trenton

@Leo Gura are these quotes relevant? "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift" -Albert Einstein "Of course analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it's just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check." -Magnus Carlsen

@vladorion it is important to realize that being a cold hard calculator is one of many paradigms in chess. There have been many paradigm shifts throughout the history of chess. I mentioned this is one of my videos. Analysis has its limits. Not even computers can calculate everything and they make mistakes as well. According to Carlsen, he usually plays the intuitive move, but most of the time spent calculating is double checking.

@Leo Gura very true, chess is deeply intuitive. Nevertheless, chess is taught through different systems of thinking, and these systems of thinking never account for all situations, thus counter examples are always possible. This is a limit of teaching chess.

@Leo Gura do you think you need to make a video on how to control the reptilian brain, or is this essentially what all of your videos are ultimately about anyway such as the stung drunk monkey that is the ego mind?

I have a racist grandma. Sometimes she says the n word just to get a rise out of people. This starts fights with my sisters. After the incident I discussed it with my brother. He was afraid to say what he actually thought earlier. First, he said that he was not really upset because people say things like "what's good n***a?" All the time when he's at school. This was his first time he hard someone using the n word in this manner like my grandma. My brother pointed out how people are overly sensitive and sometimes college students pull the fire alarm and barge into a classroom chanting because of a racist comment that was made ten years ago by a current teacher back from when she was in high school. When people are easily offended, they cause more problems than the actual comment by the high school girl from ten years ago. This is part of the problem of applying our modern sense of morality to the past. Political correctness changes over time for example you used to be more common for people to say "retarded." Many liberals look all the way back 250 years ago and criticize people for being slave owners. They do not appreciate the society people lived in at the time because mining was not popular while George Washington and his wife were around, so there were not many alternatives to making money. The complexity of history is distorted by applying our modern moral code as if it is obvious. Also George Washington released his slaves because he didn't actually want them, but his wife did. People used to be persecuted for much less. For example if you were left handed then it could have been a sign of demonic possession. This happens with sickness as well because people didn't know about germs. The people of the past had radically different world views because we take everything we know today as if it is obvious when really it isn't. Sometimes the left wing is immature in that there is a lot of name calling like sexist and bigot. This behavior only serves to drive people away from them and it is harder to win elections because of it. This leads to a lot of misleading conclusions about systemic racism. It leaves people with the impression that racial justice is about individual racism, rather than something deeper. It makes white people feel like they are inherently the oppressor and it makes no sense to them. There are harmful stereotypes about white people and it makes them feel like they are the victim from their point of view. This anti-white bias is commonly called reverse racism. Leo argued that reverse racism is not the same as racism, and I don't understand because sometimes there are harmful stereotypes about white people. I making this post to gather some thoughts on political correctness. This is a big, complicated, emotional issue. The reason I empathize with my brother is because I used to think the same way he did, so I have a pretty good idea of what he is thinking. He does have some misconceptions about systemic racism. What are your thoughts on political correctness? Help would be appreciated. Here is a video he shared with me.

The position of this forum appears to be along the following lines. Granted stage green has many excesses and many of these behaviors can be disruptive, none of these issues are comparable to the excesses of the right wing. for example, Fox news and other right wing media outlets are constantly floundering to draw a false equivalence between January 6th and any issue with a far left mob. The excesses of stage green are minimal compared to Christian extremists who continue to call for a civil war and another insurrection. This kind of attitude is fair enough. What I am wondering is if there is a better way for the left wing to go about these things. As much as I have criticized the left wing, it seems that realistically the overreaction will continue and there is not much that can be done to slow it. I'm concerned that it is playing a part in the polarization.

Why is it that this talk about Andrew Tate is causing so much backlash? It seems like common sense for a drug dealer and potential sex trafficker to follow a very toxic ideology. For example, my dad was a drug dealer who fled the state to avoid paying child support. He still believed in karma, but his version of karma was heavily biased by life of crime. He thought that karma meant giving people the crack they wanted without poorly weighing it or mixing it with rat poison. When customers come back addicted, this is good karma to a drug dealer. Same goes for Tate. If he lives a life of crime it will give him a heavily biased and selfish view of the government. His philosophy calls the government the matrix because it doesn't suit his criminal life. All of his teachings are deeply biased due to his survival agenda, especially the way in which he abuses women.

