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      U.S. Pressing Tough Demands in Revised Deal for Ukraine’s Minerals

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      The Trump administration wants revenues from Ukraine’s natural resources, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times, with no security guarantee in exchange.Ukraine on Saturday was seriously considering a revised American proposal for its vast natural resources that contains virtually the same provisions that Kyiv previously rejected as too onerous, according to a draft document of the new proposal.Some of the terms appear even tougher than in a previous draft.Though Ukraine had not finalized the deal as of Saturday afternoon, its assent to the terms would represent a capitulation to American demands after a week of intense pressure from President Trump. The American president views access to Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth as necessary repayment for the billions the United States has provided Kyiv for its war against Russia.The deal could strip Ukraine of funds that are now mostly invested in the country’s military and defense industry, and that could help rebuild the country once the war is over.The terms of the new proposal, which is dated Feb. 21 and was reviewed by The New York Times, call for Ukraine to relinquish half of its revenues from natural resources, including minerals, gas and oil, as well as earnings from ports and other infrastructure.A similar demand was made in a previous version of the deal, dated Feb. 14 and reviewed by The Times. Four current and former Ukrainian officials and a Ukrainian businessman who had the terms of the new proposal described to them confirmed that the demand remained unchanged.Ukraine had been floating the prospect of a partnership with the United States on its valuable natural resources as a way to persuade Mr. Trump to provide additional support for its war effort as well as guarantees against future Russian aggression if a peace deal is struck.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On the Ropes, Olaf Scholz Keeps Punching

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      The German chancellor, who defied calls to step aside after his government fell apart, is down in the polls but insisting he can still win.A month ago, no one would have ever mistaken Germany’s often taciturn chancellor for an aggressive political campaigner. But prowling the stage in a dark suit and open shirt with a microphone in hand, Olaf Scholz certainly looked like one on Friday night.At a nearly euphoric rally for someone trailing in the polls, Mr. Scholz spoke for 50 minutes before supporters in Dortmund, one of only two German cities where his center-left Social Democrats are projected to win the majority.He trumpeted his government’s achievements, like raising the minimum wage and bridging the loss of Russian gas after the invasion in Ukraine. He told the crowd he could still win. And he took a swipe at President Trump.“If you translate what ‘transactional’ means specifically,” Mr. Scholz said, alighting on a word often used to describe the American president’s approach to politics, “it means I only think of myself and I only do what benefits me.”Nearly 2,000 Social Democrats jumped to their feet and cheered. “I thought he was in good fighting form,” said Elisabeth Schnieder, 69, who joined Mr. Scholz Social Democrats, or S.P.D., after she retired from her job as a senior care aide.“I just wish he had shown that side earlier.”The Friday rally was Mr. Scholz’s last of the campaign ahead of Sunday’s vote. It was also possibly the last of his career.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Officials Are Fired at Traffic Safety Agency Investigating Musk’s Company

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      The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has raised questions about crashes involving Tesla’s self-driving technology.The federal agency responsible for traffic safety, which has been investigating whether self-driving technology in Tesla vehicles played a role in the death of a pedestrian, will fire a “modest” number of employees, an agency spokesman said late Friday.The agency did not say whether any of the fired employees were involved in investigations of Tesla, whose chief executive, Elon Musk, is leading the Department of Government Efficiency established by President Trump.The efficiency department has been forcing layoffs at numerous government agencies as part of an effort to reshape the federal bureaucracy. Mr. Musk has retained control of Tesla while spending much of his time in Washington.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has three active investigations of Tesla, according to agency documents, including one examining whether the company’s autonomous driving software is prone to failure when visibility is poor.The layoffs at the traffic safety agency, which has less than 1,000 employees, were reported earlier by The Washington Post. Even after the layoffs, the agency continues to employ more people than at the beginning of the Biden administration, the agency said in a statement.“The last administration grew NHTSA by a whopping 30 percent,” the agency said in a statement.“We have retained positions critical to the mission of saving lives, preventing injuries, and reducing economic costs due to road traffic crashes,” the agency said. “We will continue to enforce the law on all manufacturers of motor vehicles and equipment.”Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.One of the traffic safety agency’s investigations into Tesla is based on four accidents involving technology that the carmaker calls supervised full self-driving.James Stukenberg for The New York TimesOne of the investigations into Tesla is based on four accidents involving technology that the carmaker calls supervised full self-driving, which can steer, brake and navigate Tesla cars in some situations. In one of the crashes, a Tesla struck and killed a pedestrian, according to agency documents. In another of the accidents, a person was injured.Tesla’s self-driving technology relies on cameras to survey a car’s surroundings, in contrast with competitors like Waymo, a unit of the same company as Google, that also uses lasers and radar to recognize objects.The traffic safety agency has been looking into whether Tesla’s technology failed when visibility was poor because of glare from the sun, fog or dust.Mr. Musk has often argued that Tesla self-driving technology is safer than human drivers.The technology is also crucial to Tesla’s future and share price. As Tesla sales have flagged, falling 1 percent last year even as the global market for electric vehicles rose 25 percent, Mr. Musk has shifted the company’s focus to autonomous driving technology and plans for a self-driving taxi.The technology will help make Tesla the most valuable company in the world by far, Mr. Musk told investors last month. More

