One central question about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has always been whether Vladimir Putin would be satisfied if allowed to succeed, or if he’d go further, aiming to collapse NATO from within and reestablish a sphere of influence for Moscow that just a few decades ago stretched deep into central Europe. More importantly, could he?

It was U.S. General “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf who said he judged opponents by their capabilities, not their intentions, and on Thursday night last week Russia sent a reminder that it remains capable.

For only the second time since the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, it used one of its 12,000 km-per-hour-plus, multi-warhead Oreshnik missiles, targeting a gas-storage facility outside the West Ukrainian city of Lviv. The location, so close to the Polish border, made it clear that this was a message and that the desired audience was European. Putin was telling Europe’s leaders that he can strike anywhere on the continent, using an intermediate-range ballistic missile that would give very little notice or possibility of interdiction.

This has not been a great period for Russia’s military reputation. In recent weeks and months, Moscow has claimed victories in two Donbas cities, only to have Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy show up to parade for the cameras in one, Kupyansk, and for Kyiv’s forces to hold on in the other, Pokrovsk, after well over a year under attack.

In Venezuela, Russian air defenses failed to stop U.S. aircraft and special forces from breaching the capital to abduct President Nicolas Maduro. There were similar failures to protect allies in Iran and Syria last year. And for all the Kremlin’s success in portraying its victory in Ukraine as inevitable, actual advances have been extraordinarily slow and costly.

As former Australian Army Major General Mick Ryan writes on the Oreshnik strike, this was “the sign of a fearful, worried leader with challenges at home and abroad, and not one that is confident and anticipating victory.”

I’d add that Putin was also expressing frustration over the fact that Ukraine and its European partners seem to have persuaded President Donald Trump to back away from his initial embrace of a 28-point, made-in-Moscow plan for ending the war on its terms. The latest, non-Kremlin draft offers Kyiv security guarantees that would involve stationing French and British troops on Ukrainian territory to ensure the ceasefire held. You can argue about how effective those forces would be if tested (likely a key part of the Oreshnik’s intended message), but Putin’s demands when starting the war were that all North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces should be withdrawn from ex-Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union states. He did not fight it to see NATO deploy to Ukraine.

Trump, in an interview with The New York Times, said he had agreed for the U.S. to play a supporting role in those security guarantees because he believed Putin wouldn’t try to break the ceasefire, in any case. Like Schwarzkopf, you have to ask if that confidence is based on assumptions about the Russian leader’s intent, or his capabilities.

You can make a strong case for why Putin shouldn’t want to risk taking on NATO. It would seem a tall order after the heavy weather Russian forces have made of trying to occupy Ukraine. Western estimates of the country’s military losses run as high as 1.2 million personnel killed or wounded, not to mention thousands of tanks, hundreds of aircraft and more than two dozen warships.

Yet this is misleading. For all their problems, Russia’s mobilized, combat-ready armed forces are considerably larger and more experienced than they were four years ago. Personnel have been replaced, command and control improved and Russian troops have developed advantages in drone and electronic warfare that only Ukraine can match. Tank and artillery numbers now seem to matter less. On top of that, an operation to destabilize NATO would likely be a different kind of conflict than the territorial war of attrition in Ukraine.

A new study of improvements in the Chinese and Russian air forces by Justin Bronk, an airpower specialist at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, makes fascinating reading. He points out that most Russian fighter jets destroyed in the war have been models that would not be of much use in a conflict with NATO. And because the vast majority were either hit while empty on the ground, or while in Russian airspace allowing safe ejection, pilot losses have been much lower. Those pilots are far more experienced and able after four years of high-intensity combat than they were in 2022.

In the meantime, Russia has shifted to a war economy, found sources for sanctioned weapons components and built more planes than it has lost old ones. While it has one or two fewer heavy bombers, its air force is bigger and better at its job. The result, says Bronk, is that the West has lost its guarantee of air superiority over China and Russia just as it had become most reliant on that advantage.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is one of many who believe Europe and NATO have nothing to fear from Putin, because he’s “hyper-rational” and would therefore be unwilling to take on Europe, with its advanced if fractured militaries and vastly larger population and economy.