For my first lessons, I was shadowing with a couple of other chess teachers. For these lessons I went to Holy Family. I dropped my keys in the car and didn't notice until later, so I was a little concerned through the day. I entered the school and went to the office first. I played some chess games while waiting. I went to class with Ian, the first instructor. He reviewed castling and an passant as well as basic strategy. He told the students to try to develop their knights and bishops within 10 moves. I rarely follow this rule myself. I played one student and I found all kinds of tactical opportunities and took over the board with developing all the pieces. I often seem like a hypocrite to beginners. In fact, I am using more nuanced strategic principles. After the game I walked through the moves with the student and explained my thinking. My students find it very interesting and educational when I explain the nuances behind more advanced chess strategy. One student was happy and tried to answer a lot of questions. I called him "champ in the making." I recognized him in the hallway and gave him a thumbs up as he laughed. In the second room, Ian used the same teaching method as before. I decided to add something. While he was discussing castling, I used a real game example to demonstrate opposite side castling and how to do it on both wings. I used the Sicilian najdorf and followed the grandmaster moves until I could reach a position that demonstrates castling on either wing. It was pretty instructive. After that I just walked around the room and watched the students. It gets boring without a game, so I like having an odd number of students. I feel like I can teach more effectively through concrete examples, but there is a specific curriculum to follow. I am sometimes limited in what I can teach because some students don't know the legal moves yet. In the third and fourth room, I went with Evan. He used a chess puzzle as a warm up, but none of the students were able to find the queen sacrifice. I decided to walk the students through the thinking methods for solving chess puzzles. The grandmasters look at checks, captures, and threats. I explained the calculation process with other variations and how to find the win. The students seemed much more enthusiastic after I explained the thinking methods for solving chess puzzles and finding mating combinations. it also simplifies the thinking process because there are fewer moves to consider and it helps to understand which moves are relevant and irrelevant. Evan told the rest of the chess program that I was an ace. The next class was for sixth graders. They were not interested in playing. After getting them settled I played with one girl who said she was tired. I discovered a better teaching method while playing. I played my best in the opening and middle game. Normally, I would just finish them off and then discuss my thought process while walking back through the game. This time I gave her the piece back to transpose to an instructive endgame. She was winning, but I wanted her to figure out the technique. After further analysis she eventually found a way to make progress. I did my best to put up resistance, resulting in both sides getting another queen. Eventually she traded the queen and used the final pawn to reach a king and queen against king ending. We didn't have time to discuss the technique in much depth because we had to go. She seemed happy though. Before going to lunch the students prayed. I went to lunch with Ian at a Mexican restaurant. He was frustrated with the sixth graders because it is hard to get them to focus. Sometimes older kids use the computers to look at inappropriate content, so he has to watch them more carefully if They have a computer. the students do not appreciate that they could be studying religion instead, but they just can't focus on chess. While eating the restaurant over charged me, so I corrected them to 10 dollars instead of 12. Finally, we started teaching third graders. They were much more enthusiastic. A bunch of them wanted to go to a chess tournament in the Paul Brown stadium. No opponents this time, but I did help one of the kids with the checkmating technique. A lot of beginner games and with chasing the opponent king around the board and being unable to mate him. I would like some of my lessons to be focused on this technique, so these games can end sooner. I played two games against the chess instructor. The thing is that as you get stronger, the chess principles can really start to limit you sometimes, especially if they become a thoughtless habit. I break the beginner principles all the time because chess often boils down to concrete calculation. I look for tactical opportunities and exploit them in anyway I can. In the first game, I was a horrible example for beginners again. I won by moving out my queen early and grabbing pawns across multiple moves. I never developed either of my knights, and that's how I beat the chess instructor. Remember kids, attack only with your queen and don't develop your other pieces! The reality is that I moved my queen out like this because of my opponent's mistake of moving the f pawn prematurely. If not for his mistakes, I would not have had an opportunity to break the principles further in my favor. A chess principle on its own is almost meaningless if it is not reinforced through concrete analysis. If I apply this thinking to life in general, then I could say that rules, paradigms, or assertions about how life is are weak if they are reinforced by specific context. This is why our court system rules on a case by case basis. context and details must be accounted for as the world becomes very gray rather than black and white. my main concern about this position is that I am often limited in what I can teach. For example, emotional mastery is important for playing better chess, but it is a huge topic. Emotional mastery should be its own subject in schools as well. In any case, I should be more interesting than the other instructors. I noticed that the lessons felt monotonous at times, it they were usually short before we started playing. I would prefer more in depth lectures while explaining the thinking methods and nuanced behind the strategy. It won't be too long and they will still play a game, but I have a lot more to offer.

