Your Monday Briefing – The New York Times

Ukraine strikes back in the south

Ukrainian soldiers introduced a counteroffensive yesterday in Kherson, the key city that Russia has applied as a staging ground for operations across southern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces attempted to maintain off Russia’s endeavours to conquer and minimize off a strategic strip of jap Ukraine. Stick to the hottest updates from the war.

The announcement of the Ukrainian counteroffensive — “Hold on, Kherson, we’re coming!” the navy said yesterday morning on Twitter — signaled what might show to be a new chapter in a war that has geopolitical, financial and humanitarian importance.

In recent weeks, Russian forces, stretched slim and using large losses as they received floor in the jap Donbas location, have concentrated their initiatives on fortifying defensive positions in the south. It was not crystal clear if they were being prepared for the Ukrainian counterattack.

Morale making: Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, yesterday visited the country’s northeast, near Kharkiv, where he praised military services forces for their good results in pushing Russians again from the city’s outskirts. Kharkiv, which endured months of shelling that killed many civilians and compelled tens of hundreds to flee, was struck once more several hours soon after he left.

In other news from the war:

A solemn stop by to Uvalde

President Biden traveled to Uvalde, Texas, with the 1st woman, Jill Biden, to pay a visit to a memorial exterior Robb Elementary University exactly where 19 small children and two lecturers were gunned down previous week.

Considerably less than two months previously, the couple experienced noticed a minute of silence near the internet site of a racist massacre at a grocery store in Buffalo. The frequency of the shootings has spurred a new spherical of negotiations more than gun command steps in Congress, and some liberal states, together with New York and California, are relocating to pass stricter gun-control guidelines.

The Justice Department said yesterday that it would review the regulation enforcement reaction to the mass shooting in Uvalde. The protracted response came inspite of the actuality that some youngsters within the lecture rooms have been calling 911 for aid, increasing questions about whether or not life could have been saved had officers acted faster.

Bipartisan solution: Soon after Uvalde, Republicans reported they wished to do some thing, at least on problems of university protection and psychological wellness. Democrats are demanding at minimum more robust track record checks at gun shows and world-wide-web gun bazaars. Quite a few Democrats say they imagine that Congress need to go even even further.

A June runoff in Colombia’s election

Two anti-institution candidates, Gustavo Petro, a leftist, and Rodolfo Hernández, a proper-wing populist, captured the leading two places in Colombia’s presidential election yesterday, providing a gorgeous blow to the dominant conservative political course. The two will compete in a runoff election on June 19.

The election is shaping up to be a person of the most consequential in the country’s historical past. At stake: the country’s financial design, democratic integrity and the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of individuals who have been pushed into poverty. Colombia has extended been the strongest U.S. ally in the region: Petro has identified as for a reset of the bilateral relationship, which include a re-examination of a trade agreement.

A get for Petro would mark a watershed minute for one particular of the most politically conservative societies in Latin The usa. His increase reflects not just a leftist change across Latin The usa, but also an anti-incumbent fervor that has obtained energy as the pandemic has deepened poverty and inequality.

By the figures: With extra than 99 per cent of the ballots counted on Sunday evening, Petro received a lot more than 40 percent of the vote. Hernández been given in excess of 28 %, an surprising 2nd-position victory ahead of the conservative institution applicant, Federico Gutiérrez, who had been polling in next area.

It is uncomplicated to neglect nowadays that pay out phones were being after essential in the every day life of New Yorkers in 1978, a spend phone in New York’s Penn Station was the busiest in the U.S., with an ordinary pickup rate of 5,500 instances a month.

As the exertion to clear away the closing examples from the streets of New York Town was done this 7 days, reporters for The Situations appeared again as a result of our archives for stories about and photos of the humble nevertheless ubiquitous spend cellphone. Just one 1966 classic, about two stolen chimpanzees, commences: “Tarzan and Jane have been found in a Brooklyn cell phone booth early yesterday.”

ARTS AND Thoughts

A summer of suggestions

The months in advance are shaping up to be the most ordinary summer time in years — even if things are not pretty back to ordinary.

Most likely you are taking into consideration a summer time split. Never presume that aged travel designs will automatically continue on. Flights might be much more difficult than you remember, and beach properties could be more durable to locate in some places and less complicated in many others.

However deciding the place to go? The Moments is managing a collection — “A Summer of Cycling” — with experiences on Vancouver, British Columbia Vermont Alaska Hawaii a 150-mile journey from Italy to Croatia and 7 cities all over the entire world that are exciting to investigate on a bike.

If you are staying house, below are some tips for good barbecue and cookout recipes that can be geared up in advance of time. That way, you do not will need to be doing the job in the kitchen area although absolutely everyone else is possessing enjoyable. The supreme progress-preparation meal is a picnic, and our recipe columnist David Tanis has lots of advice.

And if all you really want to do is to get lost in a terrific movie or a amazing ebook, we have you included. Here’s The Times’s record of the 101 most attention-grabbing flicks of the period and our Guides desk colleagues’ guideline to summer months studying. They have 88 textbooks to transport you this period, such as thrillers, historic fiction, romance and cookbooks.

Play, Enjoy, Consume

What to Cook