Ukrainian losses mount in the east
Russian forces moved closer to control of the center of Sievierodonetsk, the last major city in the eastern province of Luhansk still in Ukrainian hands.
A local official said Russian troops control about 70 percent of the city, but fighting continues. There are only about 12,000 inhabitants left in Sievierodonetsk, where about 100,000 people once lived. Here are live updates and photos from the front.
This week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said 60 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers died every day, and 500 more were wounded in the battle. As soldiers and civilians lose limbs in Russian attacks, Ukraine is expanding its prosthetic industry. Step by step, the army has retreated from some long-held areas in Donbas, the eastern region that is now the epicenter of the war.
weapons: The US will send Ukraine powerful missile systems that significantly increase its range, provided Ukraine does not fire into Russian territory. Overcoming the reluctance, Germany promised Ukraine an advanced air defense system and a tracking radar to locate Russia’s heavy artillery.
Staff: The EU has mobilized €36 billion – about $38 billion – for emergency aid against the corona virus in Poland. The EU had blocked the payment over questions about the independence of Polish courts, but warmed up after Poland took a strong stance against the invasion of Ukraine.
Other updates:
A dangerous new nuclear age
The world now faces a new, riskier nuclear age, after three months of regular reminders from Russia that it has nuclear weapons.
On Tuesday, Moscow’s outburst was enough to withdraw a targeted warning from President Biden a guest essay for The Times: “Let me be clear: any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict, on any scale, would be completely unacceptable to us and the rest of the world and would have dire consequences.”
While officials said those consequences would almost certainly be non-nuclear, Biden’s statement was a tacit admission that a second nuclear age, full of new dangers and uncertainties, is approaching. The risks extend far beyond Russia and include measures from China, North Korea and Iran.
Background: The old nuclear order, rooted in the unthinkable outcomes of the Cold War, frayed long before Russia invaded Ukraine. During the Trump administration, the US and Russia withdrew from arms treaties that had limited their arsenals.
A ruling in the Depp-Heard case
A jury found that Johnny Depp was defamed by his ex-wife Amber Heard when she described herself in an op-ed as a “public figure who represents domestic violence”. The jury also found that she had been defamed by one of his lawyers.
The jury awarded Depp $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages, but the judge limited the punitive damages in accordance with legal limits, resulting in a total of $10.35 million. The jury awarded Heard $2 million in damages.
The decision followed a six-week trial that grounded the US Millions and watched it on television or streamed it online as the two Hollywood stars filed charges and counter-charges against each other in court, sometimes in lurid detail.
Analysis: It was one of the most prominent civil cases of the #MeToo era to go to trial. Heard testified that Depp sexually assaulted her and was involved in a “pattern” of violence. In 2020, a British judge found that Depp had assaulted her, leaving her “in fear for her life”.
THE LAST NEWS
world news
An Indian climber was accused of faking a climb of Mount Everest in 2016. Now there is no doubt: Yesterday, after a heavily documented climb to the summit, he received a certificate from the Nepalese authorities as proof of his achievement.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
Military aid. The United States said it will send Ukraine advanced missiles as part of a new $700 million aid package, while Germany promised a modern air defense system. Support for Ukraine’s weapons underscores Western determination to impede the Russian war effort at a critical time.
ART AND IDEAS
Hello, hello, allinllachu
One of the most widely spoken indigenous languages, Quechua, is now on Google Translate, along with 23 other, mostly oral, languages. (Allinllachu, as you may have guessed, is how you would say “hello” in Quechua.)
Collectively, the languages are spoken by 300 million people. Some have a much larger number of speakers than European languages like Swedish, Finnish or Catalan, which have been on the translation tool for years.
The move marks a leap forward in its machine learning system: until recently, Google Translate had to see translations from an unknown language. Now the tool has so much experience that it only needs text in an unknown language to master it.
The move has practical benefits: doctors could use it to have more nuanced conversations with patients about their ailments. But is also a philosophical justification for the importance of many languages used almost exclusively in long-marginalized minority groups.
“It’s like saying to the world, ‘Look, here we are!'” said Irma Alvarez Ccoscco, a poet, teacher and digital activist who has championed Quechua for years.