Lately there has been some bad news for Ukraine. Russia launched several more missile strikes targeting civilian infrastructure. The Russian army is sending just enough to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defenses and it is causing blackouts for millions of people. The Ukrainian counter offensive has stalled through the winter and the momentum is swinging in favor of the Russians again. They are making substantial progress around bakhmut, a heavily fortified city that is under heavy artillery fire. Soledar was captured and the Ukrainian lines are in jeopardy of collapsing. Further Ukrainian aid has been delayed in the European union. Meanwhile Russia may be preparing a second mobilization. In order to counter this Ukraine may need to mobilize more troops as well. Russia in conjunction with the Wagner group are overwhelming the Ukrainian forces by recruiting prisoners and sending them as cannon fodder to the front line. Russia is getting the upper hand at the moment due to the brute force and size of the military. There are further rumors of Belarus joining in on the invasion of Ukraine.

I have been looking into this topic. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes it is nearly impossible to distinguish a devil from an ordinary person. For example, a psychopath can put on a friendly face all day and then suddenly pull a gun in you in an instant. The wolf in sheep's clothing is difficult to spot from a afar. If you look into a field full of sheep, then you will not see the wolf. If you have to walk into the herd, then you are already in danger. The wolf can jump out at any second. It is like walking through the woods when suddenly you get the feeling that you are not alone. By that point it is already too late. When the wolf strikes, the wolf strikes. It always holds the initiative and the element of surprise. Oftentimes you need to get close up in order to identify a wolf. The dark side often does not come out until later in the relationship after the the initial hormonal reactions. In the case of my friend his girlfriend threatened to commit suicide after giving birth to his son and now the state wants custody of the child. Spotting a wolf in advance is crucial for living a good life, but in practice this is very challenging. Counter intuitively, the wolf is often overly nice. The wolf is good at reading social cues and playing to your emotions. The wolf may give you gifts and flatter you. It is hard to tell if this is done in good faith or if it is part of a broader manipulation scheme. The wolf is good at acting like this is in good faith. How do you tell? Do any of you have other tips for spotting a dangerous man or a dangerous woman? This is very challenging to do, especially from afar. There was one instance in which a woman had a strong intuition by reading a man's vibe and she avoided going out with a serial killer. This is closer to what I mean by spotting a wolf from afar. How does one hone such an intuition? This is an infamous case.

@universe I mean the legal knight moves. Beginners commonly struggle with this. As for teaching chess I enjoy it and I like it much more than my main job. The reason I felt lost in college is because there was no option to become a chess teacher which would have made it easy to decide. My life's work is a little deeper than just the surface of teaching chess. There is more I could add to that later.

I just finished my lesson in pleasant ridge school. I set up a game against a computer and have the students candidate moves to work with. Apart from a few disagreements it was fine. The students were engaged and they were happy to help pick out the way forward. One disagreement came up when we were up two pieces against the computer and had multiple ways to win. I suggested a move that I knew was not objectively best, but was a practical choice to simplify the position to a winning endgame. Most of the disagreements start when there are multiple winning methods. The second one is when some students noticed my rook was hanging, but I ignored it and went straight for checkmate anyway. There are a couple of students who are confused about the knight moves. I might prepare a lesson for knight maneuvers so that I cover the legal moves for beginners, but also a challenge for more advanced players with finding the right route for the knight.

@Consept chess.com is closer to the USCF rating. Lichess is inflated.

@Consept I have made my first YouTube video for chess lessons. This is about common thinking errors in human thought and how it can be applied to chess, chess culture, and how you get stuck and stagnate. I hope this lessons opens doors you previously did not know about.

