(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.) Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.1. A dramatic spike in shelling is heightening fears that Russia may claim a pretext to invade Ukraine.Exchanges of artillery fire up and down the front line between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist forces reached their most intense level in months. The Ukrainian military said shelling there damaged a kindergarten and wounded three adult civilians.Perhaps most worrisome, separatists claimed that they had come under fire from the Ukrainians — precisely the sort of incident Western officials have warned that Russia might try to use to justify military action. Moscow has long invoked what it says is its obligation to protect ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.President Biden warned that the threat of an attack remained “very high.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the U.N. Security Council that Russia’s ground and air forces “are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days.”2. The New York attorney general can question Donald J. Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., in a civil inquiry, a judge ruled.The inquiry by the attorney general, Letitia James, and a parallel criminal investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney are examining whether Trump improperly inflated the value of his assets to receive favorable loans.Trump has long invented facts and figures about his wealth. Now, dropped by his accountants, he is making new claims about his net worth.
3. The Omicron surge seems to be slowing in much of the world, but the W.H.O. said it was keeping an eye on an Omicron subvariant.New cases worldwide dropped 19 percent from Feb. 7 to Feb. 13 compared with the week before. But, the agency added, the drop in testing rates around the world means global case numbers might not reflect the true spread of the virus.The W.H.O. also cautioned that the subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, which scientists believe is even more contagious, appeared to be “steadily increasing” and was now the dominant variant in China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines.In the U.S.:
- Cancer patients, transplant recipients and others highly vulnerable to Covid feel abandoned as their neighbors, and their government, seek a return to normal.
4. A confrontation between protesters and the police is looming in Ottawa.Ontario’s police force gathered outside Ottawa’s city center in an apparent preparation to end the trucker protests that have stalled traffic there for three weeks. The police have distributed written notices to the protesters, warning them to leave or face penalties. Crews of workers put up wire fencing around the Parliament building.“It is high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop, including here in Ottawa,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.Many protesters vowed to stay put. One said the protest leaders’ instructions were to remain in their trucks, lock the doors and not open them for anyone, including the police.
5. Spotify lured Joe Rogan with a $200 million deal, double initial reports. It made the company a podcasting giant, but controversy followed.To propel the music streaming platform into an all-purpose audio juggernaut, executives viewed Rogan — a no-holds-barred comedian and sports commentator — as the star it needed. Spotify’s stock price jumped 17 percent the week the deal was announced in 2020.The move brought a wave of concern inside the company over Rogan’s sometimes divisive content. Last month, the issue exploded: 270 scientists wrote to Spotify about Covid misinformation on Rogan’s show, and Neil Young, the rock icon, demanded that Spotify remove his music. Now Spotify faces the sort of cultural storm that has engulfed Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
6. This week, we learned that the megadrought in the American Southwest is the worst in at least 1,200 years — and shows no signs of letting up.Dry conditions are expected to continue into the spring and beyond, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. A continuation of La Niña, a climate pattern that influences weather worldwide, will contribute to what are expected to be higher than normal temperatures and lower than normal precipitation over much of the West through May.Warmer than normal temperatures are also expected across most of the Eastern half of the country over the next three months. Wetter than normal conditions are forecast for the Ohio Valley, and it’s likely that drought will develop in Florida.
7. Kamila Valieva’s week of turmoil came to a crashing end.The prima ballerina of figure skating was expected to lead a Russian sweep of the medals in women’s singles. But after reports that she had tested positive for a banned substance several weeks before the Games, that task turned out to be too much. Valieva, 15, finished fourth, after a disastrous sequence of falls and stumbles.8. Half a century ago, a presence like Faith Ringgold’s had to fight to exist in the mainstream art world. Now, there’s a place for it — that she created.A survey of the artist’s 40-year-career, which fills three floors of the New Museum in New York City, is about “not just how to survive as a Black person in a racist world, but how, as a woman, to thrive in any world at all,” our co-chief art critic Holland Cotter writes. What once made Ringgold, 91, an outlier, “puts her front and center now.”Also in New York: A landmark exhibition of drawings by Jacques-Louis David, the chief propagandist of the French Revolution, stages the ultimate showdown of culture and politics.9. “I’ve always wanted to prove that I can do all kinds of things.”Sam Waterston has had a long and varied career, from Shakespeare in the Park to “The Newsroom” and “Grace and Frankie.” But he remains best known for “Law & Order.” The actor originally signed on for only one season as district attorney Jack McCoy. But over 16 seasons, he became synonymous with the series, which was canceled in 2010.Now it’s back, and so is Waterston — partly as a courtesy to Dick Wolf, the series’s creator, partly as a kind of victory lap. “It’s nice to come back and just witness the thing we made,” Waterston said.Want to watch a medical drama, a spy thriller or a snowy neo-noir? Finland has you covered.
10. And finally, the unmasking of a parasitic wasp.The tiny, iridescent Ormyrus labotus always seemed suspicious for a parasitoid wasp. Such wasps lay their eggs on or inside other insects and arthropods, and the larvae eat their way out. But Ormyrus labotus had been observed laying its eggs in more than 65 different species of insects — far more than one or a few.