The Shooting Gallery: Another day, another mass shooting. 

  One person was killed and five critically wounded in a shooting yesterday during a lunch reception hosted by a Taiwanese congregation at a church in Laguna Woods, California. The suspect is an Asian man in his 60s. 

  And in Harris County, Texas, an altercation at a flea market turned into a gunfight in which two people were shot dead and several others were hit.

  But, the massacre Saturday at a Buffalo, NY supermarket was the deadliest so far this year, and it’s only mid-May.

  Ten people were killed and three wounded at a Tops supermarket by an avowedly racist gunman in a largely black neighborhood. Eleven of the people shot were black and two were white.

  A witness said, “bodies were everywhere.”

  The suspect is 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who drove more than 200 miles from his home outside Binghamton, NY and livestreamed it as he gunned people down, even engaging fire with a security guard he killed.

  Gendron’s assault rifle was legally purchased in the State of New York authorities say, but his high-capacity bullet clip was not. The gun shop owner who sold Gendron the rifle told The NY Times, “I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but I feel terrible about it.”

  Authorities have identified a 180-page manifesto Gendron had posted online in which he wrote about the increasingly popular “replacement theory” that white Americans are being out-populated by people of color.  It’s been pushed by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, among others.

  Self-identified as a white supremacist and anti-Semite, Gendron wrote that low white birth rates around the world present a “crisis” that “will ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people.” He said he was inspired in part by the 2019 racially-motivated attack at a New Zealand mosque that killed 51 people.

The War Room: Ukrainian forces are reported to have reached the Russian border after pushing the invaders out of the second largest city of Kharkiv. 

  It’s a stunning loss and another big defeat for the Russians after getting beaten back from the capital Kyiv and other major fronts. The Ukrainians say the pullback has left behind new evidence of Russian atrocities. 

  The Ukrainians can now turn to cutting Russia’s supply lines to its forces trying to advance into the eastern Donetsk region. On the southern front, Ukrainian regional authorities say the Russians have begun digging trenches in some front-line positions, a sign that they are on the defense, not offense.

  Regardless of the outcome, the invasion has been a disaster for the Russian military, which may have lost a third of the ground force it sent into Ukraine, according to Britain’s defense ministry. They say that heavy losses in the Donbas offensive make Russia “unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.” 

  In just one battle, Russia may have lost close to 500 soldiers dead and wounded last week in a disastrous attempt to cross the Donets River. The area was left littered with destroyed tanks and vehicles. 

  News of the incident was reported even by pro-Russian bloggers. The Institute for the Study of War quotes one blogger saying, “Due to stupidity — I emphasize, because of the stupidity of the Russian command — at least one battalion tactical group was burned, possibly two.”

  In southeastern Ukraine,  a convoy of 500 to 1,000 cars carrying fleeing civilians left the bombed-out city of Mariupol for Zaporizhzhia on Saturday. Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to Mariupol’s mayor reported on his Telegram channel. Ukrainian soldiers, amazingly, are still holding out in the rubble of Mariupol’s giant steel production complex.

Dialing for Death: If you’ve noticed in the pictures and video of the war in Ukraine, a lot of soldiers are using cellphones. The website Task & Purpose posted an article about how the everyday item of modern life has become both a great convenience and a danger in warfare.

  With their military communication systems often failing, the Russians have resorted at times to using cellphones. If a phone signal hits three towers, the Ukrainians can pinpoint the location and drop artillery shells or a missile on it. Twelve Russian generals have been killed, some of them certainly using this method of intelligence.

  “So, the Ukrainian special services automatically receive information with the ID number of the device, roaming number, and, of course, the location of the person,” one source told Task & Purpose. “Fortunately, Russians are quite naive and ignorant about using mobile devices, so they often call home, turning on their phones and connecting to the Ukrainian stations.”

  The Russians have even been located with stolen iPhones, which can be located using Apple’s “find my phone” function. Find it, and blow it up.

The Spin Rack: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading Democratic candidate for the state’s open US Senate seat, suffered a mild stroke and says he’s already on the way to recovery. The informal and friendly Fetterman, who campaigns wearing shorts and a hoodie, said the stroke was “caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long.” He’s still in the hospital. — In a sign of global warming and rising seas, three oceanfront homes on North Carolina’s Outer Banks were swept into the ocean. One of them was caught on video being picked up and floating away. — Pop star Britney Spears, who was only recently released from a conservatorship that prevented her from getting pregnant, revealed that she had a miscarriage. Her romantic partner is actor and fitness coach, Sam Asghari.

Mac Attack: McDonald’s is getting out of Russia after 30 years because of  the “humanitarian crisis” and “unpredictable operating environment” caused by the Ukraine war. They have 850 shops in Russia. Mickey D’s sold their first Big Mac in Moscow when the Soviet Union opened up to the West and now the whole chain is “to go.”

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