Notes and Essays -- John Brown

By Caitlin Gilbert and Luis Melgar, The Washington Post , April 30, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.  13 hours ago Washington Post From the article:  "It wasn’t just you who rolled over and hit the snooze button this morning. Americans are now sleeping more than at any point in the past two decades, a trend that accelerated during the pandemic, a Washington Post analysis found."

Credit... Poppy Lynch for The New York Times Image from a NYT article ,   April 28

Todd Prince, RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty , April 29, 2024 14:05 GMT   [original article c ontains links and illustrations; JB underlining ]  Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, his armed forces have pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones fired from the relatively safe confines of Crimea. Following his occupation of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula in 2014, the Kremlin leader poured billions of dollars into militarizing Crimea, expanding bases and constructing depots and other infrastructure. Now fortress Crimea faces a significant new threat that could neutralize its crucial role in the 26-month-old war: U.S. long-range ATACMS, or Army Tactical Missile Systems. After nearly two years of hesitation, the United States earlier this month delivered versions of the powerful ballistic missiles that can travel 300 kilometers -- essentially reaching any of the more than 100 military targets on the peninsula. "The...

Reuters Daily Briefing [April 30]   An educational institution building burns after a Russian missile strike in Odesa, Ukraine. April 29, 2024. REUTERS/Sergey Smolentse WAR IN UKRAINE A Russian missile attack on an educational institution in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa  killed at least five people  and injured 32, local officials said. Meanwhile, United Nations sanctions monitors told a Security Council committee the debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a  North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile. About 30 Ukrainian men have died trying to illegally cross Ukraine's borders and  avoid fighting in the war  against Russia which started in 2022, the spokesman for Ukraine's border service told Ukrinform news agency.

Ukraine’s top commander said his outgunned troops were facing a dire situation as Russia tried to push its advantage before the first batch of an American military package arrives. A building destroyed by artillery fire and air raids in the Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne, not far from Avdiivka, earlier this month. Credit... Anatolii Stepanov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Constant Méheut, Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, The New York Times , April 29, 2024 Updated 12:00 p.m. ET Russian troops have captured or entered around a half-dozen villages on Ukraine’s eastern front over the past week, highlighting the deteriorating situation in the region for outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces as they wait for long-needed American military aid. “The situation at the front has worsened,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top commander, said in a statement on Sunday in which he announced that his troops had retreated from two villages west of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold in the ...

Rep. Rudy Yakym (R., Ind.), at front, went skydiving in Hawaii in January to celebrate his 40th birthday. PHOTO : COURTESY REP. RUDY YAKYM

1,024 × 537 Search inside image Fiction University: The Value of a Good Proofreader Visit Images may be subject to copyright.  Learn More "The university’s order to clear the encampment appeared be to  [sic] an attempt to clear the area without calling in the Police Department." From The NYT

By  Emily Aronson, Office of Communications,  April 15, 2024, 5:07 p.m., News, Princeton University Churbanova image from article Genrietta Churbanova, an anthropology major from Little Rock, Arkansas, has been named the Princeton Class of 2024 valedictorian. John Freeman, a classics major from Chicago, has been selected as the salutatorian. The Princeton faculty accepted the nominations of the Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing at its April 15 meeting.  Commencement for the class of 2024 will take place at Princeton Stadium on Tuesday, May 28. Churbanova and Freeman are expected to give remarks at the ceremony.  Churbanova is deeply engaged in scholarship related to Chinese and Russian relations. In addition to her anthropology major, she is minoring in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and Chinese language and culture. She was named a   2024 Schwarzman Scholar   and will pursue a master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua Univer...