President Vladimir Putin of Russia acknowledged for the first time that “radical Islamists” had carried out the attack on a concert hall near Moscow, while insisting that Ukraine could still have played a role.

“This atrocity can be just an element in a series of attempts of those who have been at war with our country since 2014,” Putin said during a publicly broadcast meeting with government officials, referring to the Ukrainian government. He questioned why the four suspects in the Friday attack, which killed at least 139 people, had been captured in a part of Russia that borders Ukraine.

Russian state media has been pushing the narrative that Ukraine was behind the attack, even though the Islamic State claimed responsibility. The U.S. and France both said that an Islamic State entity was responsible, and Ukraine has denied involvement. Russian investigators have shown no evidence that the four suspects, migrant workers from Tajikistan, have any connection to Ukraine.

The suspects: The four men looked battered when they were arraigned, and videos of them being tortured and beaten during interrogation circulated widely on Russian social media. A New York Times visual investigation linked them to the attack.

The U.N. Security Council passed a Gaza cease-fire resolution

The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, with 14 votes in favor and the U.S. abstaining.

The vote ended a five-month impasse during which the U.S. had vetoed three calls to halt the fighting. The resolution also called for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” and the lifting of “all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance.” The U.S. said it had abstained in part because the resolution did not condemn Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel criticized the U.S. for allowing the resolution to pass and canceled a delegation that had been scheduled to go to Washington to hold talks with U.S. officials about alternatives to a planned invasion of Rafah.

What’s next: Security Council resolutions are considered to be international law, and if Israel ignores the resolution, the Council could impose punitive measures like sanctions. Top Israeli officials indicated that they would not implement the resolution for now.

A date is set for Trump’s criminal trial

Donald Trump is all but certain to become the first former U.S. president to stand trial on criminal charges after a judge rejected his effort to delay the proceeding.

The trial, in which Trump will be accused of covering up a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign, is set to begin on April 15.

Separately, an appeals court panel reduced Trump’s bond in a civil fraud trial from $454 million to $175 million, potentially staving off financial disaster for him. Both developments highlighted the chaotic effects that Trump’s legal troubles could have on the presidential election.

MORE TOP NEWS

• Senegal: Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a young political outsider backed by a powerful opposition figure, won a surprising victory in the West African country’s election, just days after being released from prison.

• Hacking: The U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions on China’s elite hacking units, accusing Beijing’s top spy agency of using them to put malware in critical American infrastructure and steal the voting rolls for 40 million British citizens.

• U.S.: The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has privately said that he wants Congress to pass aid for Ukraine, which many lawmakers in his party fiercely oppose.

• Brazil: Video footage obtained by The New York Times appears to show that former President Jair Bolsonaro spent two days at the Hungarian Embassy, in what may have been an attempt to evade the Brazilian justice system.

• Sean Combs: Federal agents raided homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area that are connected to the hip-hop mogul, who has been accused of sexual assault and sex trafficking in several civil lawsuits.

Business

• Boeing: Dave Calhoun, the airplane company’s chief executive, said he would step down by the end of the year amid Boeing’s most sweeping safety crisis in years.

• Big tech: E.U. regulators told Alphabet, Apple and Meta that they were under investigation over potential violations of the region’s new competition law.

• Solar: Germany, once dominant in solar panels, now finds its industry caught between a glut of inexpensive Chinese panels and the U.S.’s protectionist policies, officials and executives said.

• NBC News: Major anchors are criticizing their own network for hiring Ronna McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as a political analyst.

A Morning Read

My colleague Amelia Nierenberg went to Iceland to explore what she calls the aurora borealis industrial complex. But the northern lights proved more elusive than advertised.

Lives lived: Laurent de Brunhoff nurtured his father’s creation, the beloved elephant Babar, for nearly seven decades. He died at 98. (Click here to see his art.)

Conversation Starters

• Dance: Watch Joseph Gordon perform a section of Alexei Ratmansky’s new ballet, a reaction to the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Our critic praised it for its “fullness and force.”

• Blossom: Flamboyant arrangements of fake flowers are a new hallmark of restaurant design.

• From the deep: More shipwrecks are being discovered than ever before, according to deep-sea explorers.

SPORTS NEWS

Fast starts: How to score a record-breaking goal in six seconds.

Manchester Futsal: Helping to develop the Premier League’s next stars.

Proving his mettle: Carlos Sainz goes from surgery to victory in just 16 days.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Mangia less, for longevity

Valter Longo is obsessed with living longer and aging better. He has built a career around studying aging in his native Italy, which has one of the world’s oldest populations, including several pockets of centenarians who tantalize researchers searching for the fountain of youth.

In addition to identifying genes that regulate aging, he has created a plant- and nut-based diet with supplements and kale crackers that mimics fasting. He says it allows cells to shed harmful baggage and rejuvenate, without the downside of actually starving.

Dr. Longo practices what he preaches, and hopes to see results. “I want to live to 120, 130,” he said.