Just Super: For those of you who paid no attention to the screaming coming from the other room, the Kansas City Chiefs last night kicked a field goal with 11 seconds on the clock to win Super Bowl LVII over the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35.

  And for fans who didn’t study Latin, that’s Super Bowl 57. It was one of the best ever.

  This was the second Super Bowl win for Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and the team’s second in four years. Despite coming into the game with a sprained ankle, and re-injuring it near the end of the first half, Mahomes ran with the ball and threw for 182 yards. 

  Philadelphia had been favored to win. They scored on their opening drive, dominated the first half, and Kansas City came into the second half trailing by 10 points. Mahomes had left for the locker room in obvious agony for halftime, but came back as if nothing had happened.

  Kansas City took the lead and then Philadelphia evened it up at 35 before the Chiefs put it away with that field goal. “To be down to a team like that and come back and win the game,” Mahomes said, “I wish I’d make it easier and not be down, but I play better when we are down.”

  We don’t care about the commercials and halftime show.

Flying Objects: The Air Force yesterday shot down a third unidentified floating object in as many days, this time over Lake Huron.

  North American defenses are on heightened alert after that Chinese spy balloon crossed the US. Suddenly the Pentagon is detecting objects flying in “middle space,” still within the earth’s atmosphere. “We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase,” said Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense.

  On Saturday, an American fighter acting on orders from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shot down an unidentified flying object over the Canadian Yukon. An American F-22 did the job. 

  Trudeau tweeted, “Canadian Forces will now recover and analyze the wreckage of the object.”

  The first of the three unidentified objects was object shot down Friday over Alaskan waters. In Alaska, federal troops working with Alaska National Guard units, the FBI, and local law enforcement were recovering the remains in wind and snow. “We have no further details at this time about the object, including its capabilities, purpose and origin,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

Quake Zone: The Turkish government has vowed to pursue the contractors who skirted construction codes and made buildings vulnerable to collapse in an earthquake. As many as 100 have already been detained. Just for a start, two contractors were detained yesterday at the Istanbul airport carrying $17,000 in cash and planning to fly to Georgia. One of them told reporters, “My conscience is clear. I built 44 buildings; only four have collapsed.”

  The Turkish government estimates that 24,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. At least 35,000 people are dead, and a million are homeless in Turkey and Syria. 

The War Room: As Ukraine warns of a renewed Russian offensive, possibly to coincide with the February 24th anniversary of the invasion, reports of Russian progress in the east remain mixed. 

    British intelligence says forces of the private  Wagner Group army have pushed 2-3 kilometers further west and that Russian forces  are controlling countryside near the main route into Bakhmut. A Ukrainian military spokesman said that Russia’s grinding efforts to take Bakhmut are a “symbol” of Russia’s inability to conduct rapid and powerful offensive operations.

  As an example of that, the Brits say Russian units have likely suffered particularly heavy casualties around Vuhledar in the Donetsk region. They are reported to have  abandoned at least 30 mostly intact armored vehicles after a failed assault. 

The Long Count: Speaking in Iowa, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake posited that not only was her election stolen, but that elections in general are fraudulent if Republicans don’t win. Lake said, “We’ve got great candidates on the Republican Party and on our side. We’ve got so many great candidates that if our elections were really fair, I believe the ranks of Congress, the Senate, I think a White House, I think all the state governorships would be Republican if elections were fair.”

  Lake represents a growing movement seeded when Donald Trump claimed he won the 2020 election. Perhaps even more than Trump, she has come to be the voice and face of claims that elections are rigged when Republicans lose. But Lake, just like Trump, doesn’t produce the proof.

The Spin Rack: President Biden declined to do what has become the traditional Super Bowl halftime interview because the game was on the Fox network. — Former criminology PhD student Bryan Kohberger, the man charged with murdering four University of Idaho undergraduates, had been called two weeks before the killings to a meeting with faculty members at Washington State University to confront him about troubling conduct around women and an altercation with a professor, The NY Times reports. — British actor Julian Sands is still missing since going on a hike January 13^th in the snowy mountains of southern California. A sheriff’s spokesman said over the weekend, “We remain hopeful, but we know the outcome may not be what we would like. Sands was in The Killings Fields and A Room With a View among other films and television shows.

Below the Fold: In an effort to tamp down rowdy behavior in the city’s famous Red Light District, officials in Amsterdam announced plans to bar dope smoking in the neighborhood, as well as reducing hours for restaurants and brothels, and tightening some alcohol restrictions. The announcement from the city council referenced the alcohol- and drug-fueled atmosphere at night that makes the neighborhood unsafe and prevents residents from sleeping. We were surprised to learn that anyone actually sleeps in the beds in that neighborhood.

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