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    Is the US better prepared for a nuclear blast today than it was 60 years ago?

    Is the US better prepared for a nuclear blast today than it was 60 years ago?Despite advances in technology and decades of research, experts worry we are still underprepared to handle a blast – and the aftermath If you look hard enough, you’ll spot faded yellow signs proclaiming “Fallout shelter” around New York City. They are remnants of a cold war program that signaled spaces within ordinary buildings – from schools to banks to the Brooklyn Bridge – with adequate supplies and walls thick enough for riding out a nuclear blast safely.Many of these windowless shelters housed little more than rats and sewage before the practice was terminated in 1979. In 2017, the city’s department of education ordered the “misleading” signs removed from its buildings, but many others remain –– vestiges of nuclear fears that never materialized.All you wanted to know about nuclear war but were too afraid to askRead moreThose fears feel a little more real again amid Vladimir Putin’s repeated nuclear threats. In July, New York mayor Eric Adams’s office published a public service announcement about what to do in case of a blast. A couple of weeks ago, nuclear preparedness re-entered headlines when the Department of Health and Human Services announced it was buying a supply of the anti-radiation drug Nplate, though the agency denied it was in response to any specific threat.All of this raises the question: are we better prepared today to survive a nuclear blast than we were 60 years ago, when it seemed all we could do was head to the basement and pray?Jeff Schlegelmilch has been trying to answer this question for years as the head of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, a Columbia University research program that works with government agencies. But while the United States has made many advances in nuclear preparedness since the cold war, “some of those have eroded because of funding cuts and attention going elsewhere,” he said.One of the biggest challenges is educating the public, which requires sustained communication –– something that’s become nearly impossible given today’s political polarization and short attention spans, Schlegelmilch said. Because of this, disaster preparedness officials look for “teachable moments” like big news events to get their messaging through. And while we’re not currently at the level of “everybody to the bunker, grab your helmet”, this is an important opportunity to get people informed, he said.In the event of a nuclear incident, preparedness experts agree you should shelter inside a building with thick walls and remain for at least 24 hours to avoid the worst of radioactive fallout while awaiting further instructions, or “Get inside, stay inside, stay tuned,” the phrase recited in a recent New York City public service announcement. If there is a nuclear explosion, text messages called Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) will probably be sent out.What may be of larger concern in the nuclear preparedness realm are issues likely to emerge after any initial blast. Aside from a scenario of total Armageddon, it’s likely millions of people would survive but need urgent care. And while Schlegelmilch said government agencies have been doing “very serious” behind-the-scenes work for many decades, he worries it’s not nearly enough. “When it comes to special needs, when it comes to more of the social aspects, we’re still not as ready,” he said.Two of the most important offices overseeing the US’s nuclear preparedness efforts – the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), and the less well-known Administration of Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the disaster response division of the Department of Health and Human Services – have summed up their approach for allocating scarce resources after a nuclear disaster in two giant guidebooks. Fema’s Planning Guide for Response to a Nuclear Detonation, last updated in May, and ASPR’s 212-page A Decision Makers Guide: Medical Planning and Response for a Nuclear Detonation, last refreshed in 2017, are meant to offer expertise to officials in the event of a crisis on everything from nuclear fallout patterns to recommended messaging to triaging burn victims.Both agencies have also invested heavily in tech tools including dashboards that aim to give decision-makers live visualizations of unfolding disasters, and Fema’s “Improvised Nuclear Device City Planner Resource Tool” –– kind of an apocalyptic SimCity that lets officials visually game out what a nuclear blast might look like and how to respond. These hi-tech investments can feel reassuring, but they aren’t nearly enough on their own. Although ASPR maintains the US’s strategic national stockpile, a cache of lifesaving drugs including anti-radiation medicine, Schlegelmilch said health resources in the aftermath of a nuclear blast, or the ability to distribute the resources it has, greatly concern him. He is particularly worried that there won’t be sufficient mental health and social services: “Those are areas which people will always say are very important, but we don’t see the additional resources.” And in the aftermath of any potential nuclear catastrophe, there will be far more people who need those services than will be available, he said.One of the main problems is that there have been huge cuts to disaster preparedness programs that were enacted after 9/11. A key program, ASPR’s Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP), described as the “primary source of federal funding for healthcare system preparedness and response” for large-scale emergencies and disasters, lost 62% of its funding by 2021. There also doesn’t seem to be political will to invest more in disaster preparedness, despite the Covid pandemic. “It’s really shocking to me that we aren’t seeing a more cohesive push for preparedness in the face of what we’ve all just gone through,” Schlegelmilch said. “A lot of it comes down to the polarization in our politics –– and that’s a very, very dangerous path to go down. It’s preventing us from taking the kinds of actions that are staring us in the face.”Schlegelmilch said that same polarization could also cause mayhem in the aftermath of a nuclear event: if you thought Covid misinformation was bad –– imagine nuclear blast deniers.“We’re raised to think the world is very deterministic, and if we can just figure out all the variables, we can crack the code and know what we need to do. My experience is that the world is much more chaotic, with spheres of probability: we know what will make us more likely to do well in an adverse event. So I’m okay with incremental progress, as long as it’s in the right direction,” he said, adding that even without a nuclear blast, preparing for one will help us survive other disasters, like pandemics and climate change.“When we look at the root causes of disasters as an intersection of all these different aspects of civil society, we do see common threads,” Schlegelmilch said. “There’s value in investing in resilience, there’s value in investing in the future.”TopicsNew YorkNuclear weaponsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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    Your Friday Briefing: U.S. Inflation Keeps Soaring

