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Emerging from coronavirus lockdown to a world changed by the war in Ukraine, China sought to convey reassurance about its economic health.DAVOS, Switzerland — China ventured back on to the global stage Tuesday, sending a delegation to the World Economic Forum to assure foreign investors that after three years in which the pandemic cut off their country from the world, life was back to normal.But the Chinese faced a wary audience at the annual event, attesting to both the dramatically changed geopolitical landscape after Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as two data points that highlighted a worrisome shift in China’s own fortunes.Hours before a senior Chinese official, Liu He, spoke to this elite economic gathering in an Alpine ski resort, the government announced that China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in 61 years. A short time earlier, it confirmed that economic growth had slowed to 3 percent, well below the trend of the past decade.Against that backdrop, Mr. Liu sought to reassure his audience that China was still a good place to do business. “If we work hard enough, we are confident that growth will most likely return to its normal trend, and the Chinese economy will make a significant improvement in 2023,” he said.Mr. Liu, a well-traveled vice premier who is one of China’s most recognizable faces in the West, insisted that the Covid crisis was “steadying,” seven weeks after the government abruptly abandoned its policy of quarantines and lockdowns. China had passed the peak of infections, he said, and had sufficient hospital beds, doctors and nurses, and medicine to treat the millions who are sick.A clinic waiting room in Beijing in December. The Chinese government announced a broad rollback of its zero Covid rules earlier that month.Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesHe did not mention the 60,000 fatalities linked to the coronavirus since the lockdowns were lifted, a huge spike in the official death toll that China announced three days ago.Mr. Liu’s mild words and modest tone were in stark contrast to those of his boss, President Xi Jinping, who came to Davos in 2017 to claim the mantle of global economic leadership in a world shaken up by the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.Since then, the United States and Europe have united to support Ukraine against Russia, leaving the Russians isolated with the Chinese among their few friends. Russia’s revanchist campaign has raised questions among Europeans about whether China might have similar designs on Taiwan, and escalated security concerns among the world’s democracies.Mr. Liu steered clear of political issues like the war in Ukraine or China’s tensions with the Biden administration. But he did say, “We have to abandon the Cold War mentality,” echoing a frequent Chinese criticism of the United States for attempting to contain China’s influence around the world.But it is China’s demographics and economic growth that are raising the biggest questions among businesspeople. The decline in population lays bare the country’s falling birthrate, a trend that experts said was exacerbated by the pandemic and will threaten its growth over the long term. The 3 percent growth rate, the second weakest since 1976, reflects the stifling effect of the government’s Covid policy.“The Chinese are worried, and they should be,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a professor of Asia studies at Georgetown University. “The entire international business community is way more negative about China over the long-term. A lot of people are asking, ‘Have we reached peak China?’”Children playing in the village square after school in Xiasha Village in Shenzhen, China, in November. China’s population has begun to shrink, the government announced on Tuesday.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesProfessor Medeiros, who served as a China adviser in the Obama administration, said, “For the past 20 years, China has benefited from both geoeconomic gravity and geopolitical momentum, but in the last year it has rapidly lost both.”The signposts of China’s economic weakness are everywhere: the government announced on Friday that exports fell 9.9 percent in December relative to a year earlier. “China has an export slowdown, construction is in crisis, and the local governments are running out of money,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University. “China needs the world: to boost its economy, to accompany the return to more normalcy.”Mr. Liu laid out a familiar set of economic policies, from upholding the rule of law to pursuing “innovation-driven development.” He insisted that China was still attractive to foreign investors, who he said were integral to China’s plan to achieve the government’s goal of “common prosperity.”Lianyungang port in China’s eastern Jiangsu province. The government announced on Friday that exports fell 9.9 percent in December relative to a year earlier.