Twister: At least 26 people are confirmed dead after storms and tornados tore through a 170-mile swath of Mississippi and Alabama last Friday. A father and one-year-old daughter are among them.

  And the storm threat continues. As many as 20 million residents across the South and Southeast are in the path of severe storms today, including major cities Houston and New Orleans. 

  President Biden has declared an emergency to provide federal money for assistance, including recovery and temporary housing.

  The town of Rolling Fork in west-central Mississippi appears to have all but been removed from the map. Homes and businesses are gone and the new visitor’s center is severely damaged. The popular Chuck’s Dairy Bar is gone. The National Weather Service rated the tornado that hit Rolling Fork/Silver City as an EF-4 out of a scale of 5, with winds from 166 to 200 mph. 

Israel Turmoil: Thousands of Israelis hit the streets in protest yesterday following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s firing of the country’s defense minister in a dispute over reorganizing the court system. Universities shut down in protest and union leaders announced a general strike.

  Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, had criticized the government’s plan to give itself greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices and to limit the court’s authority over Parliament. Even as the protests proceeded, Netanyahu’s coalition gathered in Parliament to push through their plan.

The Prison Chorus: Having spent more than two years undermining faith in the election system, Donald Trump and his acolytes are now campaigning against the justice system that’s cleaning up after felonious attempts to overturn the government.

  Trump opened a rally in Waco, Texas on Saturday  with a song called “Justice for All” performed by a choir of people who did time for their part in the January 6th insurrection. 

  Facing possible indictment in several investigations, Trump delivered a grievance-filled speech in which he said, “The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.”

  With members of the crowd waving signs saying “Witch Hunt” behind him, Trump described the US almost as an occupied country and said, “The abuses of power that we’re currently witnessing at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt and depraved chapters in all of American history.” 

  He promised that, “And 2024 is the final battle, it’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.”

  But, a majority of Americans say the multiple criminal investigations into Trump’s conduct are fair, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. The poll found that 6 in 10 Americans don’t want Trump to be president again.

  In the District of Columbia, after visiting January 6^th defendants in jail, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor  Greene decried a “two-tier justice system” in which the rioters  were treated like “political prisoners.”

  “They told us stories of being denied medical treatment,” she said of her conversations with January 6th defendants. “They told us stories of assault. They told us stories of being threatened with rape.”

  She did not condemn the defendants’ attempt to overthrow the government.

Capitol Crimes: Speaking of the January 6^th insurrection, National Public Radio tracked the disposition of cases for the nearly 1,000 people charged with crimes. Note that more than half have pleaded guilty.

• Number of people charged, federal: 994
• Number of people charged, D.C.: 24
• Number of people who have pleaded guilty: 541
• Number of individuals who have had jury or bench trials: 67
• The number convicted on all charges: 42
• The number acquitted on all charges: 1
• The number with mixed verdicts: 24
• Number of people sentenced: 445
• The percentage of people sentenced who have received prison time: 58
• The median sentence for those who received prison time, in days: 60
• The prison sentence range: 7 days to 10 years
• The number of cases dismissed: 5 federal; 8 D.C. Superior Court

  Federal Judge Timothy Kelly, appointed by President Trump told one defendant, “What happened that day was, in some ways, as serious… an offense as there can be, given that it threatened the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another.” 

March Madness: NCAA basketball is down to its final four with three teams that have never come this far; San Diego State, Miami, and Florida Atlantic. Connecticut is gunning for its fifth championship since 1999. The semi-final games are next weekend.

Frozen Four: NCAA hockey is also down to the last four. On April 6^th it’s Minnesota against BU and Michigan vs. Quinnipiac.

The Spin Rack: Philadelphia is monitoring its drinking water system following a chemical spill upstream in the Delaware River on Friday. — National Public radio has announced layoffs of 10 percent of its staff because of a $30 million shortfall in corporate sponsorships. Employees including producers, hosts, audience researchers, and designers will be losing their jobs. The network is also cutting four podcasts. — George Washington University is dumping the name “Colonials” under years of pressure from students who say the name is a reminder of violence against Native Americans and other colonized people. There’s no replacement nickname as yet.

Below the Fold: Investment genius Elon Musk says Twitter is now worth $20 billion. He paid $44 billion to buy it last October. 

  Meanwhile, sales of the no-tech and homely rubber clogs “Crocs” have surged 200 percent since the start of the Covid pandemic.