Monday Briefing

Zelensky replaces protection minister

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, mentioned he was changing his minister of protection, within the largest shake-up within the management of Ukraine’s struggle effort since Russia’s invasion started. He cited the necessity for “new approaches” because the struggle after greater than 18 months of battle.

The destiny of the protection minister, Oleksii Reznikov, had been the topic of hypothesis in Ukraine as monetary improprieties within the ministry had come to gentle and the federal government had began investigations into official corruption. He is to get replaced by Rustem Umerov, the chairman of Ukraine’s State Property Fund and a member of an opposition celebration.

Ukraine is within the midst of a serious counteroffensive, slowly gaining territory within the south and the east. Last week, Ukrainian officers mentioned they’d captured the southern village of Robotyne, suggesting that the offensive had penetrated the primary layer of Russian defenses between Ukraine’s forces and Russian-occupied Crimea.

Quotable: “Oleksii Reznikov has gone through more than 550 days of full-scale war,” Zelensky mentioned in an announcement. “I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society at large.”

In different news from the struggle:

• Months after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which unleashed untold financial, environmental and human struggling, many communities are nonetheless reeling.

• Russian forces launched waves of drones on the Odesa area of southern Ukraine in an hourslong in a single day assault, injuring no less than two folks.

Heavy rain causes chaos at Burning Man

Thousands of individuals have been stranded on the Burning Man pageant, an annual celebration of artwork, music and counterculture vibes in a distant patch of Nevada desert, after torrential rains turned roads and grounds into muck. Participants have been instructed to preserve meals and water, and the authorities are investigating the loss of life of 1 participant. Here’s what we all know.

Worsening situations and heavier rainfall yesterday might delay folks leaving the occasion, which ends immediately and in regular situations causes an extended backup of visitors.

A White House official mentioned that President Biden had been briefed on the scenario and that administration officers had been in contact with state and native officers. Accounts of the mud and efforts to go away ricocheted throughout social media and have become one thing of a sensation in themselves.

Details: Each 12 months the pageant hosts greater than 70,000 folks from all over the world to a desolate, arid panorama greater than 140 miles from the closest metropolis. The solely entry is through both a two-lane rural freeway or a small, momentary airport, each of which had been closed yesterday.

South Africa investigates a Russian ship

An investigation by the South African authorities discovered that weapons weren’t loaded onto a Russian vessel below American sanctions that docked close to Cape Town final 12 months, President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned. The report adopted accusations from U.S. officers that South Africa had offered arms for the struggle in Ukraine. A abstract can be made public immediately.

It stays to be seen whether or not the findings will soothe the connection between South Africa and the U.S., which is extra tense than it has been in years largely due to the dispute over the ship.

Paris’s gleaming public swimming pools are greater than merely locations to chalk up laps. Swimming in them, Catherine Porter writes for The New York Times, is a full-on cultural expertise, providing “intimate views into the French psyche and style of living.”

SPORTS NEWS

The $3 billion switch window: Premier League spending reaches new heights.

U.S. Open: Brad Gilbert, who coached Andre Agassi to a U.S. Open victory in 1994, is advising Coco Gauff at this 12 months’s match.

Ultramarathons: What Courtney Dauwalter discovered from the agony of operating dozens of miles at a stretch.

Women’s volleyball: Turkey is basking within the success of gamers it calls “Sultans of the Net.”

ARTS AND IDEAS

New director for an establishment in disaster

Almost three weeks after the British Museum was plunged into disaster by the revelation of thefts from its storerooms, the London establishment mentioned it might appoint Mark Jones, a former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, as its interim director.

An overflowing tray awaits him: In latest weeks, international locations together with Greece and Nigeria have renewed claims for artifacts within the British Museum’s assortment. The museum can also be set to announce a serious refurbishment venture, requiring appreciable fund-raising.

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