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“China’s national reality dictates that opening up to the world is a must, not an expediency,” Mr. Liu said. “We must open up wider and make it work better. We oppose unilateralism and protectionism.”But China’s delegation was a reminder of how the government has sidelined some of its own best-known entrepreneurs as it has reined in powerful technology companies. Jack Ma, a co-founder of the Alibaba Group, used to be one of the biggest celebrities at the World Economic Forum, holding court in a chalet on the outskirts of Davos. Now shunted out of power, Mr. Ma is absent from Davos.Instead, China sent less well-known executives from Ant Group, an affiliate of the Alibaba Group, as well as officials from China Energy Group and China Petrochemical Group. Unlike other countries, notably India and Saudi Arabia, which plastered buildings in Davos with advertisements for foreign investment, China has been low-key, holding meetings at the posh Belvedere Hotel.After his speech, Mr. Liu, who has a command of English and holds a graduate degree from Harvard, met privately with business executives. Some expected him to be more candid in that session about the challenges China has faced.Mr. Liu did not meet top American officials in Davos, though he will meet Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Zurich on Wednesday. Martin J. Walsh, the labor secretary who is at the conference, said he welcomed China’s return. “China’s in the world economy,” he said. “We need to engage with them.”Mr. Liu speaking on Tuesday.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThough Mr. Liu, 70, has a significant international profile — having led trade negotiations with the Trump administration — China experts noted that he is not in Mr. Xi’s innermost circle. He is also no longer a member of the Chinese government’s ruling Politburo, though analysts said he retained the trust of Mr. Xi.When he spoke at Davos in 2018, Mr. Liu’s speech was among the best attended of the conference. This year, however, about a quarter of the hall emptied before Mr. Liu spoke, after having been packed for a speech by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.The difference in crowd sizes reflected the reshuffled priorities of the West, now focused on exhibiting unity against Russian aggression.Ms. von der Leyen, who celebrated that solidarity in her remarks, did not exactly warm up the audience for Mr. Liu. She accused the Chinese government, in its drive to dominate the clean-energy industries of the future, of unfairly subsidizing its companies at the expense of Europe and the United States.“Climate change needs a global approach,” she said in a chiding tone, “but it needs to be a fair approach.”Mark Landler More

More from our inbox:Russia’s Aggression in UkraineI, Robot Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Case for (and Against) Donald Trump in 2024,” by Kellyanne Conway (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 15):A diversity of opinions and perspectives is a fantastic goal, and one reason I’ve been a longtime subscriber. Generally speaking, your opinion guest essays are well written and thoughtful and provide a point of view that makes one examine a topic with fresh eyes.The opinion from Ms. Conway is not that.Time and again she employs sloganeering to sling arrows at Democrats and non-Trumpists in an attempt to burnish the reputation of her former boss.She continues to attempt to turn neighbor against neighbor by perpetuating the othering of Trump detractors and the denial of Mr. Trump’s and her attacks on voting, democracy and simple decency.Hers is not another “opinion”; it is carefully crafted and intentional spin to appeal to people’s sense of grievance and to reaffirm the lies and misinformation they are so ready to believe.Her inclusion in your paper diminishes the quality of debate, and galvanizes a person America would be better off forgetting.Conn FishburnNashvilleTo the Editor:Kellyanne Conway opines that “when it comes to Donald J. Trump, people see what they wish to see,” and then goes on to demonstrate just that, never mentioning his blatant, willful, prolonged lying about the “stolen” 2020 election, which we now know not even he believes.Toss in the further elephants in the room — his central role in the Jan. 6 debacle, his fraudulent and shuttered foundation and university, the conviction of his family business entity’s C.F.O., and on and on, and it would appear that Ms. Conway is indeed a victim of the Trump Derangement Syndrome she decries.Even worse, she is clearly one who should know better, and even worse, likely does.Steve HeiligSan FranciscoTo the Editor:Talk about hedging your bets as a political forecaster and soft selling your qualifications for rehire! Kellyanne Conway’s well-composed essay on Donald Trump’s potential for 2024 felt like the needed equanimity, bipartisan advice and clear thinking the country needs.If Mr. Trump were smart he would rehire Ms. Conway as campaign manager for 2024, or at least pay close attention to her last sentences: “Success lies in having advisers who tell you what you need to know, not just what you want to hear. And in listening to the people, who have the final say.”Lisa BostwickSan FranciscoTo the Editor:Read Kellyanne Conway’s guest essay for what it really is — a job pitch to future Republican presidential candidates (conveniently name-dropped in the article).The pitch: If I could get a buffoon like Donald Trump elected and then get The New York Times to give me a full page to list his imaginary accomplishments, just think what I could do for you.Laura SchumacherSan DiegoTo the Editor:Kellyanne Conway writes: “Success lies in having advisers who tell you what you need to know, not just what you want to hear. And in listening to the people, who have the final say.”Since when has Donald Trump been known as a listener or as one who respects advisers who tell him what he needs to know?Mr. Trump’s overriding egotism and his self-infatuation prevent him from believing that anyone could know more about anything than The Donald himself.Ben MilesHuntington Beach, Calif.To the Editor:Thanks, Ms. Conway, for that delightful nostalgic stroll down the memory lane of alternative facts.Bruce LiptonNew YorkRussia’s Aggression in Ukraine Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Plundering Art, Russia Assaults Soul of Ukraine” (front page, Jan. 15):Like Nazi aggression in World War II, Russian aggression in Ukraine is an expression of absolute evil — a mixture of barbarism that knows no limits, genocide of both a people and their culture, and unremitting, centrally organized propaganda claiming that up is down, that black is white and that Russia is fighting a defensive war.Richard JoffeNew YorkI, RobotA robot prototype being developed by Yuhang Hu, a doctoral student in the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, where engineers are exploring the possibility of self-aware robots.