    Plus Europe’s search for energy and U.S. attempts to hinder China’s technological development.Karl RussellU.S. inflation keeps soaringConsumer prices climbed far more quickly than expected in the U.S., grim news for the Federal Reserve as it tries to bring the most rapid price increases in four decades under control.Overall inflation climbed 8.2 percent in the year through September, more than some economists expected, and prices increased 6.6 percent after stripping out fuel and food, the so-called core index. That is a new high for the core index this year, and the fastest pace of annual increase since 1982.Fed officials are closely watching the monthly numbers, which give a clearer snapshot of how prices are evolving in real time. They offered more reasons to worry: Overall inflation climbed 0.4 percent in September, much more than last month’s 0.1 percent reading, and the core index climbed 0.6 percent, matching a big increase in the prior month. Takeaways: The disappointing inflation data is most likely bad news for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections. What’s next: A sixth round of rate hikes from the Federal Reserve this year looks likely. Central bankers have signaled that they will consider an increase of up to three-quarters of a point at their next meeting in November.Eckardt Heukamp’s farm is the last in Lützerath.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesScrounging for energy in EuropeRussia’s invasion of Ukraine has left many Ukrainian cities in ruins. The war could also mean the end for a German farming village.Lützerath sits next to a coal mine and atop a large coal deposit, which the German government hopes to mine to make up for a looming shortage of cheap Russian gas, which Germany normally relies on for heat in the winter. Germany has pledged to wean itself off coal by 2030. Germans have traditionally been supportive of clean energy, and energy experts suggest that Lützerath’s coal is not necessary. But there has been little public backlash to destroying the village, and many Germans seem to have accepted that coal will be an important part of their near-term energy future.The State of the WarA Large-Scale Strike: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia unleashed a series of missile strikes that hit at least 10 cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, in a broad aerial assault against civilians and critical infrastructure that drew international condemnation and calls for de-escalation.Crimean Bridge Explosion: Mr. Putin said that the strikes were retaliation for a blast that hit a key Russian bridge over the weekend. The bridge, which links the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, is a primary supply route for Russian troops fighting in the south of Ukraine.Pressure on Putin: With his strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, Mr. Putin appears to be responding to his critics at home, momentarily quieting the clamors of hard-liners furious with the Russian military’s humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.Arming Ukraine: The Russian strikes brought new pledges from the West to send in more arms to Ukraine, especially sophisticated air-defense systems. But Kyiv also needs the Russian-style weapons that its military is trained to use, and the global supply of them is running low.In Moscow, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin offered to export more gas to Europe via Turkey, potentially turning the country into a regional supply hub and solidifying Russia’s hold over Europe’s energy markets.In Paris, Parkour enthusiasts are saving energy by using superhero-like moves to turn off lights burning all night outside stores.In Ukraine, more than three dozen people have died in the past four days during Russia’s missile barrage. NATO’s secretary general vowed to “stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes,” and the E.U. announced that it planned to train Ukrainian soldiers on the union’s soil.A semiconductor factory in Nantong, China.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe U.S. push to hinder China’s technological developmentThe Biden administration wants to limit the Chinese military’s rapid technological development by choking off China’s access to advanced chips. China has been using supercomputing and artificial intelligence to develop stealth and hypersonic weapons systems, and to try to crack the U.S. government’s most encrypted messaging, according to intelligence reports. Last week, the administration unveiled what appear to be the most stringent U.S. government controls on technology exports to China in a decade, technology experts said.In dozens of interviews with officials and industry executives, my colleagues Ana Swanson and Edward Wong detailed how this policy came together. The administration spent months trying to convince allies like the Dutch, Japanese, South Korean, Israeli and British governments to announce restrictions alongside the U.S. But some of those governments feared retaliation from China, one of the world’s largest technology markets. Eventually, the Biden administration decided to act alone.Details: U.S. officials described the decision to push ahead with export controls as a show of leadership. They said some allies wanted to impose similar measures but were wary of antagonizing China; the rules from Washington that target foreign companies did the hard work for them.What’s next: The controls could be the beginning of a broad assault by the U.S. government. “This marks a serious evolution in the administration’s thinking,” said Matthew Pottinger, a deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaStudents wearing hijabs were denied entry into Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College in Udupi, India, in February.Aijaz Rahi/Associated PressAn Indian Supreme Court panel was divided over a state’s ban on hijabs in schools, leaving it in place for now, Reuters reports.Keith Bradsher, The Times’s Beijing bureau chief, discusses what China’s struggle with Covid means before its important Communist Party congress.North Korea said it practiced firing two long-range cruise missiles on Wednesday that could be used as nuclear weapons, Reuters reports.World NewsA conservation biologist in Mérida State, Venezuela, in April. Miguel Zambrano/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Living Planet Index concluded that monitored populations of wild vertebrates had declined on average by nearly 70 percent from 1970 to 2018. It’s a staggering figure, but a complicated one, too. A large-scale study in Scotland found that four out of 10 people infected with Covid said they had not fully recovered months later.The Iraqi Parliament elected a new president less than an hour after rockets targeted the Green Zone, where Parliament is based.Saudi Arabia pushed back against American threats of consequences for the kingdom’s cutting oil output with Russia and other countries, saying that the move was purely economic.What Else Is HappeningThe U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request from Donald Trump to intervene in litigation over classified documents seized from his Florida estate — a stinging rebuke to the former president. A jury sentenced the man who killed 17 people in 2018 at his former high school in Parkland, Fla., to life in prison instead of the death penalty. Follow our live coverage.The U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Capitol insurrection plans to subpoena Donald Trump, an aggressive move that will likely be futile. Here is our live coverage.A Morning ReadAn erect-crested penguin colony on Antipodes Island has been observed by a research team since 1998.Tui De Roy/NPL/Minden PicturesErect-crested penguins that inhabit the harsh Antipodes Islands in the South Pacific have a strange parenting move — laying an egg that’s doomed to die. Researchers don’t know why.Lives LivedAndy Detwiler lost his arms as a child and learned how to use his feet to drive a tractor, feed animals and custom-build farm equipment. He ran 300-acres of farmland and became a YouTube star.FOCUS ON CLIMATE Saving food, and the climateFood waste rotting in a landfill produces methane gas, which quickly heats up the planet. Worldwide, food waste accounts for 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, at least double that of emissions from aviation. A lot of it doesn’t need to be there: Thirty-one percent of food that is grown, shipped or sold is wasted. To slow global warming and feed people, governments and entrepreneurs are coming up with different ways to waste less food, writes my colleague Somini Sengupta. In California, grocery stores must donate food that’s edible but would otherwise be trashed; supermarket chains in Britain have done away with expiration dates on produce; and in South Korea, a campaign to end food waste in landfills has been underway for nearly 20 years.Food waste in South Korea declined from nearly 3,400 tons a day in 2010 to around 2,800 tons a day in 2019. In the latest experiment, the government has rolled out trash bins equipped with radio-frequency identification sensors that weigh exactly how much food waste each household tosses each month.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRomulo Yanes for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Vivian Lui.Dried porcini mushrooms, fresh fennel and leeks provide deep umami flavor to this version of a classic French onion soup.What to ReadGeorge Saunders’s new short-story collection “Liberation Day” is littered with characters who are merely waiting for the final crashing down of the system.What to WatchThe animated documentary “Eternal Spring” revisits an incident when members of Falun Gong hijacked local television programming in China. Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: ♫ ♫ ♫ (5 letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here. You could also learn to play the piano, on a budget digital keyboard recommended by Wirecutter.That’s it for this week’s morning briefings. Have a great weekend. — DanP.S. “We Were Three,” a new podcast from The Times and Serial Productions, is an intimate look at a family in the aftermath of the pandemic.The latest episode of “The Daily” is an update on N, an Afghan teenager who escaped an arranged marriage to a Taliban member.You can reach Dan and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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    Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly found

    Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundFormer intelligence chiefs say national security officials are ‘shaking their heads at what damage might have been done’ Mar-a-Lago – the Palm Beach resort and residence where Donald Trump reportedly stored nuclear secrets among a trove of highly classified documents for 18 months since leaving the White House – is a magnet for foreign spies, former intelligence officials have warned.FBI found document on foreign nuclear defenses at Mar-a-Lago – reportRead moreThe Washington Post reported that a document describing an unspecified foreign government’s defences, including its nuclear capabilities, was one of the many highly secret papers Trump took away from the White House when he left office in January 2021.There were also documents marked SAP, for Special-Access Programmes, which are often about US intelligence operations and whose circulation is severely restricted, even among administration officials with top security clearance.Potentially most disturbing of all, there were papers stamped HCS, Humint Control Systems, involving human intelligence gathered from agents in enemy countries, whose lives would be in danger if their identities were compromised.The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is conducting a damage assessment review which is focused on the sensitivity of the documents, but US officials said it is the job of FBI counter-intelligence to assess who may have gained access to them.That is a wide field. The home of a former president with a history of being enthralled by foreign autocrats, distrustful of US security services, and boastful about his knowledge of secrets, is an obvious foreign intelligence target.“I know that national security professionals inside government, my former colleagues, [they] are shaking their heads at what damage might have been done,” John Brennan, former CIA director, told MSNBC.“I’m sure Mar-a-Lago was being targeted by Russian intelligence and other intelligence services over the course of the last 18 or 20 months, and if they were able to get individuals into that facility, and access those rooms where those documents were and made copies of those documents, that’s what they would do.”US investigates fake heiress who infiltrated Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resortRead moreLast month, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported that a Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine was able to mingle with the former president’s family and friends at Mar-a-Lago, posing as Anna de Rothschild, presenting herself as being an heiress of the banking dynasty.Inna Yashchyshyn, the daughter of a truck driver who emigrated to Canada, regaled those around her with tales of vineyards and estates and growing up in Monaco, and even met the former president in person, getting herself photographed with him on a golfing green.There is no evidence that Yashchyshyn was a spy, but the episode underlined how easy it is to get into Mar-a-Lago. During Trump’s presidency, two Chinese women were caught trespassing there on separate occasions.One of them, Yujing Zhang, was in possession of four mobile phones, a laptop, an external hard drive, and a thumb drive later found to carry malware. In her hotel room, investigators found nine USB drives, five SIM cards and a “signal detector” device for spotting hidden microphones or cameras. She was found guilty of unlawfully entering a restricted building and making false statements to a federal officer, and deported to China in 2021.The guests, invited or otherwise, are not the only security concern. In 2021, the Trump Organization sought 87 foreign workers for positions at Mar-a-Lago, with wages starting at $11.96 an hour.“Any competent foreign intelligence service, whether those belonging to China, those belonging to Iran, to Cuba, certainly including Russia are … and were interested in gaining access to Mar-a-Lago,” Peter Strzok, former deputy assistant director of counter-intelligence at the FBI, told MSNBC.TopicsMar-a-LagoFBIUS politicsDonald TrumpNuclear weaponsnewsReuse this content More

