Good morning. We’re covering a mass shooting in an Asian American community in California. Also, Jacinda Ardern’s replacement. |
| A massacre in California took place hours after a joyous Lunar New Year celebration. Mark Abramson for The New York Times |
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The sheriff of Los Angeles County said yesterday that the authorities were looking for an Asian man between 30 and 50 years old. He opened fire at a dance hall, and witnesses said he seemed to shoot indiscriminately. At least 10 others were injured. The authorities offered no motive for the attack. |
A pattern: This mass shooting is the deadliest in the U.S. since the Uvalde massacre last May, when a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Texas. There have been 33 mass shootings in the U.S. so far in 2023, according to a nonprofit research group. |
| Chris Hipkins is set to become New Zealand’s new prime minister.Marty Melville/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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New Zealand’s next leader |
Hipkins, 44, was a clear front-runner to become the leader of the Labour Party after Jacinda Ardern’s surprise resignation last week. As the health minister, and then the minister for New Zealand’s Covid-19 response, he was the face of the country’s stringent, but widely applauded, response to the pandemic. |
The incoming leader faces a number of major challenges. Voters are looking for respite from inflation, a continuing housing crisis and other entrenched social problems such as crime and child poverty. He could struggle to get beyond his association with pandemic policy, which tainted Ardern’s leadership. |
Up ahead: In a national election in October, Hipkins will face Christopher Luxon, the leader of the center-right National Party. |
Analysis: Leaders often resign in parliamentary systems. But Ardern’s departure stands out, my colleague Max Fisher writes: “It was particularly striking to see a leader voluntarily relinquish power at a moment when the world’s strongmen — and even some elected presidents — are clinging ferociously to theirs.” |
| Lunar New Year is the most important holiday on China’s calendar.Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times |
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China’s tense Lunar New Year |
They’re also on the move just weeks after the government lifted its “zero Covid” restrictions. One official said it was “the most challenging spring festival in recent years,” as outbreaks continue to spread. “It’s precisely because we’ve opened up that I feel so tense,” one villager said. |
But after years of muted celebrations, hundreds of millions of people are aching for reunions. In one sign of national relief, some people on social media are celebrating congestion at travel hubs as a sign of a return to normal — or at least to a new normal. |
Details: Before the pandemic, the travel rush was the world’s largest annual migration. This year, China expects traffic to nearly double compared with 2022, exceeding two billion passenger trips over the holiday period. |
Zero Covid fallout: Some Chinese entrepreneurs have left the country, my colleague Li Yuan writes in an analysis. They moved to Singapore, and took their wealth with them. |
| Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are often used to settle personal scores or persecute minorities.Akhtar Soomro/Reuters |
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- Pakistan tightened its blasphemy laws. Insulting Islam was already punishable by death, but now those who insult people connected to the Prophet Muhammad can face prison time.
- Some cruise ships have been forced to idle at sea for days because they cannot pass New Zealand’s tight “biofoul” standards, which regulate foreign organisms on a boat’s exterior.
- One man in Western Australia made a 3,000-mile detour after record floods cut off a bridge.
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- NATO countries failed to agree on whether to send tanks to Ukraine last week.
- Germany’s hesitance is born of history. After its Nazi past, the country is committed to promoting “peace,” and it’s long relied on Russian energy.
- Despite the war, life in Ukraine proceeds almost normally at times. Then, in a flash, a Russian missile can shatter ordinary lives, as one did last week in Dnipro.
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| Abortion rights protesters marched yesterday in Wisconsin.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times |
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| “Emily embarrasses me,” one American expat in Paris said. Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix |
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“We try so hard not to be the ugly American,” one woman lamented. “Being an American expat in Paris is all about trying to seem vaguely French or invisibly American, and Emily is the opposite of that.” |
One film, 27 years of screenings |
| Simran, a prostitute who goes by the name of the movie’s lead female character, regularly dances in the aisles to the movie’s songs.Atul Loke for The New York Times |
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The film, known as “D.D.L.J.,” is a boy-meets-girl story set in India in the 1990s, a moment of unbridled optimism when the economy had just opened up. In many ways, the India of today is similar to the one reflected in the movie. The economy is still on the rise. Women are still seeking more freedom. Modernity and conservatism remain in tension. |
But some of the sense of unlimited possibility has waned since the movie’s 1995 premiere. As the early rewards of liberalization peaked and economic inequities deepened, aspirations of mobility have diminished. Some on Mumbai’s margins buy a ticket to escape into a rosier past, while others still seek inspiration. |
“I come every day,” said one regular, who goes by Simran, the name of the female lead. She is a prostitute in the waning red-light district nearby. “I like it every day.” |
| Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Sue Li. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgpeth. |
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“After Love,” an intelligent portrait of grief, follows a British woman who discovers her husband has been leading a double life. |
Here’s how to see a green-hued comet pass by Earth for the first time since the Stone Age. |
Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Hairstyling goop (three letters). |
That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Amelia |
Here’s Friday’s edition of “The Daily,” on migrants trying to come to the U.S. |
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