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Robot, Know Thyself” (Science Times, Jan. 10):Robots with consciousness is an oxymoron. Consciousness is a necessary ingredient to what is usually deemed the defining characteristic of being human: the ability to choose.Computers/robots do not have that ability. Their “choice” is limited to what programmers program them to do. Admittedly that may occur under circumstances not contemplated when the machines are programmed, but the machine’s progression toward making a decision is based on its programming, not on free choice.Steven GoldbergBrooklynTo the Editor:A truly conscious robot will cost a fortune to the company that develops it, but at that level of sophistication it may decide to work on unnecessary projects, or stop working altogether for the company, instead opting to work for a competitor.Kevin J. LongoPutnam, Conn.The writer is a science tutor. More

George Santos used fashion to flout the rules.There is a scene at the beginning of “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” the 1999 film adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith book, in which Tom Ripley, the young man who becomes one of fiction’s greatest fakers, borrows a Princeton jacket from a friend to sit in for the piano player at a ritzy garden party. From that assumed finery, an entire novel’s worth of cons are born.It’s not unlike Frank Abagnale shrugging on a PanAm pilot’s uniform in “Catch Me If You Can” to convince the watching world he is a pilot, or Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey, the fake heiress of recent grift, swanning through New York society in Celine sunglasses and Gucci sandals. Or even Elizabeth Holmes assuming the black turtleneck of Steve Jobs, and with it his mystique.Throughout history, the greatest grifters have understood that dressing the part is half the game. And so it has been with George Santos, the Republican congressman representing parts of Long Island and Queens, who has been unmasked as having fabricated pretty much his entire résumé in his quest to get elected, potentially committing campaign finance fraud in the process.Why, people keep asking, did it take so long for his lies to be revealed? Why did no one think to poke deeper? Why did the people who did know something fishy was going on not speak up?In part because he just looked so darn convincing.He went to Horace Mann, Baruch and N.Y.U. and came from money? Behold, the uniform of preppy private-school boys everywhere: the button-up white shirt, crew-neck sweater (most often in the old-school colors of periwinkle and gray), blue blazer and khaki trousers, like something straight out of “Dead Poets Society.”More on the George Santos ControversyBehind The Times’s Investigation: The Times journalists Michael Gold and Grace Ashford discuss how Representative George Santos was elected to Congress and how they discovered that he was a fraud.Split View: New York Republicans are ready to rid themselves of the newly elected representative after his pattern of deception was revealed. But House Republican leaders badly need his vote.Facing Inquiries: Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Santos committed crimes involving his finances or made misleading statements, while authorities in Brazil said they would revive a 2008 fraud case against him.Alternate Identities: A newly surfaced video shows Mr. Santos in 2019 using one of his alternate identities and urging members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community to embrace Republicans. The clip offers insight into Mr. Santos’s early forays into public political life.He was a financier, who had worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs? Lo, the three-quarter zip sweater and fleece (or fleece-like) vest, uniform of bankers everywhere. Just consider the last six seasons of “Billions.”The semiotics of sweater dressing: Mr. Santos in zip-front knitwear. Tom Brenner for The New York TimesHe went deep into the costume department of the popular culture hive mind and built his cover story layer by layer, garment by garment.He may wear suits sometimes, but it is the sweaters, in their various permutations, that have been the telling detail, along with the horn-rimmed glasses — visual shorthand, in pretty much every medium, for intellectual. Both are props that push the buttons of stereotype buried in our subconscious. We are so much more likely to believe a story if it is embedded in the codes we expect, dress code being among the first.Yes, it’s a cliché. That doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. Clothes are the camouflage that gets you in the door. Especially in a world in which the line between visual truth and fiction is increasingly