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    Your Thursday Briefing: Trump Declines to Answer Questions

    Plus new details about explosions in Crimea and revelations about the victims of Seoul’s floods.Good morning. We’re covering Donald Trump’s decision not to answer questions in a civil inquiry and details about the victims of Seoul’s floods.Donald Trump left Trump Tower in New York City yesterday. Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesTrump sidesteps legal questionsDonald Trump declined to answer questions in a civil inquiry into his company’s business practices yesterday, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.He made the surprising gamble in a high-stakes legal interview with the New York attorney general’s office. His strategy is likely to determine the course of the investigation.Trump’s office released a statement shortly after the questioning began yesterday, explaining that he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.” Here are live updates.Background: Since March 2019, the New York attorney general’s office has investigated whether Trump and his company improperly inflated the value of his hotels, golf clubs and other assets. Context: In his statement yesterday, Trump cast the inquiry as part of a grander conspiracy against him. He linked it to the F.B.I. search at Mar-a-Lago, his home and private club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday. Analysis: His sidestep could help him in a parallel criminal inquiry into whether he fraudulently inflated valuations of his properties.Smoke rose after explosions were heard near a Russian military air base in Crimea on Tuesday.ReutersDetails emerge about Crimea blastThe damage at a Russian air base in Crimea appears to be worse than the Kremlin initially claimed.After a series of explosions on Tuesday, Crimea’s leader declared a state of emergency and said that more than 250 people had to evacuate from their homes. Officials on the Russian-occupied peninsula said at least one person was killed and dozens more were wounded.Ukraine has not officially taken responsibility for the explosions. But a senior military official said Ukraine’s special forces and partisan resistance fighters were behind the blast. Here are live updates.Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine WarOn the Ground: After a summer of few conclusive battles, Ukraine and Russia are now facing a quandary over how to concentrate their forces, leaving commanders guessing about each other’s next moves.Nuclear Shelter: The Russian military is using а nuclear power station in southern Ukraine as a fortress, stymying Ukrainian forces and unnerving locals, faced with intensifying fighting and the threat of a radiation leak.Ukrainians Abroad: Italy already had the biggest Ukrainian community in Western Europe before the war, but Russia’s invasion put a spotlight on the diaspora and forged a stronger sense of national identity.Prison Camp Explosion: After a blast at a Russian detention camp killed at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war, Ukrainian officials said that they were building a case of a war crime committed by Russian forces.Analysis: The blasts could be important, because any Ukrainian attack on Russian forces in the Crimean Peninsula would be a significant expansion of Ukraine’s offensive efforts. Until now, Ukraine has focused on pushing Russians back from territories occupied after the invasion began.Nuclear plant: Russian missiles killed 13 people near a Russian-held nuclear plant in the south, a Ukrainian official said. Russia may try to divert its electricity to Crimea, which could intensify military competition for the plant and heighten the risk of an accident.Press: Russian investigators detained a former state television journalist yesterday, months after she staged a rare on-air protest against the war in Ukraine.Rescue officials pumped water out of this home in Seoul to find a family of three dead inside.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesSouth Korea mourns flood victimsHeavy rains caused flooding in the Seoul area, which killed at least nine people. A family of three, who lived in a semi-underground room, are among the dead: a 13-year-old girl, her mother, 47, and her aunt, 48.Their deaths highlight the predicament of South Korea’s urban poor, who often live in such homes, called banjiha. (“Parasite,” which won the Academy Award for Best Film ​in 2020, dramatically depicted their flood hazard.)South Korea faces a growing housing crisis and hundreds of thousands of people in the Seoul area live in similar damp, musty quarters. They fear floods each monsoon season, but stay to find jobs, save money and educate their children in hopes of overcoming South Korea’s growing inequality.Details: The family knew the low-lying district was prone to flooding. But it was cheap and close to a welfare center where the girl’s aunt, who had Down syndrome, could get help.Quotable: “When I returned home from work, I found my banjiha under water,” one resident wrote on the web portal Naver. “It felt as if heaven had crashed down on me.”THE LATEST NEWSAsia and the PacificA U.S. Navy ship conducting a routine operation in the Taiwan Strait.U.S. Pacific Command, via Associated PressThe U.S. said it would continue operating in the Taiwan Strait in response to Chinese military drills that U.S. officials say are evolving into long-term military pressure on the island.Fumio Kishida, Japan’s leader, reshuffled his cabinet yesterday, The Associated Press reported. The move, which happened a month after the assassination of Shinzo Abe, was an effort to distance his government from the controversial Unification Church.New polling showed that New Zealand’s right-leaning coalition could have enough support to form a government, The Guardian reported. Jacinda Ardern’s popularity has plummeted.The U.S. returned 30 looted cultural artifacts to Cambodia this week.U.S. NewsU.S. stocks jumped yesterday, following news that inflation slowed in July. Here are live updates.The Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard with plotting to kill John Bolton, a Trump-era national security adviser.An Afghan immigrant was charged in the shooting deaths of two fellow Muslims in Albuquerque.President Biden signed legislation to expand benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits.World NewsAntony Blinken visited Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.Pool photo by Andrew HarnikAntony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, pushed the Democratic Republic of Congo to reconsider its plans to auction parts of its rainforest to oil and gas companies. The countries agreed to jointly examine the proposed extractions.The U.S. and Iran are considering the E.U.’s “final” offer to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, before talks collapse for good.Britain faces another heat wave.An Emirati court overturned the sentence of an American rights lawyer who worked with Jamal Khashoggi. He is expected to be released.What Else Is HappeningIn several poor countries, a U.N. agency has joined with oil companies to protect drilling sites from residents’ objections.Roughly 100 days before the World Cup starts, FIFA is seeking a schedule change to let Qatar, the host nation, play in the first match.A stranded beluga whale died in France after a last-ditch mission to rescue it from the Seine river.Astronomers think they have found our galaxy’s youngest planet: It may be just 1.5 million years old, so young that its building blocks of gas and dust are still coming together.Canadians are flocking to see Serena Williams play after she announced her upcoming retirement from tennis.A Morning ReadImee Marcos, a sister of the president of the Philippines, is the film’s executive producer.Jam Sta Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFerdinand Marcos Jr. was elected president of the Philippines this year. Now, a new film paints a sympathetic portrait of his family. Instead of focusing on the torture, excess and martial law that characterized his father’s dictatorship, the film portrays the elder Marcos and his wife Imelda as victims of a political vendetta.In so doing, historians and artists say, the movie opens up a new front in the battle against misinformation in the Philippines, bringing a popular myth that circulated online during the recent election into a new, more credible domain.ARTS AND IDEASIn China’s Shandong Province, 558 memorial tablets at a Taoist temple were inscribed with the names and hometowns of people who died from Covid.Tingshu Wang/ReutersMourning Covid-19’s victimsThere have always been monuments to commemorate the loss of life from calamitous events: wars, genocides, terrorist attacks.But Covid-19 poses a unique challenge. Millions of people have died, but not in a singular event or in a single location. Now, as the death toll continues to rise, communities are building new monuments and updating existing memorials, trying to keep up with their mounting grief.“These are kind of odd memorials in that names are being added,” said Erika Doss, who studies how Americans use memorials. “They are kind of fluid. They are timeless.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookBryan Gardner for The New York TimesDrizzle seasoned drippings from this grilled chicken dish onto corn, tomatoes and red onions.What to Watch“Easter Sunday,” from the standup Jo Koy, is a charming Filipino American family comedy.TechnologyChange these default settings to make your devices more enjoyable to use.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Deep purple fruit (four letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. “I let them talk”: Rick Rojas, a Times national correspondent, on how he covered the devastation of Kentucky’s floods.The latest episode of “The Daily” is about the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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    The MADness of the Resurgent US Cold War With Russia

