The Long Goodbye: The grand and colorful spectacle of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral was held this morning at Westminster Abbey with 2,000 notable guests from around the world. You could see a tear in the eye of King Charles as the proceedings drew to c close.

  Among the guests were kings, queens, and emperors, and princes from Belgium, Bhutan, Brunei, Japan, Jordan, Lesotho, and Lichtenstein, and more.  President and Mrs. Biden were there as well as the leaders of Europe and Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Actress Sandra Oh was there as well as  composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

  The queen will not actually be buried next to her husband, Prince Phillip, until a private ceremony tonight in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. 

  As we went to press, the Queen’s coffin was being carried in a military procession through the streets of London on a gun carriage. Big Ben tolled every minute.

Like a Hurricane: Hurricane Fiona yesterday knocked out power to the entire island of Puerto Rico just five years after Hurricane Maria did the same. The power system has been unreliable ever since Maria hit.

  The storm was sitting over the island overnight, expected to dump inches of rain and causing flooding.

  Jaclyn Rothenberg, speaking for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the agency’s focus was on immediate needs for islanders and analysis of what went wrong will come later. “Our focus remains on critical needs and lifesaving efforts, should there be any, given the fact that the storm is literally hovering over the island,” Rothenberg said.

  The LUMA power company, noting that the hurricane was still a danger, said full restoration could take several days.

The War Zone:  Ukrainian forces are creeping forward in the southern Donbas region, now facing Iranian combat drones supplied to the Russians.

  President Biden is resisting giving Ukraine a more powerful missile system capable of reaching deep into Russia, although Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky says he has no intention of using it for that.

  Biden says he gives just enough military aide for Ukraine to push Russia out of the country without risking a wider war. He’s worried that giving Ukraine longer range weapons might be seen by Russia as a provocation, leading to an escalation. 

  The Ukrainians are keeping up the pressure on Russian forces, hitting administrative sites and supply lines. A Ukrainian missile strike in Kherson leveled a cotton mill that was used as a Russian base, Ukrainian officials said yesterday. They also hit a downtown courthouse that served as a headquarters for the Kremlin-backed military administration.

  South in Donetsk, Russian artillery killed five civilians. The Institute for the Study of War says, “Russian forces continue to conduct meaningless offensive operations around Donetsk City and Bakhmut instead of focusing on defending against Ukrainian counteroffensives that continue to advance.” 

  The ISW says the Russians “continue to attack Bakhmut and various villages near Donetsk City of emotional significance to pro-war residents of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) but little other importance.” The ISW goes on to say, “The Russians cannot hope to make gains around Bakhmut or Donetsk City on a large enough scale to derail Ukrainian counteroffensives and appear to be continuing an almost robotic effort to gain ground in Donetsk Oblast that seems increasingly divorced from the overall realities of the theater.”

Trump World: Nearly two years after Donald Trump spawned The Big Lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him, The NY Times has identified six candidates for governor or Senate who would not commit to accepting the results of this November’s elections.

  The six, all Republicans, are: Senate candidates Ted Budd in North Carolina, Blake Masters in Arizona, Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska, and JD Vance in Ohio. Republican candidate for Michigan governor Tudor Dixon, and Geoff Diehl in Massachusetts also declined to say that they would accept election results.

  Reasons given raged from doubts about election security to speculation that an opponent would cheat.

The Obit Page: Herbert Kohler Jr., whose name is in bathrooms all over the world, died September 3^rdin his hometown of  Kohler, Wisconsin. He was 83.

  Following his father into the family business that had been started by his grandfather, Kohler built the business of toilets, bathtubs, and faucets into a billion dollar enterprise. His grandfather, who originally made farm implements, was the first to enamel a tub used for scalding pigs and sold it as a bathtub. Herbert Kohler Jr made it into a bathroom empire. When he retired as chief executive in 2015, the company had annual sales of $6 billion.

The Spin Rack: The Wegman’s  supermarket chain has stopped using its self-checkout app with which customers scanned items as they shopped. The company says it led to more shoplifting. — In an escalation of the politics over gender identity, the State of Virginia will no longer allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms for the gender with which they identify with and will require that they file legal documents if they wish to be called by different pronouns. — President Biden last night on “60 Minutes” declared that the Covid pandemic is over after more than 617 million cases around the world and 6.5 million deaths. It may be over, but we know people who have it right now. 

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