Author: News Polite

America’s attempt to vaccinate the world against Covid is about to come to an end.

“We are at a point now where without additional funding we are going to have to start winding down our programming,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, the leader of the United States Agency for International Development’s Covid-19 task force. Such funding does not appear to be forthcoming. Our gruesomely dysfunctional politics are going to lead to more illness and death across the globe, and we’re increasing the odds that a new viral mutation will once again upend American life. If it does, we might call it the filibuster variant.

Even for a body as broken and ineffectual as Congress, this level of self-sabotage is hard to fathom. “The biggest risk we face domestically and globally is more new variants,” said Konyndyk. Such variants, he said, are most likely to emerge in chronically immunocompromised populations, including people living with diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis; because they have trouble clearing the coronavirus, it lingers and has more opportunities to evolve.

“That’s likely where Omicron came from, quite possibly where Delta came from,” Konyndyk said. “So making sure that we are targeting those populations for vaccination and then targeting them with the rollout of antivirals is the best insurance policy we have against new variants. It’s not foolproof, but it’s the best we can do.”

But it seems we are not going to do it. Part of the blame for this lies with House Democrats. Far more belongs to Senate Republicans.

The Democrats miscalculated last month when, amid internal dissension, they stripped a $15.6 billion Covid aid package from the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill. Senate Republicans had insisted that the Covid aid come from money that was already appropriated but unspent. So congressional leaders devised a scheme drawing $7 billion from funds that had been set aside for state and local governments in last year’s American Rescue Plan.

House Democrats — as well as governors in both parties — had good reason to object, because state and local lawmakers had made their budgets with that money in mind. Twenty states got their American Rescue Plan money all at once, but in the remaining 30 states it was supposed to come in two tranches. Those states were suddenly looking at substantial budget cuts.

“A bunch of House members said no, we’re not going to vote to cut our own state budgets and have to go home and explain why we’ve cut these budgets,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

After a revolt among her own members, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to pull the Covid aid from the omnibus bill. But if House Democrats thought they’d get another chance to negotiate international Covid funds, they underestimated the nihilism of the Republican Party.

Because of the filibuster, Senate Democrats need 10 Republicans to support a stand-alone Covid bill, and Republicans are balking at more money for international Covid programs. “I’m frankly struggling,” Chris Coons, a Democratic senator known for his commitment to bipartisanship, said of trying to negotiate an agreement. He describes a basic disagreement between the caucuses over the threat posed by Covid. A number of his Republican colleagues, said Coons, have told him, “We’re done with this pandemic.”

Since they’re largely indifferent to whether additional Covid funding passes, some Republicans have used it as leverage in their demand for tougher border policies. They’re holding up authorization of any more Covid aid unless the administration reinstates Title 42, a policy adopted in 2020 to rapidly expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum, all in the name of protecting public health.

The U.S.A.I.D. funding is not fungible — the agency can’t simply transfer resources from other programs to keep its vaccine program going, or to start providing antivirals like Paxlovid. As a last-ditch measure, Coons tried to get Republicans to agree to give the agency emergency authority to move its own money around to address the pandemic, but he couldn’t get enough of them onboard.

As a result of this intransigence, many of the vaccine doses America already donated could go to waste. At this point, there’s no longer a global vaccine shortage — the problem is that many countries lack the infrastructure required to transport and administer them. The impasse in the Senate, Coons said, means we aren’t delivering millions of vaccine shots that we’ve already paid for.

Coons holds out hope that there could be a breakthrough in the Senate in three or four weeks, after it returns from recess. But it’s not easy to restart programs once they’ve been stopped, and in the meantime, we’re pointlessly imperiling both our own health and the health of people all over the planet.

There’s also a political cost to abandoning the rest of the world on Covid. At a time of renewed great-power competition, America’s effective vaccines could give us a diplomatic advantage. Last year, said Coons, “both Russia and China made big fanfares about delivering planeloads of vaccines to dozens of countries in the developing world. Those vaccines are ineffective against Omicron. Our vaccines are effective.” Our Congress, unfortunately, is not.

The Atlanta Dream, looking for a versatile player to help rebuild their roster, selected guard Rhyne Howard from the University of Kentucky as the No. 1 pick in the W.N.B.A. draft on Monday at Spring Studios in New York.

Ahead of the draft, Dream General Manager Dan Padover said the team was looking for a player who brought “fresh energy and sparks something underneath our franchise.”

The Indiana Fever selected NaLyssa Smith, a senior forward from Baylor University, with the No. 2 overall pick. At No. 3, the Washington Mystics chose Shakira Austin, a center from the University of Mississippi.