    The war in Ukraine has placed US and NATO policy toward Russia under a spotlight, highlighting how the US and its allies have expanded NATO right up to Russia’s borders, backed a coup and now a proxy war in Ukraine, imposed waves of economic sanctions, and launched a debilitating trillion-dollar arms race. The explicit goal is to pressure, weaken and ultimately eliminate Russia, or a Russia-China partnership, as a strategic competitor to US imperial power.

    The US and NATO have used similar forms of force and coercion against many countries. In every case they have been catastrophic for the people directly impacted, whether they achieved their political aims or not. 

    The Bitter Fruits of US Intervention

    Wars and violent regime changes in Kosovo, Iraq, Haiti and Libya have left them mired in endless corruption, poverty and chaos. Failed proxy wars in Somalia, Syria and Yemen have spawned endless war and humanitarian disasters. US sanctions against Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela have impoverished their people but failed to change their governments. 

    Meanwhile, US-backed coups in Chile, Bolivia and Honduras have sooner or later been reversed by grassroots movements to restore democratic, socialist government. The Taliban are governing Afghanistan again after a 20-year war to expel a US and NATO army of occupation, for which the sore losers are now starving millions of Afghans.     

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    But the risks and consequences of the US Cold War on Russia are of a different order. The purpose of any war is to defeat your enemy. But how can you defeat an enemy that is explicitly committed to respond to the prospect of existential defeat by destroying the whole world?

    Mutually Assured Destruction

    This is in fact part of the military doctrine of the US and Russia, who together possess over 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. If either of them faces existential defeat, they are prepared to destroy human civilization in a nuclear holocaust that will kill Americans, Russians and neutrals alike.           

    In June 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree stating, “The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies… and also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat.”

    US nuclear weapons policy is no more reassuring. A decades-long campaign for a US “no first use” nuclear weapons policy still falls on deaf ears in Washington.

    The 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) promised that the US would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. But in a war with another nuclear-armed country, it said, “The United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.” 

    Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

    The 2018 NPR broadened the definition of “extreme circumstances” to cover “significant non-nuclear attacks,” which it said would “include, but are not limited to, attacks on the US, allies or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on US or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment.” The critical phrase, “but are not limited to,” removes any restriction at all on a US nuclear first strike.     

    So, as the US Cold War against Russia and China heats up, the only signal that the deliberately foggy threshold for the US use of nuclear weapons has been crossed could be the first mushroom clouds exploding over Russia or China. 

    For our part in the West, Russia has explicitly warned us that it will use nuclear weapons if it believes the US or NATO are threatening the existence of the Russian state. That is a threshold that the US and NATO are already flirting with as they look for ways to increase their pressure on Russia over the war in Ukraine.

