As Russia Tries to Push Ukraine Out of Kursk, Here’s What to Know

Russian troops appear close to driving Ukraine from all the territory it seized in the Kursk region of Russia last year, a battlefield success that would deny President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a significant bargaining chip in any negotiations. The Russian push in Kursk appeared to accelerate after President Trump froze military aid and intelligence … Read more

Keir Starmer Wants to Abolish NHS England: What to Know About His Plan

What did Prime Minister Keir Starmer say about England’s health service? In a speech on Thursday, Mr. Starmer made a surprise announcement that N.H.S. England was to be scrapped. That definitely does not mean the abolition of Britain’s National Health Service, which offers free health care to all, is funded through taxation and payroll deductions, … Read more

Jennifer Johnston, Irish Novelist Who Probed Country’s Fault Lines, Dies at 95

Jennifer Johnston, an admired Irish novelist whose precise, carefully woven fictions depicted historic fault lines in her country’s upper crust and frailties in its latter-day middle class, died on Feb. 25 in Dun Laoghaire, outside Dublin. She was 95. Her death, in a nursing home, was announced by President Michael D. Higgins of Ireland, who … Read more

Bardella, Leader of France’s Far-Right National Rally, Heads to Israel

Jordan Bardella, the young president of France’s far-right National Rally, plans to visit Israel this month in a powerful symbol of his party’s shift from the home of French antisemitism to the country’s most vociferous friend of the Jews. “Antisemitism is a poison,” Mr. Bardella told Le Journal du Dimanche, a Sunday newspaper, announcing that … Read more

Russia Says It Has Retaken Key Kursk Town From Ukraine

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that the military had regained full control of the town of Sudzha, the main population center in the part of the Kursk region of Russia that Ukrainian troops had captured last summer. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed a retreat from the town, where the previous night Kyiv’s military had reported … Read more

U.S. Negotiators Are En Route to Moscow, Kremlin Says

American and Russian officials are expected to meet in Moscow on Thursday as President Vladimir V. Putin weighs a 30-day cease-fire proposal from the United States and Ukraine. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters at about midday Moscow time on Thursday that American officials were en route. “Negotiators are indeed flying in, and … Read more