Evacuated: The US and other countries have evacuated their diplomatic personnel from Sudan as civil war rips that country. As many as 100 special operations troops and helicopters were used to pull out embassy staff and their families.

  It was a complicated operation requiring the helicopters to fly 1,000 miles out of the US base in Djibouti. The embassy personnel were taken back to Djibouti then sent on to Germany.

  Also pulling their people out were Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. 

  According to the United Nations, at least 400 people have been killed and 3,500 injured in fighting between two military factions each trying to take control of the country. There are believed to be about 16,000 Americans in Sudan, most of them dual citizens and the US will make no effort to evacuate them.

The Shalt Not: As part of the continuing right wing push to incorporate Christian doctrine into government, the Texas legislature has passed a law requiring display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom.

  The bill requires the Commandments to be displayed starting next school year in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom in a “size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”

  Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement that, “Bringing the Ten Commandments and prayer back to our public schools will enable our students to become better Texans.” 

  The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas countered in a Twitter post that, “Parents should be able to decide what religious materials their child should learn, not the (Texas legislature)”. 

  The Christian right seems determined to take this issue back to the Supreme Court, which ruled back in 1962 that prayer in school was an infringement of the First Amendment right to be free of the government imposition of religion. 

The War Room: The Russians over the weekend  pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles, mortars, artillery fire and airstrikes, hitting homes and infrastructure. 

  Russian forces are still trying to take the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Ukraine is defending fiercely in a largely symbolic battle to demonstrate the inability of  the invaders to beat the less powerful country.

  Ukraine is reported to be preparing for a spring counteroffensive to take back occupied territory in the east and south of the country. On the other side, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the seizure of the entire eastern Donbas region a priority, a tall order he has yet been unable to fulfill. 

Office Affairs: NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell resigned after an outside investigation “into a complaint of inappropriate conduct,” parent company Comcast announced yesterday. “I had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company, which I deeply regret,” Shell said in a statement.” 

  The statement did identify who the woman was, or who complained. 

The Shooting Gallery: Nine teenagers were shot in an East Texas home early Sunday at a prom after-party attended by about 250 people. No one was killed.

  In South Florida a man shot at the car occupied by two people who drove onto his property after they got lost trying to drop off an Instacart order. The car was riddled and left with a flat tire.

  Six people have now been arrested in that wild shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama. Four young people died and 32 were wounded. Police have yet to give a public explanation of what happened. 

The Spin Rack: Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey replaced her director of early childhood education over the use of a teacher training book that the Republican governor denounced as teaching “woke concepts” because of language about inclusion and structural racism. Barbara Cooper was fired over the distribution of the book to state-run pre-kindergartens. — The home goods chain Bed Bath & Beyond has filed for bankruptcy and will be shuttering its stores after 52 years in business. Closing sales are set to begin on Wednesday. Customers have today and tomorrow to use their remaining 20%-off coupons. — A  56-year-old Indiana woman has been indicted on federal hate crime charges after she was accused of stabbing a young bus passenger because she assumed the 18-year-old Indiana University student was “Chinese.” — The wreck of a World war II Japanese transport ship that was torpedoed and sank with 1,000 allied prisoners of war on board has been located in 13,000 feet of water off Luzon island in the South China Sea. The unmarked ship was sunk by an American submarine. As many as 979 of the POWs were Australian, comprising that country’s single biggest loss of the war.

Below the Fold: There’s no culture war that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won’t fight. After Bud Light beer invited an endorsement by a trans gender blogger, DeSantis joined the anti-trans crowd and declared that Bud Light had lost a customer. Then he admitted that he doesn’t drink Bud Light.  

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