filtered.It would not be surprising then, that Mr. Santos is alleged to have bought hundreds of dollars worth of garments and shoes in Brazil using checks stolen from his mother’s handbag. And that a former roommate claimed in The New York Post that the Burberry scarf Mr. Santos wore to a Stop the Steal rally in 2021 didn’t actually belong to him but to the roommate, and Mr. Santos took it when the two men shared an apartment. That another said Mr. Santos had taken some of his dress shirts, including an Armani number. Mr. Santos clearly understood that no matter the character you are playing, what you wear tells the story.So he dressed up his story of embodying the American dream in the fashion vernacular of archetypes. By indulging public preconceptions of how someone with his résumé should look, Mr. Santos was implicitly underscoring his own credibility.And he is still doing it. It is not an accident that since his fabrications have been revealed, he has stuck largely to his preppy layering. See the periwinkle blue crew neck he wore over a white shirt and navy-and-white tie and under a navy suit during the House swearing-in; it’s a uniform both protective and promising. One that had a Pavlovian association with words like “wholesome,” “polite,” “youthful,” “well intentioned.” It’s the kind of style that conjures up images of grandmothers saying, “But he looks like such a nice boy.” (He even arrived for the ceremony toting a backpack.)Outside a Stop & Shop in a fleece-adjacent look. Mary Altaffer/Associated PressJust as when writers sometimes clean up the language of interviewees to make the written statement easier to read than the spoken one — which can often seem garbled on the page — dressing to satisfy expectations rather than reflect everyday reality is a form of sleight of hand.(The practice of quote amelioration became something of a cause célèbre when the psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson sued the journalist Janet Malcolm for libel for massaging his words.)But in fact, while bankers may love a logo fleece, it’s usually one that advertises the institutions to which they belong or the invite-only conferences that they attend (Sun Valley! Davos!). Mr. Santos’s version, worn mostly on the campaign trail as he was selling his myth, advertised his own candidacy.And according to Lisa Birnbach, the author of “The Official Preppy Handbook,” Mr. Santos’s version of preppy style is too groomed, too layered, too contrived to be that of a genuine prepster. She said she hadn’t seen a crew neck under a blazer over a tie since George Plimpton ran The Paris Review in the second half of the 20th century. Mr. Santos, she said, looks like an extra in “Family Ties,” the sitcom that starred Michael J. Fox as a teenage Republican. He’s trying too hard.Some are now beginning to speculate that even the glasses are fakes, donned to complete the picture, that they don’t have the distortions associated with corrective lenses.That we should have realized, really, they were too easy to see through. More

To legitimize otherwise questionable investigations, Congress occasionally labels them after a previous successful effort. Thus, the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives’ proposed select committee, which plans to investigate the “weaponization of government,” is being described as “the new Church committee,” after the group of senators who investigated the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and other groups from 1975-76.As the last surviving member of the original Church committee, named after its chairman, the late Senator Frank Church of Idaho, I have a particular interest in distinguishing what we accomplished then and what authoritarian Republicans seem to have in mind now.The outlines of the committee, which Rep. Jim Jordan will assemble, remain vague. Reading between the rhetorical lines, proponents appear to believe agencies of the national government have targeted, and perhaps are still targeting, right-of-center individuals and groups, possibly including individuals and right-wing militia groups that participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionist attack on the Capitol.That is almost completely at odds with the purpose of the original Church committee, which was founded in response to widespread abuses by government intelligence agencies. While we sought to protect the constitutional rights and freedoms of American citizens, we were also bound to protect the integrity of the intelligence and security agencies, which were founded to protect those freedoms, too.Our committee brought U.S. intelligence agencies under congressional scrutiny to prevent the violation of the privacy rights of American citizens, and to halt covert operations abroad that violated our constitutional principles. Rather than strengthening the oversight of federal agencies, the new committee seems designed to prevent law enforcement and intelligence agencies from enforcing the law — specifically, laws against insurrectionist activity in our own democracy.It is one thing to intercept phone calls from people organizing a peaceful civil rights march and quite another to intercept phone calls from people organizing an assault on the Capitol to impede the certification of a national election.Rather than weaken our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the Church committee sought to restore their original mandates and increase their focus away from partisan or political manipulation. Our committee was bipartisan, leaning neither right nor left, and the conservative senators, including