‘They … executed him in the street’ / Obama has it / Marching bandmania

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‘They beat him and … executed him in the street.’ Ukrainians talk to The Guardian about Russia’s takeover of villages.
Russia’s bombing of a maternity ward killed a pregnant woman and her unborn baby.
A volunteer British fighter in Ukraine describes a Russian attack on a NATO-affiliated training center as people slept: “I just lied there and thought, I’m going to die.”
The Russian military has reportedly abducted at least two Ukrainian mayors …
 … replacing one of them with a woman who declared ominously that her job would be to establish “basic mechanisms under the new reality.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address the U.S. Congress Wednesday.

‘The absolute best war journalist.’ The first foreign reporter killed in the Ukraine war is an acclaimed filmmaker who was working on a project for TIME …
 … and whose legacy includes a Peabody Award-winning series about a Chicago school: Last Chance High.
Mother Jones quotes a leaked memo to state-friendly Russian media: “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson.”
A Russian journalist tells Voice of America: “Journalism has been lost in Russia—it just doesn’t exist anymore.”

2.8 million. That’s where the tally of Ukrainian refugees stood early today.
Slow Boring columnist Matthew Yglesias on the “totally fair observation” that European countries have been more welcoming of light-skinned Ukrainians than darker-skinned Syrian refugees: “I don’t want people to think that they need to be less enthusiastic about welcoming Ukrainian refugees to demonstrate their anti-racist bona fides.”

Popular Information: The conglomerate run by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch is still doing business in Russia.
The Associated Press gets it right: Gas prices driven upward by Russia’s war have reached a U.S. average of $4.43—“but that’s still quite a ways from the inflation-adjusted record high.”

Obama has it. The former president announced on Facebook: “I just tested positive for COVID” …
As of today in Chicago Public Schools, masks are optional.
Thousands of Chicago cops are at risk of losing their jobs for failing to have been vaccinated by the city’s deadline.
Axios/Ipsos analysis: “The key factor determining how Americans have handled COVID-19—more than race, education or even political affiliation—is where they get their news.”
Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina: COVID “case trends around the globe have made a u-turn and started increasing, specifically in Asian and European countries.”

‘People … are willing to help solve these crimes but they are afraid.’ A state lawmaker is encouraged by Gov. Pritzker’s plan to pump cash into a long-underfunded witness protection program.
Chicago cops are seeking witnesses to a mass shooting that left seven people hurt outside a pizza restaurant.
A Sun-Times editorial: To enhance CTA safety, the city should consider bringing back train conductors.

‘You’re the same company that’s coded basically every villain in your movies as gay.’ HBO’s John Oliver isn’t buying Disney’s explanation for supporting lawmakers behind Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill …
 … in a segment that he concedes probably kills his chances of getting invited back to voice Zazu in the next Lion King movie.

 … and (probably) guaranteed that a typo in the song’s title will endure.

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 Mike Esposito made this edition better.

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