Your Friday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/briefing/ukraine-covid-trump.html

Version 0 of 1.

Russia and Ukraine concluded a second of round of talks in Belarus. They emerged with little progress toward a resolution of the conflict but agreed on establishing “humanitarian corridors” leading out of areas of intense fighting. Here are the latest updates.

One million people have fled the country, and a million more have abandoned their homes within Ukraine for less dangerous cities. The U.N. predicted that 10 million Ukrainians — roughly a quarter of the population — could be displaced, with four million of those becoming refugees in other countries.

Russian forces have encircled the port city of Mariupol and were bearing down on another port city, Mykolaiv. A fire broke out early Friday morning at a complex in southern Ukraine that is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, after Russian troops fired on the area, Ukraine’s foreign minister said.

But Russia’s advance on Kyiv was making less evident progress as Ukrainian forces put up stiffer resistance than expected. A miles-long Russian military convoy remained about 18 miles from the city center.

Putin: After a phone call between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Emmanuel Macron of France, a French official said that Russia’s goal was to control all of Ukraine. Russia has now committed inside Ukraine about 90 percent of its invasion force of more than 150,000 personnel, according to a U.S. official.

Zelensky: President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Thursday hosted his first news conference since the war began and pleaded for a no-fly zone.

Response: The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is fast-tracking a criminal investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine. U.S. lawmakers are pushing to ban Russian oil imports, but the White House is opposed. Russia’s second-largest oil company called for the war to end.

Refugees: The E.U. offered three-year protection for Ukrainian refugees; the U.S. will allow some Ukrainians who have been living in the country without legal documentation to stay temporarily.

Media: The BBC revived shortwave radio dispatches to broadcast into Ukraine, while RT, the Russian state-controlled news network, turned to the video site Rumble after Big Tech companies blocked RT channels. Ukraine and Russia are fighting an information war, and the last vestiges of Russia’s free news media are falling.

New Zealand is being walloped by a major outbreak of the Omicron variant, with the virus spreading at what may be the fastest rate in the world. On Thursday, the country reported 23,194 new cases.

Before the population was widely vaccinated, New Zealand had kept infections and deaths very low with strict regulations. The explosion in cases has come as the government, under political pressure, loosened its controls.

But the country is well protected. Ninety-five percent of New Zealanders over age 12 have been vaccinated, and 57 percent have had booster shots. With this combination of strict measures and widespread inoculation, the country has reported just 56 virus deaths throughout the pandemic.

Here are live updates and the latest maps of the pandemic.

In other virus news:

Top U.S. officials say they intend to offer other nations technology that might be used against Covid.

A Covid ruling has opened the French Open door to Novak Djokovic.

Cases are declining around the world, but the W.H.O. says gaps in mental health care persist.

In a court filing, the U.S. House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol said there was enough evidence to suggest that former President Donald J. Trump might have engaged in a criminal conspiracy as he fought to remain in office.

The committee’s lawyers for the first time laid out their theory of a potential criminal case against Trump, arguing that he could be charged with violations including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress.

At its core is the argument that, in repeatedly rejecting the truth that he had lost the 2020 election, Trump was not just being stubborn or ignorant about his defeat, he was knowingly perpetrating a fraud on the U.S.

But the filing disclosed only limited new evidence and largely relied on the detailed accounts that had already been made public of the actions Trump and his allies took to keep him in office after his defeat.

Related: In the first trial stemming from the Jan. 6 attacks, the defendant’s 19-year-old son took the stand against him.

A two-year investigation led by New Zealand authorities into images of child abuse has resulted in the arrests of hundreds of people worldwide. Above, Interpol headquarters.

A Japanese court on Thursday convicted Greg Kelly, once a deputy to Carlos Ghosn, the former head of Nissan, for helping conceal part of Ghosn’s compensation.

The U.S. Navy has recovered a $94 million warplane that fell into the South China Sea.

The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma reached a new deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the company’s and family’s roles in the U.S. opioid epidemic.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that C.I.A. “black sites” are state secrets.

The set of “Lupin,” Netflix’s French heist drama, was the victim of a $300,000 theft.

The name “spongy moth” will officially replace the pejorative name “gypsy moth” for the species Lymantria dispar.

Spend a latex-clad evening in Italy with Julia Fox — an actress, a living fashion advertisement and a woman who hasn’t yet had her fill of fame. A short, high-profile fling with Kanye West helped: “I will say, having been around Kanye was like a crash course on how to be famous.”

The Russian diva Anna Netrebko has been criticized for her political opinions, which she has expressed vaguely, and for her prior support for the re-election of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. In her first public statement on the war, in an Instagram post Saturday morning that has since been deleted, Netrebko was clear.

“First of all: I am opposed to this war,” she wrote.

But about Putin she said nothing at all, and she called her Western critics “as evil as blind aggressors.” Subsequent posts, later deleted, only muddied the waters.

Now she is out for this season and next at the Metropolitan Opera, which asked her to distance herself from Putin. She will be replaced in “Turandot” by Liudmyla Monastyrska, a Ukrainian soprano.

The action raises difficult questions, writes Zachary Woolfe, The Times’s classical music editor. “What is the point at which cultural exchange — always a blur between being a humanizing balm and a tool of propaganda, a co-opting of music’s supposed neutrality — becomes unbearable?”

Also in the arts: The Times spoke to two members of the Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha, one on the road west of Kyiv, the other trying to stay safe there.

Try any of these 19 easy recipes when you’re extremely burned out.

“Great Freedom” is a moving period drama about a gay man in West Germany.

“Painless,” the excellent new album from the British musician Nilufer Yanya, explores what it means to “be from somewhere.”

Here’s the Mini Crossword, and a clue: More unusual (five letters).

Play today’s Wordle. (If you’re worried about your stats streak, play in the browser you’ve been using.)

And here is the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Whet

P.S. Sabrina Tavernise is joining “The Daily” as a host.

The latest episode of “The Daily” is on why Russia hasn’t defeated Ukraine.

You can reach Whet and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.