Members phkrause Posted May 19 Author Members Share Posted May 19 May 19, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Callie Holtermann explains an interesting internet trend among teenage boys. We’re also covering Israel, Indian Muslims and forever renters. — David Leonhardt Evan Jenkins for The New York Times Trending scents By Callie Holtermann Reporter on the Styles desk There’s something going on with the way teenage boys smell. It’s become a cliché for adolescents to douse themselves in Axe body spray at the first sign of puberty. But lately, teen and even tween boys with money to spare are growing obsessed with designer fragrances that cost hundreds of dollars. Ask a teenager why he wants a $200 bottle of cologne, and he might tell you he’s “smellmaxxing,” a term for enhancing one’s musk that is spreading on social media. “I started seeing a lot of videos on TikTok and thought, I don’t want to miss out,” said Logan, a 14-year-old in Chicago who has been putting his bar mitzvah money toward a collection of high-end colognes. He displays bottles from Valentino and Emporio Armani proudly, in front of his lava lamp, and considers his nearly $300 bottle of Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille to be his signature scent. “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled Axe,” he said. Some teens are buying fragrances with their allowance money, while others request them as birthday or holiday gifts from their parents (with varying levels of success). But they’re moving the needle: Teenage boys’ annual spending on fragrance rose 26 percent since last spring, according to a recent survey by an investment bank. For a story in The Times’s Style section, which was published this morning, I talked to adolescents and their parents about the rise of young scent hounds, and why the cosmetic products of adulthood seem to be catching on earlier than ever. Notes of honey I spent a few months speaking to teenagers at fragrance counters around New York and in online cologne forums. What struck me most was the language they used, which sounded more like the stuff of sommeliers than middle schoolers. The scent Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier has “a really good honey note,” said Luke Benson, a 14-year-old who lives in Orlando, Fla., and says he talks about fragrances with his friends at sleepovers. Tom Ford Noir Extreme, on the other hand, is “a lot spicier and a little bit darker.” “I’d never heard him say a designer name of anything,” Luke’s mother, Brooke, told me. Evan Jenkins for The New York Times Other teenagers name-checked obscure legumes used in perfumery or informed me of their distaste for the scent of oud. One paused our conversation to make sure I was familiar with “sillage,” a French term for how heavily a fragrance lingers in the air. (Now I am.) For many boys, the appeal of designer fragrances is in the air of maturity they confer upon their wearer. Young people say the scents make them feel more adult and talk about them in a manner that emulates the older fragrance influencers they follow online. The influencer effect Over the decades, trendy scents like Drakkar Noir and CK One have gone in and out of vogue among late teens and twenty-somethings. But TikTok influencers appear to be motivating even younger boys to seek out more expensive scents. “Social media and TikTok make people want to be more grown up,” Luke said. TikTok’s fragrance influencers recommend scents for different occasions; date night, going to the gym, attending middle school. Most prominent among them is Jeremy Fragrance, an often-shirtless German with nearly nine million followers. In his videos, he sniffs his fans, trying to guess which scents they are wearing. And a younger generation inspired by Jeremy Fragrance is coming up behind him. Jatin Arora, 18, shares daily fragrance reviews with more than a million followers. His collection of nearly 400 bottles includes many free products from brands, which seem to be catching on to the fact that these influencers can get their products in front of younger buyers. Hannah Glover, a middle-school physical fitness teacher in South Carolina, has been a little bewildered to see her 11-year-old students coming to school with $160 bottles of cologne. “These middle school kids are so impressionable,” she said. “I mean, you can sell them anything.” Glover banned spritzing in her classroom, but it wasn’t enough: Glass bottles keep shattering in students’ backpacks and unleashing their scents upon the entire school. “Sometimes I’d rather take the B.O.,” she said. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s cabinet, threatened to leave the government unless Benjamin Netanyahu answered questions about the future of the war, including a postwar plan for Gaza. Thousands of demonstrators in Tel Aviv called on the Israeli government to negotiate a hostage deal with Hamas. Ambassadors to Israel from the U.S. and other countries gave speeches. A marketplace for survival supplies — including entire aid parcels — has emerged in Gaza. War in Ukraine In Kharkiv, Ukraine. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times Russian forces have moved closer to the outskirts of Kharkiv, raising fears that the northeastern city — Ukraine’s second-largest — could soon be within artillery range. The new Russian defense minister is a technocrat with no military experience. He is also a true believer in Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical moves. More International News In Noida, India. Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times “It is a lifeless life”: Indian Muslims grapple with vilification under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Unchecked urban sprawl and poor infrastructure have strained Mexico City’s water supply. This summer, one critical system may stop working. In Pakistan, where people are particularly suspicious of the security services, a conspiracy theory took hold that gold-painted street performers in Islamabad were spies. France has issued scratch-and-sniff baguette postage stamps ahead of the Olympics. Politics Increased threats of violence are changing how public officials in the U.S. do their jobs: Some say they are reluctant to take on contentious issues. President Biden will deliver a commencement speech at the historically Black, all-male Morehouse College. The audience represent a slice of the electorate that is drifting toward Donald Trump. The Pentagon is expanding its capacity to wage war in space, a response to advances by China and Russia. Other Big Stories In Ithaca, N.Y. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Last year, Tommy Rath was beaten and taken away from a homeless encampment in New York. His vanishing has haunted his family and the city of Ithaca. A record number of migrants to the U.S. has left many with legitimate asylum cases unable to find a lawyer. The Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk defeated the British fighter Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia to become the undisputed heavyweight champion. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Who has the advantage in the presidential debates? Trump. That the debates are occurring at all shows that Biden, trailing Trump in the polls, is desperate. “Time is running out to turn around the public’s dismal view of his presidency,” Liz Peek writes for The Hill. Biden. The low number of debates the candidates agreed to leaves Biden with fewer opportunities to meaningfully gaffe, especially so far out from November. “The guy whose name is on the cover of ‘The Art of the Deal’ just got outmaneuvered,” Jim Geraghty writes for The Washington Post. FROM OPINION We dont always need to use an apostrophe, John McWhorter writes. A.I. chatbots designed to provide lonely people with companionship only discourage them from forming human connections, Jessica Grose writes. Bring back movies dedicated to making us cry, Heather Havrilesky writes. Here are columns by Nicholas Kristof on an invasion of Rafah, and Ross Douthat on Trump’s Manhattan trial. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. ADVERTISEMENT MORNING READS In the Bronx. David Dee Delgado for The New York Times Bouncing: As New York’s Mexican population has grown, lowriders have put a vivid stamp on the city’s car scene. Renters: Many people have decided that renting forever is their best — or only — option. Food fight: Is a taco a sandwich? It depends on the law. Buzz, chirp, wee-oo: Cicadas sing at volumes similar to an airplane. Listen to some species. Vows: Captain Sandy of Bravo’s “Below Deck Mediterranean” finds love on land. Lives Lived: Brig. Gen. Bud Anderson single-handedly shot down 16 German planes over Europe during World War II. After the war, he became one of America’s top test pilots during the “Right Stuff” era. He died at 102. THE INTERVIEW Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Karsten Moran for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is the marine biologist and climate policy expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, author of the coming book “What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures.” We talked about how individuals might change their thinking about the climate crisis. Is it your sense that there are people who want to be involved in climate but are paralyzed by fear or despair? First of all, I don’t think there’s any one way we should be communicating about climate. Some people are very motivated by the bad news. Some people are overwhelmed by that and don’t know where to start. I just saw a study that said if we follow the most plausible possible path to decarbonization by 2050, the amount of carbon emissions already in the air will result in something like $38 trillion worth of damages every year. A future like that is going to involve sacrifices. Whether we choose to embrace it as a sacrifice or reframe it like, No, we’re actually helping — What is it that you don’t want to give up? I don’t want to give up the range of possibilities for my kids. I assume you care about other people on the planet, besides your children. You know, I just don’t know how to think about the future. I’ve done a handful of interviews with people who are thinking about the climate crisis, and the fundamental thing I’m trying to understand is how to think about the future, and I don’t feel like I understand. Perhaps it’s worth saying it’s OK not to be hopeful. I feel like there’s so much emphasis in our society on being hopeful, as if that’s the answer to unlocking everything. I’m not a hopeful person. I’m not an optimist. I see the data. I see what’s coming. But I also see the full range of possible futures. I feel like there’s so much that we could create, and the question that motivates me right now is, ‘What if we get it right?’ Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times. Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS Zoë Schlanger Heather Sten Intelligence: In “The Light Eaters,” the climate reporter Zoë Schlanger looks at how plants sense the world. By the Book: The most interesting thing the artist Kara Walker recently learned from a book? How to skin a man alive. Our editors’ picks: “The Weight of Nature,” about climate change’s impact on our brains, and five other books. Times best sellers: The celebrity memoirs “You Never Know,” by Tom Selleck with Ellis Henican, and Whoopi Goldberg’s “Bits and Pieces” are new this week on the hardcover nonfiction list. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Embrace the dark side. Try a goth cake. Go bold with a yellow bag for summer. Treat your acne. Hang outdoor string lights. Read this before deciding to track your child. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For Trump’s defense team presents its case tomorrow in his trial in Manhattan. Taiwan inaugurates Lai Ching-te as president tomorrow. The French Open begins tomorrow. A British court will hear the appeal of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, against extradition to the U.S. Primary elections in Idaho, Kentucky and Oregon are on Tuesday. Kenya’s president begins a state visit to the U.S. on Thursday. Idaho’s Democratic presidential caucus is on Thursday. The Cannes Film Festival announces the winner of its Palme d’Or award on Saturday. Meal Plan Jessica Emily Marx for The New York Times If, like the Cooking editor Margaux Laskey, the weather where you are is unpredictable, you may want to prepare dishes that work whatever the forecast. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Margaux offers such recipes, including a shrimp pasta and grilled soy-basted chicken with spicy cashews. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was tributary. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 20 Author Members Share Posted May 20 May 20, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering “neopopulism” — as well as the death of Iran’s president, Chinese social media and Taylor Swift versus the Beatles. Hakeem Jeffries, left, and Speaker Mike Johnson. Kenny Holston/The New York Times A flurry of bipartisanship Washington, you often hear, is a place so polarized that our leaders barely get anything done. But that notion is not exactly consistent with the past few years. Consider these major political stories: President Biden — who had already maintained many of Donald Trump’s trade policies — announced last week that he was expanding tariffs on Chinese-made goods. House Democrats this month rescued the House speaker, a Republican whom far-right members of his party wanted to topple after he helped pass a bipartisan foreign aid package. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a progressive leader, has worked on legislation with several conservative Senate Republicans, including Josh Hawley and J.D. Vance. Vance, for his part, recently praised Lina Khan — the chair of the Federal Trade Commission who is one of the most progressive members of the Biden administration — for “doing a pretty good job.” Biden has signed a more significant set of bipartisan bills — on infrastructure, semiconductors, gun violence, the electoral process and more — than any president in decades. My editors recently asked me to make sense of this conundrum: A polarized country in which bipartisanship has somehow become normal. To do so, I spoke with Congress members from both parties, as well as Biden administration officials and outside experts. I emerged from the project believing that the U.S. was indeed a polarized country in many ways — but less polarized than people sometimes think. Sources: U.S. House of Representatives; U.S. Senate | Excludes those who voted “Present” or those who did not vote. | By Ashley Wu On many high-profile issues, especially connected to economics, most Americans share a basic set of views. They favor both capitalism and government intervention to address the free market’s shortcomings. Most Americans worry that big business has become too powerful. Most are skeptical of both free trade and high levels of immigration. Most are worried about China’s rise and its increasing assertiveness. I describe this emerging consensus as neopopulism. For a quarter-century after the end of the Cold War, policymakers operated under a different consensus, known alternately as neoliberalism or the Washington Consensus. It held that market capitalism, left largely to its own devices, would bring prosperity to the U.S. and freedom to the rest of the world. Most Americans were always skeptical of the core components of the Washington Consensus. They worried about a world in which national borders meant less, and goods, capital and people could all move more freely. As it turned out, they were right to worry: Neoliberalism failed to deliver on many of its promises. Incomes for most Americans have grown slowly, and China and Russia have moved away from liberal democracy. Neopopulism is a response to these developments and to public opinion. To different degrees, both Democrats and Republicans — both Biden and Donald Trump — have adopted it. “There are new problems in the world, and a consensus is emerging about what those problems are,” Oren Cass, who runs a conservative think tank, told me. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, has put it this way: “The center of gravity itself is moving, and this is a good thing.” The title of a recent book by the historian Gary Gerstle also captures the change: “The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order.” In the essay that I’ve written, I trace the history of these ideas and describe where neopopulism may go from here. I also talk about the potential excesses of populism and some threats to the recent period of bipartisanship. You can find the article here — and you can leave a comment if you have thoughts. I look forward to hearing what you have to say and plan to reply to some of your comments later today. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Iran President Ebrahim Raisi Vahid Salemi/Associated Press Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran, died in a helicopter crash, state news media reported. The country’s foreign minister also died. Their helicopter crashed in a rugged, mountainous area. Search and rescue teams combed dense forest through rain and fog for hours. There were no survivors. Raisi, a hard-line Shiite cleric, was a protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, will serve as acting president. He must hold an election within 50 days. For Iran, the crash comes at a difficult time: The country faces economic challenges and tension with Israel. War in Ukraine Halyna Semibratska, 101, right, and her daughter Iryna Malyk, 72. Emile Ducke for The New York Times. A small group of older Ukrainians are reliving memories of German occupation during World War II. The Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk became the undisputed heavyweight champion over the weekend. His victory lifted morale at home. Asia Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, was sworn in today. He said he would strengthen ties with the West and resist threats from China. On Chinese social media, young women who appear to be Russian say they support China. They are deepfakes. More International News Gazans are fleeing Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, as Israel pursues a new offensive there. The Congolese army said it had foiled a coup attempt that involved three Americans. Over the weekend, comet fragments exploded over the skies of Portugal and Spain. See videos. Elections President Biden Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times Biden asked the graduating class of Morehouse College, and by extension Black voters, for their support. Age is a big topic in the presidential election. But it isn’t in the Senate, where few have raised concerns about two octogenarians — Bernie Sanders and Angus King — running for another term. What threat does A.I. pose for the election? The Times customized chatbots to be conservative or liberal. See how they spread disinformation. Business Disneyland character workers in California voted to unionize. A Senate inquiry found that BMW imported cars to the U.S. tied to forced labor in China. As traditional congregations shrink, religious organizations offer money and training to aspiring church founders, The Wall Street Journal reports. Other Big Stories Shawna Brady with a photo of her son, Tre’Von Dickson. Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times Columbus, Ohio, had only about 100 homicides a year. A pandemic surge in gun violence has changed things. Every year, tens of millions of farm animals travel across state lines in conditions that can facilitate the spread of disease. More than 60 years ago, Edward Dwight was chosen to be the first Black astronaut, but he was passed over to go to space. On Sunday, he finally made it on a Blue Origin flight. The Northern Lights could return today to Scotland and Northern Ireland. There is a slight chance of visibility across parts of Alaska and northern Canada. Opinions Trust in American higher education is at a low. To revive it, universities should educate students on how to be citizens, Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Harun Küçük write. Marijuana’s reclassification as a less-addictive drug won’t end the harm that’s come from its criminalization. The U.S. has to legalize it, Maia Szalavitz writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss Senator Robert Menendez and the latest election polls. Here are columns by David French on the Trump trial, and Ezra Klein on Biden’s bad election news. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. MORNING READS A quick hello. George Etheredge for The New York Times The animals missed you, too: Prospect Park Zoo will soon reopen months after it suffered rain damage. A Times reporter went for a visit. Coffee table book: Take a walk through the Hamptons with a photographer and her iPhone. Ask Vanessa: “Is there an alternative to the little black dress?” Metropolitan Diary: No cooler? No problem. Lives Lived: Moorhead Kennedy Jr., a foreign service officer, was one of 52 hostages seized in Iran and held for 444 days. He later challenged the U.S. government to reshape its diplomacy with the Islamic world. He died at 93. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Minnesota Timberwolves, in the biggest comeback in Game 7 history, defeated the Denver Nuggets to advance to the Western Conference finals. The Indiana Pacers beat the New York Knicks to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2014. Golf: Xander Schauffele, after a career of close calls, finally won his first major tournament at the P.G.A. Championship. NASCAR: The drivers Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got into a fistfight after a wreck on the second lap of the All-Star Race. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS In Dakar, Senegal. Annika Hammerschlag for The New York Times The Oscar-nominated movie “Io Capitano” follows two young cousins from Senegal — Seydou and Moussa — as they attempt to migrate to Europe. Along the way, they encounter smugglers, armed robbers and the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean. The film’s crew and director have screened it at several places across Senegal, including at youth centers and schools. One viewer at a screening, 18-year-old Barra Gassama, became teary-eyed while watching the movie. His brother died a decade ago trying to make it to Spain. “This reminds me so much of him,” he said. More on culture Swifties Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times Is Taylor Swift more popular than the Beatles or Michael Jackson were? See the results of a test. Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, apologized on social media after CNN published a video of him from 2016 striking and dragging Cassie, his girlfriend at the time. The artist Kehinde Wiley, known for his 2018 portrait of Barack Obama, denied claims of sexual assault made by another artist. The spring art sales at auction houses like Christie’s suggested that minimalism may be out and surrealism is in. Read more takeaways. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Julia Gartland for The New York Times Make a coconut-miso salmon curry in less than 30 minutes. Embrace solitude. Improve your bread baking. Give a useful housewarming gift. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were immobilize and mobilize. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 22 Author Members Share Posted May 22 May 21, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering a decline in drug overdose deaths — plus Trump’s trial, Iran’s president and Scarlett Johansson’s voice. Narcan, an overdose antidote. Amanda Lucier for The New York Times A turnaround Last week brought some rare good news on drugs: Overdose deaths declined in 2023. And while the opioid crisis has taken some surprising and terrible twists over the years, it may finally be turning around. There are two main causes. First, drug epidemics tend to follow a natural course in which the drugs enter a market, spread and then fade away, at least for some time. The opioid epidemic appears to have entered that final phase. Second, policymakers have increased access to both Narcan, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses, and addiction treatment. These changes have saved lives. Today’s newsletter will explain both causes. Faddish cycle Drugs are often faddish; epidemics tend to ebb on their own. Why? Users die. People see the damage that a drug does, and they shun it. Surviving users move on to other drugs that they see as better or safer, sometimes incorrectly. Think of all the drugs that have come and gone over the past several decades, such as crack, meth and synthetic marijuana. (In the case of meth, a comeback is underway. Even the worst fads can return.) The opioid epidemic is no exception. In fact, it has arguably been a succession of three different fads — first opioid painkillers, then heroin and finally fentanyl — that have felt like one. Source: C.D.C. | Chart shows predicted provisional death counts. | By The New York Times In the 1990s, doctors started to prescribe more painkillers. The drugs proliferated not just among patients but everyone else as teenagers took them from parents’ medicine cabinets and peddlers sold them on the black market. By the 2010s, many painkiller users had moved on to heroin as they lost access to the pills — because doctors stopped prescribing them — or sought a stronger high. Then, fentanyl arrived. Fentanyl has been worse than heroin and other opioids. Drug cartels make it in laboratories in Mexico, using ingredients typically imported from China. Before the current crisis, fentanyl was not widely misused in the U.S. It first spread in drug markets across the East Coast and the Midwest in the mid-2010s, consistently causing a spike in overdoses wherever it went. For a little while, its spread largely stopped at the Mississippi River. It was easier to mix with the white-powder heroin popular in the eastern U.S. than with the black tar heroin popular in the western U.S. As fentanyl’s spread briefly stalled, overdose deaths declined nationally in 2018. But then the drug went westward, reaching the Pacific Coast. That new wave, coupled with the Covid pandemic, caused annual overdose deaths to exceed 100,000. So why is last year’s drop different from 2018’s? Opioids, including fentanyl, have already reached every corner of the country; they have few places left to spread. The Covid pandemic is over, taking with it the chaos and isolation that led to more overdoses. The drug users most likely to die have already done so. More people have rejected opioid use. And the remaining users have learned how to use fentanyl more safely. Policy’s impact Some policy changes have played a role in the decline, too. In particular, federal officials have successfully pushed the use of Narcan (also known as naloxone), a medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Police officers and firefighters often administer it. Libraries and schools carry it. Pharmacies sell it over the counter. Some first aid kits include it. People who overdose are now much likelier to get Narcan quickly enough to save their lives. The federal government has also put more money toward addiction treatment, both through Medicaid and through new laws aimed at the drug crisis. The government has pushed doctors to prescribe medications that treat opioid addiction. Some states, like Vermont, have made treatment more accessible and higher quality. Training community members to test for fentanyl. Desiree Rios/The New York Times These changes have not addressed every problem. Patients can struggle to pay for treatment. And some programs continue to use practices not supported by science, such as confrontational approaches and therapies in which patients bond with horses. Still, the policy changes have helped improve the treatment system overall. More to do Even after last year’s decline, annual overdose deaths remain above 100,000. That death toll is higher than all annual deaths from car crashes and guns combined. The introduction of a new drug — the next fad — could still increase that death toll again. Policymakers could speed up the drop in deaths. They could require health insurance plans to cover addiction treatment. They could fund more high-quality treatment. They could reduce the price of Narcan and similar medications. They could better coordinate with China and Mexico to reduce the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. The opioid epidemic is burning out anyway, but its decline could be steeper, saving thousands more lives. Related: A major study found that weed use among teenagers was lower in states where the drug was legal, confounding expectations. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial Donald Trump Dave Sanders for The New York Times The prosecution rested its case in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial after Michael Cohen finished testifying. The defense is likely to rest today. Prosecutors found a photo of Trump with his bodyguard from October 2016, taken shortly before Cohen said he called the bodyguard to discuss the payment to Stormy Daniels with Trump. The defense had challenged Cohen’s account of the call. During cross-examination, Cohen admitted to stealing from Trump’s company. He kept money that was meant to go to a tech company hired to rig polls in Trump’s favor. The defense called Robert Costello, a lawyer who advised Cohen before they had a falling out. Costello testified that Cohen told him that Trump “knew nothing” about paying off Daniels. Cohen previously said that he’d lied to Costello. Trump has often sat still, his eyes closed, during the proceedings. Sometimes he’s sleeping; sometimes he seems to be compartmentalizing, our colleague Maggie Haberman says. A verdict could come next week, answering the question of whether Trump will campaign for president as a convicted felon. Iranian President’s Death In Tehran, Iran. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Iran began funeral events for Ebrahim Raisi, its former president who died in a helicopter crash. A “technical failure” caused the crash that killed Raisi and Iran’s foreign minister, the state media reported. Images of the crash site show that Raisi’s helicopter was a model developed for the Canadian military in the 1960s. Iran struggles to update its aviation fleet because of sanctions. Raisi was a candidate to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, as Iran’s supreme leader. His death complicates a difficult search for the next ruler. Israel-Hamas War Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Yahya Sinwar. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters; Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas for crimes related to Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza. President Biden called the prosecutor’s request outrageous: “There is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.” He later said that what’s happening in Gaza “is not genocide.” A.I. Scarlett Johansson Paul Morigi/Getty Images OpenAI asked Scarlett Johansson, who played a seductive virtual assistant in the movie “Her,” to become a voice of ChatGPT. She said no twice, but the company released an assistant that sounds like her. “I was shocked, angered and in disbelief”: Johansson rebuked Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive. The company has suspended the voice. OpenAI designed a voice of a “lightly flirtatious, wholly attentive woman,” our movie critic writes. Read more about how the voice resembled the one in “Her.” More on Business In Torrance, Calif. Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The seafood chain Red Lobster has filed for bankruptcy. The company plans to close many of its restaurants. The financier Ivan Boesky, who symbolized the brash Wall Street of the 1980s — and paid a $100 million penalty for insider trading — died at 87. 2024 Election Trump and the Republican Party beat Biden and the Democrats in fund-raising for the first time this election. The Biden campaign still has far more cash on hand. Trump’s Truth Social account posted a video with hypothetical newspaper articles about what his victory would mean for America that referred to “the creation of a unified Reich.” His campaign said a staffer had posted it. Other Big Stories Jimmy Chérizier, also known as Barbecue, is one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders. Matias Delacroix/Associated Press Gangs control Haiti’s infrastructure, including police stations and ports. South Africa’s highest court barred former President Jacob Zuma, who is attempting a political comeback, from running for Parliament next week. His new party will still put his face on ballots, complicating the election. Contaminated blood products killed about 3,000 patients of Britain’s National Health Service, a long-awaited report found. The authorities hid their failings for years. Storms could bring tornadoes and damaging winds to the Midwest today. Opinions Arizona has a choice: become more like Texas or more like California. This year’s U.S. Senate race will suggest where it’s headed, Tom Zoellner writes. Samer Attar spent weeks documenting the struggle to save lives in Gaza’s ravaged hospitals. Watch his dispatches in this Opinion Video. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on Trump’s criminal trial and Paul Krugman on the Dow’s hitting 40,000. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York Times Travel: Spend 36 hours on the Spanish island of Minorca. Climate questions: Is biodegradable plastic really a thing? Yes, but it isn’t a perfect solution. Health: How to soothe — and prevent — ingrown hairs. Lives Lived: Bruce Nordstrom, whose grandfather immigrated from Sweden and founded Nordstrom as a small shoe-store chain, was instrumental in turning the retailer into an international fashion giant. He died at 90. SPORTS N.H.L.: The Edmonton Oilers survived Game 7 in Vancouver despite giving up two goals in the final nine minutes. They will play the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Final. N.B.A.: The Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers play in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals tonight. Boston is a favorite. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s style — the skinny ties, button-downs and weather-beaten tan — is unique among this year’s presidential hopefuls. It also might be an electoral advantage: His preppy look evokes, in the American mind, his father and his uncle, the Times’s chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman writes. “It matters because those unstated associations serve to moderate Mr. Kennedy’s more outré positions,” Vanessa adds. More on culture “Kinds of Kindness” stars Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone. Sam Hellmann for The New York Times The Times sat down with the stars of Yorgos Lanthimos’s new dark comedy, “Kinds of Kindness,” which just premiered at Cannes. Penguin Random House, the largest publishing house in the U.S., dismissed two top executives; the industry faces financial challenges. The author of “Crazy Rich Asians” left Singapore’s upper crust when he was 11. He’s still writing about it. The Portal — a live video feed between Dublin and New York City — has reopened. It was shut off last week because of bad behavior on both sides, including a flasher. Stephen Colbert had thoughts about Justice Samuel Alito blaming his wife for the flying of an upside-down American flag. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times Roast a curry-rubbed half chicken with peppers, an ideal recipe for one. Celebrate love with an anniversary gift. Take a portable solar battery charger with you on a hike. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was taxonomy. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — German P.S. We apologize: We told you yesterday that the comments section for David Leonhardt’s article on “neopopulism” would still be open, and it wasn’t. But it’s open again now and will remain so all day. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 23 Author Members Share Posted May 23 May 22, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Azam Ahmed is writing about a hidden history of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. We’re also covering Trump’s trial, Volodymyr Zelensky and “bromakase.” —David Leonhardt Malika mourns her son Ahmad Rahman, who was abducted in front of witnesses in 2016. Bryan Denton for The New York Times America’s monster By Azam Ahmed I covered the war in Afghanistan and went back after the Taliban took over. General Abdul Raziq was one of America’s fiercest allies in the fight against the Taliban. He was young and charismatic — a courageous warrior who commanded the loyalty and respect of his men. He helped beat back the Taliban in the crucial battlefield of Kandahar, even as the insurgents advanced across Afghanistan. But his success, until his 2018 assassination, was built on torture, extrajudicial killing and abduction. In the name of security, he transformed the Kandahar police into a combat force without constraints. His officers, who were trained, armed and paid by the United States, took no note of human rights or due process, according to a New York Times investigation into thousands of cases that published this morning. Most of his victims were never seen again. Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan aimed to beat the Taliban by winning the hearts and minds of the people it was supposedly fighting for. But Raziq embodied a flaw in that plan. The Americans empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals in the name of military expediency. It picked proxies for whom the ends often justified the means. I’ll explain in today’s newsletter how using men like Raziq drove many Afghans toward the Taliban. And it persuaded others, including those who might have been sympathetic to U.S. goals, that the U.S.-backed central government could not be trusted to fix Afghanistan. If there was ever any chance that the United States could uproot the Taliban, the war strategy made it much harder. A savage campaign My colleague Matthieu Aikins and I have covered Afghanistan for years. After America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, we were suddenly able to visit people and places that were off-limits during the fighting. We traveled there, hoping to learn what really happened during America’s longest war. Alongside a team of Afghan researchers, we combed through more than 50,000 handwritten complaints kept in ledgers by the former U.S.-backed government of Kandahar. In them, we found the details of almost 2,200 cases of suspected disappearances. From there, we went to hundreds of homes across Kandahar. The original missing-person complaint paperwork and passport pictures for Salahuddin, a rickshaw driver who disappeared in 2016. Bryan Denton for The New York Times We tracked down nearly 1,000 people who said their loved ones had been taken or killed by government security forces. We corroborated nearly 400 cases, often with eyewitnesses to the abductions. We also substantiated their claims with Afghan police reports, affidavits and other government records they had filed. In each of the forced disappearances, the person is still missing. Even at the time, U.S. officials grasped Raziq’s malevolence. “Sometimes we asked Raziq about incidents of alleged human rights abuses, and when we got answers we would be like, ‘Whoa, I hope we didn’t implicate ourselves in a war crime just by hearing about it,’” recalled Henry Ensher, a State Department official who held multiple posts on Afghanistan. “We knew what we were doing, but we didn’t think we had a choice,” Ensher said. The cost It would be too simple to say that Raziq’s tactics were entirely in vain. They worked in some respects, reasserting government control in Kandahar and pushing insurgents into the hinterlands. Raziq earned the admiration of many who opposed the Taliban. More than a dozen U.S. officials said that without him the Taliban would have advanced much faster. But Raziq’s methods took a toll. They stirred such enmity among his victims that the Taliban turned his cruelty into a recruiting tool. Taliban officials posted videos about him on WhatsApp to attract new fighters. Abdul Raziq at his home in Kandahar City in 2015, shadowed by one of his many bodyguards. Bryan Denton for The New York Times Many Afghans came to revile the U.S.-backed government and everything it represented. “None of us supported the Taliban, at least not at first,” said Fazul Rahman, whose brother was abducted in front of witnesses during Raziq’s reign. “But when the government collapsed, I ran through the streets, rejoicing.” Even some who cheered Raziq’s ruthlessness lamented the corruption and criminality he engendered — a key part of why the Afghan government collapsed in 2021. After Raziq’s death, his commanders went further. They extorted ordinary people and stole from their own men’s wages and supplies. “What they brought under the name of democracy was a system in the hands of a few mafia groups,” said one resident of Kandahar who initially supported the government. “The people came to hate democracy.” Historians and scholars will spend years arguing whether the United States could have ever succeeded. The world’s wealthiest nation had invaded one of its poorest and attempted to remake it by installing a new government. Such efforts elsewhere have failed. But U.S. mistakes — empowering ruthless killers, turning allies into enemies, enabling rampant corruption — made the loss of its longest war at least partly self-inflicted. This is a story Matthieu and I will spend the coming months telling, from across Afghanistan. Read Azam’s investigation, and watch him explain how it came together. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial The defense rested its case in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial. Trump declined to testify. The prosecution cross-examined Robert Costello, a lawyer who once advised Michael Cohen but has since criticized him. The jury saw emails in which Costello seemingly tried to manipulate Cohen on Trump’s behalf as federal officials investigated the hush-money payments. The court is adjourned until Tuesday, when both sides will give their closing arguments. “He wanted to take the stand, but then he saw it was three steps without a handrail”: The late night hosts joked about Trump’s decision not to testify. 