This could be true, but not because Putin is hyperrational. If he were, there would be no war in Ukraine. NATO would still be honoring its 1997 deal not to station troops on the territory of the alliance’s newer East European members, as it did until Russia annexed Crimea and started a war in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine’s constitution would still prohibit it from joining NATO, as it did until December that year. Finland and Sweden would remain neutral. The outlook for Russia’s economy would be rosy, unburdened by sanctions and lost human capital, and made rich by Europe’s once-insatiable demand for its oil and gas.

If you want a reminder of why Putin went to war, read the 7,400-word screed of historical fantasies and resentments he delivered in a televised address three days before the invasion. So yes, it would make no sense for Putin to restart his war in Ukraine, or to launch new declared or hybrid wars aimed at collapsing NATO. But invading Ukraine didn’t add up either. With the conventional, let alone nuclear, capabilities still at his disposal, it’s plain foolish to act based on assumptions about what he intends.

Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.

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A few months ago, I searched through New York Times Cooking looking for my jalapeño cheddar cornbread. I’d made it dozens of times and wanted to send the link to a friend.

That’s when I realized that I’d never actually published the recipe.

Instead, I’d been riffing on a decade-old brown butter skillet cornbread with maple syrup and whole wheat flour.

Adaptable and forgiving, that brown butter cornbread is the kind of dish that’s easy to make your own. Most of the 500-ish comments are of the “I made this recipe but substituted X for Y” variety — and the changes generally work just fine (except for the cooks who leave out the butter entirely, but that’s on them).

To make my jalapeño cheddar cornbread, I just use the brown butter recipe as a template. Instead of half a cup of maple syrup, I stir in a quarter cup of honey, which is a less sweet and more classic pairing with the spicy chiles. And I usually nix the whole wheat flour, whose nutty flavor is a bit too delicate to come through with all the jalapeños in the batter.

Another change is adding cheddar. Rather than whisk it in, I sprinkle it on in two additions, arranging a layer of cheese in the middle and on top. This helps the cornbread keep a light, fluffy texture and allows the cheese on the surface to get a little brown and crunchy.

As for the jalapeños, I’ve made this cornbread with chopped fresh chiles and jarred, pickled chiles, and both versions have their charms. The fresh jalapeños have a grassy, almost herbal character with a forthright sting. The pickled ones are tangier and more acidic, with a gentler bite. Sometimes I even mix the two for a rounded, complex character. For a milder flavor, you can remove the seeds from the fresh ones and use the lesser amount. You don’t need a lot of jalapeño to get the point across.

By the time I sent my friend the link to my old cornbread and my notes on adapting it, I knew this jalapeño cheddar version deserved its very own recipe. But feel free to change it up — just don’t leave out the butter.

Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread

This moist and nubby cornbread has a caramelized, rich flavor from browning the butter, a slight sweetness from a touch of honey and a fiery punch from jalapeño — either fresh or pickled. Using fresh chiles adds a bright, almost herbal note, while pickled jalapeños are tangier and more robust. Serve the cornbread warm from the pan and slathered with butter, or toasted until the edges turn golden and crisp.

By Melissa Clark

Yield: 8 to 12 servings

Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes

INGREDIENTS

12 tablespoons/170 grams unsalted butter

1/4 cup/84 grams honey

2 1/4 cups/590 milliliters buttermilk, at room temperature

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups/180 grams cornmeal, preferably coarse

1 cup/125 grams all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 to 4 tablespoons chopped fresh or pickled jalapeño, seeded if desired for less heat

1 1/2 cups/6 ounces shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack, or a combination

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a 10- to 12-inch cast-iron skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and cook until the foam subsides and butter is golden and smells nutty, 4 to 7 minutes.

3. Transfer butter to a large heatproof bowl (do not wipe out the skillet). Into the bowl, whisk in honey, buttermilk and eggs until smooth. Then whisk in cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Stir in jalapeños.

4. Scrape about half the batter into the skillet and top with half of the cheese. Repeat with remaining batter and top it with the remaining cheese.

5. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 45 minutes (a 10-inch skillet will take longer than a 12-inch). Cool in skillet for 10 minutes, then slice and serve.

