The contest to replace António Guterres as U.N. secretary general has been jolted by last-minute entrants and deep divisions among members of the Security Council.

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Plus, the Friday news quiz.

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Victory for Democrats could alter the course of peace negotiations and a war nearing its fifth year.

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Victory for Democrats could alter the course of peace negotiations and a war nearing its fifth year.

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A summit could bolster Xi Jinping’s stature. But talks about Ukraine’s future and limits on nuclear weapons pose uncomfortable choices for China.

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A summit could bolster Xi Jinping’s stature. But talks about Ukraine’s future and limits on nuclear weapons pose uncomfortable choices for China.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

President Trump said the deal “might involve all of Europe.” He indicated he had met with a Kremlin envoy whom Melania Trump hosted at the White House on Thursday.

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Russia was linked to influence campaigns targeting Democrats that gained little traction, but the Kremlin may be more focused on France’s elections in the spring.

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A Finnish court convicted the captain and boatswain of a cargo ship of aggravated criminal damage in relation to an incident last year in the Gulf of Finland.

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Russian tech companies are scrambling to harden and hide their data centers underground after Ukrainian drone strikes damaged facilities housing AI supercomputers and disrupted cloud services for millions of Russian users. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is requiring data center owners to reserve computing capacity for emergency state needs and has even authorized possible use of foreign data centers.

These consequences of Russia's war against Ukraine come as the Russian military has bombarded Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles nearly night and day in recent months, along with specifically targeting Ukrainian data centers since late September. But Ukraine has retaliated with its own drone strikes on military and infrastructure targets across Russia, degrading or knocking out data centers operated by Russian tech giant Yandex, the state-owned bank Sberbank, social media site VKontakte, and the Russian Ministry of Finance.

Now, state-owned telecommunications company Rostelcom has raised the possibility of moving some Russian data centers underground in talks with the nickel and palladium mining company Norilsk, according to Russian newspaper Vedomosti. The industry publication Data Center Dynamics also pointed to a recent proposal by a Russian regional governor to build data centers within open-pit coal mines while planting green public parks above as camouflage.

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Hours after the Russian attack, which killed at least 31 and left dozens missing, the United States said that peace talks with the two countries would resume after nine months.

© Reuters

Hours after the Russian attack, which killed at least 31 and left dozens missing, the United States said that peace talks with the two countries would resume after nine months.

© Reuters

Trump is betting on economic incentives to stop Putin in Ukraine. Germany’s experience shows why that strategy is risky.

© Ramil Sitdikov/Reuters

Safely out of Oleshky after enduring years in the combat zone and a harrowing 24-hour journey, weary civilians reunited with family and friends.

Notching wins from Washington, the Russian leader is talking with foreign leaders and could return to diplomatic center stage with possible summit meetings.

© Pool photo by Anastasia Barashkova

Journalists at the fiercely independent Novaya Gazeta, whose co-founder received the Nobel Peace Prize, said the government had orchestrated its demise.

© Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Journalists at the fiercely independent Novaya Gazeta, whose co-founder received the Nobel Peace Prize, said the government had orchestrated its demise.

© Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

That was almost three times as much as what businesses producing and refining oil in the United States made in the same period in 2025.

© The New York Times

That was almost three times as much as what businesses producing and refining oil in the United States made in the same period in 2025.

© The New York Times

Stephen James Hubbard, the retired teacher arrested soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, said he sometimes lost hope.

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