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      Trump Really Can’t Get Enough of Himself

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      Like last Saturday, Times Opinion is using today’s newsletter to stay on top of President Trump’s moves, putting a spotlight on where Americans can’t afford to turn away from.Where America Stands: Trump smeared the founding fathers in Week 5 by declaring himself “king” — of the United States? The world? His narcissism knows no bounds — as he grasped for godlike power to pronounce congestion pricing “dead” in Manhattan. Calling himself “king” denigrates every American who has fought and died for democracy, but Trump sees those heroes as “losers” anyway. Of course, he doesn’t have a king’s power, but his efforts to remake America pay no heed to the rule of law.What Mattered Most This Week: Ukraine. Trump sent mixed messages, which he sees as core to his deal making, but make no mistake about his pro-Putin posture. Trump accused Ukraine of launching the war and called its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a dictator — both lies — while squeezing Kyiv for an earth minerals deal and a cease-fire in the war with Russia. Now, it’s worth keeping in mind, Trump is not alone in disliking Zelensky; the Biden White House deeply mistrusted him too. But Trump approaches Ukraine with a dangerous moral relativism: He doesn’t care about good and evil, as he showed Friday when he said he was “tired” of hearing about Putin’s war crimes. Trump cares about strength and leverage. “He has no cards,” he said of Zelensky. Trump sees the world as his casino and all that matters is your cards.Worth reading: My colleagues Bret Stephens and M. Gessen went deep on Ukraine, Putin, Trump and Europe in this round table, and the Times Opinion editorial board weighed in today on Ukraine. Susan Glasser of The New Yorker has a good piece on Trump’s “Putinization of America,” and The Wall Street Journal had strong reporting about the implications for NATO.The Most Important Long Game in Washington: Elon Musk. He and his youthful goon squad are running amok across federal agencies, with more layoffs hitting disaster relief programs, the Interior Department and the I.R.S. Americans want competence from their government, not chaos; Musk may enjoy breaking things, but the laws of political gravity suggest Republicans will pay the price.Worth reading: A Politico story about Republican lawmakers’ panic over the DOGE firing spree even as they cheer it in public; a Washington Post story along similar lines but about executive officials; and this Journal story about how X is effectively cashing in on Musk’s position. My colleague Zeynep Tufekci had a great column Friday on the digital clues to what Musk is up to.The Most Important Development Below the Radar: The Trump administration’s intervention on behalf of Andrew Tate. Trump’s moral relativism goes into overdrive when it comes to defending male predators.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Shocked by Trump, Europe Turns Its Hopes to Germany’s Election

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      Germany’s economy is stalled and its politics fractured. But it sees an opening for a new chancellor to lead Europe’s response to a changing America.In the final days of Germany’s abbreviated election campaign, the task facing its next chancellor has snapped into focus. It appears far more existential, for the country and for all of Europe, than almost anyone initially imagined.Germany’s coalition government came apart just a day after the U.S. presidential election last November. As a result, a vote that was supposed to come this September is now set for Sunday. German leaders quickly realized that meant their campaign would be largely fought in the early days of President Trump’s second term.They were nervous from the start. But they were nowhere near prepared.In just a few short weeks, the new Trump team has cut Ukraine and Europe out of negotiations to end the war with Russia, and embraced an aggressive, expansionist regime in Moscow that now breathes down Europe’s neck. It also threatened to withdraw troops that have protected Germany for decades.How Germans vote will now be a critical component of Europe’s response to Mr. Trump’s new world order, and will resonate far beyond their borders.“It is not just another change of government” under Mr. Trump, Friedrich Merz, the leading candidate for chancellor, warned on Friday after taking the stage for an arena rally in the western town of Oberhausen, “but a complete redrawing of the world map.”Friedrich Merz at a campaign event in Oberhausen, Germany, on Friday.Martin Meissner/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Are the 6 Freed Israeli Hostages?

