The New York Times - Your Tuesday Briefing

By Melina Delkic

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We’re covering a Russian Covid surge amid lagging vaccines and China’s slowing economic growth this quarter.

Russia’s Covid deaths reach record-breaking level

Russia exceeded 1,000 deaths in a 24-hour period on Saturday, for the first time since the pandemic began. Russia broke another record yesterday with more than 34,000 new infections registered in the previous 24 hours.

For comparison, Britain, with a little less than half the population, had 57 deaths in a recent 24-hour period.

Apathy and mistrust for the Kremlin has left only 42 million of Russia’s 146 million inhabitants fully vaccinated, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said last week, a rate well below other advanced countries. Still, the government has imposed few restrictions.

“Approximately 40 percent of Russians do not trust the government, and those people are among the most active who refuse the vaccines,” said the director of an independent polling operation. In August, one of its polls showed that 52 percent of Russians said they were uninterested in getting the vaccine.

The government’s initial nonchalance engendered a casual view of the virus in many Russians. Some say they trust other vaccines more than Russia’s own Sputnik V. The Kremlin has started to worry: President Vladimir Putin — who announced only in June that he had been vaccinated — asked parliamentarians to promote vaccination last week.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

• South Korea eased its virus restrictions yesterday as the average number of daily cases fell by more than 40 percent in the past two weeks.
• Auckland extended its lockdown, the harshest in the world, by another two weeks.
• Sydney has further eased restrictions after the state of New South Wales passed its target of fully vaccinating 80 percent of the eligible population.

China’s economic growth slows

The Chinese economy increased by 4.9 percent in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year, and was markedly slower than the 7.9 percent increase in the second quarter.

Industrial output, the mainstay of China’s growth, faltered badly, hampered by power cuts. September’s measure was the worst since the early days of the pandemic, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Two bright spots prevented the economy from stalling. Exports remained strong, up 28.1 percent in September year-over-year. And families, particularly prosperous ones, resumed spending on restaurant meals and other services during the month, as China succeeded once again in quelling small outbreaks of the coronavirus. Retail sales were up 4.4 percent in September from a year ago.

Background: Efforts to address inequality — reining in tech, discouraging real estate speculation — also dampened growth.

Response: Chinese officials are showing signs of concern, but have refrained from unleashing a big economic stimulus.

Related: Goldman Sachs has won approval to take full ownership of a joint venture in China, allowing it to buy out Beijing Gao Hua Securities.

Colin Powell dies of Covid complications

The former top U.S. military official died of complications of Covid-19 at 84, his family said.

Colin Powell served as the country’s first Black national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state. At the end of the Cold War, he helped to negotiate arms treaties and an era of cooperation with the Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Powell was the architect of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, and when he retired in 1993, he was the most popular public figure in America. But his return to service in 2001 as secretary of state was difficult. He clashed with conservatives on President George W. Bush’s foreign policy team, and his address to the U.N. in 2003 helped pave the way for the U.S. to go to war in Iraq, a speech he later said he regretted.

Powell had been vaccinated and received treatment for multiple myeloma, which compromised his immune system, a spokeswoman said. He had been due to receive a booster shot last week but could not because he had fallen ill.

THE LATEST NEWS

• Myanmar’s junta announced that it would free more than 5,600 anti-regime protesters this week. Releases of political prisoners have been common during the country’s Lighting Festival, which begins today.
• A fire that killed 46 people in an apartment building in Taiwan was traced back to an incense coil that a couple failed to extinguish before leaving the building, prosecutors said.
• The popularity of Maori music — and a recent EP from Lorde featuring translations of her songs in that language — mirrors a shift in attitudes in New Zealand.

• The 16 Americans and one Canadian kidnapped in Haiti remained in captivity, their identities and whereabouts unknown to the public, and the governments in the U.S. and Haiti silent on what was being done to help them.
• Hungary’s fractious opposition is uniting behind a conservative mayor who might be able to oust the authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, who has held power for more than a decade.
• Russia plans to cease its diplomatic engagement with NATO, Russia’s foreign minister said yesterday, in the latest sign of unraveling relations between Moscow and the West.
• A new “antimachismo” hotline in Bogotá, Colombia, takes calls from men struggling with jealousy, control and fear — and challenges long-held assumptions about masculinity.

Ahmad Ali watched helplessly as India’s police set his home on fire. During protests against forced evictions of hundreds, perhaps thousands, in his home state of Assam, officers opened fire and killed two people, including a 12-year-old boy. The videos and photos of the crackdown drew global attention to the eviction campaign, part of what critics say is the ruling party’s campaign against Muslims.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

‘FIFA’ without FIFA?

It’s been nearly three decades since FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, licensed its name to the video game maker Electronic Arts. For millions of players, the soccer organization has become synonymous with the FIFA video game series. But after negotiations stalled on a new contract, EA is considering renaming one of the most popular video games of all time, Tariq Panja reports.

So why the dispute? First, money. The games have made $20 billion over the past two decades. FIFA earns about $150 million annually for its license — its single-most valuable commercial agreement — and is seeking more than double that. Second, the two sides disagree on how exclusive the deal should be. FIFA would like to license its name to other companies, while EA wants to use the FIFA branding outside the game, including for events like live gaming tournaments.

If the partnership falls apart, EA still has hundreds of separate licensing deals that allow it to use players, clubs and leagues from around the world. “Gamers brought up on a diet of digital soccer would notice little change when it came to the playing experience,” Tariq writes. The game maker has even registered a trademark for a possible post-FIFA future: EA Sports F.C.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

Chicken salad with fennel and charred dates makes for a savory-sweet dish.

“The Last Duel” may be the “big screen’s first medieval feminist revenge saga,” Manohla Dargis writes in a critic’s pick.

Five new and notable songs recommended by our pop critic include Kane Brown and H.E.R.’s genre-melting duet and Mitski’s monument to self-doubt.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: What “V” stands for on a lightbulb (five letters).

And here is today’s Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Melina

P.S. Help us test a new audio product in beta and give us your thoughts to shape what it becomes.

The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the Virginia governor’s race.

Sanam Yar wrote the Arts and Ideas section. You can reach Melina and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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