the vice chair, John Tower, Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker and others, took pains to prevent liberal or progressive members, including chairman Church, Philip Hart, Walter Mondale and me, from weakening our national security.They needn’t have bothered. We all understood, including me, the youngest member, that attacks on federal law enforcement and national security would not go down well among our constituents. Unlike in the 1970s, today’s threat to domestic security is less from foreign sources and more from homeland groups seeking to replace the constitutional order with authoritarian practices that challenge historic institutions and democratic practices.Among a rather large number of reforms proposed by the Church committee were permanent congressional oversight committees for the intelligence community, an endorsement of the 1974 requirement that significant clandestine projects be approved by the president in a written “finding,” the notification of the chairs of the oversight committees of certain clandestine projects at the time they are undertaken and the elimination of assassination attempts against foreign leaders.Despite the concern of conservatives at the time, to my knowledge, no significant clandestine activity was compromised and no classified information leaked as a result of these reforms in the almost half-century since they were adopted. In fact, the oversight and notification requirements, by providing political cover, have operated as protection for the C.I.A.Evidence was provided of the effectiveness of these reforms in the so-called Iran-contra controversy in 1985-87. The Reagan administration sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to finance covert operations in Nicaragua against its socialist government. Assigning accountability for this scheme proved difficult until a document authorizing it was located in the White House. President Reagan did not remember signing it; however, it bore his signature. This kind of accountability would not have been possible before our reforms were adopted.The rules of the Senate and the House establish what standing committees and what special committees each house may create. The House is clearly at liberty within those rules to create a committee to protect what it perceives to be an important element of its base. And if its purposes are ultimately to protect authoritarian interests, it is presumably free to do so and accept criticisms from the press and the public. It is outrageous to call it a new Church committee. Trying to disguise a highly partisan effort to legitimize undemocratic activities by cloaking it in the mantle of a successful bipartisan committee from decades ago is a mockery.Gary Hart is a former United States senator from Colorado and the author of, most recently, “The Republic of Conscience.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Last year, China’s economy had one of its worst performances in decades. Its population is also shrinking.Together with Japan and South Korea, China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesChina’s twin crisesAt the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, China sought to reassure the world that its economy was back on track. A delegation told world leaders that business could return to normal now that the country has relaxed its “zero Covid” policy.But China’s projected resilience does not align with two major revelations about its long-term health and stability.Yesterday, China revealed that its economy had just had one of its worst performances since 1976, the year Mao Zedong died. Its economy grew by just 3 percent, far short of its 5.5 percent target.Perhaps more consequential, China also revealed that its population had shrunk last year for the first time since the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s failed economic experiment.In the population data, experts see major implications for China, its economy and the world. Births in China have fallen for years, and officials have fought to reverse the trend. They have loosened the one-child policy and offered incentives to encourage families to have children. Those policies did not work. Now, some experts think the decline may be irreversible.A shrinking Chinese population means that the country will face labor shortages in the absence of enough people of working age to fuel its growth. By 2035, 400 million people in China are expected to be over 60, nearly a third of its population. That will have major implications for the global economy; the country has been the engine of world growth for decades.Context: The problem is not limited to China. Many developed countries are aging, and toward the middle of this century, deaths will start to exceed births worldwide. The shift is already starting to transform societies. In East Asia, people are working well into their 70s, and in France, an effort to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is expected to expose older workers to hiring discrimination.Opinion: China’s population decline creates two major economic challenges, writes Paul Krugman. The state pension system will struggle to handle the unbalanced ratio of older adults to the working population. And the decline may harm China’s overall productivity.Olena Zelenska pressed leaders at Davos to support Ukraine.Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA, via ShutterstockThe Ukraine war dominates at DavosThe war in Ukraine is taking center stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as Ukraine pushes for more aid and advanced weapons from the West.Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, is there in person. Yesterday, she called on world leaders and others at the forum to use their influence to help Ukraine. She also outlined the 10-point peace plan that her husband, President Volodymyr Zelensky, announced last fall, which includes Russia’s complete withdrawal.Pressure is now growing on Germany to export its main battle tank to Ukraine, or allow other countries to do so. Poland and Finland are waiting for Germany’s approval to send the German tanks, which could help Ukraine better defend itself against Russian aerial attacks and take the initiative along the front line in the east.The State of the WarDnipro: A Russian strike on an apartment complex in the central Ukrainian city was one of the deadliest for civilians away from the front line since the war began. The attack prompted renewed calls for Moscow to be charged with war crimes.Western Military Aid: Britain indicated that it would give battle tanks to Ukrainian forces to help prepare them for anticipated Russian assaults this spring, adding to the growing list of powerful Western weapons being sent Ukraine’s way that were once seen as too provocative.Soledar: The Russian military and the Wagner Group, a private mercenary group, contradicted each other publicly about who should get credit for capturing the eastern town. Ukraine’s military, meanwhile, has rejected Russia’s claim of victory, saying its troops are still fighting there.What’s next: The dispute over German-made tanks should be resolved by the end of the week. Vocal U.S. support could help sway Germany. Yesterday, a senior NATO official said that Britain’s recent announcement that it would send 14 tanks to Ukraine was making Germany’s reluctance untenable.Context: Ukraine and its allies are growing more worried that there is only a short window to prepare for a possible Russian offensive in the spring.Elsewhere: The Australian Open banned Belarusian and Russian flags yesterday. It has allowed tennis players from those countries to compete, but not as representatives of their country.Brayan Apaza, 15, is the youngest person who was killed in the protests.Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times.A referendum on Peru’s democracyProtests in rural Peru that began more than a month ago over the ouster of the former president, Pedro Castillo, have grown in size and in the scope of demonstrators’ demands.The unrest is now far broader than anger over who is running the country. Instead, it represents a profound frustration with the country’s young democracy, which demonstrators say has deepened the country’s vast inequalities.At first, protesters mainly sought timely new elections or Castillo’s reinstatement. But now at least 50 people have died, and protesters are demanding a new constitution and even, as one sign put it, “to refound a new nation.”“This democracy is no longer a democracy,” they chant as they block streets.Background: Peru returned to democracy just two decades ago, after the authoritarian rule of Alberto Fujimori. The current system, based on a Fujimori-era Constitution, is rife with corruption, impunity and mismanagement.Context: The crisis reflects an erosion of trust in democracies across Latin America, fueled by states that “violate citizens’ rights, fail to provide security and quality public services and are captured by powerful interests,” according to The Journal of Democracy. Just 21 percent of Peruvians are satisfied with their democracy, according to one study. Only Haiti fares worse in Latin America.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificMursal Nabizada was one of a few female legislators who stayed in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power. Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA former Afghan lawmaker was fatally shot at her home in Kabul. No one has been arrested, and it was unclear whether it was a politically motivated murder or a family conflict.New Zealand is facing an egg shortage. One reason is a decade-old disagreement about how to farm poultry.Vietnam’s president resigned yesterday after he was found responsible for a series of corruption scandals, The Associated Press reports.Around the WorldArmed insurgents kidnapped 50 women in Burkina Faso, which has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2015.Britain’s government blocked a new Scottish law that made it easier for people to legally change their gender.Experts think European inflation has probably peaked, after an unusually warm winter drove down gas prices.Science TimesSome 130,000 babies get infected with H.I.V. each year in sub-Saharan Africa.Malin Fezehai for The New York TimesEfforts to treat adults for H.I.V. have been a major success across sub-Saharan Africa. But many infections in children are undetected and untreated.Dolphins can shout underwater. But a new study suggests that underwater noise made by humans could make it harder for them to communicate and work together.The rate of big scientific breakthroughs may have fallen since 1945. Analysts say that today’s discoveries are more incremental.A Morning ReadPrincess Martha Louise of Norway stepped away from her royal duties last year to focus on her alternative medicine business.Lise AserudThe British aren’t the only ones with royal drama. Thailand, Norway, Denmark and Spain have zany monarchies, too.ARTS AND IDEAS“The Reading Party,” painted in 1735 by Jean-François de Troy, was sold for $3.6 million last month. Christie’sTough times for the old mastersThe art market, like pretty much everything else