The Putin forces yet again agreed to a "humanitarian corridor" for civilians to get out of Mariupol, and yet again shelled it.

The UK is entering further into the "Imagine there's no Covid" camp, like the US.

A mother in the UK systematically denied her baby, referred to as Child AU, all kinds of care and all expressions of affection. There is a scandal now about why state agencies did not do anything to take Child AU out of that situation earlier.

Child AU must have suffered terribly. I fear she may never learn to feel loved by anyone. However, beyond the question of what the state should have done differently to rescue her sooner, I raise a few other questions:

• Why did her mother treat the baby that way?
• What might have led the mother to treat the baby better?
• Did the mother want to have this baby?
• If not, why did she have the baby rather than an abortion?

*Poor Nations Face 'Perfect Storm' of Debt, Food, and Energy Crises: UN.*

*Grassroots progressive groups on Tuesday urged Democratic congressional leaders to ignore Republicans, right-wing members of their own party, and neoliberal economists who are pushing lawmakers to hit the brakes on federal spending as inflation surges to levels not seen in decades.

The US is in danger of a recession. To cut spending now would make that recession worse, as it did for President Hoover in 1930: it hoovered up the jobs, and dumped Americans into Hoovervilles. The way to avoid a recession, as Keynes taught and FDR carried out, is to increase government spending. The US government learned to do this, until the plutocrats came to dominate the government in the 1980. Now a recession is an opportunity for the richest to get richer.