Good morning. Today is Good Friday, for many a day of hope, healing and reflection. There’s lots of news below. But first I want to tell you about a remarkable piece of reporting from my colleague C.J. Chivers, who for more than two decades has covered the human cost of war.
War storiesConflict stalks the globe, and it can be dizzying to keep track. There’s war in the Middle East, of course, and Pakistani attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan. There are civil wars raging in Sudan, in Myanmar, in Yemen, in Congo. Widen your lens slightly and take in the specter of turmoil in Libya, cartel violence in Mexico, gang violence in Haiti. Combat is everywhere. The disputes grab our attention and then release it, and then grab it again. Today I’d like to return us to the war Russia has been waging on Ukraine since 2022, and to the Ukrainian people who are living through it. They grabbed Chivers’s attention. He spent two months in Kyiv this winter to bring them to ours. Weaponizing the coldHis reporting comes from a residential neighborhood at the northeastern edge of Kyiv called Troieshchyna. Most of the buildings you’ll see there are classic late-Soviet apartment blocks — giant stacks of prefabricated reinforced concrete panels, some rising 15 stories or more above the street. Few have boilers to provide heat. Instead, the Soviet government built centralized thermal plants to supply hot water and heat to dozens, even hundreds, of buildings at a time. This winter, one of the coldest in Ukraine in close to 20 years, Russian forces used long-range strikes to target those plants, rendering huge swaths of Troieshchyna virtually uninhabitable. Here’s Chivers: The attacks of early January severed more than 400,000 households from electricity, city officials said, and left 6,000 buildings without heat. Problems compounded from there. Once buildings become cold enough, pipes freeze and residents lose running water. In this way, a measure of cruelty from long-range attacks can be distributed to an entire population in their homes without hitting the homes at all. Call it sanctuary denial on the cheap or, in the words of Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Center in Kyiv, a premeditated assault “on the life-support system of a modern city.” Ukrainians called what followed the “kholodomor,” a sort of portmanteau of the Ukrainian words for “cold” and “plague.” More than 600,000 residents fled the city in search of warmth and safety as Russian drones continued to strike. Many others, though, stayed in their frigid homes, their futures unsure. One lined her floors with blankets and extra carpets, insulation against the cold concrete. “I’m very depressed because of all of this,” another told Chivers. “People say, ‘You should enjoy life because you are still alive.’ I’m not sure I want to stay alive.”
Targeting civiliansInternational law does not allow deliberate attacks on civilian energy infrastructure, which is protected under the Geneva Conventions. And under them, the International Criminal Court in 2024 issued warrants for the arrests of four senior Russian military officers who had been involved in attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid. The charge: crimes against humanity. After the warrants were issued, Chivers reported, the attacks increased. It’s worth noting that during President Trump’s televised address to the nation Wednesday night, he threatened Iran with a similar strategy of attack. “If there’s no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and properly simultaneously,” he said. By threatening to attack, my colleagues Thomas Gibbons-Neff and John Ismay reported recently, “Mr. Trump has once again pushed the United States into territory more familiar to its enemies than its allies.” Our focus thus swings from one theater to another. Anthony Swofford wrote about that in “Jarhead,” his memoir of being a marine in the Gulf War: “Every war is different. Every war is the same.” Read more in this story. You won’t be sorry you did.
President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday. He had been souring on her for months. He privately vented about her communication skills and how she didn’t pursue his foes more aggressively. Most pressingly, she turned the Epstein files into a political crisis. On Wednesday, The Times reported, Bondi was still hoping to save her job or, if that was not possible, to buy time to make a graceful exit. Neither happened. For now, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer of Trump’s, will serve as the acting attorney general. Lee Zeldin, the head of the E.P.A., has been floated as a possible replacement. “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector,” Trump wrote on social media yesterday. Related: Late night hosts said goodbye to Bondi.
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Gasoline is getting pricey. And with the war against Iran showing little sign of letting up, some consumers seem to be turning to electric vehicles. After Congress eliminated E.V. tax credits last year, sales plunged by more than a third. But in the first three months of this year, General Motors’ Cadillac division recorded a 20 percent increase in E.V. sales. Kia’s electric sales rose 30 percent in that time. Even Tesla, which had been struggling, recorded a sales bump.
President Trump had many good reasons to fire Bondi, Jeffrey Toobin argues, but he apparently picked the single bad one — that she wasn’t seeking enough revenge for him. The people the president has pardoned are on a crime spree, the Editorial Board writes. Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.
Lives Lived: Biruté Galdikas, who devoted half a century to studying and preserving the lives of wild orangutans in Borneo, died at 79. With Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, she was one of three prominent researchers of great apes who were sometimes called the “trimates.” Woman’s best friend: A hiker in New Zealand fell down a waterfall and was evacuated without her dog. A crowd-funded rescue effort reunited them. Tiny teams: A nearly $2 billion company with just two employees? In the age of A.I., it’s increasingly possible.
$34 million— That is how much money UConn spent on its men’s and women’s basketball teams last year, compared to about $21 million on its football team. Here’s where the money goes.
N.B.A.: Luka Doncic injured his hamstring during the Lakers’ blowout loss to the Thunder. World Cup: We ranked the 48 teams playing this summer. Spain is on top.
Maybe Easter dinner isn’t your thing. Still, you can plan today to make roast lamb on Sunday anyway — call it a paschal lamb or a salute to spring. Julia Moskin’s recipe is a marvel. The lamb’s slathered in a thick coat of anchovy butter that brings lushness to the minerality of the meat, and garlic and rosemary offer a piney melody above it.
Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, performs at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles tonight, the second in a pair of concerts at the venue tied to the release of his new album, “Bully.” At the first show, on Wednesday night, chants of “Yeezy” echoed throughout the 70,000-seat arena as he played his hits, reports Emmanuel Morgan, who covers pop culture: “His half-decade of antisemitic and racist controversies did not seem to matter to him and his followers. Instead, he appeared on top of the world.” More on culture
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