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Last week, New York City launched the Birth-to-2 initiative, offering free child care for children ages 2 and under, regardless of their parents’ income or immigration status, at 15 sites in “neighborhoods with the greatest need.” Here’s how to apply.

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

Last week, New York City launched the Birth-to-2 initiative, offering free child care for children ages 2 and under, regardless of their parents’ income or immigration status.

The $10 million pilot, announced in last year’s city budget agreement, is targeted at the most vulnerable communities and high-needs neighborhoods, officials said.

The initiative is part of the NYC Bright Starts program, and it was pitched to reinforce New York City Public Schools’ existing infant and toddler programs through the federal Head Start program, which offers a variety of services to support school-readiness for children from birth to age 5 for low-income families. Last year, the Trump administration attempted to bar undocumented immigrant children from enrolling in Head Start programs, but a federal judge’s injunction put the effort on hold nationwide in September.

New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) oversees the Birth-to-2 initiative, which will provide approximately 200 seats to infants and toddlers across 15 community-based providers in “neighborhoods with the greatest need,” officials said.  

The new seats are subsidized for up to 10 hours a day, year-round, unlike most seats in the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs, which provide approximately 6.5 hours of care per day from September through June.

The expansion is one of several recent local initiatives aimed at easing child care costs for New York families. Last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $4.5 billion investment for child care initiatives across the state in the upcoming fiscal year.

That includes funding the first two years of a free child care program for 2-year-olds in New York City, called 2 Care, in partnership with new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on the promise of universal child care. That effort will focus on “high needs areas” during its first year, but will expand citywide by year four, officials said.

Child care has become increasingly unaffordable for New York families. A report released by the City Comptroller’s Office last year found that the average price of placing an infant or toddler in a child care center was $26,000 a year in 2024, up 43 percent since 2019.

And a recent survey by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy and Robinhood* found that more than a fifth of city parents reported a “child care” hardship in the last year—meaning they had to cancel or cut back on care because of costs, or place their child in a setting they felt was “inadequate.”  

City Limits has prepared this guide to give an overview of the enrollment process for the Birth-to-2 initiative, based on information shared by NYCPS and providers. The Birth-to-2 initiative pilot began operations on Jan. 5, 2026, and applications opened in late December of 2025. 

There’s no deadline to apply. NYCPS officials confirmed to City Limits at press time that seats in the program are still available, but declined to say how many and where, adding that it’s a shifting number and that they don’t want to discourage potential applicants.

Who’s eligible for the Birth-to-2 initiative?

All New York City children residing in the five boroughs from six weeks old to 2 years old, regardless of the immigration status of the family or child, or parents’ income levels. However, not all participating providers offer care for kids under 1 year of age.

How do I apply?

In person. Families should contact participating programs (listed below) directly to inquire about the registration process, and they should live in or near the providers that they are applying to. Participants are selected on a first-come, first-served basis.

Liza Otano, building principal at Beanstalk Academy in the Bronx, one of the 15 locations taking part in the initiative, encouraged parents to visit in-person to ensure their applications are  complete and, while there, to take a tour of the facility.

What documentation is required to register?

The city’s school registration package for children 0-2, available in 14 languages: English, Spanish, Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (simplified and traditional), French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Uzbek.

Two proofs of address that are no older than 60 days

Child’s birth certificate or passport 

Child’s immunization records, with all vaccinations, and a recent flu shot.

How long does the application typically take to complete? 

When all the documents are brought in, “no more than 20 minutes,” Otano said. Families will be notified of acceptance immediately upon review of documents. “They should complete all documents and submit immediately as seats cannot be held,” she added. 

Which organizations were selected and where are they located?