On the idea of detecting blind spots in paradigms, it applies even to board games like chess. Throughout history world class players would discredit the Sicilian defense or hyper modern openings. If there is social pressure around what what openings you play and in what style, then it limits the extent to which you can understand the game. In a similar case, board game players commonly discredited computers and artificial intelligence, arguing that they could never match human intelligence. Many world chess champions made the mistake of taking the limits of their imagination for the limits of reality. In one case, I detected a blind spot in a modern grandmaster and pointed it out to him, allowing him to make better lessons. I clued into this blind spot because of his emphasis on a source of authority like a chess book. Furthermore, he made seemingly sensible moves as if they were obvious. This prevented him from considering alternatives. After doing a deeper investigation, I discovered a novel bishop sacrifice. On move 14, GM Mesgen Amonov assumed white should play dxc5. Follow the main line in this study to see what I mean. https://lichess.org/study/b5voOvhK A few red flags for detecting blind spots in paradigms are as follows. I feel like this is a good lesson to include in improving chess thinking and thinking in general. 1. Harsh judgements, stereotypes, and scapegoating. Calling something or someone evil. 2. Appeals to authority, such as a book, celebrity, or system of thinking 3. Taking knowledge as obvious 4. Dogmatism, such as strictly following chess principles without concrete analysis. In fact I defeated a chess instructor by making several queen moves early on without developing my knights. 5. Confusing the limits of our imagination for the limits of reality, or claiming that something is impossible. How do we know for sure what is impossible for the universe? 6. Arguing against the utility of understanding a new field of knowledge. My sister argued against the utility of studying psychedelics. Many people don't think deeply about politics because they don't see the value in deeper understanding. This could affect how we vote. I think it would awesome if Leo made a video on this topic of how to deconstruct a paradigm. How to think outside of the box. How to discover the limits of our current way of thinking and how to move beyond it. If you can think of more red flags, try to add some.

@Consept I think I will just make YouTube videos while I'm off. This way I don't have to repeat a lot of my lessons to individual people. Maybe if I make a video I will post it on this forum later. I have many ideas in mind.

A lesson I'm taking away from this is how to detect blind spots especially in politics. Pay attention to the group being judged or demonized. In many cases it is because they are misunderstood. This is when you should be skeptical and do a deeper investigation. Especially, you should do this for the people you judge the most. You will not get these people on your side If you are mean to them. Stereotyping and harsh generalizations are foolish approaches to politics. The most important lesson to me here is how to detect blindspots within a paradigm. It can be applied to any world view.

I have a couple of police stories from chess tournaments. My first is when I was at walnut hills high school to represent the school. I was the strongest player in the history of the school and I was the first in history to win the scholastic series. I hesitated to go at first because I felt that it would be too easy. I won many tournaments with stronger opponents already. After the chess club and the teacher and principle insisted, I decided to go. There were 5 rounds in the tournament. I won the first 4 games without much trouble. The students were intimidated because they learned that I play in tournaments for money. In fact, I defeated the tournament director and won a few hundred dollars from that tournament. In between rounds I went to my grandma who was waiting outside the tournament area. She was looking at her texts and I didn't think much of it. She congratulated me for doing well in representing the school. After discussing how the last game went she went outside to take a call. I waited for my next game and reviewed my opening moves in my mind. Finally, the last round started and I won that round as well. I won the medal and was applauded for representing the school very well. It was time to go and then grandma broke the news to me. There was another incident of domestic violence at my house. Mom and Mike were fighting so badly that mom had to call the police again. Mike commonly yelled out "she wanted but heroin" to discourage her for calling the police in that she would go down with him. In this case, I was disappointed to discover that the police did nothing about these calls again. Mom had called them multiple times, but they concluded it was a he said she said situation and they could do nothing. Other people keep telling me that this is the exception and cops are usually better at handling these cases by separating the couple. I have a hard time believing this given that there were children who were also present in the house who could confirm many of the stories. The police must have been especially incompetent in the case of my family. Mike has destroyed the house on multiple occasions. The police were called multiple times and children were often present. All of this outraged me and it made me feel trapped in life. My family told me to focus on myself while my money was being stolen. I was putting the money I won from chess tournaments aside for college, but my bank account was emptied because of my mom's drug addiction that lead her to pawning the electronics to pay the bills. The best I could do to build a good life for myself was to hide in my bedroom with a laptop and study chess while the two fought each other down stairs. It was a form of escapism from the hopelessness I felt in the situation I had little control over. I often hurt myself by pursing the fantasy of a happy family. This was simply impossible given my mom's mental state, dad fleeing the state avoid paying child support, and Mike using my mom's crimes to prevent his eviction. If I had to guess why many cases of domestic violence are not reported, then it may be because the assailant is using the crimes of victim to threaten them. If the victim concedes, then there are no more laws in this situation. The law has no power. The abusive couple are stuck until they fear themselves part along with ownership of the house and possession of the children. I'm not convinced that domestic violence is continued merely through emotional attachment to the abuser and misusing forgiveness. There may be legitimate survival threats to the victim should they call the police and get themselves thrown in prison as well. For example, punishing drug addiction rather than rehabilitation. I could go on, but this should be enough for now.

