The Biden administration announced today that it was sending more weapons to Ukraine, the first American aid package since the previous funding ran out in December. The delivery will include artillery rounds, armor systems and air defense interceptors, which are seen as critical for Ukraine’s defenses against Russian bombardment.
Funding for the package came from money Army accountants saved from contracts that came in under bid. It is a stopgap measure at best, American officials said. The new weapons will keep advancing Russian troops at bay for only a few weeks, one official estimated.
For months, President Biden has been calling on Congress to pass legislation authorizing $60.1 billion for Ukraine. He has accused Republican lawmakers who have blocked the aid of playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin.
In Russia, Ukraine-backed Russian exile groups staged a flurry of cross-border ground attacks, coinciding with Ukrainian drone strikes.
The Biden special counsel was attacked from both sides
Robert Hur, the former special counsel who investigated President Biden’s possession of classified documents, faced hostility from both Republicans and Democrats during his testimony today on Capitol Hill. He was there to answer questions about his February report, which concluded that the evidence was insufficient to charge Biden with a crime, but lawmakers spent much of the time trying to score political points.
Republicans accused Hur of protecting Biden as part of what they portrayed as a politicized double standard by the Justice Department, which has charged Donald Trump with willfully retaining sensitive national security documents. Democrats attacked Hur for disparaging remarks in the report about Biden’s mental acuity. Here are takeaways from the hearing.
In related news, Congress released a transcript of the special counsel’s interviews with Biden, which showed that though the president fumbled at times, he largely appeared clearheaded.
Before a plane’s door blew off, it was set for maintenance
A day before a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5, engineers and technicians asked for it to come out of service the next evening and undergo maintenance, interviews and documents show. There were warning signals that indicated a problem with the plane’s pressurization system.
The airline said the warnings did not meet its standards for immediately taking the plane out of service. It chose to keep the Boeing 737 Max 9 in service and carrying passengers until it had completed three flights that were set to end near a maintenance facility. On the second flight, at 16,000 feet in the air, the plane’s door plug blew off, forcing an emergency landing.
Uncertainty grips Haiti
Kenya announced today that it is halting its plan to send 1,000 police officers to help quell the gang-fueled lawlessness in Haiti until a new government is formed.
The deployment deal was reached with Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, who agreed last night to step down once a new transitional government is formed. Henry has been stranded for days in Puerto Rico following a violent gang takeover of much of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, making it impossible for him to return. The gangs, who have attacked police stations, prisons and other state institutions, threatened civil war if he did not resign.
More top news
Four years after a shutdown, are audiences back?
Four years ago, Covid brought live performances and big gatherings to a halt. Since then, the pandemic has waned and many live events have rebounded in popularity. But how do things look now?
Sports attendance and orchestra ticket sales are above 2019 levels, while demand for pop concerts (led by Taylor Swift) is at a record high. But the recovery has been uneven. Broadway audiences are still down 17 percent from prepandemic levels, and thousands of movie theaters have closed. Museums are a mixed bag: Regional organizations have fared better than tourist havens like the Met.
Be wary of fitness fads
Popular workout trends, like the “75 Hard” challenge, which promises to improve your mental toughness if you work out for 45 minutes twice daily, can be a good fit for some people: They often call for enough exercise to get an already fit person in better shape. But for others, especially beginners, the trendy fitness regimens can be disappointing, or even lead to burnout or injury.
Instead, experts we spoke to recommended embracing smaller goals, off days and the slow but steady process of developing sustainable, healthy habits.
Baseball’s see-through-pants scandal
The buzz around this year’s M.L.B. season began weeks before the season, not because of the extraordinary talent of stars like Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge, but because of newly designed uniforms, particularly the pants. They are made of a fabric so sheer that they seemed transparent during team picture days, and the company that produces them, Fanatics, quickly became the subject of online ridicule.
“Buying my wife Fanatics baseball pants instead of lingerie,” read one X post. “Whenever I’m nervous public speaking I just pretend people in the audience are wearing Fanatics baseball pants,” another person joked.
Have a bold evening.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Matthew
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