Howard said she planned to bring to the Dream the same “competitive spirit” she had with Kentucky, where she made sure to stay “calm, cool and collected” to make an impact. In Atlanta, Howard said, she will “continue to make everyone better.”

There is very little Howard can’t do. She is in the top 10 of almost every statistical category at Kentucky, and has scored the second-most points in program history for women and men. Last month, Howard led Kentucky to its first Southeastern Conference tournament title since 1982 when the team handed South Carolina, the 2022 national champion, its second and final loss of the season. Howard, who is from Chattanooga, Tenn., finished her senior year averaging 20.5 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.

Kentucky, a No. 6 seed in the N.C.A.A. Division I women’s basketball tournament this year, lost to No. 11 Princeton in the round of 64. But Howard’s career at Kentucky has helped draw attention to the women’s basketball program at a school best known for its powerhouse men’s team.

To be able to select her, the Dream shook up the draft last week by acquiring the No. 1 pick in a trade with the Washington Mystics. In return, the Mystics will get the Dream’s No. 3 and No. 14 overall picks. The Mystics also have the right to swap first-round picks in the 2023 draft, which is expected to draw deep talent from around the country.

Atlanta finished last season 8-24, the second-worst record in the W.N.B.A., and has missed the playoffs for the past three seasons. Adding Howard to the Dream’s roster immediately bolsters their perimeter game, which should help after the team traded guard Chennedy Carter to the Los Angeles Sparks in the off-season.

“Some drafts are top-heavy; some are deep,” Padover said. “This one is probably the most deep more than anything.” He added that this year’s draft offered the best talent since 2018 or 2019.

This year, 108 college players renounced their remaining N.C.A.A. eligibility to be considered for the draft, more than double than in 2021. International players and those who are no longer eligible to play in the N.C.A.A. will also be considered. But the chances of getting a spot on a roster are slim: There 36 draft slots for the W.N.B.A.’s 12 teams, which have just 12 roster spots each. With only 144 roster spots in all, many players and fans are calling for bigger rosters and more teams, wishes the W.N.B.A. has resisted.

One reason for the increase in college-eligible draft prospects may be the pandemic. College athletes are normally eligible to play four seasons over the course of five years. After the pandemic disrupted schedules, the N.C.A.A. added a special bonus year of eligibility for any athlete who lost playing time during the 2019-20 season.

Should they not make it to the W.N.B.A. this year and still have a season of eligibility, athletes can return to their college (assuming there is still a place for them on the roster).

Julie Roe Lach, the commissioner of the Horizon League, said this year’s draft class mimics the parity seen in the 2022 N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament, which saw six double-digit-seeded teams make it to the round of 16.

“You’ve got some of the names you would expect to see, but we’re seeing more schools with players that look like strong draft prospects,” she said. “That speaks to the increase of talent we’re seeing across the country of these great women basketball players.”

The W.N.B.A. season starts May 6 with eight teams, including the reigning champion Chicago Sky, in action.

Not long ago, I impulsively bought a set of mini exercise bands — thick rubber loops designed to engage your muscles as you stretch them. I was seduced by ads promising they could improve my posture, which is lousy after years of slumping over a computer. They claimed a handful of quick exercises would unhunch my shoulders while I “tone my muscles” and “sculpt my physique.”

Getting a full-body workout with a set of $20 elastic bands was enticing, since I lack the budget or space for fancy fitness equipment.

The benefits of resistance training — workouts that build strength and muscle — are well known. It reduces your risk of diabetes and heart disease. With more muscle, you burn more calories and are less prone to injury. It’s also been shown to strengthen bones and reduce age-related decline in muscle mass.

Could resistance bands, which are relatively cheap, portable and easy to use, be a worthwhile alternative to a gym membership?

Bands build strength and endurance.

The idea of stretchy workout bands is over 100 years old. Some are long, thin tubes; some, like mine, are thick, flat loops with colors designating resistance levels. And they’ve seen a recent resurgence during the pandemic home fitness boom.

Like weights, exercise bands put stress on the muscle, which over time makes the muscle adapt and get stronger. The farther you stretch the band, the greater the resistance.

There are some key differences though. Bands do not rely on gravity, so people cannot use momentum to jerk the weight into position, which can overload the joints and ultimately works less of the muscle, said David Behm, a professor and exercise scientist at Memorial University of Newfoundland’s School of Human Kinetics and Recreation. Bands also allow for movement on a number of different planes and axes, he said, whereas free weights limit you to mostly up-and-down movement.