2024 Elections Nicole Shanahan Jim Wilson/The New York Times Nicole Shanahan — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate — has called herself a “Silicon Valley princess.” Her past has included drug use and affairs, a Times examination found. Kennedy’s younger sister, Kerry, is leading their family’s opposition to his candidacy. “It’s heart-wrenching to be in this position,” she said. Trump suggested in an interview that he would let states restrict access to birth control. After a backlash, he posted that he would “never advocate” such restrictions. A former aide to Kevin McCarthy won a special election to finish McCarthy’s term in Congress. Read takeaways from yesterday’s elections. More on Politics Rudy Giuliani and 10 other Trump allies pleaded not guilty to charges that they tried to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Arizona. South Carolina barred health professionals from prescribing puberty-blocking drugs and performing gender-transition surgeries for minors. The Biden administration plans to keep fuel prices lower this summer by selling one million barrels of gasoline from a reserve in New England. War in Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with The Times, said the West should defend Ukraine more aggressively without fear of nuclear escalation. Read a transcript of the interview. As Russian forces advance in northeastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military is fighting while slowly falling back to more fortified positions. Israel-Hamas War Spain, Norway and Ireland said that they would recognize an independent Palestinian state. Israel recalled its ambassadors from Ireland and Norway for consultations. Some of Benjamin Netanyahu’s critics have expressed support for him after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor requested a warrant for his arrest. None of the aid that entered Gaza through a U.S.-built pier has been distributed, a Pentagon spokesman said. More International News Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, led prayers at a funeral for the country’s president, who died in a helicopter crash. A Greek court dropped charges against nine Egyptians over the sinking of a trawler with hundreds of migrants on board because the shipwreck was in international waters. In Mexico, howler monkeys are falling dead from trees because of the heat, The A.P. reports. Education At elite colleges, Gen Z — despite their popular image as idealists — are particularly corporate-minded. They say “sellout” is not an insult. The Biden administration canceled $7.7 billion in student loans, bringing the total debt canceled to about $167 billion. Other Big Stories Inside a Singapore Airlines flight. Reuters A 73-year-old man died and dozens of other passengers were injured after a flight from London to Singapore hit extreme turbulence. Storms and at least one tornado caused deaths and considerable damage in Iowa. Opinions Israel and Iran are both vulnerable to collapse. But Zionism is the world’s oldest anticolonialist struggle, and the risks facing Iran are graver, Bret Stephens writes. The world is on the verge of eradicating polio. The effort is succeeding because it has put the people living closest to the disease in charge, Richard Conniff writes. Here are columns by Thomas Friedman on Netanyahu and Thomas Edsall on Trump’s impact. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Kimberly Arcand Supernova or coronavirus? A scientist finds beauty in the “visual synonyms” between the microscopic and the massive. Expiration: Eggs last longer than you think. Letter of Recommendation: One writer praises an unexpected means of escape — conferences. How to: Thinking of going vegetarian? Read this guide. Lives Lived: C. Gordon Bell helped create smaller, more affordable interactive computers that could be clustered into a network. He died at 89. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Boston Celtics won Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals over the Indiana Pacers. “Bring ya ass”: A Timberwolves star’s off-the-cuff comment has become a rallying cry for the state of Minnesota. (They face the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals tonight.) N.F.L.: Aaron Rodgers returned to Jets practice for the first time since tearing an Achilles’ tendon four plays into last season. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Jessica Attie for The New York Times A new sushi experience is on the rise in mainstream American restaurant culture: the “bromakase.” Unlike the tranquil traditional ritual of Japanese omakase dining, these restaurants feature cocktail lounges and hip-hop soundtracks. Bromakases borrow from aspects of high-end American steakhouses — with their excessive tabs, copious consumption and masculine energy — but give them a worldly sheen. Read Brett Anderson’s story. More on culture Chappell Roan Scott Kowalchyk/CBS, via Getty Images Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, singers with big online followings, are having a brush with mainstream success thanks to hook-driven pop tracks. Listen to the Times critic Jon Pareles’s six-minute review of Billie Eilish’s third studio album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” “The Apprentice,” a biopic about Trump’s relationships with his first wife and the lawyer Roy Cohn, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. A Trump spokesman called it “garbage.” Pixar laid off 175 employees and said it would focus on films rather than shows for Disney+. Jenny Erpenbeck’s “Kairos,” a novel about a love affair in the final years of East Germany, won the International Booker Prize for fiction translated into English. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … David Malosh for The New York Times Try chicken Vesuvio, a classic Chicago dish with potatoes and a white wine sauce. Make the most of a small outdoor space. Buy a fast charger. Clean your grill ahead of Memorial Day. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were bluefin and unbelief. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. New York Times Cooking will publish a cookbook — “Easy Weeknight Dinners” — this fall. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 26 Author Members Share Posted May 26 May 24, 2024 SUPPORTED BY CONSUMER REPORTS Good morning. Today my colleague Nate Cohn offers a fresh look at Biden-Trump polling. We’re also covering a state dinner, the N.C.A.A. and driverless cars. —David Leonhardt President Biden greets voters in Wisconsin. Doug Mills/The New York Times A polling risk for Trump By Nate Cohn Chief political analyst The polls have shown Donald Trump with an edge for eight straight months, but there’s a sign his advantage might not be quite as stable as it looks: His lead is built on gains among voters who aren’t paying close attention to politics, who don’t follow traditional news and who don’t regularly vote. Disengaged voters on the periphery of the electorate are driving the polling results — and the story line — about the election. President Biden has actually led the last three New York Times/Siena national polls among those who voted in the 2020 election, even as he has trailed among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last few years, almost all of Trump’s gains came from these less engaged voters. Source: New York Times/Siena College surveys | 2020 data is adjusted to election results. | By The New York Times Importantly, these low-turnout voters are often from Democratic constituencies. Many back Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate. But in our polling, Biden wins just three-quarters of Democratic-leaning voters who didn’t vote in the last cycle, even as almost all high-turnout Democratic-leaners continue to support him. This trend illustrates the disconnect between Trump’s lead in the polls and Democratic victories in lower-turnout special elections. And it helps explain Trump’s gains among young and nonwhite voters, who tend to be among the least engaged. Trump’s dependence on these voters could make the race more volatile soon. As voters tune in over the next six months, there’s a chance that disengaged but traditionally Democratic voters could revert to their usual partisan leanings. Alternately, they might stay home, which could also help Biden. How they’re different It’s not just that less engaged voters are paying less attention. The Times/Siena data suggests that they have distinct political views, and that they get their political information from different sources. In the battleground states, Democratic-leaning irregular voters are far less likely to identify as liberal. They’re less likely to talk about abortion and democracy and more likely to worry about the economy. They overwhelmingly believe the economy is “poor” or “only fair,” while most of their high-turnout counterparts say it is “good” or “excellent.” Source: New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College polls of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada | By The New York Times One important factor might be media consumption. While Biden holds nearly all of his support from voters who consume traditional mainstream media — national newspapers, television networks and the like — the disengaged are far likelier to report getting their news from social media. Biden defectors are concentrated in this group. (A TikTok analysis found nearly twice as many pro-Trump posts on the platform as pro-Biden ones since November.) Low-turnout voters also pose a challenge for pollsters. While millions of them will undoubtedly turn out this November, no one knows just how many of them will ultimately show up — let alone exactly which ones will do so. This is always a challenge for pollsters. But in this cycle, if enough of them stay home, Biden could do much better on Election Day than it appears in the polls. Who will ultimately vote? If there are two consecutive elections with the same level of turnout, you might assume that the same people are voting each time. That’s not the way it works. There’s a lot more churn in the electorate than people realize. Even if the turnout stays the same, millions of prior voters will stay home and be replaced by millions who stayed home last time. Historically, around 25 percent of presidential election voters do not have a record of voting in the previous presidential election. This is partly because of newly