Good morning. We're covering investigations into a train crash in India and strikes on Ukraine. |
 | Railway workers in India on Sunday at the site of a three-train crash.Atul Loke for The New York Times |
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India intensifies investigation into train crash |
The authorities in India have intensified the investigation into the causes of a devastating three-way train crash in which 275 people died. While officials were looking into the malfunction of an electronic signaling system, they had not ruled out human error — or even sabotage — and vowed punishment for those responsible, India's railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said yesterday. |
India's railway network is one of the largest in the world, transporting about eight billion passengers a year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has frequently publicized its investments in expanding infrastructure, but a recent official audit noted that the amount invested in safety for much of the fleet of more than 13,000 trains was decreasing. |
Railway officials grumbled in private that by initiating a high-profile inquiry into the crash, political leaders were looking for scapegoats to distract from a well-documented truth: Despite India's trumpeting that it has reduced the frequency of mass-casualty rail accidents in recent years, the work of assuring safety on the country's trains remains deeply underfunded. |
Details: A high-speed passenger train collided with a parked freight train around 7 p.m. on Friday and derailed. Some of its cars slammed into another moving passenger train. |
 | Ukrainian troops targeting Russian positions in eastern Ukraine last week.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times |
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Strikes in Ukraine ahead of a counteroffensive |
Explosions rang out across the front line in Ukraine as both sides sought to gain an advantage before an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake territory captured by Russia. Russian forces fired cruise missiles and attack drones at targets across Ukraine overnight on Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials, while blasts were reported in Russian-occupied Melitopol and Berdiansk in southern Ukraine. |
The civilian toll of the war continues to climb. The body of a 2-year-old girl was pulled from the rubble after a Russian strike in the Dnipropetrovsk region that also wounded 22 others, including five children, a regional official said. At least 535 children have died in the war, and at least 1,000 have been wounded, according to official figures. |
After months of preparations, Ukrainian officials have said in recent days that Kyiv's forces are ready to launch its counterattack, and in a speech, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, took the unusual step of thanking a dozen individual soldiers by name for their service to their country. |
Victims: Zelensky paid tribute to the children lost to the war. "Many of them could have become famous scholars, artists, sports champions, contributing to Ukraine's history," he said in a statement. |
 | President Emmanuel Macron of France at a factory in Dunkirk, France.Pool photo by Pascal Rossignol |
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Warnings over France's finances |
Three ratings agencies have expressed concerns about France's ability to rein in its public finances amid high general government debt, adding to fears about whether the country's president, Emmanuel Macron, can move forward with his efforts to lift competitiveness and growth in a tense social and political climate. |
France's economy, the eurozone's second largest, is forecast to remain subdued until at least next year, but more worrisome to ratings agencies is the nation's financial situation. France spent vast sums to shield households and businesses from an inflation crisis and painful pandemic lockdowns. Now, the potential for a downgrade is deeply worrying top officials. |
France's debt has surged to 111 percent of economic output, casting France into a club with Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain — the major eurozone economies holding the highest debt ratios. In Germany, which has Europe's largest economy and is a stickler for budget discipline, the debt burden is 66 percent of economic output. |
Warnings: S&P Global said it could lower France's ratings in the next 18 months if the debt did not decline, a risk that would be amplified if there was a prolonged economic slowdown or if France did not adequately curb government spending. |
 | Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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 | Ulises Ruiz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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 | Christopher Anderson/Magnum, for The New York Times |
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Teju Cole had not been keen on seeing a much-praised exhibition of paintings by Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. But when he found himself the lucky recipient of a ticket — and after-hours access — he could hardly refuse. |
| SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC |
'Ted Lasso' was willing to go places it didn't need to: The show's finale left many bread crumbs along the way, hinting that we may not be finished with Richmond just yet. |
Unresolved issues in the Women's World Cup: Excitement around the tournament is being dampened by matters that remain unresolved. |
 | Illustration by Tomi Um |
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Bringing a child into a warming world |
In this week's edition of The Ethicist, prospective parents ask the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah: Is it selfish to have children knowing full well that they will have to deal with a lower quality of life thanks to the climate crisis and its many cascading effects? And how about the effect on our carbon footprint? |
"The marginal effect of adding a few humans to a planet of about eight billion people is negligible," Kwame responds, especially as some models suggest that global populations are set to decline. And, he adds, "if everybody stopped having babies, the effect would be not to help humanity but to end it." |
Some readers suggested considering adopting a child as an alternative. "If you do choose to have children, have just one," writes Kristie of Tucson, Ariz. "If you want more, adopt." |
Cheryl, another reader, takes a different view: For most of human history, children could expect a short, brutal life with a looming risk of war, famine and poverty. "Facing hardships doesn't make experiencing life on earth miserable, when there is a hope of overcoming them," she writes. "It's your decision." |
 | David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. |
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That's it for today's briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Natasha |
Friday's edition of "The Daily" explores why college-educated Americans are leaving big coastal cities. |
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