Your Tuesday Briefing: Russia’s Retaliatory Strikes on Ukraine

North Korea’s underwater silos

North Korea broke its silence after a barrage of missile tests on Monday, claiming that it fired a nuclear-capable short-range ballistic missile from an underwater silo. The country has launched 12 missiles in the past two weeks, including one that flew over Japan.

North Korean media said one of the recent tests was a rehearsal for firing nuclear weapons at airports in South Korea, and that Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, personally oversaw some of the launches. The claims suggest that the country is devising ways to make its weapons harder to detect and intercept.

Background: North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile capabilities are Kim’s biggest achievement since taking power more than a decade ago. The country has vowed never to bargain away its nuclear weapons.

Analysis: North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are shrouded in secrecy, making it hard to assess its actual capabilities. Analysts said Kim was using stalled talks with Washington to test and improve his weapons.

Meta’s metaverse is off to a rocky start

The company previously known as Facebook has spent billions of dollars constructing the so-called metaverse, where people inhabit immersive digital environments.

But its first year has been bumpy: Meta’s flagship virtual-reality social network, Horizon Worlds, remains buggy and unpopular. Many employees have said they don’t understand the company’s metaverse strategy. And one executive said that the amount of money spent on unproven projects made him “sick to my stomach.”

Context: The stakes are high for the company, which is racing to transform itself to make up for declines in other parts of its business. Meta’s stock price has tumbled nearly 60 percent in the past year. The company also announced that it would freeze most hiring and warned employees that layoffs may be coming.

India has cultivated jute, a coarse fiber used to make fabrics like burlap, for centuries. In recent decades, the industry has been threatened by synthetic substitutes. But growing global demand for sustainable textiles — especially for reusable shopping bags — is creating a jute resurgence.

Lives Lived

Kevin Locke brought traditional Native American culture to audiences all over the world through flute songs, hoop dances and stories.

Colleen Hoover has sold 8.6 million print books — that’s more than James Patterson and John Grisham combined. And her success has upended the publishing industry’s most entrenched assumptions.

When she self-published her first young adult novel, “Slammed,” in January 2012, Hoover was making $9 an hour as a social worker and living in a single-wide trailer with her husband and their three sons.

Hoover didn’t have a publisher, an agent or any of the usual marketing machinery that goes into engineering a best seller. But seven months later, “Slammed” hit the New York Times best-seller list, and she was soon able to quit her job to write full time. The eclectic author has written romances, a steamy psychological thriller and harrowing novels about domestic violence, drug abuse and poverty.

Her success has happened largely on her own terms, driven by readers who act as her evangelists, driving sales through ecstatic online reviews and viral reaction videos.

Harvest season’s here. This spice-filled bundt cake, made from grated apples and toasted nuts then soaked in whiskey syrup, defies the cliché of the Thanksgiving dessert.

What to Read

“Illuminations,” the comic book titan Alan Moore’s first short story collection, finds Moore working on a smaller scale than his maximalist novels but “still swinging for the firmament,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz writes in a review.

What to Try

A bidet is a better way to clean yourself, writes the TV writer and producer Muna Mire.

Now Time to Play

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Baby’s neckwear (3 letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s all this morning. See you tomorrow. — Dan

P.S. The word “jilky” — a paranormal species in a story by Alan Moore — appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday.

Listen to the most recent episode of “The Daily,” about tactical nuclear weapons and whether Russia could use them.

You can reach Dan and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.