registered voters, who usually vote in the next election (and who may have previously voted in a different state). But it’s also because around 30 percent to 40 percent of previous registrants who skipped the last election ultimately show up for the next one. There are good reasons to expect fewer voters in 2024 than in recent cycles, as the 2020 election was the highest-turnout election in a century. But if you think that means that there won’t be many new voters, you’re already wrong: In fact, 10 percent of registered 2020 nonvoters already turned out and voted in the relatively low-turnout 2022 midterms. The usual churn is already at work. Still, Trump’s strength among nonvoters means the exact number of new voters could be decisive. And exactly which new voters show up could also be pivotal. In recent years, Democrats have benefited from a hidden turnout advantage — a tendency for Democratic-leaners who vote to be more anti-Trump than those who stay home. With that history in mind, Democrats can hope that November’s election will draw a disproportionately anti-Trump group of irregular voters to the polls. There were signs of this yet again in The Times’s recent battleground polls. Of course, it’s unlikely that disengaged, irregular voters have already formed solid plans about November. There’s plenty of time for them to make up or change their minds about whom they might vote for — and about whether they’ll vote at all. More on the election Biden’s campaign released an ad aimed at Black voters that featured Trump’s past remarks defending white supremacists. Trump said that only he could get Russia to release Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter jailed in Moscow. Vladimir Putin “will do that for me,” he added. Nikki Haley joins Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr and other Trump critics who now endorse him. Other onetime allies, including Mike Pence and Chris Christie, have refused to. Much of Silicon Valley backs Democrats. But some investors, including two hosts of the popular “All In” podcast, have criticized Biden and embraced Trump. Democrats are investigating Trump’s meeting with oil and gas executives in which he asked for $1 billion in campaign donations and pledged to reverse Biden’s climate policies. Ohio’s governor, a Republican, called a special legislative session to fix a procedural issue that could prevent Biden’s name from appearing on the November ballot there. A MESSAGE FROM CONSUMER REPORTS Shop the tried and tested If it’s in your home or outdoor space, we likely test it. Access CR's expert ratings before you buy. Subscribe Now THE LATEST NEWS Kenyan State Dinner The Bidens with President William Ruto of Kenya and the first lady, Rachel Ruto. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Biden held a dinner in honor of Kenya, but the night was also meant to rally Democratic supporters. Barack Obama was a surprise guest. The guest list also included Bill and Hillary Clinton, Melinda Gates and Sean Penn. See who was there. Biden will designate Kenya as a major ally. Russia and China are also trying to strengthen ties with the country. Supreme Court The Supreme Court allowed South Carolina Republicans to keep a state voting map they drew to benefit their party. A lower court said the map diluted Black voters’ power. Democrats said Justice Samuel Alito should recuse himself from Trump-related cases after The Times revealed that two pro-Trump flags flew above Alito’s homes. Alito was the subject of late night jokes. More on Politics Louisiana’s legislature passed a bill that would designate abortion pills as dangerous controlled substances and make possessing them without a prescription a crime punishable with jail time. The Republican governor is expected to sign it. Senate Republicans again blocked a bipartisan border-security bill. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent who helped negotiate it, also voted no. Voters in Portland, Ore., this week ousted the county’s progressive prosecutor, Mike Schmidt. Schmidt lost to a deputy in his office who pledged to be tougher on crime. Israel-Hamas War Israel said it recovered the bodies of three hostages overnight in northern Gaza, The Washington Post reports. The U.S. military has delivered aid to Gaza through a temporary pier. But aid groups have struggled to distribute the supplies as hungry people have stopped and looted the trucks. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at U.C.L.A. took over a campus building before police officers in riot gear dispersed them. Another group of university presidents — this time from Northwestern, U.C.L.A. and Rutgers — testified to a House committee about antisemitism and pro-Palestinian demonstrations. More International News Rishi Sunak Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “Drowning Street”; “Things can only get wetter”: The British press mocked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for making a surprise election announcement in a downpour. See the headlines compiled by The Guardian. Russia is using advanced technology to interfere with Ukrainian troops’ internet service, which comes from Elon Musk’s satellites, Ukrainian officials said. China has millions of empty apartments. The government has a plan to buy them, but it may not work, Alexandra Stevenson writes. A restaurant collapse in Majorca, Spain, killed at least four people. Other Big Stories The Justice Department sued the company that owns Ticketmaster, arguing that it has an illegal monopoly. The government asked a court to break the company up. Forecasters expect an intense hurricane season this year, with up to 25 named storms. Cannabis now tops alcohol as Americans’ daily drug of choice, a study found. Opinions Abortion rights is a win-win issue for Democrats. It motivates the base and appeals to swing voters, Lakshya Jain and Harrison Lavelle write. An antisemitic conspiracy theorist is running for Senate in Minnesota. That he resonates with voters is a sign of a distorted sense of reality, Michelle Goldberg writes. Here are columns by Paul Krugman on Americans’ views of the economy and David Brooks on populism. Our new offer starts now. Enjoy 7 free days to discover the complete Times experience, from news to games to cooking, sports and more, followed by your first six months for just $1 a week. Try The Times today. MORNING READS A portrait of Carlo Acutis. Pool photo by Vatican Vatican: An Italian teenager is set to become the first millennial saint. Los Angeles: For more than 60 years, Moonlight Rollerway has hosted fantastic skate parties. 36 hours: Take a trip to Traverse City, Mich. Modern Love: “I deserved an Oscar for my performances as best supporting wife and mother. After my divorce, I could no longer pretend.” Lives Lived: Bob McCreadie, one of the winningest drivers in dirt racing history, cursed wildly, drove aggressively and occasionally broke his back in spectacular wrecks. He died at 73. SPORTS The double-overtime goal. N.H.L.: Connor McDavid’s double-overtime goal gave Edmonton a win over Dallas and a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference final. The game lasted nearly four hours. N.C.A.A.: An antitrust settlement could mean college athletes will get paid directly. Read how it might work. N.B.A.: Jaylen Brown scored 40 points and the Boston Celtics are up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference finals after beating the Indiana Pacers. A MESSAGE FROM CONSUMER REPORTS Shop the tried and tested If it’s in your home or outdoor space, we likely test it. Access CR's expert ratings before you buy. Subscribe Now ARTS AND IDEAS In San Francisco. Jim Wilson/The New York Times San Francisco is known for cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge. But tourists are seeking out a new attraction, too: driverless cars. These cars, also known as robotaxis, have been driving the streets of San Francisco in some form since 2009. But Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company, has made driverless rides available to the public. Read more about them. More on culture Frank Lovejoy in “The Hitch-Hiker.” National Film Registry, via Library of Congress The streaming platform Cultpix collects low-budget, high-creativity cult movies. Watch these films on it. Cassie Ventura said she was grateful for the support she received after CNN published surveillance video showing her being physically assaulted by Sean Combs, known as Diddy. Bella Hadid went viral after wearing a dress that looked like a Palestinian kaffiyeh at Cannes, The Cut reports. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times Save the only ice cream recipe you’ll ever need. Make the most of summer. Block noise with these headphones. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was wheeling. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. Masha Gessen, a New Yorker staff writer, is joining Times Opinion as a columnist. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 26 Author Members Share Posted May 26 May 25, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Des Ibekwe is writing about artists from Africa breaking into the Western mainstream — with a playlist for your summer cookout. —Melissa Kirsch María Jesús Contreras Sonic boom By Desiree Ibekwe Writer on The Morning This week, The Times published a profile of Tems, a 28-year-old Nigerian singer-songwriter who, in recent years, has: become the first African artist to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, appeared on the Beyoncé album “Renaissance” and earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing “Lift Me Up” for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” She will release her debut album next month. To me, Tems’s music — which straddles R&B and Afrobeats — has an honesty: Her tone is earthy and her lyrics are direct, often set to production that isn’t particularly ornate. Her hooks, though, are the killer; they are seemingly crafted to be hummed around the house or screamed over speakers. These elements come together to vividly capture a feeling — whether it be heartbreak (“Damages”), defiance (“Crazy Tings”) or piety (“Me & U”). It was unsurprising, then, to learn about her vibes-based songwriting process from the piece. “I just have a sensation, I have signals,” she told the Times reporter Reggie Ugwu. “You’re just the vessel, it’s just coming out of your mouth.” Tems Erik Carter for The New York Times Tems is one of several artists from nations in Africa who have crossed into the Western mainstream. Burna Boy sold out Citi Field in New York last year; in February, the inaugural Grammy for