Bronx

Beanstalk Academy
2901 White Plains Road, Bronx, 10467

Brooklyn

Aleph Day Care
975 E 13th Street, Brooklyn, 11230

Bumble Bees R Us
5721 6th Avenue, Brooklyn, 11220

DMI Prep
2720 86th Street, Brooklyn, 11223

First Step NYC
225 Newport Street Brooklyn, 11212

Friends of Crown Heights
1435 Prospect Place, Brooklyn, 11213

Marie Durdin Childcare
2700 Linden Boulevard, Brooklyn, 11208

United Community Centers/Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation
613 New Lots Avenue, Brooklyn, 11207

Wiser Choice Learning
311 Saratoga Avenue, Brooklyn, 11233

Manhattan

Hudson Guild Children’s Center
459 W 26th Street, Manhattan, 10001

RENA Day Care Center
639 Edgecombe Avenue, Manhattan, 10032

Urban Concepts of New York, Round the Clock Nursery
301B W 130th Street, Manhattan, 10027

Victoria Children’s Center
323 Grand Street, Manhattan, 10002

Queens

Sholom Daycare Briarwood
83-78 Daniel Street, Queens, 11435

What will happen when the slots are filled, but demand continues?

The providers and the NYCPS said they will create waiting lists for any future seats that become available.

The post What You Need to Know: NYC’s Free Child Care Pilot for Kids Under 2 appeared first on City Limits.

By Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — If you’re planning to visit one of the 11 most popular national parks in the U.S., staff might ask a question that could be disquieting: Are you an American citizen?

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said that the question is being posed only to confirm whether the visitor will have to pay a nonresident fee — which is hefty.

The updates to visitor verification and fees was announced in November by the Trump administration, which said that beginning Jan. 1 it would implement “America-first” entry fee policies.

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“U.S. residents will continue to enjoy affordable pricing, while nonresidents will pay a higher rate to help support the care and maintenance of America’s parks,” according to the announcement.

When you present your pass, or if you purchase one at a park entrance, staff must ask for your identification and determine your citizenship status.

According to an internal National Park Service directive obtained by the Washington Post, staffers are instructed to ask visiting groups, “How many people visiting are not U.S. citizens or residents?” The document also stated that “the fee collector does not need to check the identification of every visitor.”

The Times reached out to staff at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon national parks for comment; both parks referred questions to the National Park Service.

When is Park Service staff checking a visitor’s citizenship status?

You will only be asked your citizenship status, by way of ID verification, when buying or using an annual pass, officials say.

“National Park Service staff are not checking immigration status, citizenship, or residency beyond what is necessary to confirm eligibility for a specific entrance fee or pass,” said Elizabeth Peace, spokesperson for the office of the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Peace told The Times in an email that the Park Service had “long required staff to confirm that the name on the interagency pass or fee-based credential matches a valid photo ID.”

The agency’s updated policy is that all digital-pass holders must show a photo identification matching the name on the pass. Acceptable forms of ID include:

U.S. passport
U.S. state or territory-issued driver’s license
state ID
permanent residency card

You can only use a U.S. birth certificate to validate your identity for an Access Pass, which is for residents who have a permanent disability.

Visitors who do not have a U.S. government-issued ID will be asked to purchase a nonresident annual pass, Peace said. Those passes are much more costly.

How much do the passes cost?

The cost of an annual pass, which covers entrance to thousands of recreation areas but not other amenities including camping and parking is:

$80 for U.S. residents
$250 for nonresidents

If a non-U.S. resident is looking to purchase a day-of entrance, it will cost an additional $100 on top of the regular admittance fee, which is $20 to $35.

The increased fees have sparked controversy. The National Parks Conservation Assn. said it backs efforts to increase funding that will support parks but doesn’t want fees to become a barrier “that keeps people from experiencing America’s most iconic places.”

“Charging international visitors more is not uncommon globally,” said Theresa Pierno, president of the association, in a letter to the Department of the Interior, “but any such policy must be designed thoughtfully to ensure it doesn’t cause barriers or even longer lines at entrances.”

In its report, the Post noted that the fees had resulted in longer lines at parks.

Another concern Pierno voiced was how the verification process would affect an already understaffed workforce.

The National Park Service staff has been reduced by 24% since January of last year, which means fewer fee collectors and IT specialists who she said are needed as the new fees are implemented.

Which parks are affected?

The 11 parks that are subject to additional fees for those who are non-U.S. citizens include:

Acadia
Bryce Canyon
Everglades
Glacier
Grand Canyon
Grand Teton
Rocky Mountain
Sequoia & Kings Canyon
Yellowstone
Yosemite
Zion

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.