Bands can engage the body’s major muscles just as well as weights, providing a full-body strength and endurance workout, said Todd Ellenbecker, a physical therapist at Rehab Plus Sports Therapy in Scottsdale, Ariz., and an author of the book “Strength Band Training.”

Research supports this. One study of middle-aged women compared 10 weeks of twice-weekly training sessions using elastic bands with a similar program that used weight machines. The women were tested for upper and lower body strength before and after the program, and results showed that muscle mass, strength and endurance improved at a similar rate in both groups. A systematic review of 18 studies also found no significant difference in muscle activation levels between those using elastic bands and those using free weights.

Dr. Ellenbecker said he works with athletes at all levels who exclusively use bands for resistance training, “and they are successful and injury-free.” But, as with any exercise, you need to be consistent with the exercise, he added. The American College of Sports Medicine guidelines call for strength training at least twice a week, with multiple exercises and multiple reps.

And don’t overdo it, he said. “People tend to gravitate toward bands that are way too strong, or they stretch them too far. It never hurts to start light and build yourself up.”

A well-placed band can improve your form.

Gerard Burley, founder and owner of a Washington D.C. gym called Sweat DC, said exercise bands may be the best option for people new to strength training and can help you master good technique. For example, a common problem when doing a squat is that the knees buckle in.

“The body’s lazy and likes to take the easiest way out,” said Mr. Burley, who goes by Coach G. A mini band around your legs just above the knees helps prevent this. While squatting, focus on pressing the knees outward to keep the band from slipping, while keeping the head and chest up.

Advanced athletes use them too. For example, tennis players will often anchor a band to a wall or pole and loop the other side around the throat of their racket to add resistance and improve the power of their forehand, backhand or serve, Dr. Behm said.

Let them help you do a pull-up.

Exercise bands also provide assistance with hard-to-master exercises like pull-ups, said Vanessa Liu, an online fitness trainer and nutritionist who uses them regularly with clients. In fact, certain bands are designed to loop around a pull-up bar for extra support.

But don’t get too reliant on them. “Eventually you’ll want to take off the band and do it yourself,” Ms. Liu said.

Use them to deepen stretches too. To stretch the hamstring, for example, lie on your back with the looped band around one foot and gently pull that leg toward you, keeping it as straight as you can.

Target the back muscles for posture.

Mobility in the body is what allows you to bend over and pick up a box or sit and stand with ease. As we get older, the connective tissues in our joints change, making us stiffer and less flexible.

“People do mobility exercises with bands to improve posture, reduce stiffness and move more freely and fully,” Ms. Liu said. She often works with clients who have developed stiffness in the shoulders and neck from sitting at a computer.

For posture, Dr. Ellenbecker recommends an exercise he calls an “external rotation with retraction,” which works the rotator cuff muscles in the shoulder and the rhomboids in the upper back. Grasp the band in front of you with both hands and your palms facing up. Slowly move your forearms horizontally outward like you’re feeling under a desk, while lifting your chest and squeezing your shoulder blades together. Return to the starting position and repeat.

Watch your eyes.

A word of caution: Bands can snap back into your face. Eye injuries have occurred this way.

To prevent this, be sure the band is securely attached to an anchor if the exercise calls for that, avoid pulling it directly toward the face or head and inspect it for nicks and tears before use. (You can purchase anchoring devices designed for use with bands. Securing a band by tying it around a stable object like a tree, table leg or post can work well too.)

But in most cases, a snapping band poses little risk of injury. In fact, if someone breaks a band in Mr. Burley’s classes, everyone cheers.

“It usually doesn’t hurt, so we’ll go, ‘Ooh, you popped it, you’re so strong!’” he said.

As for me, I’ve been doing daily strength training with my mini bands for a few weeks now, and while it’s hard to tell if my posture is improving, I do feel stronger and genuinely enjoy my workouts.

A few exercises to get started …

Here are five more exercises that could take the place of classic weight lifting exercises. With all of these workouts, aim for two to three sets, with eight to 12 repetitions (with good form) for each exercise, according to American College of Sports Medicine guidelines. If you have pain or past injuries, talk to your doctor before doing any new exercises.

Glute bridge

Loop mini band just above the knees. Lie on your back with feet flat, and knees bent and shoulder-width apart. Lift your hips while pushing the knees outward until your body forms a straight line from shoulders to knees, and then slowly return to starting position. Repeat. Works the glutes and hamstrings.

