Ted’s Last Stand, Puerto Rico Defaults

Ted Talks: Just one day from the crucial Indiana primary, Ted Cruz could be in more trouble than he can talk his way out of in 24 hours. “The eyes of the entire country now rest on Indiana,” Cruz said.

The eyes are not exactly on Indiana but on Donald Trump, who leads by 15 points in a an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released yesterday. The RealClear Politics website has Trump up by an average of 4.1 percent.

Cruz blamed the “mainstream media” and “New York power brokers” for wanting the race to be over. But he appears to have hurt himself badly with the non-aggression pact he reached with John Kasich over Indiana. Kasich agreed to clear out, but 58 percent of voters disapprove of the deal.

Confident that he will win Indiana and the Republican nomination, Trump said, “If we win Indiana, it’s over, O.K.?. Then we can focus on crooked Hillary. Please! Let’s focus on Hillary.”

Island of Tropical Breezes: With Congress unable to come to a solution for Puerto Rico’s debt, the US territory is set to default today on a $370 million payment. Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said, “Let me be very clear, this was a painful decision. We would have preferred to have had a legal framework to restructure our debts in an orderly manner.”

With its economy in the tank, Puerto Rico has been borrowing money for years to maintain itself. Now they are $70 billion in debt with no way to pay it back.

Mojito Diplomacy: A Carnival cruise ship carrying 700 people is expected to land in Havana today, becoming the first American cruise liner to land in Cuba since the revolution. The visit was made possible because Cuba relaxed its rule prohibiting its own citizens, including naturalized Cuban Americans, from arriving to or departing from the island country by sea. It seems like a small change, but Cuban-American relations have been so fraught with petty differences that every development is a big deal.

Nation: A raging fire yesterday gutted the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava in Manhattan. The church was built in the early 1850s.

>A Freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in northeast Washington, DC. Authorities say all the chemicals have been secured.

>Anarchists threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police in Seattle yesterday during a violent May Day rally. Five police officers were injured. Seattle is home to a small but sometimes extremely nasty group of anarchists.

Frozen: The bodies of world renown American Climber Alex Lowe and his cameraman David Bridges have been found in the Himalayan glacier 16 years after the two were killed by an avalanche. They died on the 26,000-foot Shishapangma peak in Tibet in October of 1990. Lowe, 40, and Bridges, 29, had been looking for a route up the mountain, the 14th tallest in the world. Lowe’s widow Jennifer later married one of the survivors, Conrad Anker, also an internationally known mountaineer.

College Bound: First daughter Malia Obama got into Harvard, but she’s delaying enrollment until her father leaves the White House. The family did not announce what she will do during a “gap” year. Malia, 17, is a senior at the Sidwell Friends School. Harvard admitted just 5.2 percent of its applicants this year.

Never Forget: The elephants with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus made their last appearance under the big top yesterday in Providence, RI. Elephants have performed with circuses for more than 200 years and are often the favorite act. But circuses are reluctantly giving them up as they face animal rights activists and local bans on using a “bull hook,” a sharp hook, to train the animals. Ringling Bros. 40 elephants will be retired to a conservation and breeding home in Florida.

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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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