Good morning. We’re covering a visit by three European leaders to Ukraine, the ripple effects of China’s surge of Covid cases and a once-perilous road in Afghanistan. |
 | | Emergency crews evacuated civilians from a damaged residential building in Kyiv on Wednesday.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times |
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Three European leaders head to Ukraine |
The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia traveled by train to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, on Tuesday to express the European Union’s support for Ukraine. Next week, President Biden will travel to Brussels to attend a special NATO meeting about the war. |
Russia’s advance remains stalled on several fronts as Ukrainian forces repel attacks in parts of the east and the south. But the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have captured the entire Kherson region, after seizing the main city two weeks ago. |
Ukrainian resistance: The move possibly strengthens Russia’s ability to push west toward Mykolaiv, a strategic port city where the morgue is already overflowing. Our correspondent and photographer reported from Mykolaiv on a “refusal to succumb” by Ukrainian fighters and residents. |
The regional governor, Vitaliy Kim, predicted that any Russian effort to take Mykolaiv would lead to a bloody firefight. Residents have piled tires and incendiary bombs on every street corner. It would be apocalyptic, Kim said. |
 | | Crude prices tumbled as China cracked down on Covid outbreaks. |
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China’s Covid surge hits oil prices |
Oil prices dropped below $100 a barrel on Tuesday, the lowest prices in weeks, as a coronavirus outbreak in China threatened to slow the country’s economy and decrease global demand. Over the past week, crude oil prices have plunged by more than 20 percent, reversing much of the surge that came after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. |
The global economic harm caused by China’s rise in Covid cases — and the government’s tough response — could soon get worse. Numerous lockdowns and mitigation tactics have disrupted the production of goods like cars, iPhone circuit boards and computer cables. |
Context: China’s strict measures come as some other nations in the Asia-Pacific region are easing pandemic rules, despite seeing some of the world’s steepest spikes in Covid cases. |
 | | A woman waited with her family for a ride along the Afghan highway.David Guttenfelder for The New York Times |
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A once-deadly road now bustles |
Before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, a trip along the road from Kabul to Kandahar was dangerous. Gunfire, roadside bombs, extortion and death were once rampant. |
Not anymore. The highway between the country’s two largest cities, still dotted with destroyed vehicles and bullet-ridden homes, has come back to life. Grape farmers dig their fields in what was one of the most violent provinces in the war. Young men laugh and play volleyball near the road. |
But the cost of U.S. sanctions is evident along the highway, which is half-paved and half-gnarled still. In Ghazni, a city along the road, prices for items like cooking oil have skyrocketed. People are traveling to Pakistan, seeking medical care. And outside Kabul, a 12-year-old boy pried apart old barriers to make a chicken coop. “We are hungry,” he said. |
 | | Women in hijabs arrive to attend classes in Karnataka, India. Sunil Kataria/Reuters |
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 | | Intel’s new site is expected to employ about 3,000 permanent employees, along with 7,000 workers for construction.Intel Corporation |
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- Intel will spend at least $19 billion to begin to manufacture chips in the German city of Magdeburg, continuing an expansion aimed at reducing its dependence on Asian factories.
- Ticket sales for domestic U.S. flights in February exceeded those for the same month in 2019, the first such increase since the pandemic began.
- California is building a $10 million online privacy agency to regulate Google, Facebook, Amazon and other tech giants.
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- The U.S. is negotiating a plea deal for the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks that could avoid a death penalty trial.
- In Yonkers, N.Y, a city north of New York City, a man hit a 67-year-old woman more than 125 times in the head because she was of Asian descent, the authorities said. He has been charged with attempted murder as a hate crime.
- Ginni Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, said she attended the Jan. 6 rally at the U.S. Capitol, an admission that is likely to raise new questions about her support of efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
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- This year’s Pritzker Prize — the top honor in architecture — went to Francis Kéré, who was born in Burkina Faso and uses indigenous materials and local symbols in his structures.
- Jane Campion, the director of “Power of the Dog,” apologized for comments she made about Venus and Serena Williams in an acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards.
- Anna Sorokin, the fake heiress who swindled elites under the pseudonym Anna Delvey, will be deported from the U.S. to Germany.
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 | | Some cartographers feel particularly anxious when removing the ice.Lucia Buricelli for The New York Times |
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The video that changed the game |
“This is our weight room,” she said, pointing at a sorry stack of hand weights at the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament. “Let me show y’all the men’s weight room,” she says, panning across a state-of-the art gym for the men’s tournament, crammed with machines and benches. |
Prince’s video immediately went viral. It also led to a gender-equity review in college basketball and to changes in the women’s event, including branding the tournament with the moniker March Madness. The N.C.A.A. had previously resisted such a move. |
“Every budget line is compared and contrasted,” said Dan Gavitt, the N.C.A.A.’s senior vice president for basketball. “Where there are differences, they are resolved in the name of equity.” |
Prince accomplished last March what generations before her could not: She showed the disparity between the tournaments in a way that couldn’t be explained away. |
 | | Johnny Miller for The New York Times |
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“In the Margins,” a new book from Elena Ferrante, is both a philosophical and a practical meditation on writing and reading. |
That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Amelia |
The latest episode of “The Daily” is on a defining war photo from Ukraine. |
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