Row

Sit on the floor with legs extended, back straight. Loop the resistance band around the soles of your feet. Grip the band with your right hand, and pull it back toward your right hipbone, while squeezing the shoulder blades together and keeping your back straight. Return to starting position. Repeat on the other side. Works upper back, middle back and biceps.

Monster walk

Place the mini band around your thighs, above the knees. Bend hips and knees slightly. Keeping your head and chest up, take a step to one side while keeping the other leg pressed against the band. Keep moving sideways in one direction in a shuffling motion. Repeat the other direction. Maintain posture while stepping and keep the knees pushed apart. Works glutes and quadriceps.

Deadlift

This works best with a long looped band. Stand on the middle of the band with your feet hip-width apart. A loop of the band should be poking out from under the sides of each foot. Squat down and grab each loop. Start the movement by bending at the hips with your back flat and shoulders above your toes. Keeping your back flat, stand back up. As you stand, the resistance should increase. Return to the starting point by bending at the hips. Works legs, glutes and core.

Lying chest press

Lie flat on your back with a long band under the shoulder blades. Grasp the end of the bands and, with elbows bent and fists toward the ceiling, extend your arms fully, pushing upward as you stretch the band. The movement is similar to a chest press with dumbbells or a barbell. Works biceps, triceps and chest.

Jenny Marder is a senior science writer for NASA and a freelance journalist. She was formerly digital managing editor for the PBS NewsHour.

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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Monday.

The next phase of the war will look very different from the battles fought in and around Ukrainian cities. The flatter, more open countryside of Donbas may favor Russia’s armored units and air superiority.

After meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said he came away feeling pessimistic about peace prospects, and that Putin intended to intensify the brutality of the war.

2. Russian conducted a campaign of terror and revenge against civilians in Bucha, Ukraine.

Our journalists spent more than a week in Bucha, the once-prosperous Kyiv suburb, documenting dozens of killings of civilians, interviewing scores of witnesses and following local investigators to uncover the scale of Russian atrocities.

As the Russian advance on Kyiv stalled in the face of fierce resistance, the occupation of Bucha slid into horror. The evidence suggests the Russians killed recklessly and sometimes sadistically before they retreated.

Related: The Biden administration is debating how much the U.S. should assist an investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague into Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Laws from 1999 and 2002, enacted by a Congress wary that the court might investigate Americans, limit the U.S. government’s ability to provide support.

3. President Emmanuel Macron will face the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the runoff of France’s presidential election.

The final results of Sunday’s first round of voting gave 27.8 percent of the vote to Macron and 23.2 percent to Le Pen, who benefited from a late surge that reflected widespread disaffection over rising prices, security and immigration.

That puts the spotlight on Macron’s “dam” of mainstream voters: Those who, time and again, have put political differences aside in the second round and voted for anyone but Le Pen in a so-called “Republican front” to deny the far right the presidency.

Macron is still favored to win re-election, but by a much smaller margin than in 2017, when he last faced Le Pen. The supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftist veteran politician who came in a strong third, could now help determine the election’s outcome on April 24.

In Mexico, a nationwide recall vote overwhelmingly supported President Andrés Manuel López Obrador remaining in office but did not draw enough turnout to be binding.

4. Jared Kushner’s private equity firm secured a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia after leaving the White House, despite a warning that the firm’s operations were “unsatisfactory in all aspects.”

A panel that screens investments for the Saudi sovereign wealth fund objected to the Kushner deal, documents show. Days later, the full board of the $620 billion Public Investment Fund — led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler — overruled the panel.

5. Elon Musk abruptly backed off plans to join Twitter’s board.

Musk, the world’s richest person, announced plans to join the board last week after becoming Twitter’s biggest shareholder. But he apparently pulled a U-turn over the weekend and then published a series of erratic tweets about the social media company that upset employees.

If Musk had taken the board seat, he would have been restricted from buying more than 14.9 percent of Twitter shares and would have been legally required to act in the interest of all shareholders. But no longer: In a new filing today, he said he was entitled to buy more Twitter shares and reserved the right to “change his plans at any time, as he deems appropriate.”

“I believe this is for the best,” Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief executive, said. He warned employees that “there will be distractions ahead” and advised them to “tune out the noise.”

In other tech news, cryptocurrency lobbyists and executives are going state by state to seek favorable regulations and, in some cases, are even writing the bills themselves.

6. Remote work has thrown the future of commuting — along with much of New York City’s economy — into doubt.

PwC, Verizon and a host of other corporations are permanently changing the way they work, making the five-day-a-week trek into Manhattan feel like a relic. That has enormous consequences for New York, whose economy is especially dependent on filling its forests of office towers.

