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Ukraine counteroffensive makes “notable” progress near Zaporizhzhia, but it’s a grinding stalemate elsewhere
Kyiv — Ukraine’s counteroffensive is grinding on. Video from Ukraine’s Azov battalion showed an early morning assault on Russia’s defensive lines near the town of Bakhmut. The intense, running gun battles there come months after Moscow-backed mercenaries seized control of the eastern city in a hugely symbolic victory.
They took Bakhmut after some of the war’s most brutal fighting, and the ongoing battle around the city, as along much of the hundreds-of-miles-long front line, is bloody and neither side is advancing significantly.
But as Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinds to a stalemate on multiple fronts, the military is starting to make important gains further the south. According to U.S. officials, there was “notable” progress near the southern city of Zaporizhzhia over the weekend.
Kyiv’s aim is to break through Russia’s defenses and march directly south, all the way to the coast on the Sea of Azov. If they manage it, Ukraine would cut off Russia’s land access route to the long-occupied Crimean Peninsula. But Moscow has established long barriers across the terrain, full of minefields, tank traps, miles of trenches and other defenses, and that has been slowing Ukraine’s advance.
The Kremlin’s drone warfare campaign also isn’t slowing down. Early Monday, Moscow launched a 3-and-a-half-hour assault on the Danube River port of Izmail, targeting vital Ukrainian infrastructure. Ukraine’s military said at least 17 of the Russian drones were taken down by air defense systems, but some hit their targets and damaged buildings.
Izmail has become an important transit route for Ukraine’s vast grain exports following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision in July to withdraw from a U.N. and Turkey-brokered export deal that saw the supplies pass safely through the Black Sea for about a year.
Putin met Monday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as part of efforts to revive the agreement, which saw some 32 million of tons of grain reach global markets through Ukraine’s sea ports and helped to ease a global food crisis, according to the U.N.
But it didn’t appear that any breakthrough was made, with Putin reiterating complaints about the accord, including accusing Western nations of refusing to ease sanctions on Russian banking and insurance services that Moscow says have severely impacted Russia’s own exports and deliveries of agricultural equipment and spare parts.
The restrictions, imposed after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have also had a major impact on the Russian economy.
Far from the diplomacy — and deep underground — many children were back in school this week in the eastern city of Kharkiv. But life is far from normal in Ukraine’s second largest city. Dozens of improvised classrooms for around 1,000 students have been set up in a local subway station.
“We are trying to do everything possible for our children not to feel this war,” said the school’s director, Ludmyla Usichenko. “We are trying to create a safe environment for them.”
As Ukraine’s brutal war drags into its 18th month, even educating children means making concessions.
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A visit with “Mr. Baseball” Bob Uecker
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A visit with “Mr. Baseball” Bob Uecker
Ever since Babe Ruth was waddling around the bases, there have been grim predictions about baseball’s future: Time has passed on the national pastime, too leisurely, too bucolic. Last year’s World Series TV ratings, and this season’s batting averages, both hit 50-year lows. Baseball, they say, is dying.
But never mind the current World Series between two of the game’s stalwarts, the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Want to feel better about baseball’s health? Just go to a Milwaukee Brewers game.
There, in Major League Baseball’s smallest market, cheese curds sweat under floodlights, frozen custard unspools into batting helmets, hometown Miller flows liberally, and on the stadium’s second level is the most authentic Milwaukee touch of all: the broadcaster they call “Mr. Baseball.”
In six undistinguished seasons as a catcher in the majors, Bob Uecker never played an inning for the Brewers. But during half a century as the team’s play-by-play announcer, he’s become equal parts mayor and mascot in the city of his birth, all the while declining offers from bigger markets – laying off pitches, as it were.
In the 1980s Yankees owner George Steinbrenner tried to recruit Uecker. “Steinbrenner sent a couple of people out to talk to me about joining the Yankees,” he said, “but I loved Milwaukee. Born and raised here!”
Uecker began his major league career in 1962 with the Milwaukee Braves before the franchise moved to Atlanta. “I was the first player from Milwaukee to ever be signed by the Braves,” he said. “I was also the first Milwaukee native to be sent to the minor leagues by the Braves!”
If Uecker’s on-field inadequacies hampered his playing career, they’ve provided some of his best material in a lengthy and lucrative second career as an actor and comedian. Employing a bone-dry wit, he made more than 40 appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”
He said, “I did ‘Tonight Shows,’ you know, whenever they wanted. I would leave here on a Sunday afternoon, fly to L.A., do the Monday night show, take a red-eye back here, and be here for Tuesday’s game.”
Johnny Carson: “Give me, fast as you can, all the teams you’ve ever played with.”
Uecker: “Braves, Cardinals, Phillies, and the Braves again. Then, in June, I was with …”
The Carson guest spots led to a series of notable TV commercials, as well as a starring sitcom role, and perhaps most memorably as Harry Doyle, the perpetually blitzed announcer in the “Major League” movies. This past summer, at Milwaukee’s American Family Field, “Harry Doyle Bobblehead Night” brought the Uecker faithful out in force.
Asked his favorite “Bob Uecker line,” he replied, “‘Juuuuust a bit outside.’ That’s where my wife put me a lotta times!”
Before serving 16 years as baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig owned the Brewers, and, in 1971, hired Uecker, misguidedly, as a scout. Selig said it is “legitimately true” that Uecker wasn’t cut out to be a scout. “There were mashed potatoes on the damned scouting report. I couldn’t read it. He couldn’t read it,” he said.
So, Selig moved Uecker to the Brewers’ broadcast booth later that year.
Today there’s even a statue honoring Uecker, where else? In the very last row of the upper deck, behind a pole.
But for all the stardom, all the gigs and gags, the late-night-laughs at his own expense, Uecker still fancies himself a player, says Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff: “He lets us know about his catching days. He’s one of us. He’s part of the team. And I think that’s why we embrace him so much, is that he’s on this ride with us. And that’s what makes it cool.”
According to Uecker, he has a bond with the players on the field: “I played the game. So, I know how hard it is. I know how tough it is to play this game. The game celebrations, when we win, that’s a big part of it, man, to be able to walk into that clubhouse and be with ’em.”
But baseball is cruel, and in Milwaukee, celebrations are short-lived. Earlier this month, with the Brewers just two outs from winning the National League Wild Card Series, the New York Mets came from behind on a dramatic home run.
On the radio, Uecker didn’t hide the hurt: “I’m tellin’ ya, that one … had some sting on it.”
The Brewers’ first World Series title will have to wait.
There’s speculation that the heartbreaking loss may have marked Uecker’s last game as an announcer. But as his 91st birthday nears, the man they call “Mr. Baseball” told us he doesn’t want to imagine his life without it.
“I don’t know what I would do, you know, with no more. If I think of no more baseball for me, I don’t know what that would be like, you know?” Uecker said. “I got out of high school and I joined the Army. And I signed a baseball contact. That’s been it, really!”
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Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
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Ralph Fiennes on the provocation of acting
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