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

1. The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine failed to make even a hint of progress in their first face-to-face meeting since the war began.

During a meeting in Turkey, they failed to reach an agreement on a cease-fire and on providing safe passage for civilians out of besieged cities, and were still far apart by day’s end. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, declared that a cease-fire was not even on the table.

The meeting was overshadowed by Russia’s bombardment of Mariupol, a city in the south that has quickly become the site of one of the most severe humanitarian crises of the war.

Two weeks into the conflict, Russian forces are making slow advances. Russian troops laid siege to Chernihiv, near the Belarus border, as the mayor reported that the city was running out of burial space amid the rising death toll. Russian forces gained control of the town of Bucha and moved southwest in an attempt to encircle the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. They were also approaching Kyiv from the east.

These satellite photos show the devastation.

2. The economic hits keep coming for Russia.

Goldman Sachs became the first big American bank to exit the country after Western governments imposed a raft of sanctions intended to cripple the Russian economy.

The British government froze the assets of seven Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea soccer club. The Premier League club can continue operating, but it cannot sell tickets or merchandise and is blocked from buying or selling players.

The music world’s most powerful companies — the three major record conglomerates and the touring giant Live Nation — are cutting ties with Russia. Here’s the list of other companies pulling out.

Moscow’s disinformation machine is working in overdrive. Here are four falsehoods the Kremlin is telling its citizens.

3. U.S. consumer prices climbed at the fastest pace in decades in the month leading up to the war in Ukraine.

The Consumer Price Index rose by 7.9 percent in the year through February, a new 40-year high for inflation. Gas prices increased 6.6 percent; for the 12-month period, gas prices rose 38 percent. That number is expected to become even more pronounced in the March inflation report.

Both prices and delivery times to move goods around the world remained at extremely high levels in February. Fresh fruit, vegetables and dairy saw the biggest jump in prices since April 2020.

4. Play ball! Major League Baseball and the players’ union reached an agreement that would allow a full season to be played, ending a contentious lockout.

After an exhausting three days of negotiations, the sides settled in principle on a five-year collective bargaining agreement, ending the second-longest work stoppage in league history. Opening Day, originally scheduled for March 31, would be moved to April 7. The deal would still need to be confirmed by 23 of the 30 team owners.

Elements of the deal include the adoption of the designated hitter in the National League, an expansion of the postseason to include 12 teams and raising the minimum salary.

Now begins a mad dash to the regular season. Despite a flurry of activity before the lockout, there are more than 200 unsigned free agents. Players all over the world now need to get to Arizona and Florida for spring training, which begins this weekend.

5. The T.S.A. will extend its mask mandate on airplanes and public transit through at least April 18 as the C.D.C. reviews its policies.

Under the T.S.A.’s rule, passengers on airplanes, buses and trains and at airports and transit stations must wear masks. The policy was set to expire next week. But the relatively short extension signaled that the federal government might be preparing to wind down the requirement, at least in some places.

On the vaccine front: Parents are facing tough questions on the need to vaccinate young children against Covid. The coming weeks should bring clarity.

6. Something rare could happen ahead of the midterms: This year’s congressional map may turn out to be fair.

Despite continued gerrymandering, a nearly equal number of districts are expected to lean Democratic and Republican for the first time in more than 50 years.

Many analysts believed that Republicans would use the redistricting process to build an overwhelming structural advantage in the House, as they did a decade ago. But, unlike in previous cycles, extreme gerrymanders by both parties have effectively canceled each other out. As a result, the range of likely outcomes is narrowing.

Separately, the 2020 census seriously undercounted the number of Hispanic, Black and Native American residents even though its overall population count of 323.2 million was largely accurate, the Census Bureau said.

7. “I feel hopeless all the time.”

The physical scars of our warming planet — including rising sea waters, melting glaciers and charred forests — are everywhere. But climate change is also inflicting a growing mental toll. The Times spoke with Americans about the stresses and strains of life on the front lines of a changing climate.

In Australia, the prime minister declared a national emergency after more than a week of severe rain caused some of the worst flooding in the country’s history. In the Florida Panhandle, firefighters continued to battle wildfires, although intense storms aided their efforts.

8. Samuel L. Jackson made his name in the movies, as Walter Mosley did in literature. It makes sense that they would meet halfway on television.

“The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” a new limited series on Apple TV+ written by Mosley and based on his 2010 novel, stars Jackson. It tells the story of an Atlanta man in his 90s with dementia who is trying to solve a murder mystery. Along the way, a temporary cure emerges.

The result is “a destination that either we reach ourselves in our own experience, or with people that we know and love and live with,” Mosley said in a conversation with Jackson. Our TV critic enjoyed it — mostly.

9. Considering a trip to Southeast Asia? It’s doable but won’t be easy.

As the once tourist-dependent region reopens its borders after the Omicron surge, travelers should expect more paperwork and higher airfares. On the upside, hotels will be cheaper, and many popular attractions that suffered from overtourism before the pandemic, like Angkor Wat in Cambodia, will be less crowded — at least for a while.

If you’re thinking of traveling, and you’ve got points or miles sitting in airline and credit card accounts, the time to cash in may have arrived. Here’s what you need to know.

10. And lastly, goodbye to a cake boss.

Charles Entenmann once described himself as “just a baker,” conjuring up the homespun image of a small shop like the one his grandfather started in 1898 in Brooklyn. In reality, Entenmann helped turn the company that bore his family’s name into a nationally known symbol of sweetness.

Entenmann, who had a knack for engineering and administration, presided over the automation of the company’s cake lines. He also oversaw the design of a computer-controlled system that carried ingredients to the mixing vats. He died on Feb. 24 at the age of 92.

“We survived where so many other fine baking houses vanished because we stuck to quality and devised ways to control quality,” he told The Times in 1976. “The two-millionth piece of cake must not only be good — it must be as good as the first.”

Jill Foley compiled photos for this briefing.

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