I am making this post because of an event that happened at 2:50 pm today. I was going on a walk as I often do when I started walking up Washington avenue. Suddenly, a boy yelled help out of a nearby window. I looked toward the house when the window slammed shut and the blinds closed. It all fell quiet. I looked at the address of the house as I stood on the sidewalk. Someone moved the curtains by the door and looked out at me. I couldn't see his or her face. I wasn't sure if I should call the police or not because it could be something minor like a child acting up, or it could be something violent and dangerous like an abusive baby sitter or a kidnapper. Whoever was behind the curtain closed it. I decided to go to the police station and tell them what I witnessed, where, and when. I accidentally went the wrong way on the way to the station. I eventually found my way over and told the police. I have them my id and phone number. So far they haven't called me and I hope everything is fine and I have them the right information. I hear an ambulance outside and I can't help but wonder if someone was hurt. I will share more police stories later from my personal life.

I found some interesting statistics on crime. Apparently, the majority of crimes remain unsolved. An average of 40% of murders go unsolved every year. About 80% of property crimes were unsolved in 2018. Pew research has some interesting data. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/01/most-violent-and-property-crimes-in-the-u-s-go-unsolved/ These numbers can be alarming. They demonstrate how limited the police are in solving crimes. There are simply too many crimes to solve and their resources are stretched too thin. Deeper changes to society are necessary aside from improving the police. There is only so much the police can do to maintain order and enforce the law.

As I am making this thread, I am realizing that I have a ton of police stories to tell. I might need to space these out and add more later. I have multiple home break ins, many crimes my dad committed and how he interacted with the police, domestic violence calls, and maybe more. Another police incident happened earlier this month, on the ninth. We were on the way to my younger sister's graduation, but we got stuck in an elevator. We hit the button and we contacted the police who sent an officer over along with an engineer to get us out. My older sister was very distressed. The rest of us were not panicked. In fact I took a selfie with my grandmas who were on the elevator with me. I told them although I'm stuck, I'm glad to be stuck with you. We sent the selfie to my younger sister and mom. They were shocked that we actually got stuck on the way to graduation. We were laughing, but there was a real chance that we could have died. My older sister was more concerned about the danger than any of us. Apparently, most elevator users die when the counter balance malfunctions and the elevator falls after which you can't survive because the impact is too great for the human body, the elevator is not properly aligned with the floor and people trip and get hurt, or the elevator door malfunctions and someone gets crushed and dies. Rarely, so people did just from getting stuck in the elevator because there is enough oxygen and you are not going to suffocate. You could die in that case, but the chances are slim compared to other accidents. Thankfully, in my case the elevator was lined up correctly, but the door would not open. Other accidents are much worse. https://wisdomanswer.com/has-anyone-ever-died-in-a-stuck-elevator/ Eventually, an engineer opened the door and we rode to the graduation ceremony in a police car. We had a lot to talk about over graduation and the celebration as we are lunch with the family. I pulled up some statistics apparently, 30 Americans die every year from elevator and escalator incidents. 17,000 people are seriously injured by this incidents. 90 percent of deaths and 60 percent of injuries are caused by elevators. Nearly half of elevator deaths are attributed to people working on elevators to maintain them and repair them. Half of worked deaths are caused by employees falling down the shaft while working. Many of the remaining employee deaths are people who were caught between moving parts of the elevator or were struck by the counter weights used to lift the elevator. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nioshtic-2/20039852.html#:~:text=Incidents involving elevators and escalators kill about 30,Labor Statistics and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