Best African Music Performance went to the South African singer Tyla for “Water.” And Western artists — including Beyoncé, Drake, Usher, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez — have featured African artists in their music or appeared on remixes of already-popular songs. Last year, for Old World, Young Africa, a Times project about Africa’s youth population boom, I spoke with the Nigerian artist Mr Eazi. He told me that one benefit of the growing popularity of music from Africa was that Africans had been able to wrest some control over narratives about their continent. “People are discovering Africa first, not through the lens of CNN or The New York Times,” he said, but “through the lens of the music.” There are several reasons for the global interest — talented artists, the border-melting power of the internet, collaborations with Western stars — but one I can speak to personally, as a Brit, is the role of the diaspora. My relationship with music from the continent started with my father, who often played highlife — songs that crackle with age and feature piercing guitar riffs — sung in the Nigerian language Igbo. (Here’s an example.) As my peers and I grew up, we developed an appreciation for African music independent of our parents. Songs by artists like D’banj, Wizkid and Burna Boy were in frequent rotation at house parties. Burna Boy Daniel Obasi for The New York Times There is a vibrant cultural exchange between the continent and its diaspora. Young Africans in the diaspora attend concerts and music festivals like Afro Nation, and many travel to Nigeria and Ghana to party during the holiday season, which is lovingly referred to as “Detty December.” Mr Eazi told me that the diaspora in places like Britain had played a role in popularizing African music globally: “These were the ones defining what it is to be cool and embracing their Africanness,” he said. Here’s a playlist for your holiday-weekend cookout; it includes big names from the continent and a few artists from the diaspora. Amapiano — a house genre of South African origin — makes an appearance, as does “1er Gaou,” an Ivorian song that’s a staple at African hall parties. Enjoy. Related: Hip-hop, which dominates the French music industry, is injecting new words and phrases from Africa into France’s suburbs and cities. ADVERTISEMENT THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Anya Taylor-Joy in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” Jasin Boland/Warner Bros. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is now in theaters, offers an origin story for Furiosa, the hard-bitten driver played here by Anya Taylor-Joy. Read our critic’s take. For more on “Furiosa,” our Culture desk rounded up reviews from across the internet, and explained where the story fits into the larger Mad Max timeline. Kyle Buchanan has a dispatch from Cannes about two wild films — “The Substance” and “Emilia Pérez” — that are either stone-cold classics or total fiascos, depending on whom you ask. Go inside the amfAR gala, the unofficial closing party for Cannes, which this year featured Cher and the Jonas Brothers. Asian narratives are more prominent than ever in Hollywood, and many feature artful use of different languages. It helps that audiences are growing more comfortable with subtitles. A new animated film, “The Garfield Movie,” seems to fundamentally misunderstand its lazy orange protagonist, our critic writes. Morgan Spurlock, a documentarian known for the 2004 movie “Super Size Me,” in which he ate only McDonald’s food for a month, died at 53. Art A donor gave the Orlando Museum of Art $1.8 million to buy art for its permanent collection. The museum is asking a court to let it spend the money more broadly, to help ease the financial crisis caused by its “Basquiat fiasco.” Two art shows in New York, a fair in Brooklyn and an Yves Klein exhibition uptown, ask if nude art can still inspire or shock. Our reporter bared all to find out. As the spring art auction season came to a close, it was evident that the market for masterpieces has cooled. Other Big Stories The author Caleb Carr’s own dark history drove him to explore the roots of violence, most famously in his 1994 best seller “The Alienist.” He died at 68. Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, locked in a close race for No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart, are both trying to stoke support from their fan bases. Riley Keough, the actress and granddaughter of Elvis Presley, is suing to stop the sale of Graceland by a company that she and her lawyers say is fraudulent. Kabosu, a Shiba Inu dog whose face helped launch one of the defining memes of the last decade, died at 18 years old. THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War Ruins in Rafah this week. Eyad Al-Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military offensive on Rafah, a southern Gazan city. The ruling is unenforceable but deepens Israel’s international isolation. Egypt agreed to let fuel and other humanitarian aid into Gaza via Israel after President Biden spoke to its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Biden’s C.I.A. director will meet with his Israeli counterpart this weekend to try to revive cease-fire talks, which have been on hold. Other Big Stories Countries at the World Health Assembly failed to agree on a treaty for how to handle a future pandemic, including how to ensure equitable vaccine access. Families of the victims of the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting sued Instagram, a gunmaker and the publisher of “Call of Duty,” accusing them of “grooming” the teenage gunman. A gang attack in Haiti killed three members of an Oklahoma-based missionary group. Donald Trump has preemptively cast doubt on the fairness of the 2024 election once a day, on average, since launching his campaign, a sharp increase from 2020 and 2016, a Times analysis found. The drugs Ozempic and Wegovy reduced the risk of complications, heart issues and death in people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, a study found. Our new offer starts now. Enjoy 7 free days to discover the complete Times experience, from news to games to cooking, sports and more, followed by your first six months for just $1 a week. Try The Times today. CULTURE CALENDAR By Andrew LaVallee 🎬 “Hit Man” (Out Now): This is the year (years?) of Glen Powell. After making a big splash in “Top Gun: Maverick,” he starred with Sydney Sweeney in the rom-com “Anyone but You” and has now landed what our movie critic Alissa Wilkinson calls a “romantic, sexy, hilarious, satisfying and a genuine star-clinching turn” as a philosophy professor with an exciting side hustle in “Hit Man.” Directed by Richard Linklater (“Boyhood,” the “Before” trilogy), the movie will begin streaming on Netflix in June, but, as Alissa puts it, “If you can see it in a theater, it’s worth it.” ADVERTISEMENT RECIPE OF THE WEEK Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Potato Salad With Lemon and Mint If you’re planning a picnic or cookout this weekend, you might have potato salad on the brain. As much as I love a classic mayonnaise-drenched version, these can backfire when the temperatures rise, especially if you’re planning for a feast to last all day long. But fear not! I have the perfect alterative, a zippy, herby, olive oil-based potato salad dressed with lemon and mint. This one also contains loads of scallions, which add crunch and a pleasing sharpness while a sprinkle of chile gives it some heat. And it won’t suffer from sitting out for hours, if it’s not all gobbled up before, that is. REAL ESTATE Karine Dubner Beth Coller for The New York Times The hunt: A French-born, Canada-based owner of a fashion brand wanted to find her American dream in the Hamptons. Which home did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $1.6 million: A Queen Anne Revival house in Durham, N.C.; a two-bedroom condominium in Palm Beach, Fla.; or a modern farmhouse in Barrington, R.I. Your next home: After publishing our updated Rent vs. Buy Calculator, The Times wants to hear from readers who recently chose between renting and buying. Tell us your story here. LIVING The Always Pan, by Our Place. Lesley Stockton Instagram pans: A few years ago, direct-to-consumer cookware was all the rage on the internet. Now you can probably find it for free. Dance like it’s the ’80s: TikTok users may skew Gen Z, but some of the hottest videos today feature the moves of their Gen X parents. How to: A guide to becoming vegetarian — or just getting more vegetables into your diet. On the job: Meet a woman who keeps a candy factory running. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER How to pack better There’s one packing essential that Kit Dillon, Wirecutter’s travel expert, recommends to anyone who asks: packing cubes. Is the idea of little bags zipped inside a larger bag a bit silly? Maybe. But in practice it’s actually pretty great. Our experts suggest imagining your suitcase as a dresser, and the cubes as individual drawers. Pack each cube the way you might organize your drawers (for me, that’s swimsuits and underwear in one; shirts in another; pants in a third), and pull out only the one you need as you go. Voilà. Packing, and traveling, made simple. — Sofia Sokolove Wirecutter is giving away a set of packing cubes — and a whole bundle of their favorite travel essentials. (Terms and conditions apply.) GAME OF THE WEEK A practice session in Monaco on Friday. Anna Szilagyi/EPA, via Shutterstock Monaco Grand Prix, Formula 1: There’s a gulf between the allure of the Monaco Grand Prix and the race itself. Monaco is a centerpiece of the Formula 1 season, and perhaps the sport’s most famous event. But, as Ian Parkes explains in The Times, the race has grown more predictable over the years as Formula 1 cars have gotten larger, making it harder to overtake other racers along the tiny country’s narrow, twisting streets. Of course, for many viewers, the competition is secondary to the spectacle of futuristic cars zipping past extravagant yacht parties. Pro tip: More exciting than the grand prix is the qualifying event, in which drivers navigate the course in isolation, trying to log the fastest lap. Their times determine the starting order of the race, which may well mirror the final standings. Qualifying is at 10 a.m. Eastern today on ESPN2; the race is tomorrow at 9 a.m. on ABC NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were machine and mechanic. