The War Zone: Ukraine says today that it shot down several Russian cruise missiles just hours before leaders of the Group of 7 nations expect to  hold an emergency virtual meeting to discuss Russia’s missile barrage that killed at least 19 people yesterday.

  About a third of the city of Lviv is without power after a missile strike today.

  Losing on the ground, Russia has taken to the air to punish Ukraine. As many as 84 Russian missiles and drones were launched yesterday at targets all over Ukraine, but the defenders claimed they shot down 56 of them.

  The targets were mostly electric and energy producing facilities, but missiles also hit civilian areas. At least 19 people died and 64 were injured. 

  President Joe Biden said Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities “once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people.” French President Emmanuel Macron said, “It’s a profound change of the nature of this war.” 

  In another possibly ominous development,  President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus announced that Russian troops would return to his country in large numbers in a buildup similar to what preceded Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.

  In remarks reported by his state news agency, Lukashenko said that work had already started on formation of a “joint regional group of troops” to counter “possible aggression against our country” by NATO and Ukraine. But Lukashenko has a reputation for bluster and doesn’t always follow through on what he says.

Trumped Up: Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a damning witness in the House January 6^th hearings, is cooperating with an Atlanta area investigation into efforts to reverse the 2020 election, CNN reports. Hutchinson was an aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and witnessed a lot of nefarious activity.

  Meadows was one of the participants on the January 2021 call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger in which Trump said he needed more votes.

Politically Incorrect: The president of the Los Angeles City Council has resigned after getting caught in an audio recording making racist remarks. Nury Martinez was recorded saying one member of city council treated his young Black son as though he were an “accessory” and described the son as “Parece changuito,” or “He’s like a monkey.” She referred to “little short dark people” in Koreatown as “Tan feos” — “They’re ugly.”

  Speaking about Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, she said, “Fuck that guy … He’s with the Blacks.”

  Martinez said she is “truly ashamed.” She was the first Latina president of the LA City Council. She did not resign her seat on the council.

  Two other members of city council took part in the conversation as did 

Ron Herrera, chief of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor. He also has resigned.

The Obit Page: Nikki Finke, the hard-nosed entertainment reporter and blogger who founded the website Deadline Hollywood Daily, died on Sunday in Boca Raton, Florida at age 68.

  Her interest was more in the Hollywood boardroom rather than the bedroom that’s often the focus of entertainment news. 

  Notoriously reclusive, few people even knew what she looked like. Finke took no prisoners covering the doings and wrongdoings of the Hollywood elite. She told an interviewer, “I am a very old-school journalist. I believe you make the comfortable uncomfortable, and that’s the whole point of doing it.” — Art Laboe, the California disc jockey credited with coining the term “oldies, but goodies,” has died at age 97.

The Spin Rack: Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker, former actress, and wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is expected to testify at the California sex crimes trial of Harvey Weinstein that the imprisoned movie producer raped her back in her early years in the movie business. Weinstein has already been convicted in New York. — A pro-Russian hacker group called “Killnet” claims to have taken down several US airport websites yesterday. Flight operations were not affected. — The National Hockey League season starts today, overlapping with the baseball playoffs. 

Gas Tax: New Zealand’s government today proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make by “burping” and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The government says farmers can recoup the cost by selling more climate friendly products.

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