jtrent238 test blog: Evening Briefing: Russia moves to stage annexation votes

September 20, 2022

By Matthew Cullen

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

An apartment building was heavily damaged by Russian bombs overnight in Bakhmut.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

1. Russia moves to stage annexation votes in Ukraine.

Four Ukrainian regions occupied largely by Russia will hold "referendums" on joining Russia, according to Russian state media, a move widely seen as a prelude to annexation and a potential escalation of the war.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 after a similar referendum that was widely dismissed as illegitimate in the West. Earlier today, President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, called the planned votes a "sham."

At the U.N. General Assembly, Turkey's leader said there would be no "triumph" in Ukraine and cast himself as a mediator in the war. President Emmanuel Macron of France said that "neutral" countries were "complicit."

In other international news, the Biden administration is trying to shore up European allies' support for Ukraine as energy prices spike in Europe, and persuade countries outside the Group of 7 to support a price cap on Russian oil.

Donald Trump's defense has often seemed as much about public relations as about legal substance.Hannah Beier for The New York Times

2. Donald Trump tries to skirt declassification questions.

The former president and his lawyers argued in court that they should not have to state in a legal proceeding that he declassified the sensitive documents seized from his Florida home, while also casting doubt on the Justice Department's claim that the documents remain classified.

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The special master reviewing the seized materials expressed skepticism of Trump's arguments. "My view is, you can't have your cake and eat it too," Judge Raymond Dearie said.

Trump had been warned by a former White House lawyer late last year that he could face legal liability if he did not return the government materials he had taken with him when he left office.

In other news about the former president, newly released videos show Trump allies handling sensitive voting equipment in a rural Georgia county weeks after the 2020 election.

One defendant told the government he had fed 5,000 children a day.Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

3. A grand jury indicted 47 people for brazen pandemic aid fraud.

The defendants are accused of stealing $240 million from anti-hunger programs in Minnesota by billing the government for meals they did not serve to children who did not exist. It appears to be the largest theft so far from a pandemic-relief program.

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The scheme — details of which were reported in The Times in March — pulled in millions of dollars per week, prosecutors said, partly because government officials had relaxed oversight of the feeding program during the pandemic.

In other crime news, New York City will install security cameras in all of its subway cars in an effort to reassure riders of their safety.

4. Voters in New Hampshire and Mississippi face the highest barriers. And voters in Oregon and Washington have it the easiest.

A nonpartisan academic study ranked each state based on 10 categories related to voting, including registration, inconvenience, early voting, polling hours and absentee voting. The results reflected the fact that several states have had many limits to voting access for years, well before the Republican-led push after the 2020 election.

In other politics news, North Carolina's Senate race is a nail-biter, with Cheri Beasley and Ted Budd neck and neck in the polls. Democrats are hoping Beasley will end a streak of losses in the state; Budd, who voted against certifying the 2020 election, is hoping to shed his association with Donald Trump.

Also, readers keep asking our chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, if they should trust the polls this year. Well, it's complicated.

More than one million Americans have died from the coronavirus. Ash Adams for The New York Times

5. Gaps in data have undercut the U.S. response to the coronavirus.

While significant federal investment helped fuel the modernization of private health care systems over the past decade, state and local health departments were largely stuck with outdated fax machines and spreadsheets. And without a nationwide system to effectively analyze data, the C.D.C. resorted to extrapolations and educated guesses for its pandemic guidance.

Health experts are certain that the lack of comprehensive, timely Covid data exacted a heavy toll. Now, the same antiquated systems are hampering the response to the monkeypox outbreak.

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A lithium mine outside La Corne, Quebec, in Canada.

6. Will there be enough North American lithium to go around?

In Quebec, a lithium mine set to open early next year could help determine the future of electric vehicles. As the second North American source of lithium, it offers hope that badly needed raw materials can be extracted and refined outside of China's influence.

The mine is just one of several in development in the U.S. and Canada. But most of these projects are years away from production. Even if they are able to raise the billions of dollars needed to get going, there is no guarantee they will yield enough lithium to meet the continent's needs.

In other climate news, a little-noticed section of Democrats' climate legislation injected $2.6 billion into restoring habitats to protect coastal communities, the latest sign of a shift toward nature-based climate solutions.

A dig site in Gray, Tenn., has yielded a large collection of fossils.Mike Belleme for The New York Times

7. There's a long tradition of construction workers becoming accidental paleontologists.

In Kent City, Mich., last month, an excavator dug up a massive bone that the construction workers there knew couldn't be from a modern animal. Experts determined that they had discovered the skeleton of a mastodon.

It was the latest in a long list of discoveries on job sites. The sheer volume of construction workers across the country and the use of powerful machinery have allowed the industry to pay a critical role in finding ancient bones.

In other science news, high-speed video recordings reveal that octopus arms aren't moving randomly when they go in for the kill, and that "ant-slayer" spiders use an acrobatic web-slinging tactic to trap their prey.

Used with permission of HarperCollins Children's Books.

8. The enduring wisdom of "Goodnight Moon."

Seventy-five years after the publication of the picture book by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, parents continue to turn to it.

In 131 words, "Goodnight Moon" tells the story of a rabbit getting ready for bed and bidding adieu to a series of items in his bedroom: a little toy house and a young mouse, "a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush and a quiet old lady who was whispering 'hush.'"

"It's a blueprint for peace in a time of chaos," writes Elisabeth Egan.

In other book news, Spotify is expanding into audiobooks. It plans to offer more than 300,000 titles on a pay-per-book model.

A selection of martinis at Sweet Liberty in Miami Beach, Fla.James Jackman for The New York Times

9. The second coming of the appletini.

These days, every new bar or restaurant seems to offer a special martini — and just as in the so-called 'tini era of the 1990s, many don't stop at one. In New York and other major cities, you can find a lychee martini, a Thai chile martini, and even an Everything Martini (garnished with mozzarella balls).

Industry professionals throw out a number of theories to explain the drink's ascent: the nostalgia for a simpler era, the sharpening of palates thanks to Covid-era home bartending and the desire for a stiff drink in hard times.

For something to eat, we've pulled together a list of 24 dinner recipes that you can make with seven ingredients or fewer.

Malcolm Schuyl/Alamy

10. And finally, if you think your commute is too long, be glad you're not a godwit.

Each year around this time, tens of thousands of bar-tailed godwits migrate from Alaska to New Zealand and Australia. The 7,000-mile journey — the longest nonstop migration of any land bird — is completed in eight to 10 days of continuous flapping without stopping to eat, drink or rest.

The godwit's ordeal is so extreme that, as one recent paper put it, it challenges "underlying assumptions of bird physiology." Before the bird takes off, its organs shrink, its pectoral muscles grow, and it gobbles up insects, worms and mollusks to store fat for the long journey. One scientist called the godwits "obese super athletes."

Have an enduring night.

Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.

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