Wednesday briefing
Ukraine turns to Europe for more support
President Volodymyr Zelensky is doubling down on his diplomatic outreach to Europe as US aid to Ukraine remains under pressure in Congress.
Zelensky and other Ukrainian politicians praised the bipartisan group of senators who approved $60 billion in aid to Ukraine at a time when weapons and ammunition are in short supply there. The aid must still be approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, where a powerful group of Republicans, encouraged by Donald Trump, is determined to oppose the bill and where the Republican chairman has said he would ignore it.
Mr. Zelensky will most likely push for more military aid on visits to Berlin, Paris and possibly London as part of a whirlwind tour this week, a Ukrainian official said.
President Biden yesterday implored House Republicans to approve the aid, calling recent anti-NATO comments from Trump, the Republican frontrunner for the presidential nomination, “stupid,” “dangerous” and “un-American '.
Indonesia goes to the polls
The world's third-largest democracy, Indonesia, will elect a new president today, as tens of millions of people across the archipelago of thousands of islands head to the polls to choose one of three presidential candidates.
They are: Anies Baswedan, Prabowo Subianto and Ganjar Pranowo. President Joko Widodo, the popular incumbent who is barred from seeking a third term, appears to have forged an alliance with Prabowo without explicitly backing anyone.
Prabowo, a former general accused of committing human rights abuses when Indonesia was still a dictatorship under Suharto, is the favorite. But if he does not receive more than 50 percent of the votes, a second election will take place in June. Many Indonesians have expressed concern that Prabowo could return the country to its authoritarian past.
Sui-Lee Wee, head of The Times' Southeast Asia bureau, said Prabowo's supporters believe he is likely to focus on infrastructure development and economic growth, “but what people fear is the slow erosion of the democratic norms started by Joko. could accelerate under a leader who once claimed that Indonesia does not need democracy or elections.”
The talks in Cairo aim to stop the war in Gaza
Negotiators from several countries struggled yesterday to reach an agreement to temporarily halt the war in the Gaza Strip. Officials said negotiations were promising, but Israel and Hamas were still not close to a deal.
The talks came as the UN, US and other countries expressed growing concern about a possible Israeli incursion into Rafah, where some 1.4 million people are sheltering.
Israel's prime minister has said the country will launch an offensive in Rafah and ordered the army to draw up plans to evacuate civilians. But Palestinians and international aid groups say no place in Gaza is safe, and moving people from Rafah will worsen their situation.
More news from the war: The Times investigates a tunnel under Al-Shifa Hospital.
THE LAST NEWS
Around the world
A married couple of researchers may have determined that cuddling is older than many thought. After consulting cuneiform texts on clay tablets from Mesopotamia and Egypt, they concluded that kissing had been widespread and well established in the Middle East since at least the late third millennium BC.
Lives lived: David Bouley translated French nouvelle cuisine into the New American style that shaped high-end cuisine. He died at the age of 70.
SPORTS NEWS
Visualizing the styles of football teams: Concept how clubs play about Europe.
A “privileged” market for drivers: Can Aston Martin remain Fernando Alonso?
Time for change: It has gone too far at the WM Phoenix Openwrites a columnist.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Models under 40 years old need not apply
Batsheva Hay, a fashion designer in New York, has spent weeks looking for fresh new faces to model her clothes. But she is only interested in models who are 40 years or older.
A woman over 40 is not uncommon on the catwalk. But older models are tokenized, just like plus-size models, and typically there are a maximum of three in a cast of 30, 50 or 80.
For this runway show, Hay, 42, plans to keep her models' faces relatively bare because “I don't want anyone to feel like they want to look younger.”