Good morning. We're covering unidentified flying objects over North America and the Russians fighting for Ukraine. |
 | | Daniel Slim/Agency French Press — Getty Images |
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The U.S. shoots down another flying object |
Pentagon and intelligence officials are trying to make sense of three unidentified flying objects over Alaska, Canada and Michigan that U.S. fighter jets shot down with missiles on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The latest object, shaped like an octagon, was shot down yesterday by an F-16 over Lake Huron, near the Canadian border. |
It is still unclear what the crafts were or who sent them — and whether there are suddenly more of them, or that, in the wake of the recent incursion by a Chinese spy balloon, the U.S. and Canadian militaries are simply more vigilant in flagging objects that might previously have been allowed to pass. |
After the transit of the spy balloon this month, the binational North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, adjusted its radar system to make it more sensitive. As a result, the number of objects it detected increased sharply. In other words, NORAD is picking up more incursions because it is looking for them. |
Quotable: "We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase in objects that we've detected over the past week," Melissa Dalton, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, said at a news conference yesterday. |
 | | Soldiers with the Free Russia Legion training this month in Ukraine's Kyiv region.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times |
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The Russians fighting against their homeland |
The Free Russia Legion, a Ukrainian military unit, is made up entirely of Russians who are fighting and killing their own countrymen. They have taken up arms against their homeland for reasons including moral outrage, a desire to defend their adopted homeland of Ukraine or a visceral dislike of Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin. |
The group operates under the umbrella of Ukraine's International Legion, a fighting force that includes units made up of American and British volunteers, as well as Belarusians, Georgians and others. Nearly a year into the war, the Russian unit has received little attention — in part to protect the soldiers from reprisals by Russia and against their relatives. |
At the start of the war, Ukrainian law prevented Russian citizens from joining the armed forces. But the unit has now earned enough trust from Ukrainian commanders to take their place among the forces viciously fighting the Russian military south of Ukraine's strategic eastern city of Bakhmut in one of the most brutal theaters of the war. |
First person: "A real Russian man doesn't engage in such an aggressive war, won't rape children, kill women and elderly people," said one Russian fighter, describing the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers as motivation for leaving his native St. Petersburg to fight for Ukraine. "That's why I don't have remorse. I do my job and I've killed a lot of them." |
 | | Searching the rubble of an apartment building in Iskenderun, Turkey, on Sunday.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times |
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Turkey rounds up building contractors |
After a catastrophic earthquake last week, the death toll in southern Turkey and northern Syria surpassed 33,000 yesterday. In Turkey, where more than a million have been left homeless, survivors and building experts say that poor construction most likely exacerbated the scale of the quake's destruction, and resulted in increased fatalities. |
The Turkish government has responded by arresting building contractors with ties to collapsed buildings, and the Justice Ministry has set up investigation bureaus for earthquake-related crimes. Years earlier, Turkey's government pushed through legislation allowing property owners to have construction violations forgiven without bringing their buildings up to code. |
Construction experts say that the builders who have been rounded up could not have completed their projects without approvals from officials who have so far escaped scrutiny for possibly signing off on subpar work, and that the true blame lies with the government. More than 130 people have now been subjected to legal proceedings over ties to collapsed buildings. |
Context: Construction has been a driving force of the Turkish government's economic development policy, and many of the country's top construction magnates have close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his governing Justice and Development Party. Key presidential and parliamentary elections are expected on May 14. |
"We don't feel like there's anywhere safe to go." Syrians have experienced relentless death and destruction during their country's 12-year civil war. But some say the earthquake was worse than anything else they had endured. |
 | | Mary Turner for The New York Times |
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 | | Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times |
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"What will happen the next time the police stop me on the street at 4 a.m.?" the artist said in an interview. "Will they ask for an autograph or arrest me?" |
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You might have already spotted them on social media: cartoonish, absurdly large boots in a shade of red that recalls Babybel cheese, clown noses and gummy candy. They are globby, impossibly smooth and shaped like AirPods. Online, they have been compared to the footwear of the anime character Astro Boy and of Boots, the helpful sidekick of "Dora the Explorer." |
The "Big Red Boots," priced at $350 a pair, come from MSCHF, a New York-based collective with a rich history of trolling consumer culture. (They were also behind a cologne that smells like WD-40, "Birkinstock" sandals made from Birkin bags and Times Newer Roman, a font ever so slightly wider than Times New Roman.) |
MSCHF stresses that the boots are not a joke. Still, they are the work of a team that has long understood the relationship between divisiveness and virality, with a reputation for outrage bait. In a 2021 collaboration with Lil Nas X, it released "Satan Shoes": Nike Air Max 97s that contained the blood of MSCHF team members. Nike swiftly sued. |
"We're OK being hated," one member said that year. "We just don't want apathy." |
 | | Melina Hammer for The New York Times |
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Siddhartha Mukherjee, a Pulitzer Prize-winning oncologist, finds metaphor and medical mystery in the cell. |
That's it for today's briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Natasha |
Start your week with this narrated long read on menopause. And here's Friday's edition of "The Daily," on how sports betting became mainstream in the U.S. |
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