Ukraine: Up to 50 pro-Russian fighters were killed in heavy fighting over control of the Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine.The government used air strikes and sent in paratroopers in a successful effort to reclaim the airport. Helicopters fired rockets and cannon at the airport terminal. The use of such force might be seen as a thumb in the eye for Russia, which has urged Ukraine to restrain itself. Russian forces could still invade. Ukraine’s newly elected President Petro Poroshenko said, “The anti-terrorist operation should not last two or three months. It should last for a matter of hours.”

Ukraine’s interior minister issued a statement saying, “The airport is under our full control. The enemy suffered heavy losses. We have none.”

The Girls: Nigeria’s defense chief says his military knows where nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls are being held, but he doesn’t want to use force. “We can’t go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back,” Air Marshal Alex Barde said. He didn’t say what he actually plans to do about it, if he actually knows where the captive girls are.

Money, Money: It’s good to be king, or at least the CEO. The median compensation for corporate CEOs topped $10 million for the first time last year. The big bosses now make 257 times the pay of an average worker, up from a multiple of 181 in 2009. Execs are increasingly being paid with stock options, and they’ve made a bundle in the rising market.

> Local governments are beginning to wake up to the notion that leaving homeless people on the streets is more expensive that giving them housing. A study by Creative Housing Solutions in Central Florida says that with police time and emergency room visits a homeless person costs $31,000 a year while putting that same person in supervised housing might cost only $10,000 a year. The political problem they run into is convincing voters that building housing actually saves money.

World: A Chinese vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat in disputed waters between the two countries. The 10 fishermen on board were rescued by other fishing boats. The incident happened less than 20 miles from where China installed an oil rig off the coast of Vietnam.

The Obit Page: Herb Jeffries, the singing cowboy who starred in black westerns as “the Bronze Buckaroo,” has died. He was believed to be about 100 years old. Jeffries was a man of versatile racial identity who might more accurately be described as tan than black. He said he was black, but he could have been white, or passed for it. The NY Times quotes jazz critic Gary Giddins saying Jeffries told him, “I just knew that my life would be more interesting as a black guy. If I’d chosen to live my life passing as white, I’d have never been able to sing with Duke Ellington.” He also sang with Earl Hines and could easily flip from jazz to country. He released a single called “Flamingo” that sold 14 million copies in 1941.

Deep Cover: The White House mistakenly revealed the identity of the CIA chief in Kabul over the weekend when it gave reporters a list of people the president met during his visit to Afghanistan. The title next to the name on the roster was “Station Chief” but no one recognized him because he was going undercover as a lamb kabob.

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