The War Room: The Russians have hit the Ukrainian city of Lviv with a missile strike, killing at least seven people. The missiles hit in the area of a railroad complex that’s been a transit point for thousands of refugees fleeing the war.

  The last Ukrainian soldiers in the port city of Mariupol are holding out against the Russians and President Volodomyr Zelensky says they will “fight until the end.” Mariupol is all that stops Russia from establishing  a land bridge between occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

  A few thousand Ukrainian soldiers are reported to be making a last stand in a steel plant bordering on the Black Sea. The plant covers  four square miles laced with rail tracks, blast furnaces, and mills. It serves as a fortress. Russia gave the defenders until yesterday morning to put down their weapons or be “eliminated.”

  The Kremlin said today that they are still engaged in low level peace talks with Ukraine, but that there isn’t much progress. Dmitri Peskov, who is Vladimir Putin’s liar-in-chief, told reporters, “Unfortunately, the Ukrainian side is not demonstrating much consistency on agreed-upon issues. Their position is changing frequently.” Of course, Russia could just choose to stop invading its neighbor.

Critical Thinking: The Florida Department of Education announced that it will not approve the use of 54 of 132 textbooks under consideration because they mention “Critical Race Theory.” All the books in question were math books.

  An Education Department statement said “Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics.”  They did not cite any offending passages.

  Critical Race Theory is fundamentally the notion that racism is at the core of American law and society. It is taught mostly in law schools, not grade schools. Social Emotional learning takes into account personal and emotional development of the student as well as academics.

  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that the math textbooks “included indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students.”

The Shooting Gallery: Two people were killed early yesterday in a shooting at a large party in Pittsburgh’s Deutschtown neighborhood. The gunfire broke out around 12:30 am at an Airbnb rental when about 200 people were present. Another nine people were wounded while as many as 50 rounds were fired.

  And in Columbia, SC on Saturday, nine people were shot and another five  injured in the  stampede that followed the gunfire. The cops said they believed the shooting was the result of an “ongoing conflict” among people who knew each other.

  And in Boston, two people are in critical condition after a shooting early yesterday in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. 

The Obit Page: Mike Bossy, the Hall of Fame hockey winger who led the National Hockey League in goals for two of the four consecutive seasons in which the New York Islanders won the Stanley Cup championship, has died of lung cancer at age 65. 

  The Canadian Bossy was one of the fastest skaters in the league, known for a lightning-quick wrist shot that slipped by goalies.

  As an expansion team, the Islanders first played in 1972 and won only 12 games that season. With Bossy leading the charge, they went on to win the Cup in 1980 through 1983.

Heavy Weather: A late-season winter storm this week is expected to coat the Appalachians and central New England with several inches of snow.

  Snow may fall as far south as western Virginia, western Maryland, West Virginia and north as far as Maine.

   Snow is expected today and tonight in the higher terrain of Pennsylvania. 

  As the storm moves northeast today and tomorrow, a mix of either rain or snow will hit the interior of New York and New England. By tomorrow, there could be as much as six inches of snow in the mountains and hills of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and possibly interior Maine.

Tax Day: Today is the official deadline for filing your income taxes. If you haven’t done it yet, have a nice day.  

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