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      Hamas released six more hostages on Saturday as part of its cease-fire deal with Israel, the last living captives to be freed under the current truce in Gaza.As part of the cease-fire agreement, Hamas committed to releasing at least 33 of the nearly 100 captives remaining in Gaza, a number of whom are believed to be dead, in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinians jailed by Israel and a partial Israeli withdrawal. Both sides are set to negotiate terms to extend the truce, but an agreement appears remote.Two of the captives freed on Saturday had been in Hamas’s hands for about 10 years. Four others were taken during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which prompted the Gaza war.Omer WenkertA poster of Omer Wenkert at the site of the festival in southern Israel where he was abducted.Amir Cohen/ReutersOmer Wenkert, 23, was kidnapped during the Oct. 7 assault as Palestinian militants attacked a music festival, the Tribe of Nova, being held near the Gaza border. Videos and photographs from the time of the attack show him being restrained, stripped to his underwear and surrounded by armed men in the back of a truck as he was taken away to Gaza.He was in touch with his family on the morning of the attack and had said that he was afraid. Relatives later saw video of his abduction. His grandmother, Tsili Wenkert, a Holocaust survivor who said that she had been saved by the Soviet Army, appealed to Russian officials for help in securing her grandson’s release.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Comparing Elon Musk and Jack Welch as Influential Cost-Cutters

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      Elon Musk’s hyperfocus on the bottom line has made him influential in Washington and Silicon Valley. How does that compare with the last famous cost-cutter, Jack Welch?Elon Musk is perhaps the most influential corporate cost-cutter since Jack Welch led General Electric.Eric Lee/The New York TimesA tale of the cost-cutting tapeThere’s no disputing that Elon Musk is one of the leading businessmen of our era. He has a net worth of around $400 billion these days and leads prominent businesses including Tesla, SpaceX, X, Neuralink and xAI. And he has become known for moving fast, cutting costs and pushing the workers who remain beyond what they thought possible.In many ways, that recalls a previous titan of industry, Jack Welch, who 25 years ago was considered the greatest businessman of his generation. It raises an intriguing question: Is Musk as influential a business leader as the former General Electric chief? Are the two men even comparable?By some lights, the two aren’t remotely the same. Welch was no entrepreneur but instead was the ultimate corporate chameleon, the son of a train conductor who started his career in G.E.’s plastics division and spent his whole career at the conglomerate.Musk, on the other hand, hailed from a prominent South African family, before emigrating to Canada and then to the United States as a serial entrepreneur.And while the two were both politically conservative, Welch was more of a country-club Republican, partial to golf and no fan — at least earlier on — of Donald Trump. While a savvy political operator, Welch was unlikely to have decamped to Mar-a-Lago to personally and intensely cozy up to the president-elect, as Musk did. (In 2016, Welch withdrew his support for Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, writing on social media, “Unfortunately, wrong messenger…Party must change nominee now.”)But the two shared a common business philosophy: Cut as much fat as possible.Welch believed G.E. had become too bureaucratic and bloated. He slashed billions of dollars in costs, and prided himself on weeding out employees who just weren’t making it. He became an apostle of the Six Sigma approach, inspiring other C.E.O.s. Corporate profits — and G.E.’s stock price — exploded under his watch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2 Books Chock-Full of Worthwhile Ideas

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      A study of human fatigue; a cranky travel memoir.The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA, via Art Resource, NYDear readers,If the retail price of a book were pegged to the number of high-quality ideas it contained, the two books below would sell for downright goofy sums. And by the same logic, a book that contained zero ideas or — worse — lazy or unsupported ones would owe the reader money for squandered time. This is my platform. Vote Molly for president.—Molly“The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity,” by Anson RabinbachNonfiction, 1990Why did Red Bull sell 12.7 billion cans of energy drink last year? Why is it a common and accepted practice to track one’s daily steps? Why did a German chemist named Wilhelm Weichardt attempt to invent a vaccine for fatigue in the early 20th century and — crucially — if he was successful, where can we present our upper arms for immediate injection?These questions are answered in “The Human Motor,” if only implicitly as regards the first two. Rabinbach, who died recently at the age of 79, had loftier concerns than the state of Red Bull’s market share.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More