Evening Briefing: E.U. reaches landmark agreement to ban Russian oil imports

May 31, 2022

By Nancy Wartik and Daniel E. Slotnik

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

An area in Slovyansk, Ukraine, after a Russian strike. Rebuilding the country could cost $600 billion.Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

1. European leaders made a landmark decision to ban Russian oil imports but struggled with how to move millions of tons of grain out of Ukraine.

As their summit wrapped today, E.U. leaders said they'd ban some 90 percent of Russian oil imports by year-end. The measure was once considered impossible, given Europe's reliance on the fuel, but Hungary was exempted in order to get its approval.

But there weren't immediate solutions for overcoming the Russian naval blockade and attacks, which have trapped millions of tons of grain in Ukraine and threaten the country's economy and global food supplies. One hopeful sign: Russia's foreign minister will visit Turkey on June 8 to discuss coordinating the possible release of grain from Ukrainian ports.

In other news from Ukraine, with intense fighting in the east as the Russian military struggles to capture territory, some citizens still can't or won't leave. And a Ukrainian court sentenced two Russian fighters to 11 and a half years in prison for shelling a northeastern town.

Mourners at a makeshift memorial for victims of the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.Callaghan O'Hare for The New York Times

2. Chuck Schumer says he'll try — again — to pass U.S. gun restrictions.

Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said he'd try for a negotiated compromise on new gun laws after the latest pair of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, reinforcing President Joe Biden's promise in Uvalde on Sunday. A bipartisan group of 10 senators planned to have a Zoom call today to work out a framework for negotiations.

Continue reading the main story

Canada introduced legislation yesterday to ban most military-style assault weapons and is also barring the sale or acquisition of handguns.

In related news, here's one Uvalde family's terrible story of loss. And my colleague Elizabeth Dias, who covers faith and politics for The Times, meditated on the value of a single life.

The New York Times

3. Covid death rates for older people in the U.S. soared during the Omicron wave.

Deaths from Covid-19 have always concentrated in older people, but this winter they skewed toward seniors more than at any point since coronavirus vaccines became widely available.

Continue reading the main story

A high percentage of older people are fully vaccinated, but immunity granted by vaccines wanes over time and many seniors are behind on boosters. At the same time, the very contagious Omicron variant is adept at exploiting weakened immunity.

Separately, Italy will allow travelers without a coronavirus pass to enter the country starting Wednesday, and Shanghai is poised to ease some lockdown measures as infections fall there.

In other health news, a monkeypox expert at the World Health Organization said she didn't think the virus would lead to the next pandemic, and public health officials said a hepatitis A outbreak in the U.S. and Canada could be linked to fresh organic strawberries.

We want to hear from you.
Tell us about your experience with this newsletter by answering this short survey.

Michael Sussman leaving a federal courthouse in Washington on May 17.Samuel Corum for The New York Times

4. A Trump-chosen prosecutor lost his case against a Clinton-linked lawyer.

Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with Democratic ties, was acquitted of a felony charge that he lied to the F.B.I. in 2016. Sussman had shared a tip with a Bureau official about a possible covert computer server connection between former President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. The F.B.I. dismissed the tip.

Sussmann, who had been doing work for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, said he acted on his own behalf. John Durham, a Trump-appointed special counsel, tried to prove that Sussmann was part of larger Democratic efforts to frame Trump for collusion with Russia, but he had thin evidence.

The New York Stock Exchange in May.Gili Benita for The New York Times

5. Financial markets pulled out of a tailspin, but concerns linger.

The stock market's staggering run of losses came to an end last week, after stocks rallied on Friday to pull away from the brink of a bear market.

But analysts said it was far too soon to know if skyrocketing consumer prices had peaked, if the Federal Reserve had charted the right path for interest rates or how well the economy would be able to hold up in the face of fast-rising inflation and rising borrowing costs.

After a year of record profits, many companies are worried that the Fed's efforts could crater corporate earnings.

Dozens of motorcycles were burned in March, in the town of Moura in Mali.

6. Witnesses said that Russian mercenaries took part in a civilian massacre in Mali.

Malian soldiers working with foreign fighters executed hundreds of men in the village of Moura in central Mali in late March. The soldiers were in pursuit of Islamist militants.

The foreigners, according to diplomats, officials and human rights groups, belonged to the Russian paramilitary group known as Wagner, a shadowy proxy force for Russia's ministry of defense. The Malian authorities hailed the Moura attack as a major victory, claiming to have killed 203 fighters, but denied the presence of Wagner operatives and made no mention of civilian casualties.

Witnesses and analysts said the death toll in Moura was between 300 and 400, by their most conservative estimates. Most of the victims, they said, were civilians.

Wind turbines in Denmark, which ranked No. 1 in an environmental study.Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix, via Reuters

7. Under Trump, the U.S. climate ranking tumbled.

The 2022 Environmental Performance Index, which is published every two years by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities, showed that the U.S.'s environmental performance had plunged compared to other countries, in large part because the country mostly halted federal climate regulation during the Trump administration.

Of 180 countries in the report, the U.S. ranked 101st on climate metrics in the current report, down from 15th in 2020. The report's bottom line is sobering: only Denmark and Britain are on sustainable paths to net-zero emissions by 2050.

In other climate news, these are the New York City neighborhoods where climate inequality will hurt the most.

Sto Len, artist in residence for New York City's Sanitation Department.An Rong Xu for The New York Times

8. The art of N.Y.C.'s garbage.

Sto Len has a peculiar position: resident artist for New York City's Sanitation Department.

During his yearlong term, part of the city's Public Artists in Residence initiative, Len will make art that aims to help New Yorkers reconsider their relationship with their waste, and with the roughly 10,000 sanitation workers who haul it away.

"Hopefully, I can get people to look more closely at things they willfully ignore," Len said.

Separately, thieves wielding a power saw stole a bejeweled, golden tabernacle worth $2 million from a Brooklyn church.

A view from the Montelle Winery near Augusta, Mo.David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press

9. You can still vacation, despite inflation, high airfare and crazy gas prices.

Economic woes have kept many would-be travelers home or limited their plans, a recent survey found. But you needn't abandon fun summer journeys — just try subbing in cheaper options.

Our Frugal Traveler columnist suggests the Kentucky Bourbon Trail rather than Scotland for a spirits tour, or, instead of an Italian wine tour, America's first federally recognized viticultural area in Augusta, Mo. Rather than heading for Hawaii, where prices have skyrocketed, consider Mexico or St. Lucia. Food destinations? Toronto holds a virtual U.N. of dining districts, from Little India to Little Jamaica.

A visualization of trajectories of asteroids, in green.B612 Asteroid Institute/University of Washington DiRAC Institute/OpenSpace Project

10. And finally, an algorithm against killer asteroids.

By applying powerful cloud computing techniques to asteroid science, cosmologists may soon be able to identify and help deflect large space rocks endangering Earth.

The B612 Foundation (whose name was inspired by the asteroid in "The Little Prince") was founded by Ed Lu, a physicist and former astronaut. Its efforts have led to an algorithm that looks at hundreds of thousands of existing space telescope images to track asteroids among 68 billion dots of cosmic light.

Its goal? Locate the 60 percent of the roughly 25,000 near-Earth asteroids at least 460 feet in diameter that are currently undetected. Each of those asteroids holds the potential to unleash the energy equivalent of hundreds of millions of tons of TNT in a collision with Earth.

Have a heavenly evening!

Eve Edelheit compiled photos for this briefing.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

Here are today's Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee and Wordle. If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Continue reading the main story