February 25, 2022
By Ron Fonger

Flint - U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, (click here) will be among the panelists during a discussion on crime in the Black community at Cathedral of Faith Church.

The program, part of the church’s Crucial Conversations Series for Black History Month, is set to take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 26.

Cathedral of Faith Church is located at 6031 DuPont St.

A news release for the program says the panel will discuss issues including how voting rights contribute to laws and disproportionate sentencing....

February 23, 2022
By Ron Fonger

U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy (click here)

Attorney fees will be capped at 25% after other expenses are subtracted from a historic $626-million settlement of lawsuits tied to the Flint water crisis.

A jury has been seated to hear the first civil lawsuits related to the Flint water crisis. (click here)

The 10 jurors -- seven women and three men -- were sworn in before U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy on Wednesday, Feb. 23, and opening statements from attorneys representing four Flint children and two engineering companies are scheduled to start on Monday, Feb. 28.

Attorneys for the children sued the engineering companies -- Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam -- for alleged negligence, claiming they have responsibility for damages they suffered as a result of lead in Flint water during the city’s water crisis....

The problem is not Ukraine, the problem is Russia.

I have 100 percent confidence Ukraine is asking for ceasefires and a return to diplomacy. I don't believe at this point anything will work short of defeating Russian militarily. Minsk I and II failed because the Rebels and Putin didn't care about it. A commercial airliner was shot down by the Russian separatists. We know that for a fact, yet, where are the trials and extradiction to Europe of the murderers?

February 25, 2022

By Pavel Polityuk

Ukraine wants peace (click here) and is ready for talks with Russia, including on neutral status regarding NATO, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters on Friday.

"If talks are possible, they should be held. If in Moscow they say they want to hold talks, including on neutral status, we are not afraid of this," he said via a text message. "We can talk about that as well."

"Our readiness for dialogue is part of our persistent pursuit of peace."...

Vladimir Putin is full of hate for anyone not a Russian citizen and there are some Russian citizens he hates equally or more. This is not about Ukaine, the Ukrainian people or their magnificent government that fights corruption at every turn. This is about the hate that has welled up in Putin's gut since the fall of the Soviet Union.

There was a fatal flaw in The West's presciption for Ukraine to maintain it's borders and solidify it's sovereignty, it didn't strike Russia first. When Crimea and eastern Ukraine fell to Russia, NATO should have moved to end the occupation and claimed Ukraine as it's own. There was perfect justification for that at the time. Even today, those reasons still live. Would they have confronted Russia? Yes. But, all these years later they will confront Russia anyway.

People with dual citizenship are in Ukraine. NATO cannot turn it's back on them.

February 25, 2022

By Deena Yellin

Rabbi Mendel Moskovitz, (click here) a Brooklyn native transplanted to Ukraine, sounded surprisingly upbeat when reached by phone Thursday afternoon.

“That’s why we’re here,” the rabbi of the Kharkiv Choral Synagogue in northeastern Ukraine told a reporter. “To keep up everyone’s spirits.”  

Moskovitz was a baby when his parents took him to the country 32 years ago, as part of an effort to help reinvigorate Jewish communities just beginning to emerge from the Soviet Union's shadow. On Thursday morning, he and his community of some 20,000 Jews awoke to explosions and ran down to their basements for cover, he said.

His job as a Chabad rabbi is to help people, he explained. With Russian troops attacking Ukraine, that job seemed more vital than ever....

February 25, 2022
By Matt Fagan

For many Ukrainians in North Jersey, (click here) a sleepless Wednesday night stretched well into Thursday afternoon as Russia's invasion of their homeland unfolded, the largest invasion in Europe since World War II.

The seven-hour time difference meant that when Russian bombs and missiles began raining down on the former Soviet republic, cellphones and social media's klaxons began ringing out after 10 p.m.

Roksolana Leshchuk, a physician at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, received a call from her terrified niece shortly after midnight.

As bombs were falling, she was alone with two small children because her husband, a Ukrainian police officer, had been called in to work.

"She didn't know whether to stay home or go to her mother's," Leshchuk said. The streets could be dangerous, but it is frightening to be alone....