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| President Biden pushed back on some statements in the special counsel’s report. Pete Marovich for The New York Times |
Biden cleared in documents case
Even though President Biden retained classified material after leaving the vice presidency in 2017, “no criminal charges are warranted,” the special counsel investigating the issue wrote in a report released yesterday.
Robert Hur, the special counsel, criticized Biden for keeping sensitive material in insecure locations and sharing some of it with a ghostwriter who helped him on a memoir, but he said that the evidence did not establish Biden’s guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
It was a legal exoneration for the president, but part of Hur’s rationale created a political nightmare for Biden, 81, who is running for re-election amid widespread concern from voters about his age. Hur said that he did not pursue a trial in part because Biden would most likely present himself to the jury “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” and portrayed him as unable to remember key dates, like precisely when his son Beau died.
Biden rebutted Hur’s characterizations during a heated news conference at the White House last night. Still, Hur’s assessment is sure to provide potent new lines of attack for Donald Trump, who has long sought to sow doubts about Mr. Biden’s fitness for office.
Ballot hearing: The Supreme Court seemed poised to issue a lopsided ruling to reject a legal challenge to Trump’s eligibility to hold office again.
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| Gen. Valery Zaluzhny at a ceremony last summer. Agence France-Presse, via Ukrainian Presidential Press Service |
Zelensky removed his top general
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, replaced his top general as part of a sweeping military shake-up.
The dismissal ended weeks of speculation about the fate of the commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, whose relationship with Zelensky deteriorated as Ukraine failed to make a breakthrough in its counteroffensive last summer and fall.
Opposition figures in Kyiv have charged that Zelensky’s decision to remove Zaluzhny was motivated by political concerns. Zelensky sought to deflect that criticism yesterday, framing his decision as part of an overhaul of a system in need of rethinking, and not a personal dispute.
Russia news: In a two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, called on the U.S. to “make an agreement” to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in order to end the war.
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| Political posters in Lahore, Pakistan. Saiyna Bashir for The New York Times |
The military’s influence in Pakistan’s election
Pakistanis went to the polls yesterday for an election that analysts said would be among the least credible in the country’s 76-year history. The party of Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister who is the military’s current favorite candidate, is expected to come out on top, though perhaps not as decisively as thought.
The election took place after a monthslong military campaign to gut the party of Imran Khan, a candidate and former populist prime minister, who was sentenced just days before the vote to 24 years in prison on charges related to revealing state secrets and selling state gifts. Parliamentary candidates allied with Khan were neck and neck with Sharif’s party in many races in Punjab, the country’s most populous province.
“Many people feel demoralized by the military’s intimidation campaign,” said Christina Goldbaum, our Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief. “A common refrain is that this is a ‘selection,’ not an election, as in, ‘The military has predetermined the winner. So why bother to vote?’”Continue reading the main story
| THE LATEST NEWS |
Around the World
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| Marco Di Marco/Associated Press |
| A volcano system in Iceland erupted for the third time since December, cutting off electricity for tens of thousands of people amid freezing temperatures.Israeli airstrikes killed and injured multiple people in Rafah, a southern Gaza border city, a day after Israel’s prime minister signaled that the military was preparing to move into the area.Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, oversaw a broad conspiracy to hold onto power regardless of the results of the 2022 election, according to accusations from Brazil’s federal police. |
Other Big Stories
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| Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
| Premature births, after years of steady decline, rose sharply in the U.S. between 2014 and 2022.Australian workers could soon enjoy a “right to disconnect,” or the ability to legally ignore after-hours work queries without fear of reprisal.Last month was the hottest January on record for the Earth and its oceans. |
The Super Bowl
| The big game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs is Sunday — or early Monday, for many in Europe. Here’s our guide for football neophytes.Kansas City’s star players are already champions in a different arena: advertising.You may have heard that Travis Kelce, the Chiefs’ star tight end, is dating Taylor Swift. This is a timeline of their relationship, and some of the many reactions to it. |
The Week in Culture
| A digital art group reconstructed a large statue of Constantine the Great using scans of 10 fragments of the original.Wim Wenders toured more than a dozen of Tokyo’s public toilet buildings, which he described as “little jewels,” as research for his film “Perfect Days.”The medals for the Paris Olympics and Paralympics this summer will contain a small piece of iron from the Eiffel Tower. |
A Morning Read
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| Susan Wright for The New York Times |
Bologna, Italy, is the capital of a region that makes some of the fastest cars in the world, like Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Paganis. But now those speedy makes, along with all other cars, will be required to slow to a new speed limit of 30 kilometers an hour while in Bologna.
The city’s mayor said the limit makes the city safer, but persuading some of the locals hasn’t been easy.
Lives lived: Riad al-Turk was a veteran Syrian opposition leader known as the “Mandela of Syria.” He died at 93.
| SPORTS NEWS |
From Ivory Coast to Italy: The story of Amad Diallo — and the man accused of trafficking him to Europe.
‘Closing the circle’: The beauty of a palindromic soccer career.
A new chapter: The Williams Formula 1 team tries to revive its glory days.
| ARTS AND IDEAS |
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| Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
Taylor Swift and tortured poets
At the Grammys last weekend, Taylor Swift teased an upcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” So what did the poets, troubled and otherwise, think?
Some poets worried that the title might romanticize or make light of mental illness. But the reaction from other versifiers was largely positive.
“As a tortured poet, I approve,” said Christian Wiman, the editor of Poetry magazine from 2003 to 2013.
Others hoped that Swift’s endorsing verse would encourage people to try it themselves. “If this gets more people to write poetry, I’m all for it,” said Sasha Debevec-McKenney, a poet and creative writing fellow at Emory University.
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| Romulo Yanes for The New York Times |
Cook: Coating chicken wings in salt and baking powder gives baked Buffalo wings the consistency of their fried counterparts.