    To make matters worse, the twelve-to-one imbalance between US and Russian military spending has the effect, whether either side intends it or not, of increasing Russia’s reliance on the role of its nuclear arsenal when the chips are down in a crisis like this.

    NATO countries, led by the United States and UK, are already supplying Ukraine with up to 17 plane-loads of weapons per day, training Ukrainian forces to use them and providing valuable and deadly satellite intelligence to Ukrainian military commanders. Hawkish voices in NATO countries are pushing hard for a no-fly zone or some other way to escalate the war and take advantage of Russia’s perceived weaknesses.

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    Nuclear Risks Escalate 

    The danger that hawks in the State Department and Congress may convince President Joe Biden to escalate the US role in the war prompted the Pentagon to leak details of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) assessments of Russia’s conduct of the war to Newsweek’s William Arkin.

    Senior DIA officers told Arkin that Russia has dropped fewer bombs and missiles on Ukraine in a month than US forces dropped on Iraq in the first day of bombing in 2003, and that they see no evidence of Russia directly targeting civilians. Like US “precision” weapons, Russian weapons are probably only about 80% accurate, so hundreds of stray bombs and missiles are killing and wounding civilians and hitting civilian infrastructure, as they do just as horrifically in every US war. 

    The DIA analysts believe Russia is holding back from a more devastating war because what it really wants is not to destroy Ukrainian cities but to negotiate a diplomatic agreement to ensure a neutral, non-aligned Ukraine. 

    But the Pentagon appears to be so worried by the impact of highly effective Western and Ukrainian war propaganda that it has released secret intelligence to Newsweek to try to restore a measure of reality to the media’s portrayal of the war, before political pressure for NATO escalation leads to a nuclear war.

    Since the US and the USSR blundered into their nuclear suicide pact in the 1950s, it has come to be known as Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD. As the Cold War evolved, they cooperated to reduce the risk of mutual assured destruction through arms control treaties, a hotline between Moscow and Washington, and regular contacts between US and Soviet officials. 

    But the US has now withdrawn from many of those arms control treaties and safeguard mechanisms. The risk of nuclear war is as great today as it has ever been, as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warns year after year in its annual Doomsday Clock statement. The Bulletin has also publisheddetailed analyses of how specific technological advances in US nuclear weapons design and strategy are increasing the risk of nuclear war. 

    Peace Dividend Lost

    The world understandably breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Cold War appeared to end in the early 1990s. But within a decade, the peace dividend the world hoped for was trumped by a power dividend. US officials did not use their unipolar moment to build a more peaceful world, but to capitalize on the lack of a military peer competitor to launch an era of US and NATO military expansion and serial aggression against militarily weaker countries and their people.

    As Michael Mandelbaum, the director of East-West Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, crowed in 1990, “For the first time in 40 years, we can conduct military operations in the Middle East without worrying about triggering World War III.” Thirty years later, people in that part of the world may be forgiven for thinking that the US and its allies have in fact unleashed World War III, against them, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Pakistan, Gaza, Libya, Syria, Yemen and across West Africa.

    Russian President Boris Yeltsin complained bitterly to President Clinton over plans for NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, but Russia was powerless to prevent it. Russia had already been invaded by an army of neoliberal Western economic advisers, whose “shock therapy” shrank its GDP by 65%, reduced male life expectancyfrom 65 to 58, and empowered a new class of oligarchs to loot its national resources and state-owned enterprises.

    Embed from Getty Images

    President Vladimir Putin restored the power of the Russian state and improved the Russian people’s living standards, but he did not at first push back against US and NATO military expansion and war-making. However, when NATO and its Arab monarchist allies overthrew the Gaddafi government in Libya and then launched an even bloodier proxy war against Russia’s ally Syria, Russia intervened militarily to prevent the overthrow of the Syrian government. 

    Russia worked with the US to remove and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, and helped to open negotiations with Iran that eventually led to the JCPOA nuclear agreement. But the US role in the coup in Ukraine in 2014, Russia’s subsequent reintegration of Crimea and its support for anti-coup separatists in Donbass put paid to further cooperation between Obama and Putin, plunging US-Russian relations into a downward spiral that has now led us to the brink of nuclear war.

    The Cold War Is Back  

    It is the epitome of official insanity that US, NATO and Russian leaders have resurrected this Cold War, which the whole world celebrated the end of, allowing plans for mass suicide and human extinction to once again masquerade as responsible defense policy. 

    While Russia bears full responsibility for invading Ukraine and for all the death and destruction of this war, this crisis did not come out of nowhere. The US and its allies must reexamine their own roles in resurrecting the Cold War that spawned this crisis, if we are ever to return to a safer world for people everywhere.

    Tragically, instead of expiring on its sell-by date in the 1990s along with the Warsaw Pact, NATO has transformed itself into an aggressive global military alliance, a fig-leaf for US imperialism, and a forum for dangerous, self-fulfilling threat analysis, to justify its continued existence, endless expansion and crimes of aggression on three continents, in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya. 

    If this insanity indeed drives us to mass extinction, it will be no consolation to the scattered and dying survivors that their leaders succeeded in destroying their enemies’ country too. They will simply curse leaders on all sides for their blindness and stupidity. The propaganda by which each side demonized the other will be only a cruel irony once its end result is seen to be the destruction of everything leaders on all sides claimed to be defending.

    Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

    This reality is common to all sides in this resurgent Cold War. But, like the voices of peace activists in Russia today, our voices are more powerful when we hold our own leaders accountable and work to change our own country’s behavior. 

    If Americans just echo US propaganda, deny our own country’s role in provoking this crisis and turn all our ire towards President Putin and Russia, it will only serve to fuel the escalating tensions and bring on the next phase of this conflict, whatever dangerous new form that may take. 

    But if we campaign to change our country’s policies, de-escalate conflicts and find common ground with our neighbors in Ukraine, Russia, China and the rest of the world, we can cooperate and solve our serious common challenges together. 

    A top priority must be to dismantle the nuclear doomsday machine we have inadvertently collaborated to build and maintain for 70 years, along with the obsolete and dangerous NATO military alliance. We cannot let the “unwarranted influence” and “misplaced power” of the military-industrial complex keep leading us into ever more dangerous military crises until one of them spins out of control and destroys us all.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    US condemns Putin nuclear deterrence order but cautiously welcomes talks report

    US condemns Putin nuclear deterrence order but cautiously welcomes talks report
    Psaki: Russia ‘manufacturing threats to justify aggression’
    Analysis: Nuclear posturing requires west to tread carefully
    Ukraine crisis – live coverage
    The Biden administration on Sunday condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to place Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert. The White House also faced growing calls from senior Republicans to target Russia’s energy sector with new sanctions.Vladimir Putin puts Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alertRead moreAs Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its fourth day, the US also expressed guarded optimism over talks between delegations from the two countries set to take place inside Ukraine, near the Belarusian border, on Monday.Speaking on ABC’s This Week, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, described the nuclear deterrence announcement as an example of Putin “manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression”.In televised comments, Putin said he had ordered “the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty”, due to “aggressive statements” from Nato leaders. Analysts told the Guardian that while the order itself was not immediately clear, it was not indicative of preparation for a first strike.Psaki said: “At no point has Russia been under threat from Nato, has Russia been under threat from Ukraine, this is all a pattern from President Putin. And we’re going to stand up for it. We have the ability to defend ourselves, but we also need to call out what we’re seeing here from President Putin.”Biden administration officials expressed tentative support for planned talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, as announced by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told CNN’s State of the Union the US would “look forward to what comes out of those discussions.“As you know … we leaned in on diplomacy with the Russians throughout this process and we hoped that Putin would find a way to the negotiating table and he made the unfortunate decision of aggression over diplomacy.”Pressed on whether she believed the talks announcement indicated a good faith effort on behalf of Russia, Thomas Greenfield responded: “I can’t get into Putin’s head or into Russian reasoning, so it remains to be seen.”The talks announcement was tentatively welcomed by the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who told CNN he had “absolute and full confidence” in Zelenskiy’s judgment on “whether it is right to sit down and find a political solution”.But Stoltenberg also expressed concerns about Russia’s motivations.“It remains to be seen whether Russia is really willing to make some serious compromises and also to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine,” he said.Stoltenberg characterized Putin’s decision to order Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert as “dangerous rhetoric” and “a behaviour that is irresponsible”.The Biden administration has issued tough sanctions, targeting banks and the finances of some Russian oligarchs as well as restricting export of vital technologies key to Russian military and economic development.Over the weekend, the US and its European allies announced plans to target the Russian central bank’s foreign reserves and to block selected Russian financial institutions from the Swift messaging system for international payments.00:48But the sanctions have not yet targeted oil and gas exports, which reportedly accounted for 36% of Russia’s annual budget last year. That has lead to criticism both inside the Ukraine and in the US.On Sunday Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas and a prominent foreign policy hawk, urged the administration to continue to amplify sanctions.“It’s time for the president and some of our European partners to quit pussyfooting around,” he told ABC. “The financial sanctions announced last night are riddled with loopholes.”Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bidRead moreCotton was also grilled on Donald Trump’s stance on the war. Trump, who often praised Putin while he was in the White House, finally condemned the invasion during a speech on Saturday night, but also continued to praise the Russian leader.Cotton refused four times to condemn or comment on Trump’s record.The Biden administration has not ruled out further sanctions and has alluded to further measures being taken as the war progresses.“The purpose of the sanctions are to put as much pressure on the Russian economy as possible. And we want to do as much as we can to protect the impact on our own economy,” Thomas-Greenfield said.“But we’re continuing to look at new and even harsher measures against the Russians.”TopicsUkraineRussiaEuropeUS foreign policyUS national securityUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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    VR experience offers journey into US president's nuclear bunker – video

    Nuclear Biscuit, a simulated experience, allows US officials to wargame a missile attack and see the devastating consequences of their choices. 
    Players experience what the president would have to do in the event of a nuclear crisis: make a decision that would end many millions of lives – and quite possibly civilisation on the planet – with incomplete information and in less than 15 minutes. Here’s a snippet of the game as completed by Julian Borger, our world affairs editor

    ‘15 minutes to save the world’: a terrifying VR journey into the nuclear bunker More

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    Xi Jinping expected in talks to tell Joe Biden to ‘step back’ on Taiwan

