Monday Briefing: Russian and North Korean troops assemble

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November 11, 2024

	By Gaya Gupta

Good morning. We’re covering Russian and North Korean troops ahead of an anticipated attack and Palestinians appealing to Trump.

Plus, does tech make us feel lonely?

A Ukrainian army vehicle passing through a destroyed Russian border post. David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

U.S. says Russia assembled 50,000 soldiers ahead of a major attack

The Russian military has assembled a force of 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, as it prepares to begin an assault aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

A new U.S. assessment concludes that Russia has massed the force without having to pull soldiers out of eastern Ukraine, its main battlefield priority. Russian troops have been clawing back some of the territory that Ukraine had captured in Kursk this year, but they have not yet begun a major assault there. Ukrainian officials say they expect such an attack involving the North Korean troops in the coming days.

The Russian-North Korean offensive looms as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to re-enter office with a stated goal of ending the war quickly. Trump has said little about how he would settle the conflict, but Vice President-elect JD Vance has outlined a plan that would allow Russia to keep the territory it has seized in Ukraine.

Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Tiffany Trump. Nick Hagen for The New York Times

Palestinians try to sway Trump

Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, is making widespread efforts to rehabilitate his once adversarial relationship with Donald Trump, hoping to influence his views on the conflict in Gaza and on cease-fire talks.

Palestinians are reckoning with an incoming U.S. president who expressed near unreserved backing for Israel in his first term. Abbas, who once barred senior Palestinian officials from communicating with the Trump administration, recently spoke to Trump by phone, and they discussed the possibility of meeting.

Before Trump’s victory, Abbas met with the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany; he’s a Lebanese American businessman who has served as an unofficial emissary of the Trump campaign to Arab American voters.

News from the war:

More on Trump and diplomacy Taiwan appears to be preparing for a more delicate, possibly testy, relationship with Trump in his second term. Foreign leaders have rushed to ingratiate themselves with Trump. History suggests many of their efforts will fail. Donald J. Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency could spell a lonely and dangerous stretch for Europe. Trump’s victory is part of a disillusionment with the world that emerged from the Cold War.

The Ghazipur landfill, Delhi’s tallest. Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Is a ‘green’ revolution poisoning India’s capital?

India’s government promised a revolutionary plan: to safely incinerate Delhi’s giant mountains of trash in a state-of-the-art plant, turning the waste into electricity.

Instead, the government’s answer to its bursting landfills and boundless need for energy is exposing as many as one million people to toxic smoke and ash, according to air and soil samples collected by The Times over a five-year investigation.

Maria Abi-Habib, an investigative correspondent for The Times, explains how she started looking into the issue.

The attack occurred at a railway station in the southwestern city of Quetta. Naseer Ahmed/Reuters

Sports

Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press

Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

Neither jail nor exile to Hong Kong has stopped Han Dongfang, a former Tiananmen Square protest leader, from championing workers’ rights. He is one of China’s last remaining labor rights activists not in hiding, and he continued to push ahead in his cause, telling his colleagues to operate as though everything they do and say is being surveilled.

“If you’re born stubborn, you go everywhere stubborn,” he said. Read the profile here.

Lives lived: By the late 1880s, the actress Go-won-go Mohawk was tired of stereotypical theatrical roles. So she carved out a groundbreaking career in which she told stories onstage about Indigenous people as the heroes of their own lives.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.

Derek Abella

How tech creates a ‘recipe for loneliness’

Brian Chen, who writes the Tech Fix column for The Times, spent the last few months reading research papers and interviewing academics about tech and loneliness. The consensus among scholars was clear: While there was little proof that tech directly made people lonely (plenty of socially connected, healthy people use lots of tech), there was a strong correlation between the two, meaning that those who reported feeling lonely might be using tech in unhealthy ways.

So what should you do with your tech if you’re feeling lonely? Read Brian’s full column here.

Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Cook: This Bolognese is perhaps the most famous recipe created by Marcella Hazan, the cookbook author who changed how Americans cook Italian food.

Exercise: Try this beginner friendly dumbbell routine to build strength and improve your stability.

Watch: From life stories to animated tales, these are the films we can’t wait to see this season.

Read: The poet Sally Wen Mao shares books that illuminate Shanghai, a dizzying prism of histories and cultures.

Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Gaya

P.S. Rory Smith, who spent years as the chief soccer correspondent at The Times, is joining The Athletic.

We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at briefing@nytimes.com.

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