in our culture, has become all about the here and now. European paintings from before 1850 were once a bedrock of the market. But now, works by the old masters make up just 4 percent of sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.Instead, buyers increasingly want works by living artists. Last year, Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips offered works by a record 670 “NextGen” artists, who are under 45. A January report found that their art grossed more than $300 million. Experts say that younger collectors often regard art from the distant past as remote and irrelevant, and contemporary art reflects the fast-forward cultural preoccupations of our society. There may also be a financial incentive: Works by younger, Instagram-lauded artists are routinely “flipped” at auction for many multiples of their original gallery prices.Related: A new book, “The Status Revolution,” argues that class signifiers have flipped. The lowbrow has supplanted luxury as a sign of prestige.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookArmando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks.Instant pistachio pudding mix is the secret to this moist Bundt cake.How to NegotiateThere is an art to asking for a raise.HealthIs it bad to drink coffee on an empty stomach?FashionHere’s how to choose the perfect work T-shirt.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Whole bunch (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Adrienne Carter, who has led our newsroom in Asia since 2019, will be the next Europe editor. Congratulations, Adrienne!“The Daily” is on China’s “zero Covid” pivot.We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. More

Mr. Dolan, a state senator whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, will compete for the Republican nomination against one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators.State Senator Matt Dolan of Ohio, a Republican, announced on Tuesday that he would run for the United States Senate against Sherrod Brown, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in 2024.It will be Mr. Dolan’s second Senate campaign, after he finished third in the Republican primary for an open seat in Ohio last year. The winner of that primary, J.D. Vance, went on to win the general election.Mr. Dolan’s family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and he used millions of dollars of his own money to fund his first campaign, in which he won about 23 percent of the primary vote — finishing significantly behind Mr. Vance and narrowly behind the second-place finisher, Josh Mandel.In his campaign announcement on Tuesday, Mr. Dolan, the chairman of the Ohio Senate’s finance committee, emphasized border security, fighting inflation and his support for the police. He accused Mr. Brown of “blind loyalty to his party.”“Ohioans want a problem solver who has successfully faced big challenges impacting our quality of life, not the political blame game that lacks commonsense solutions,” he said. “I have a proven conservative record of success that has yielded results for Ohio families, workers and businesses.”A tough line on immigration was also a hallmark of Mr. Dolan’s 2022 campaign, though he broke from his opponents’ hard-right line on at least one specific policy: He supported the preservation of H-1B visas that allow immigrants to work temporarily in certain industries.Mr. Dolan is a former chief assistant prosecutor in Geauga County, east of Cleveland, and a former assistant state attorney general.Ohio, a former swing state that has moved toward Republicans in recent years, represents one of several opportunities for the G.O.P. to pick up a Senate seat in 2024, with Democratic incumbents in the red states of Montana and West Virginia also up for re-election.Mr. Brown, a three-term senator and former representative, has won difficult races before, though, including in 2018, when he won re-election by more than six percentage points just two years after Donald J. Trump won in Ohio by eight.Mr. Brown has shown strong — and enduring, even in the past few years — appeal among the blue-collar voters who are essential in Ohio elections. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he has pushed for more oversight of Wall Street and more consumer protections. He has also been a vocal proponent of expanding the child tax credit and other elements of the social safety net, including the Supplemental Security Income program for disabled and older Americans.A spokesman for Mr. Brown did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Dolan’s announcement, but Mr. Brown’s campaign quickly sent a fund-raising email to supporters calling Mr. Dolan “the first of what we expect to be many challengers jumping into the race.”Among others, Republicans are watching Frank LaRose, the Ohio secretary of state, who has not announced whether he will run but is widely expected to do so. More

