Your Friday Briefing

Shelling on Ukraine border raises fear

A spike in shelling is heightening fears that Russia may claim a pretext to invade Ukraine.

Residents near Ukraine’s front line scrambled into basements for cover as exchanges of artillery fire with the separatist forces reached their most intense level in months. The Ukrainian military said shelling there damaged a kindergarten and wounded three adult civilians.

Perhaps most worrisome, Russian-backed separatists claimed that they had come under fire from the Ukrainians — precisely the sort of incident Western officials have warned that Russia might try to use to justify military action.

President Biden warned that the threat of an attack remained “very high.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the U.N. that Russia’s ground and air forces were “preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days.”

The talks: Russia repeated its threat of unspecified “military-technical measures” unless its security demands in Eastern Europe were met. But the Kremlin sounded positive notes about diplomacy.

Ottawa prepares for confrontation

Ontario’s police force mobilized in and around Ottawa to end the trucker protests and began to make arrests.

The authorities issued a stream of warnings through the day, saying that a crackdown was “imminent.” They said demonstrators who did not move out of the way could be arrested or face an array of legal penalties.

Among those arrested last night was Tamara Lich, 47, one of the protests’ main organizers, according to Dagny Pawlak, a spokeswoman for the protest.

The police closed off exits leading to the city center on the Trans-Canada Highway, and downtown was closed to outsiders. The number of trucks has dwindled, but hundreds of them still remain. Heavy snow and below-freezing temperatures are expected today, which could complicate the movement of heavy trucks.

“It is high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop, including here in Ottawa,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday.

Many protesters vowed to stay put. One said the protest leaders’ instructions were to remain in their trucks, lock the doors and not open them for anyone, including the police.

Cases are down, but eyes are on subvariant

The Omicron surge seems to be slowing in much of the world, but the W.H.O. said it was keeping an eye on an Omicron subvariant.

New cases worldwide dropped 19 percent from Feb. 7 to Feb. 13 compared with the week before. But, the agency added, the drop in testing rates around the world means global case numbers might not reflect the true spread of the virus.

The W.H.O. also cautioned that the subvariant of Omicron, BA.2,appeared to be “steadily increasing” and was now the dominant variant in China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Denmark was the first nation to report that BA.2 had overtaken BA.1, the version of Omicron that first swept through the world.

Reminder: Scientists have said there is no evidence that BA.2 is more lethal than BA.1, though BA.2 could slow Omicron’s decline. Vaccines appear to be just as effective against BA.2 as they are against other forms of Omicron.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other virus developments:

• South Korea said it would change its Covid approach to focus almost exclusively on the most vulnerable.

THE LATEST NEWS

Other Big Stories

• A top-level meeting of all E.U. leaders and 40 African counterparts in Brussels, above, aimed to reset the relationship. But Europe’s reluctance to allow migrants or support the release of vaccine patents remain obstacles.

• France said it would begin a military withdrawal from Mali, bringing to a bitter end a nine-year military mission that has failed to quash a terrorist threat.

• At least two people died and the Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national train service, stopped long-distance rides in many states after Storm Ylenia hammered the country’s north, Deutsche Welle reports.

• The New York attorney general, Letitia James, may question former President Trump and his two children, a judge ruled.

• The deal that brought Joe Rogan’s podcast to Spotify is said to be worth over $200 million, more than was previously known. Accusations that he spreads misinformation have roiled the company.

The Olympics

• Kamila Valieva, 15, was expected to lead a Russian sweep of the medals in figure skating. But after being at the center of a doping scandal, she finished fourth, following falls and stumbles.

• The president of the Russian Olympic committee said Thursday that the country would fight any effort to redistribute medals for team figure skating, even if Valieva is eventually disqualified.

• Canada overpowered the U.S. in the gold medal game in women’s hockey, 3-2, and reclaimed the Olympic crown.

• See some of the best photos from the competition.

Around the World

• An exhibition at the British Museum is aiming to use recent discoveries to lessen the mystery around Stonehenge. (No, it wasn’t built by extraterrestrials.)

• A cargo ship carrying 1,100 Porsches and other luxury cars was on fire and adrift off the coast of the Azores on Thursday. The 22 crew members on board were rescued.

• Kuwait’s constitutional court overturned a law that had been used to prosecute transgender people.

• Mudslides and flooding in Brazil killed at least 94 people.

A Morning Read

The Arabic-language remake of the movie “Perfect Strangers,” released on Netflix in January, features scenes about sex and sexuality. Many actors and influencers say it invites honest conversations, but controversy exploded in the Arab world among critics who said the movie projects Western values on a more conservative society.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The lives of street children

A street child in Lusaka, Zambia, finds another boy dead in a mountain of trash. Who was he, and who killed him? That’s the mystery at the heart of “Walking the Bowl,” a new nonfiction book by Chris Lockhart and Daniel Mulilo Chama.

Lockhart, an American anthropologist, and Chama, a Zambian outreach worker, partnered with a team of former street children who helped them gather information. The story follows a 17-year-old hustler; a spindly 8-year-old who is alone in the city; a 16-year-old sex worker planning her escape; and Lusabilo, an observant 11-year-old boy who scavenges through trash. Their lives twine around one another; each, it turns out, has played a key role in the boy’s death.

“Daily life, meticulously recorded, rarely has the attributes of a novel,” Ellen Barry, a mental health reporter for The Times, writes in a review, “a clean arc of ascending action, a handful of vivid characters, an ending that snaps shut like a purse. ‘Walking the Bowl,’ remarkably, has all of those.”

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Adding fried eggs, a smoky yogurt sauce and crunchy almonds turns this sweet potato dish into a satisfying, meatless meal.

What to Read

Get a glimpse into the lives of rich daughters over the past five centuries in “Heiresses,” by Laura Thompson.

What to Watch

“A Banquet” asks audiences to consider the overlaps between reality and fantasy, psychosis and evangelism.

Now Time to Play

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Endpoint of an annual humpback whale migration from Alaska (four letters).

Here’s today’s Wordle. (If you’re worried about your stats streak, play in the browser you’ve been using.)

And here is the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Melina

P.S. David Gelles, a Times business reporter, is joining the Climate desk to cover the intersection of business and climate policy.

The latest episode of “The Daily” is about the U.S. response to the crisis in Ukraine.

You can reach the team at [email protected].