Eric Adams, the city’s mayor, and Gov. Kathy Hochul have stepped up their urgent messaging that the city’s roughly 1.3 million private-sector office workers need to return to their desks. But they may as well be shouting into the wind as society changes around them.

7. MacKenzie Scott’s path to becoming a billionaire philanthropist includes enough reversals of fortune to fill one of her novels.

Scott grew up privileged, though her family’s wealth was a long way from her current estimated $50 billion net worth after her marriage to the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. But her parents declared bankruptcy when she was a teenager, and she needed a loan from a friend to stay at Princeton, where the acclaimed novelist Toni Morrison became her mentor.

After graduation, Scott worked as a waitress and struggled to make rent. She met and married Bezos while working at a financial firm and moved with him to Seattle, where they built Amazon.

Since their divorce, Scott has set about disbursing her enormous fortune with extraordinary speed. She has donated more than $12 billion to 1,257 organizations, with a goal of advancing social justice and equality, all while trying to keep herself out of the spotlight.

8. The freshwater springs of Florida’s underwater caves are at the center of a slow-motion environmental tragedy.

The world’s densest network of underground springs has fascinated humans for thousands of years, but now they are being ravaged by development, over-extraction, climate change and runoff from agriculture and sewage. Their aquifers are depleted and algae blooms have clouded the gin-clear water, depleting the larger ecosystem.

Pollution has also killed the sea grass that sustains Florida’s roughly 7,500 manatees, and many are starving to death. Extreme measures — like feeding them 202,000 pounds of romaine lettuce — may not be enough.

9. Spring is here, along with Easter, Passover and other equinox meals.

10. And finally, how a myth about starlings took flight.

In 1890, an eccentric named Eugene Schieffelin released a few dozen European starlings into Central Park, hoping to introduce all the bird species mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays to America. They now number about 85 million.

But two researchers recently concluded that crucial parts of the tale are false. Schieffelin’s portrayal as a Shakespeare superfan was a nature writer’s error, and records exist of earlier European starling introductions. So what else have scientists and naturalists gotten wrong about the much-reviled bird?

Have a lofty evening.

Eve Edelheit compiled photos for this briefing.

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WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India not to increase his country’s reliance on Russian oil and gas, officials said, part of a global effort by the United States to maintain economic pressure on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. Biden also emphasized growing defense cooperation with India in a virtual meeting with Mr. Modi — a line U.S. officials have increasingly highlighted in the hopes of convincing New Delhi to come off the fence over Russia’s invasion.

In the meeting between the two leaders, Mr. Biden offered to help Mr. Modi acquire oil and other energy from other sources. The United States and its allies have been working for months to deprive President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of the financial resources generated from the sale of oil and gas around the world.

But Mr. Biden stopped well short of pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil, which amounts to about 1 percent of its imports. And American officials said the president did not ask India to condemn Russia by name for the brutal military campaign against its neighbor, a step that India has been unwilling to take since the beginning of the invasion.

“The president made clear that he does not believe it’s in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy and other commodities,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters after the leaders’ meeting, which lasted about an hour.

On Monday, Mr. Modi again declined to single out Russia by name even as he condemned the apparent human rights abuses in Bucha, which the United States and others have said are evidence of war crimes.

“The news about the killings of innocent civilians in the Bucha city was very worrying,” Mr. Modi said in public remarks at the beginning of his meeting with Mr. Biden. He did not attribute the killings to Russia, but said that “we instantly condemned the killings and have called for an independent inquiry.”

India has long been reliant on Russia for military hardware, an important factor in the deep historic ties between the two countries. And so despite global condemnations of Russian aggression in Ukraine, Mr. Modi’s administration has tried to remain neutral — refraining from criticizing Russia, while calling for negotiations and engaging Ukraine with humanitarian assistance.

While American officials have been understanding of the complexity of India’s balancing act, seeing New Delhi as an important ally in the face of an assertive China, they have at times expressed frustration that India’s stance is offering Mr. Putin some cover. Some U.S. officials have warned of consequences if India expands trade with Russia, especially any increase in purchasing oil, as the West tries to tighten sanctions.

India is emblematic of the challenge facing Mr. Biden and other Western allies as they seek to expand the coalition of nations willing to punish Mr. Putin for his actions. The president has said global unity behind economic sanctions is the key to forcing the Russian leader to abandon what Mr. Biden calls his “war of choice” in Ukraine.

