reasons that it is really important to make sure such folks get the best possible treatment, including access to appropriate drugs like Paxlovid or Evusheld.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at mward@politico.com, or on Twitter at @MyahWard.   A message from VISA Inc.: Digital Payments are a lifeline to small businesses. Visa is taking action now to help small businesses by making it less costly to accept digital payments. Visa extends additional support to small businesses | Visa |   WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden administration scrambles to deal with Russians trying to reach America: Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has led a growing number of Russians to abandon their country and seek entry to America — leaving U.S. officials scrambling at embassies worldwide and even along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a State Department cable obtained by POLITICO and interviews with U.S. officials, lawmakers and advocates. Some lawmakers and activists are urging Biden to seize the moment and roll out a welcome mat for fleeing Russians. They argue that would send a powerful signal of U.S. generosity to ordinary Russians — some of whom could be threatened with treason for opposing the war — and undermine Vladimir Putin’s oppressive regime by accelerating a brain drain from his country. — The jobs boom that just won’t quit: The U.S. labor market has been hot, with rising wages, low unemployment and a record number of job openings. There are almost two jobs available for everyone seeking work, and the average monthly gains of more than 400,000 during the last year exceed anything seen since 1939. The Labor Department’s employment report for April showed a gain of 428,000 jobs and unemployment remaining at a low 3.6 percent, demonstrating that the market remains remarkably strong and tilted toward job seekers. The jobless rate is close to where it was before the pandemic.   INTRODUCING DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED:  Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today.     — Pelosi bringing House unionization to floor vote next week: Speaker Nancy Pelosi is promising a vote next week on recognizing Hill staffers’ right to unioniz e, while also upping the minimum annual pay for employees to $45,000 and increasing the salary ceiling to $203,700 to match the Senate’s increase. — Hochul vows New York will provide abortion services for out-of-state patients: New York would prepare for an influx of abortion cases if Roe v. Wade is struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court and would ask the federal government for financial help, Gov. Kathy Hochul said. The state already leads the nation in abortions per 1,000 women, federal records show, and Hochul vowed that New York, with its strong abortion-rights laws, would protect those who visit to get help.   A message from VISA Inc.:     AROUND THE WORLD AN OILY REWRITE — The European Commission has proposed a revised plan for sanctioning Vladimir Putin’s lucrative oil industry , to give some countries in the bloc more time to prepare for life without the Russian fuel imports, Jacopo Barigazzi writes. Under plans seen by POLITICO and put forward to diplomats today, Hungary and Slovakia would get until the end of 2024 — an extra year on top of the original timetable — to comply with the ban. The Czech Republic, which also expressed concerns about the timescale proposed by Ursula von der Leyen earlier this week, will have until the end of June 2024, under the Commission's latest draft. Hungary and Slovakia had warned that the economic damage from ditching Russian oil supplies would be too severe unless they had more time to adapt. Slovakia said it needed until at least the end of 2025 while Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called for a five-year delay.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     PUNCHLINES WHO LET THE DOGWHISTLES OUT — No, this isn’t the Baha Men portion of the newsletter; it’s a bit more serious than that. In the latest Punchlines , where Matt Wuerker and Brooke Minters delve into the history of dogwhistles in politics, and how they are being used as we head toward the 2022 midterms. NIGHTLY NUMBER 109 The number of children with hepatitis of unknown cause the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is investigating in 25 states and territories over the last seven months, including five reported deaths. More than 90 percent of the children were hospitalized and 14 percent received liver transplants due to liver failure. The majority of the children have recovered. PARTING WORDS INSIDE THE FORECAST — The disclosure that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn its nearly-50-year Roe v. Wade precedent is thrusting a new, hot-button issue into the midterm elections: abortion. Watch this week’s episode of Inside the Forecast with Steve Shepard to hear more on how abortion rights could impact the midterms.   A message from VISA Inc.: Looking to the future to help small businesses succeed. The prosperity of small businesses is not only important for the health of the global economy during periods of uncertainty, but for the everyday strength and vibrancy of our local communities. As the future of money continues to evolve, it is critical that small businesses have the resources and support they need to succeed and keep up with big retail in the increasingly digital economy. Visa extends additional support to small businesses | Visa|   Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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Look at this map

 

 I want to show a map of Georgia you may not have seen before (but is also extremely important to help us win).

