The War Room: At least 39 people are dead and 90 wounded in an attack on a train station in the Ukraine city of Kramatorsk that was been jammed with people fleeing ahead of Russian advances. Kramatorsk is north of the besieged city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine.

   Thousands of people were at the train station that was left littered with bodies and luggage.

  For the first time and without giving numbers, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri  Peskov admitted to Sky News that Russia has sustained “significant losses of troops.” Ukraine’s last claim was that they have killed 18,000 Russians, but that’s unverified.

  Asking for help from NATO leaders yesterday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned that the battle for the eastern Donbas region will be like World War II with large scale operations involving thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, and aircraft. “Either you help us now – and I’m speaking about days, not weeks – or your help will come too late, and many people will die,” he said.

  NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters he does not expect Russia to back off. “What we see is Russian regrouping and repositioning,” he said. “We expect a big battle in Donbas. We are prepared for the long haul. This war may last for weeks, but also months, and possibly also for years. And therefore we need to prepare for a lot more.”

  With so much indisputable evidence that the Russians have been slaughtering civilians and committing war crimes in Ukraine, The United Nations General Assembly voted yesterday to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council.

  Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Thursday that Kyiv had presented Moscow with a draft peace deal containing “unacceptable” elements and deviated from previously agreed proposals, but Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Mykhailo Podolyak, dismissed the comments as “purely propagandistic.” 

History Making: Federal appeals court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed yesterday to the Supreme Court, becoming the first black woman in the court’s history. 

  Jackson will not take the actual oath of office until Justice Stephen Breyer retires in June.

  She also topples the court’s white male majority for the first time. The balance when she takes her seat will be four white males, two white females, one Latino female, one black male, and one black female. Jackson will be only the third black member of the court ever.

  In the history of the Supreme Court there have been 108 white men, 2 black men 4 white women, and one Latin woman.

Insecure: In what appears to have been an elaborate, long-term, and expensive plot that was an attempt to infiltrate the Secret Service team for First Lady Jill Biden, two men have been arrested in Washington and charged with posing as agents for the Department of Homeland Security.

  Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali have been impersonating federal agents since February 2020, the FBI says, and were able to get close with several Secret Service agents assigned to the White House and one to the first lady’s protection detail. 

  The FBI says Taherzadeh provided rent-free apartments, iPhones, surveillance systems, a flat screen television and other goodies to win the confidence of Secret Service agents and one employee of DHS.

   Four Secret Service Agents have been placed on administrative leave.

In Transition: Alabama lawmakers approved a bill to outlaw gender-affirming medications for transgender kids and are moving a separate law prohibiting early classroom instruction on sexual and gender identity. 

  In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a bill that would require student athletes to participate in sports based on the sex noted on their birth certificate.

Knock Knock: Starting today, and following a disastrous raid, the Minneapolis Police Department is prohibited from executing no-knock warrants.

  This comes after a February raid in which the SWAT team burst through an apartment door looking for a suspect and ended up killing a startled 22-year-old who was legally armed with a gun. Amir Locke was sleeping on the couch in his cousin’s apartment when the nine-member SWAT team broke in and shot him three times, killing him. Locke was not a suspect or named in the warrant.

  This week the County Attorney and Minnesota Attorney General said in a statement that there was “insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case” against the cops.

The Spin Rack: Golfing great Tiger Woods teed off at the Masters tournament yesterday just 14 months after a car accident that nearly took his right leg. His friends say he’s not there just to play, but to win. He finished just four strokes behind first-round leader Sungjae Im. — Runners who live in Russia or its ally Belarus will be banned from this year’s Boston Marathon. — A federal appeals court yesterday reversed a lower court decision that had blocked the White House from requiring federal workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Judge Jeffrey Brown in Texas had ruled that the president did not have the authority to compel employees to “undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment.”

Covid Comedy: We reported yesterday that Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland tested positive for Covid-19. But it turns out that Garland was just one on a list of Washington swells who caught the Covid bug at the annual Gridiron Club dinner on Saturday night. Among them; Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic representatives Adam Schiff of California and Joaquin Castro of Texas as well as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The Washington Post says it has also identified a half-dozen reporters who tested positive this week. 

  The Gridiron is a journalists’ organization best known for its annual dinner. Tom DeFrank, president of the club, said they’ve identified 14 cases, about half of them clustered at three tables.

  Some of the comedy skits featured actors dressed as the virus, bouncing green balls with red frills while the real thing bounced around the audience.

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