But while the United States has had success rallying more than 50 nations, including much of Europe, behind that strategy, India and other countries around the world have held back. India abstained when the United Nations voted to condemn the invasion in March, and again when the U.N. ejected Russia from the organization’s Human Rights Council.

That was not a surprise to Biden administration officials, according to longtime observers of India’s relations with other countries. Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the meeting on Monday underscored the careful American approach to relations with India over the past several decades.

“They understand that forcing India to make a choice is not likely to be effective and might even be counterproductive,” she said. “And so, I think I’ve seen them talk about enabling India to make choices rather than forcing India to make choices. And so they don’t talk about it publicly as choosing camps.”

That frustrates some inside and outside the administration, who believe that India, the world’s largest democracy, and other countries should be more assertive in defending the principles of national borders.

And India’s determination to stay neutral in a conflict that is roiling Europe and much of the rest of the world is likely to be an irritant in the group known as the Quad — the United States, Australia, Japan and India — whose other nations have firmly condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, said the issue highlighted the differences among the four nations even as the group professes to come together around a set of common values.

“The Quad is really about maintaining a rules-based order, and one sovereign country, in Russia, invading and destroying another sovereign country, in Ukraine, is completely contrary to a rules-based order,” he said. “And so, that’s going make future Quad meetings — and we’re going to see them later this year — a bit awkward and a bit chilly.”

But both Mr. Grossman and Ms. Madan praised Mr. Biden and his administration for trying to deal delicately with India. Ms. Madan said there was little to be gained for the United States to try to exert too much pressure on countries that have their own domestic realities.

“You want to try to attract as many people to your positions,” she said, “but also recognizing that there will be a group of countries that will not necessarily be as like-minded as you.”

“The next best thing is to try to continue your efforts to kind of align them with you,” she added, “but if not, keep them nonaligned.”

As part of that effort, Mr. Biden on Monday echoed sentiments that other U.S. officials have expressed in recent weeks in attempts to reassure India that its source of military hardware would not run dry if it took a firmer stance against Russia.

“We share a strong and growing major defense partnership,” the president said in his opening remarks, before the defense and foreign ministers of both countries sat for extended dialogue. “The United States and India will continue our close consultations on how to manage the destabilizing effects of this Russian war.”

India’s defense purchases from the United States have increased over the past decade to about $20 billion. But analysts have said expanding the ties to the point where India’s dependency on Russian military hardware would wane would take time. That would require overcoming deeply rooted hesitancy in the relationship between the United States and India that dates back decades.

In his remarks, Mr. Modi continued India’s delicate line on Ukraine — expressing concern about the suffering caused by the war but refraining from calling out Russia as the aggressor.

“Our talks today are taking place at a time when the situation in Ukraine is very worrying,” Mr. Modi said. “During this entire process I spoke several times to the presidents of both Ukraine and Russia. I not only appealed for peace, but also suggested there be direct talks between President Putin and the president of Ukraine.”

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and Mujib Mashal from Kathmandu, Nepal.

A planned benefit concert in support of Ukraine was canceled in Vienna on Monday amid concerns about the Russian-based ensemble it was to feature, MusicAeterna, which is led by the conductor Teodor Currentzis and is supported by a state-owned bank in Russia.

The concert, organized by the Konzerthaus in Vienna, one of Austria’s premier halls, was to take place on Tuesday and feature MusicAeterna, which is based in St. Petersburg and is financed in part by VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions. The United States and other western countries have recently imposed sanctions on the bank because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Vienna Konzerthaus said it canceled the concert after the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria, Vasyl Khymynets, expressed concern about featuring Russian artists at an event meant to benefit Ukraine. The ensemble’s founder, Mr. Currentzis, who was born in Athens, is a charismatic conductor who has built a large following in Russia and abroad.

“The Vienna Konzerthaus cannot ignore the political dimension of the performance of a St. Petersburg-based orchestra at a time of immense suffering caused by the Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” Matthias Naske, the hall’s chief executive and artistic director, said in a statement. “We understand and share the despair over the war crimes in Ukraine and condemn this aggression without reservation.”

The Konzerthaus said that it would suspend ticket sales for future appearances by MusicAeterna until the group secured an independent source of financing. But it also said it would allow MusicAeterna to perform a separate concert planned for Monday night. (The ensemble already performed at the hall on Sunday.)

Mr. Khymynets and the Ukrainian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The cancellation of the benefit concert comes as tensions between Russia and the west continue to reverberate in the performing arts. Several high-profile Russian artists have lost global engagements in recent weeks because of their ties to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

MusicAeterna, renowned for its intense, electric performances, has come under scrutiny for its connections to VTB Bank, which has helped finance some of its tours and recording projects.