The seat will be open as Senator Mike Braun runs for governor instead.Representative Jim Banks, a staunch conservative with the backing of a deep-pocketed political action committee, opened his bid for an Indiana Senate seat on Tuesday with an ad highlighting his deployment to Afghanistan and issuing a broadside against “radical socialist Democrats.”Mike Braun, who currently holds the seat and is one of the state’s two Republican senators, will run for governor next year, creating an opening that could lead to a crowded primary fight in the reliably Republican state. Mr. Banks, who recently led the House’s Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus that is broader and less confrontational than the House’s Freedom Caucus, turned to the Senate after he lost his bid to be whip, the No. 3 Republican position in the G.O.P.’s new House majority.He enters the contest with the backing of the Club for Growth, a moneyed conservative political action committee that spent millions of dollars to get its preferred House and Senate candidates across the line in the November midterms. The group and its super PAC “are prepared to spend whatever it takes to help Banks secure the nomination and victory,” its president, David McIntosh, said Tuesday.The Club for Growth is already spending money against another possible candidate, the former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, whom it considers too conciliatory. Mr. Banks signaled that he too would focus on Mr. Daniels, who was also president of Purdue University and a White House budget director under President George W. Bush. Mr. Daniels a decade ago called for a truce on cultural issues, a stance Mr. Banks appeared to call out in an interview with Politico, saying that issues like abortion and gender “matter more than at any point in my lifetime.”“I’ll never be calling for a truce on social issues or cultural issues,” he told Politico.Mr. Banks also has the endorsement of Representative Larry Bucshon, another Indiana Republican, and Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas.But Indiana’s current governor, Eric Holcomb, who is facing a term limit, is considering a run for the Senate, as is Representative Victoria Spartz, whose Ukrainian birth has elevated her voice in Congress.In his announcement, Mr. Banks called himself “a small-town kid from a working-class home” with deep roots in Indiana and a record fighting overseas and in Congress for “conservative Hoosier values.” He threw in a nod to former President Donald J. Trump, calling him “the strongest president in my lifetime.”Mr. Braun, a businessman who had little political experience when he ran against Senator Joe Donnelly, a Democrat, in 2018, beat him by six percentage points. His victory came two years after Representative Todd Young breezed past Evan Bayh, a Democrat and former senator who had come out of retirement to try a comeback. Those defeats signaled just how difficult a Democratic comeback in the state would be.In November, Mr. Young won re-election with nearly 59 percent of the vote. More

Mientras el autobús se dirigía desde el corazón agrícola de Brasil a la capital, Andrea Barth sacó su teléfono para preguntar a sus compañeros de viaje, uno por uno, qué pensaban hacer cuando llegaran.“Derrocar a los ladrones”, respondió un hombre.“Sacar al ‘Nueve Dedos’“, dijo otro, en referencia al presidente de izquierda de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, quien hace décadas perdió parte de un dedo en un accidente de trabajo sucedido en una fábrica.Mientras los pasajeros describían sus planes de violencia, más de cien autobuses llenos de simpatizantes de Jair Bolsonaro, el expresidente de extrema derecha, también descendían en Brasilia, la capital.Video posted on social media shows dozens of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro arriving in Brasília by bus.Jakelyne Loiola, via TwitterUn día después, el 8 de enero, una turba pro-Bolsonaro desató un caos que conmocionó al país y que dio la vuelta al mundo. Los agitadores invadieron y saquearon el Congreso, el Supremo Tribunal Federal y el palacio de gobierno del país, con la intención, según muchos de ellos, de incitar a los líderes militares a derrocar a Lula, quien había asumido el cargo una semana antes.El ataque caótico tuvo un parecido inquietante con el asalto al Capitolio de Estados Unidos el 6 de enero de 2021: cientos de manifestantes de derecha, alegando que una elección estuvo amañada, entraron a los pasillos del poder.Ambos episodios impactaron a dos de las democracias más grandes del mundo, y casi dos años después del ataque de Estados Unidos, el asalto del domingo de hace un par de semanas mostró que el extremismo de extrema derecha, inspirado por líderes antidemocráticos e impulsado por teorías de la conspiración, sigue siendo una grave amenaza.Lula y las autoridades judiciales actuaron con rapidez para recuperar el control y detuvieron a más de 1150 alborotadores, desalojaron los campamentos donde se refugiaron, buscaron a sus financiadores y organizadores y, el viernes de la semana pasada, abrieron una investigación sobre cómo Bolsonaro pudo haberlos inspirado.The New York Times habló con las autoridades, servidores públicos, testigos y participantes en las protestas y revisó decenas de videos y cientos de publicaciones en las redes sociales para reconstruir lo sucedido. El resultado de la investigación muestra que una turba superó con rapidez y sin esfuerzo a la policía.También muestra que algunos agentes de la policía no solo no actuaron contra los alborotadores, sino que parecían simpatizar con ellos, ya que se dedicaron a tomar fotos mientras la turba destruía el Congreso. Un hombre que fue a ver qué estaba pasando dijo que la policía simplemente le indicó que se dirigiera a los disturbios.El desequilibrio entre los manifestantes y la policía sigue siendo uno de los puntos centrales de la investigación de las autoridades y las entrevistas con los agentes de seguridad han generado acusaciones de negligencia grave e incluso de complicidad activa en el caos. Tras los disturbios, las autoridades federales suspendieron al gobernador responsable de la protección de los edificios públicos y detuvieron a dos altos funcionarios de seguridad que trabajaban para él. More