Alert: The Air Force yesterday scrambled fighter jets over Washington to pursue a wayward Cessna business jet on which the pilot had become unresponsive and ultimately crashed in southwest Virginia. The Air Force said it did not shoot down the plane.

  The F16s caused a stir in the DC area when they went supersonic and caused a sonic boom captured on doorbell cameras that in one case even showed a fleeing cat. The North American Aerospace Defense Command said the jets had attempted to get the Cessna pilot’s attention by firing flares.

  The business jet with four people on board had taken off from Elizabethton, Tennessee bound for Long Island, flew all the way there then did a button hook back to the DC area. 

Off Track: At least 275 people are confirmed dead in Friday’s horrific train accident in eastern India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi promises to punish anyone responsible.

  Officials investigating the cause are examining the possibility that a signal failure caused the disaster.  They say that a passenger train traveling at about 80 mph had crashed into a freight train carrying iron ore. Within “a fraction of second” another passenger train traveling at high speed on a separate track crossed the collision site according to official accounts. 

The War Room: Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky says his military is on the brink of launching its long-anticipated counter-offensive against its Russian occupiers. “We would like to have certain things, but we can’t wait for it for months,” Zelensky told The Wall Street Journal. 

  Russia says an attempted breakthrough has already begun on the eastern front.

  Zelensky admitted that Russia has air superiority, which could result in a lot of casualties for the Ukrainians. He said “Everyone knows perfectly well that any counteroffensive in the world without control in the skies is very dangerous,” and that, “a large number of soldiers will die.”

  US authorities say they believe the counteroffensive will result in Kyiv taking back “strategically significant territory,” President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN. “Exactly how much, in what places, that will be up to developments on the ground as the Ukrainians get this counteroffensive underway,” Sullivan said. “But we believe that the Ukrainians will meet with success in this counteroffensive.”

China Syndrome: China is stepping up efforts to intimidate the US military, over the weekend cruising a warship within 150 yards of an American destroyer in the Taiwan Strait, “deliberately provoking risk,” according to the US. This comes after Chinese fighter jets have pulled similar stunts with American planes.

The Anti-Woke: While some presidential candidates promise low taxes, good jobs, and heaven on earth, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is focusing heavily on  fighting the social and intellectual phenomenon known as “woke”. 

  Modelling himself after Winston Churchill in his stump speech, DeSantis says, “We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in corporations. And we will fight the woke in the halls of Congress. We will never surrender to the woke mob.” 

  “Woke” is essentially cultural awareness of everything from the history of slavery, knowledge and tolerance of racial and cultural differences, to recognition of the mix of sexual identities in the human race. Listing your pronouns on your resume — “she/her” — is an act of woke.

  But some of the forces of liberal wokeness have attempted to enforce a woke orthodoxy, which led DeSantis to define “woke” as a “form of Cultural Marxism.” One example: a college art history instructor was recently fired for showing a painting of the Prophet Mohammed after one Muslim student complained. Another: The name of Monkeypox was changed to Mpox so people who get it don’t have to feel bad about themselves.

  In Florida, DeSantis signed the  “Stop WOKE Act,” the title of which is an acronym for “Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees.” It is intended to combat “woke indoctrination” in Florida businesses and schools, for instance by prohibiting instruction that could make some people feel “personal responsibility” for historic wrongdoings because of their race, sex, or national origin.

  DeSantis is trying to make the anti-woke a wave he can ride to the White House.

Dialing for Dollars: CNN posted a whopping 25 percent drop in primetime ratings in May compared to last year as the network tries to re-define itself without Donald Trump in The White House. The Atlantic published a devastating profile of the network’s new boss, Chris Licht, who’s not so popular with the staff and was the man who cast the arrogant Don Lemon in the role of friendly morning news host. 

  CNN has even been beaten in some time slots by the upstart Newsmax, the conservative cable outlet that’s also trying to knock off Fox News. 

 At NBC, “Meet the Press  host Chuck Todd is giving up the chair after nine years on the job. Not always popular, or a ratings driver, Todd said, “If you do this job seeking popularity, you are doing this job incorrectly.”  He’s being succeeded by Kristen Welker in September.

The Spin Rack:  Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley presented herself last night on a CNN town hall as a well-informed voice of  Republican reason who refused to personally attack her opponents. —California authorities are investigating whether Florida was behind the chartered flight that dumped 16 migrants from Venezuela and Colombia in Sacramento. — Saudi Arabia says it’s cutting oil production to stem a slide in prices. — Allstate insurance is following State Farm in announcing it will no longer offer new homeowner policies in disaster-ridden California.

Below the Fold: Former Vice President Mike Pence over the weekend donned a pair of boots and a leather cutaway with patches that said “Indiana” and rode his Harley at the state fairgrounds to let everyone know that this election season he’s going to ride his hog into town and take your bitch.

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