Mr. Currentzis called for peace in Ukraine in a statement issued last month by the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Germany, where he is chief conductor, though he has not directly criticized the Russian government or Mr. Putin.

“Teodor Currentzis and the members of the SWR Symphony Orchestra unequivocally support the common appeal for peace and reconciliation,” the statement said.

The orchestra has said it was aware of MusicAeterna’s association with VTB Bank, but it has continued to defend Mr. Currentzis. “From today’s perspective, this is certainly problematic, but it has existed for a longer period of time,” the statement said, referring to the bank’s support for MusicAeterna.

The benefit concert in Vienna was to feature works by Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and others.

MusicAeterna is set to perform in Germany, Austria and France in the coming weeks. Mr. Currentzis is scheduled to lead the ensemble in a production of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” at the Salzburg Festival this summer, paired with “De temporum fine comoedia” by the German composer Carl Orff.

The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, another major concert hall, said on Monday it had no plans to cancel a series of engagements this week by MusicAeterna.

Before sunrise last Friday, Oz Pearlman loosened up in front of Engineers’ Gate, one of the entrances to Central Park. He rubbed up his thighs and underarms with petroleum jelly, then peeled off his toe socks and coated his feet. This would not be a typical weekday morning jaunt through Manhattan’s preferred and most storied running terrain.

Dressed in Ukraine’s national colors, and wearing two GPS watches to record distance and time, Pearlman laced up his Day-Glo sneakers and stood in the middle of East Drive, in front of a Ukrainian flag, with a handful of spectators. He planned to run all day and into the night as he attempted to break the record for most Central Park loops completed in a single day, while raising money to help Ukrainian children displaced by Russia’s invasion of the country.

Pearlman, 39, who lives in Brooklyn, is better known by his stage name, Oz the Mentalist. (Oz rhymes with “clothes.”) He finished third on Season 10 of “America’s Got Talent” in 2015, and has appeared on “Today,” “Live With Kelly and Ryan” and “Ellen.” His long run would be yet another display of mind over matter.

The record Pearlman hoped to break was set in 2021 by Robbie Balenger, an ultrarunner who rose to prominence by knocking off multiday ultradistance challenges. In 2019, Balenger ran across the continental United States. Last summer, he completed what he called the Colorado Crush: 1,176 miles of running and over 300,000 vertical feet of elevation gain in 63 days, capped off by the Leadville Trail 100-mile race.

According to Fastest Known Time, the digital platform that collects and certifies “F.K.T.s” on terrain both well known — such as the Seven Summits — and obscure, Pearlman would have to do more than simply run one mile longer than Balenger. He would need to complete another full loop.

Although the park itself was created in 1858, the first fastest known time in Central Park was set in 2020 by Aaron Zellhoefer, who ran 11 loops in just over 14 hours. It was one of thousands of F.K.T.s established during the pandemic when races were canceled and runners were looking for new challenges. Many of those records are regional and relatively inconsequential, but this one matters to many. Central Park is a global running destination and home to more than two dozen races each year. It’s where the New York City Marathon ends.

To prepare for the Central Park Loop Challenge, Pearlman completed several runs over 20 miles, usually on the road before or between shows. When he is home in Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife and three children, he literally runs errands, sweating through school drop-offs and pickups. He has trained in Central Park for nearly 20 years and committed every bend of the road, each hill and straightaway, to memory. “It’s home ground,” he said. “That six-mile loop is my comfort zone.”

But there would be a ticking clock. Central Park is open from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., and runners are not permitted on the roads until five minutes after opening. They must be out of the park five minutes before closing time. That gave Pearlman 18 hours 50 minutes to set a record.

At 6:05 a.m. sharp, he took off hot. He ran uptown, counterclockwise, at a pace under 7:30 per mile. Mike Halovatch, a fixture in New York’s ultrarunning scene, was his only pacer for the first loop, which he finished in under 45 minutes. It would have been faster if not for last-minute advice from a stranger who insisted he walk the two big hills.

Pearlman has won the New Jersey Marathon four times and the Hamptons Marathon three times. His personal best in the marathon distance places him just outside the range of men invited to the Olympic trials.

“Oz is a true thoroughbred,” Halovatch said. Referring to Pearlman’s personal best time in the Philadelphia Marathon in 2014, he said, “You run a 2:23 marathon, that’s running.”

