Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared at a huge flag-waving rally Friday at a Moscow stadium. Putin praised his country’s troops in biblical terms as they pressed their lethal attacks on Ukrainian cities with shelling and missiles.

Putin praised his country’s support of the invasion which was launched three weeks ago and triggered antiwar protests in the country. Putin said, “we have not had unity like this for a long time.”

Moscow police said more than 200,000 people were in and around the stadium for the celebration marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. which was seized from Ukraine.

Public defenders are poised to go on strike as early as Tuesday across Minnesota, where unionized attorneys say they’ve been pushed to the brink by routinely high caseloads that have become unmanageable amid the coronavirus pandemic.

A strike by the 470 public defenders and 200 support staff could bring much of Minnesota’s state court system to a standstill if it persists. Though Minnesota is the only state where public defenders are on the brink of a walkout, legal system observers say the same pressures are being felt across the country – and it’s the poorest defendants who get hurt, mostly people of color.

Governor Tim Walz gave an updated plan on what to do with the state’s reasonably big surplus last Thursday. The plan included income tax rebate checks of $1,000 per couple.

This followed last month’s surplus announcement that the state’s surplus was a sum of $9.25 billion.

He named the plan, “Walz” checks,” a callback to the former governor Jesse Ventura’s tax rebates plan which he called “Jesse Checks.”

Lauren Dettmer can be reached at lauren.dettmer@stthomas.edu.