    Xi Jinping expected in talks to tell Joe Biden to ‘step back’ on TaiwanWar of words begins before leaders’ meeting, with US president warned Taiwan is China’s ‘ultimate red line’ China’s president, Xi Jinping, is expected to warn his US counterpart, Joe Biden, to “step back” on the Taiwan issue in their first virtual meeting on Monday evening Washington time, according to Chinese state media.State media outlets such as China Daily are briefed by authorities on important issues such as China-US relations and have been accurate in reflecting the priorities of Chinese leaders.“The Taiwan question is the ultimate red line of China,” said a Monday editorial in the Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist party’s People’s Daily.“In order to reduce the risk of a strategic collision between China and the US, the latter must take a step back from the Taiwan question and show its restraint,” it added.The two leaders have talked twice by phone since Biden took office in January, but this video conference will be their most substantial discussion so far.It comes days after the two countries surprised analysts by agreeing at Cop26 in Glasgow to boost climate cooperation. But it also comes at a time of increasing friction over Taiwan – the most dangerous potential flashpoint between the two countries.On Tuesday, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted the latest in a series of combat readiness exercises off the Taiwanese coast, while in a phone call on Saturday the nations’ top diplomats traded warnings about the island.Ahead of the meeting, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that any show of support for Taiwan’s independence would “boomerang” on the US. Blinken in turn raised concerns over China’s growing “military, diplomatic, and economic pressure” on the island.US allegations of repeated cyber-attacks from China, deep divisions over human rights in the Xinjiang region, Hong Kong and Tibet, as well as lingering trade disputes have also contributed towards the steady souring of relations.The US-China climate agreement is imperfect – but reason to hope | Sam GeallRead moreThe US is frustrated by Chinese obstruction of multilateral investigations of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has been angered by Chinese government pressure on US companies to lobby Congress to drop legislation Beijing does not like, as Reuters reported on Friday.The stakes have been raised by the rapid expansion of China’s military capabilities, including its nuclear arsenal. According to the US, Beijing has tested a new weapon, a nuclear-capable hypersonic glider launched from orbit, and China is reported to be building at least 250 new silos for long-range missiles.Expectations for the summit have been set low. There is not likely to be a joint statement, and the White House has indicated that Biden will not answer press questions after the talks are over.“Overall, in both Washington and Beijing, the expectation of convergence is pretty much dead. Instead, the relationship has become more transactional,” Scott Moore, the director of China programmes and strategic initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, said.“For Biden, he is facing political challenges at home with the midterm elections looming [next year]. Therefore, he will likely face political constraints in terms of taking any actions that could be perceived or characterised as making significant concessions to China.”“For Xi, his biggest vulnerability is on the economic front. That’s why Beijing has been signalling its interest in making progress on trade. Recent comments from Biden administration officials suggest there is interest in engaging on these issues, but again there are likely to be significant political constraints.”Both leaders will seek to limit the dangers of the rivalry spiralling out of control.In a message to the National Committee on US-China Relations, Xi said that the bilateral relationship was at a “critical historical juncture”.“Both countries will gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. Cooperation is the only right choice,” Xi said in his statement. In his message to the committee’s gala on 9 November, Biden also pointed to an “inflection point in history”.“From tackling the Covid-19 pandemic to addressing the existential threat of the climate crisis, the relationship between the United States and China has global significance.”The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said Biden would be “clear and candid” about US concerns, but would look for ways to “responsibly manage competition” between the world’s two largest economies and also seek “to work together where our interests align”.Wang has said Monday’s summit is a potentially pivotal event in efforts to improve the trajectory in bilateral relations.“The two sides should meet each other halfway … ensuring that the meeting will be smooth and successful, and push Sino-US relations back on the track of healthy and stable development,” Wang said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.Xi will be seeking to head off moves to boycott the Winter Olympics in China this year, and he is also expected to invite Biden to the games as a conciliatory gesture.But Taiwan remains on top of Xi’s talking points, particularly after a series of steps the Biden administration has taken to raise Taiwan’s status, which China sees as breaking with Washington’s long-held “one China policy”, recognising the People’s Republic as the sole sovereign Chinese government.“Beijing has noticed recent statements by senior Biden officials such as Jake Sullivan, saying that Washington no longer wants to change China’s system. It is a positive signal,” said Wang Huiyao, the president of the Centre for China and Globalisation, who also advises the Beijing government. “But if this is the case, the US should cease using Taiwan as a card to irritate China, and leave the Taiwan affairs to the peoples on both sides of the Taiwan strait.”Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said Beijing was concerned about whether the Biden administration was really sticking to its one China policy or whether there was “a lot of salami-slicing” going on. “They want to hear greater reassurance about what the US will and will not do with Taiwan,” she said.The US side will be pushing for more routine contacts between the defence and diplomatic establishments, but Xi is likely to resist any action that he sees as normalising the US role in China’s immediate neighbourhood.‘We need to be much clearer’: leading Democrat questions US strategy on defending TaiwanRead more“It’s something that the Chinese have so far been very resistant to because they don’t want to give the US military a licence to operate anywhere near their shores,” Glaser said.As for nuclear arms control, China has so far resisted any approaches on entering bilateral negotiations, and spurned Donald Trump’s attempts to start trilateral talks with Russia.“Sadly I don’t think it’s going to be a major topic at the meeting. The United States hasn’t proposed anything that China can talk about, and China doesn’t like to negotiate outside of the UN,” said Gregory Kulacki, the China project manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists.“They could make some sort of vague statement about wanting to check the nuclear arms race, but anything concrete coming out of it seems unlikely.”Reuters news agency contributed to this reportTopicsUS foreign policyXi JinpingJoe BidenChinaTaiwanAsia PacificUS politicsnewsReuse this content More