Your Tuesday Evening Briefing – The New York Times

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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.

1. Despite its flawed and poorly planned execution, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made significant territorial gains.

In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces have reportedly advanced to the border between Donetsk and Luhansk. That may soon give Russia complete control of the Donbas region. If Russia can hold its gains and keep dominion in the Black Sea, it will have more leverage for a negotiated settlement, and it will expand its ability to stage attacks.

The war has pummeled both Russian and Ukrainian economies, with Ukraine’s expected to shrink by 30 percent this year and Russia’s by 10 percent. But Russia’s strategic goals seemingly remain broad. President Vladimir Putin is “preparing for a prolonged conflict” and “still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas,” the U.S. intelligence chief said.

The House will vote tonight on an emergency aid package to Ukraine of almost $40 billion.

In Mariupol, at least 100 civilians remain trapped in a besieged steel plant, an official said. Some of the wives of the soldiers still there spoke to The Times, pleading for help.

2. Gun deaths during the pandemic’s first year reached the highest level ever recorded in the U.S.

More than 45,000 Americans died of gun-related deaths in 2020. Over half the deaths were suicides, a figure that changed little between 2019 and 2020. Gun homicide rates, however, rose by 35 percent, with young Black men most affected.

Potential explanations include pandemic stressors like disruptions to services and education, social isolation and difficulty in meeting expenses. The rise also corresponds to increased firearms sales amid lockdowns. Preliminary figures suggest that gun deaths remained high in 2021.

In other pandemic news, a report shows that Emergent BioSolutions, a government contractor, hid quality control issues from the F.D.A., leading to the destruction of 400 million vaccine doses. And China’s Covid count is the lowest it’s been since mid-March, but authorities are still tightening restrictions in Shanghai and Beijing.

3. Elon Musk said he’d reverse Twitter’s barring of former President Donald Trump.

Twitter barred Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Musk, speaking at a Financial Times conference, called that decision “morally wrong and flat-out stupid” and said it had alienated a swath of the country without muzzling Trump’s voice.

“Permanent bans just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter,” he added, in a preview of the kinds of changes he might make if, as expected, he takes ownership of the platform.

4. Oil giants are selling off oil fields to cut their emissions, but the assets continue to pollute.

As the companies make progress toward their corporate climate goals, they’re offloading fields to buyers that have disclosed little about their operations, have made few or no pledges to combat climate change and have committed to ramping up production.

New research showed that, of 3,000 oil and gas deals made between 2017 and 2021, more than twice as many involved assets moving from operators that have net-zero commitments to those that don’t, rather than the reverse. That is raising concerns that the assets will pollute at a greater rate, away from the public eye.

5. Psychiatrists who specialize in children or adolescents are in short supply.

Over the last three decades, the major health risks facing U.S. adolescents have shifted drastically: Teen pregnancy and alcohol, cigarette and drug use have fallen, while anxiety, depression, suicide and self-harm have soared.

But the medical system has failed to keep up, and the transformation has put emergency rooms and pediatricians at the forefront of mental health care. Community doctors now routinely deal with complex psychiatric issues, making tough diagnoses after brief visits and prescribing powerful psychiatric medications for lack of a better alternative.

6. Mario Batali, the celebrity chef, was ruled innocent of indecent assault and battery charges.

The judgment came after a day and a half of testimony, mostly from Natali Tene, who said Batali forcibly kissed her and grabbed her during a late-night selfie session at a bar in Boston in 2017. Batali never testified, and his defense team never called a witness.

Batali, once the host of the ABC show “The Chew” and the head of a multimillion-dollar food enterprise, was one of several prominent chefs and restaurateurs to be accused of sexual assault and harassment in the restaurant industry since 2017. But he has been the only one to face criminal charges.

In other crime news, the manhunt for a former corrections officer and the Alabama inmate she helped to escape last month ended Monday in Indiana after a police pursuit and a crash. The former officer fatally shot herself, and the inmate surrendered, authorities said.

7. For about 40 million Americans, the good times are now.

Their houses are piggy banks; their retirement accounts are up; their bosses are eager to please. This wealth is boosting corporate profits, fueling Silicon Valley and stoking a boom in leisure and entertainment. The share of workers who say they expect to be working past their early 60s fell below 50 percent for the first time.

But the queasy stock market might be signaling that this boom is ending. A slowing economy, renewed inflation, high gas prices and rising interest rates could undermine the gains.

8. Tom Brady will join Fox Sports as its lead N.F.L. analyst when his football career is over.

The superstar quarterback still fully intends to suit up for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season at age 45. But whenever he does retire, the Fox job will be waiting for him. He will join other prominent quarterbacks from his generation like Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Tony Romo, in seeking a highly lucrative media career.

The timing is very much unclear. Brady said on Twitter that he had “a lot of unfinished business on the field with the Buccaneers.”

In other sports media news, FIFA and EA Sports ended a two-decade partnership that produced a $20 billion video game, after months of unsuccessful negotiations.

9. An Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for the highest price ever paid at auction for an American artwork.

The 40-inch-by-40-inch silk-screen, “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” went for about $195 million yesterday to the art dealer Larry Gagosian, at Christie’s in New York. It’s not clear who he was bidding for.

Warhol began the project of silk-screening Monroe’s image onto canvases in 1962, which sold for $225 each; the one sold last night was done on order, two years after the originals. Blake Gopnik traced how updates to the Monroe series paralleled changes in Pop Art as a whole.

In other lots, a Stradivarius that was played in “The Wizard of Oz” will be sold at an online auction starting May 18. It could fetch up to $20 million.

10. And finally, the sublimity of the egg.

The humble egg is a blank canvas for flavors and a mainstay across cultures. In India, they’re key to regional dishes like tomato-rich egg curry. Korean Gyeran bap, fried eggs stirred into white rice, seasoned with soy sauce and roasted seaweed, can be a “lifesaving” meal. Tamagoyaki, Japanese rolled omelets, blend sweet and savory tastes. Our Cooking section assembled 24 recipes in which eggs strut their stuff.

There’s also the pleasure of eggs in their simplest form. One of our cooking columnists used more than 90 testers and 700 eggs to arrive at a boiled egg as close to perfection as possible.

Have a cracking evening.

Eve Edelheit compiled photos for this briefing.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

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