This map shows how TV advertisers divide the state up into media markets. When campaigns put ads on the air, they have to pay per media market, so some campaigns only pay to advertise in places they’re sure they can win.

But we’re not like other campaigns. We’re committed to reaching voters in every corner of the state, in every single media market, not just Atlanta.

But getting ads up on TV — in addition to radio and online ads — all across the state while running a field program is expensive. That’s why I hope you’ll take a look at this map to see just how ambitious our plan is, and then chip in $5 or whatever makes sense for you today:

We know we will not win every county or every media market in Georgia. But we also know that, in an election this close, if there is even one more vote we can earn by sharing Stacey’s message — it’s worth it.

We can only win this election by engaging folks in every corner of the state — from Albany to Augusta to Columbus.

That’s why we’re going to need to advertise in every one of these media markets, and why we’re counting on grassroots donors like you to chip in and make sure we have the resources to do so.

Anything you can give right now will make a real difference. I hope you’ll make your next donation right now.

Thanks,

Jack DeLapp
Director of Strategy, Targeting and Metrics
Abrams for Governor

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Another astoundingly good jobs report

 

Another astoundingly good jobs report: So economists expected US employers to add 380,000 jobs in April; instead, they added a whopping 428,000, continuing the economy's remarkable recovery from the devastating pandemic.

The country has now regained more than 90 percent of the 22 million jobs that were lost at the height of pandemic in the spring of 2020.

It's a continuation of the record job creation under Joe Biden. In his first year in office, there were 6.6 million jobs added to the economy, 60 percent more than the next highest total, which was 3.9 million under Jimmy Carter.

(Wait, you thought Trump was the biggest job creator in the history of the world just because he said so? Sad! Not only did Biden leave him in the dust in his first year in office, but far more jobs were added under Carter, and Bill Clinton beat him in Year One as well, with 2.8 million jobs. Trump is tied with George H.W. Bush and Lyndon Baines Johnson, with 2 million jobs added in their first year in office.)

The second piece of good news is that the unemployment rate stayed at a strong 3.6 percent, just .1 percent higher than it was before the pandemic, which was itself a 50-year low.

This job growth and low jobless rate happened much quicker than economists had predicted. The country has dug itself out of a pretty deep hole remarkably quickly.

In addition, wages are rising, with average hourly earnings 5.5 percent higher than a year ago.

And finally, GDP grew 5.7 percent in 2021, the fastest pace since 1984.

More jobs, less unemployment, bigger paychecks, and a growing economy. What's not to like?

Well, a few things, in fact.

1. People have money to spend and they are trying to spend it. That's usually a good thing for a vibrant economy, but the demand is far outstripping the supply. That's a classic formula for inflation, currently running at 8.5 percent. It's why the Fed is raising interest rates: To tamp down spending and cool things off.

2. The reasons that supply can't keep up with the demand of American consumers are several: The pandemic disrupted supply chains as workers fell ill, companies slowed or stopped production when there was little demand during lockdowns and are still catching up, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is disrupting food and energy markets, and China, a huge supplier of goods around the world, is enacting more coronavirus lockdowns.

3. Companies are frantically trying to ramp up production to meet this hot consumer demand, but they can't find enough workers to fill the jobs they have. That's one reason why wages are rising (supply and demand, remember?). As the country came out of the worst of the pandemic, many workers took a long, introspective look at their jobs, and many decided to switch to something with more respect, higher pay, and fewer encounters with Covidiots coughing in their face, verbally attacking them, or even physically assaulting them. Many who were close to retirement decided to call it quits early.

There's something else worth noting: These strong job gains mean more income -- and more federal taxes paid. The result is that this fiscal year's budget deficit will decrease by $1.5 trillion, and the government will pay down the national debt this quarter for the first time in six years.

People who are paying higher prices or can't find a clerk to help them at Wal-Mart think the economy is in the tank.

It's not, folks. Yes, the boycotts of Russia's energy supplies could continue to keep gas prices up. And the supply chain tangle still hasn't been sorted out.

But what some economists are calling the Biden Boom is the biggest success story of Biden's young presidency.

FAST FORWARD