@Osaid that story contains some solid information about how criminals act and think as well as what we should expect in police investigations. If people have false expectations of the police and they expect to get everything back, then it can lead to even stronger resentment toward the police. It's interesting to know that 3 a.m. Is a dangerous time. In fact many robberies happen during the day when you are at work or on vacation. Robbing a house at night while the owner is asleep runs the risk of the owner sleeping with a gun under their pillow. My dad had many stories about home robberies. One of the stories happens while he was working as a cook in a nearby restaurant. Robbers often walk around the neighborhood and gauge when cars are in the driveway and when you leave for work. My dad had a ton of police stories because he was a big time criminal himself in many many ways. My dad used to live in a house that had a small window looking into an alley on the side. Someone called dad and told him that someone broke into his house. Dad tried to leave, but his boss threatened to fire him if he left. Dad left anyway and lost his job. When dad came to his house he saw the broken window and a television laying on the ground. He figured that someone saw him, so the robber dropped the tv and ran off. I don't know that the robber was caught, but dad moved to a house without a window facing an alley. Dad had a bunch of alarms on his doors and windows and slept with a baseball bat next to his bed. There were several cases of robbers trying to break into his new house, but the alarm scared them off several times.

Another incident happened on Washington avenue before. I was on a walk on one of my days off work. On my way home I walked passed a three year old girl who was crying on the sidewalk. I walked back and asked her why she was crying. She said that she couldn't find her mommy and daddy. I asked her where she last saw them. She said that they drove off in their car and said that they would be right back. I talked with her for a little bit as I looked around and waited with her for her parents to arrive. Nobody showed up. I didn't know if they meant 5 minutes or 30 minutes. I told the girl that I wanted to get help from the police, but I wasn't as familiar with this area and I wanted to make sure I have the police the right location. The girl was afraid that she might be killed if she went along with me. I told her that I would make sure that doesn't happen as I reached out my hand. After walking outside of my house, I called the police and waited for them. We sat on the front lawn as I have the police the details of the situation. Eventually, two officers showed up and I directed them back to where I found the lost girl. I asked them if they needed me to go with them, but they said that they would handle the rest from here. Sometimes I walk by that house and people living there greet me. I see the little girl a bit more grown up now and I don't think any of them know I was the one to call the cops. They seem happy on the outside at least. I hope they arent neglecting this girl anymore and she seems happy when she plays and laughs in the backyard as I walk by on my walks. One risk I didn't realize is that other people might think I was trying to kidnap her. A kidnapper would lie and say he wasn't kidnapping her. I could have easily been misunderstood and thrown in prison because of the assumptions people would have made about my motives. It's true that there are dangerous people who would kidnap her, rape her, and kill her. Luckily, she ran into a nice stranger who was concerned about her well-being. I could have told the police I was on Washington avenue and that should have been good enough for them to ride up the road and find me.

@Leo Gura I definitely agree. As somebody who is concerned about my survival I often tried to find the peaceful route to minimize controversy and fighting. For example, some people are confident in theism or atheism. In my case, one of the reasons I took the middle ground of agnosticism was that it minimizes fighting. Pleading ignorance can be very powerful defense mechanism which maximizes your chances of survival in many cases. It is hard to prove somebody is lying when they say "I don't know" or "I don't remember" in a court of law. Sometimes liberals are upset with centrists because they falsely equate both sides in effort to avoid fighting. This is why people like MLK were very critical of moderates for "the chains of gradualism." In my case I take a centrist framing when talking to conservatives because it helps make slightly more liberal ideas seem more palatable. Centrism is practical in this regard because it can enable more peaceful discussions while gradually luring the stubborn donkey up the mountain with a carrot rather than pulling fiercely like a liberal while yelling "come on, you stubborn jackass!" the centrist seeks to minimize risk while improving society just as he does in his normal life. Liberals often argue that this progress tends to be in the direction of the right wing and this is what scares them the most. In response They argue that most Americans agree with liberal policies and the centrist is holding them as if they are as developed as the right wing. There is definitely value in understanding the centrist mind.

The past couple of weeks have mostly been a standstill. The Russian missile attacks continue to target Ukrainian infrastructure. This has caused multiple blackouts even in neighboring countries which share a power grid with Ukraine. Ukraine appears to be firing back deep into Russian territory, aiming for fuel depots and air fields. This is a risky move in that accidents happens and the Ukrainian forces may hurt Russian civilians in the process. Zelensky seems confident in his army's long range capabilities and accepts this risk. Heavy fighting has still been happening around bahkmut. Russian forces are encroaching from many angles, but at the moment Ukraine is holding the destroyed city. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues its counterattack toward kremina and they are disputing many towns and roads along the way. The United States and other countries are working to restore the energy grid in Ukraine and other nearby countries by sending aid packages over.