NEWS OF THE WEEK

 Most everyone I know survived St. Patrick's Day.

The Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race was held and ended last week.  A former reality TV star named Jessie Holmes was the winner.  He finished in 10 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes and 41 seconds.    Oh, the Iditarod was 1,129 miles this year.  I ran the 5K last weekend faster than that - didn't I?

The college basketball teams picked to play in the NCAA national championship tourney were announced last Sunday.  XU heard their name called.  Xavier had a play-in game on Wednesday and they made a sterling come-back to win and earn a right to play Friday night in Milwaukee.  I attempted to pick all losers except one team this year.  Can't wait to see how it turns out.  The group I play with gives you your money back if you have the most losses but you could still win if you were the only one to pick the winner.

The price of gold is at an all-time high as the price of stocks took a small tumble.  By week's end, there was not much change in values.

For the week ending Thursday, a flic called Novocaine was the top money winner with Black Bag a close second; both opened this week and are categorized as "thrillers."

The Reds are now less than a week to Opening Day.  I keep telling myself that Spring Training means nothing but some how - I wonder.

The Liberals are striking back at Elon Musk for finding waste, fraud and abuse in our federal government and suggesting that it has more workers than needed.  They fire bombed Tesla vehicles on dealer's lots and shot bullets into them.  I understand that the nationwide group organizing these attacks are planning a big one for the 26th.

President Trump is jawing back and forth with Presidents Zelenskyy and Putin.  He has agreed to send Ukraine only defensive weapons to protect infrastructure. 

Evidently we've had enough of the Houthis in Yemen challenging our Naval vessels and others.  Sounds like we gave them a solid blow.  Further, Iran has been warned that any further attacks by the Houthis would be considered an attack by Iran.

Harvard University announced that it would make tuition free for qualified students of families making less than $200k and all expenses for students from families making less than $100k.  They will draw money from their endowment which is the largest in the world.  Other schools, including MIT have adopted similar stances.  I could have gone to Harvard!

The Cubs and the Dodgers got the Major League baseball season going this week as the first two games of the season were played in Japan.  Dodger superstar Shohei Ohtani was the driver behind $40M of gear being sold there in two days.  

SpaceX sent four astronauts (crew-10) to the International Space Station (ISS) this week so that four there could come home.  Two of those were the ones stuck there because their Boeing vehicle was determined unsafe.  They were supposed to be on an 8-day trip - it turned into 8 months.  Elon Musk revealed he offered to make the rescue 6 months ago but President Biden declined for political reasons.

Hamas in Gaza declined to release prisoners they had promised and Israel re-instituted attacks on the territory.  It's ugly.

China's huge EV manufacturer, BYD, claims it has solved the problem of slow battery recharging.  That could change everything.

Gotta go!  March Madness calls.