Pearlman wasn’t always fleet of foot. He was the lowest ranked runner on his cross-country team in high school, but by then he was already doing magic shows in restaurants. After a divorce left his parents in financial uncertainty, he said, he leaned into magic to put himself through the University of Michigan. After college, he was an entry level analyst for Merrill Lynch and moonlighted as a magician.

He worked restaurants on the Upper East Side, did bar mitzvahs and wowed colleagues at happy hour. His worlds collided during his investment banking career when he was hired to work an event in honor of a Merrill executive. When Pearlman turned a $1 bill into several Benjamins with a snap of his fingers, the boss was impressed, until he found out Pearlman worked for him.

“He said, ‘What the hell are you doing working here?’ And I thought, ‘What am I doing working here?’” Pearlman put in his notice a few weeks later, not long after running his first marathon.

He gradually shifted from standard magic to mentalism. “It’s a bit more cerebral,” he said. “It’s about trying to decipher and reverse engineer the way people think. Essentially, I’m trying to plant an idea in your head or get an impossible thought out of your head.”

He asked me to think of the name of my first crush, who happened to be someone I haven’t seen, heard from or even thought about in decades. He nailed it. While he was running. At Mile 80.

After finishing each loop on Friday, he took a question sent in from among his 812,000 Instagram followers. One asked, “Does running help your mentalism?”

“Mentalism helps my running,” he replied. “If I can get inside your brain, I can get inside my own brain when I’m suffering, dig deep and keep running.”

The sun broke through clouds on his third loop, and his pace held steady as the sky brightened and the miles piled up, much to the concern of Halovatch and his wife, Kate Pallardy, an elite distance runner and triathlete. They have learned from experience that a slower pace early usually yields a better result in this type of event. Pallardy ran 18 miles with Pearlman at midday, just five weeks after giving birth to her third child.

In total, about 40 runners came out to pace him. In typical New York fashion, many of them just happened upon Oz and joined right in. He chatted breezily, and did his best to entertain them all. “It’s the performer in me,” he said. But like Pallardy and Halovatch, he knew the suffering would begin at some point, and just before Mile 50, it hit hard.

“Your mind plays tricks on you,” he said as he finished his eighth loop. “You start thinking of how much further and how much time you have, and doubts creep in. They just eat at you. It’s your mind telling you to quit.”

Twenty miles later, on his 12th loop, his digestion faltered. He had been consuming nothing but gels (he sucked down two or three per lap), caffeine gummies and orange Gatorade. Perhaps that took its toll. Or it could have been that he had worked late the night before and managed only four hours of sleep.

He vomited twice and had to find a toilet. His pace dropped from eight minutes per mile to over 12. The color drained from his face. He felt blisters form on the bottom of his feet. His right shin started to throb. His team filled his hat with ice, which he dumped on his head to wake himself up. Once his stomach settled, he popped more caffeine gummies to keep himself humming.

As is often the case with ultra, that period of pain and deep exhaustion was chased by an extended flow state. Toward the end of his 13th lap, he hit top gear. Rocking to playlists he had curated for the occasion, he sang aloud as he ran. His 91st mile was his fastest: 6:43.

Pearlman completed his 16th loop, and 98 miles, at around 8:20 p.m., to equal Balenger’s distance record. He ran roughly four hours faster than Balenger. Two miles later, he hit 100 miles with a time of 14 hours 36 minutes, beating his own 100-mile record by two hours.

When he finished his 17th lap at 9:15 p.m. to set the Central Park Loop Challenge F.K.T., he paused to hug his wife and celebrate with friends who confirmed that he had also surpassed his fund-raising goal of over $100,000. But he wasn’t done. His pacers, some of them seasoned ultrarunners, wouldn’t let him go home. They insisted he tack on a few more laps to the new Central Park Loop Challenge F.K.T. So a few minutes later, he was running uptown once again.

On his 18th lap, he savored the slower pace and the hills because they allowed him to walk. It was obvious from his expression that his right shin was getting worse. He popped ibuprofen to keep the swelling down and the pain at bay, and kept moving.

His 19th and final loop was his victory lap. “I told the guys, we’re going to finish the way we started: strong. And I just went for it.”

He ran, all out, often with his eyes closed. It was up to his pacers to make sure he stayed on course, and they did. When he reached Engineers’ Gate for the final time just before midnight on Friday, after running a total of 19 loops and 116 miles, he fell to the ground, elated yet spent.

“I had a spectacular day,” he said. “There’s just no other way to describe it.”

Hilary Swift contributed reporting.