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 27 Author Members Share Posted May 27 May 26, 2024 Good morning. Today we’ve got a guide to the best Times coverage of the start of summer. We’re also covering Papua New Guinea, John Fetterman and Greek mythology. —David Leonhardt Mission Beach, Calif. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times Summer begins By Lyna Bentahar Memorial Day is a starting gun. While other holidays can be like a finish line — the culmination of so much energy — Memorial Day marks the beginning. The whole summer stretches out in front of us, a track shimmering in the sun. If you’re not yet sure how to spend the long weekend, or the next few months, don’t worry. The Morning has compiled the best ideas and recommendations from The Times to get you ready for the summer. Starting now. For your time outdoors Here’s motivation to get you back in your garden, or to start a new one. Make your outdoor space work for you with these design ideas. A friend of mine recently lamented not having summer break as an adult. Here are ideas to relax even if you work full-time, like her. Outdoor activities — in the mountains or in your backyard — mean a greater chance of injury. Know your first aid basics. Pools are open and families are hitting the beach this Memorial Day. Try these workouts in the water. More people are building ponds in their backyard for swimming. See some examples. The joy of gardening. Ike Edeani for The New York Times For your travels If you’re flying this weekend with some time to kill, test your airport I.Q. with this quiz. If you want some entertainment for a long road trip, here’s a collection of great audiobooks, organized by length. Europe is anticipating yet another season of heat waves. Read how locals, and tourists, are preparing. Here are the best beaches in the U.S. and Mexico for each activity, like swimming, surfing or sand-castle building. Fifty years after working at a Massachusetts hotel, a writer examines what’s changed. Stay at one of these five waterside hotels. For your leisure Read the best fiction and nonfiction of the year (so far). Watch these films this weekend — whether in a movie theater or on your couch. Play these video games if you don’t want to leave your house. Laugh with these new stand-up specials. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War The Israeli military continued its operation in Rafah, southern Gaza, despite an International Court of Justice order to immediately suspend its campaign there. Some in Rafah have chosen not to evacuate, while others have fled and then returned after being unable to find safety elsewhere. In an Israeli prison infirmary, a Jewish dentist aided a seriously ill Yahya Sinwar. Years later, Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, was an author of the Oct. 7 attack. War in Ukraine Vladimir Putin, likely feeling confident about the war and his hold on power, has overhauled his Defense Ministry. Russia is carrying out arson attacks on sites in Europe in a low-level sabotage campaign to undermine support for Ukraine. Some American precision-guided weapons have proved ineffective against Russian electronic warfare, classified Ukrainian reports show. A military branch of professional musicians travels Ukraine’s front lines and taps into a tradition of music as resistance, The Washington Post reports. More International News In Papua New Guinea. Andrew Ruing, via Reuters At least 670 people are thought to have died after a landslide in Papua New Guinea, a local U.N. official said. “They knew that’s where they were supposed to be”: A family member of a missionary couple who were killed in gang violence in Haiti spoke with The Wall Street Journal. Read about why aid groups stay in the country. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi uses wide-reaching welfare programs to create loyal voters. Politics John Fetterman Kenny Holston/The New York Times Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, is picking fights with the progressives he once courted on issues including Israel and immigration. Rates of violent crime in most U.S. cities are down from pandemic-era highs. But rising property crime has made lawlessness an election issue. In Montana, the voting intentions of an influx of wealthy out-of-state newcomers hang over this year’s Senate race. President Biden told West Point’s graduating class that they owed an oath to the U.S. Constitution, not to their commander in chief. See a video. Other Big Stories Severe storms are likely across portions of the U.S., while summer heat settles in across the South. At least five people have died and three others have gone missing on Mount Everest since the beginning of the climbing season. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Should Justice Samuel Alito recuse himself from cases about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack? Yes. The flags in support of rioters on Jan. 6, waved on Alito’s properties, add to the Supreme Court’s crisis of confidence. This incident “is a stark reminder of the importance of maintaining a clear separation between personal beliefs and judicial responsibilities,” Aron Solomon writes for The Hill. No. Justices have expressed political opinions publicly before, such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about Donald Trump. “In all matters of public interest, justices have opinions — and they are appointed to some extent due to their opinions,” Michael Broyde writes for CNN. FROM OPINION The Fresh Air Fund in New York City teaches children about nature — and invites them to dream big, the editorial board writes. We have a civic obligation to protect America’s 236,000 miles of trails, Justin Farrell and Steven Ring write. Here’s a column by Nicholas Kristof on the I.C.J. ruling against Israel. Our new offer starts now. Enjoy 7 free days to discover the complete Times experience, from news to games to cooking, sports and more, followed by your first six months for just $1 a week. Try The Times today. ADVERTISEMENT MORNING READS Akiva Cohen, a trial lawyer. Kirsten Luce for The New York Times Lawsuit: A team built from the sharpest, funniest tweeters is suing Elon Musk. Soccer: What happens when the women’s game has a prominence similar to the men’s? Look to Barcelona. Grief: Ten artists, including the National Book Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward, describe living and creating through loss. Vows: They owe their relationship to the “three Cs” — cancer, Covid and commitment. Lives Lived: Michael Sugrue, after an academic career in near obscurity, became an internet phenomenon during the pandemic after uploading talks he had given three decades earlier. He died at 66. THE INTERVIEW Ted Sarandos Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times By Lulu Garcia-Navarro This week’s subject for The Interview is Ted Sarandos, the co-C.E.O. of Netflix. We talked about Netflix’s desire to be everything for everyone, and what that means for culture. There’s been a lot of discussion about what’s been dubbed “folding-your-laundry shows” — something that isn’t difficult to watch. It’s light, it’s fun, it’s not expensive to make. Netflix has a lot of examples: “Selling Sunset,” “Ginny & Georgia,” “Alone,” the survivalist show. Do you feel as if you’ve cornered the market on that? And is that a title that you want to own? Look, if there’s one quote that I could take back, it would have been in 2012, I said we’re going to become HBO before HBO could become us. At that time, HBO was the gold standard of original programming. What I should have said back then is, We want to be HBO and CBS and BBC and all those different networks around the world that entertain people, and not narrow it to just HBO. Prestige elite programming plays a very important role in culture. But it’s very small. It’s a boutique business. And we’re currently programming for about 650 million people around the world. We have to have a very broad variety of things that people watch and love. So we take a consumer view of quality. The people who love “Ginny & Georgia” will tell you, “Ginny & Georgia” is great. You have a new head of film, and that suggests to me that you’re tweaking strategy. A criticism of Netflix from some corners is that you make too much stuff that isn’t as good as it could be, specifically in movies. Are you trying to make better movies now? I don’t agree with the premise that quantity and quality are somehow in conflict with each other. We’ve had eight best-picture nominees in the last five years on Netflix [turns out, they’ve had nine]. Our movie programming has been great, but it’s just not all for you. And it’s not meant to be all for you. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Victor J. Blue for The New York Times. Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS Marine Buffard Ancient: Novels are taking on the marginalized or vilified women of Greek mythology. Our editors’ picks: “New Cold Wars,” by the Times correspondent David Sanger and his collaborator Mary Brooks, and five other books. Times best sellers: “The Situation Room,” by George Stephanopoulos with Lisa Dickey, is at the top of this week’s hardcover nonfiction list. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Sleep on stylish and durable linen sheets. Take advantage of Memorial Day deals. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For The French Open tennis tournament begins today. Closing arguments for Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan are Tuesday. Manhattanhenge, when the setting sun aligns with the street grid, is on Tuesday and Wednesday. South Africa’s national elections are on Wednesday. The African National Congress faces the threat of losing its majority for the first time since apartheid ended. The verdict for a long-running national security trial against 47 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists is expected to be delivered on Thursday. India’s parliamentary elections, which began last month, end on Saturday. Meal Plan David Malosh for The New York Times Emily Weinstein and the Cooking team have adapted their Five Weeknight Meals recipes into a cookbook, coming in October: “Easy Weeknight Dinners.” In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily features some recipes from the book, including mayo-marinated chicken with chimichurri and coconut-miso salmon curry. You can preorder the book here. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was nationhood. Can you put eight historical events — including a Dow Jones milestone, the first W.N.B.A. draft and the creation of Dogecoin — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 27 Author Members Share Posted May 27 May 27, 2024 Good morning, and happy Memorial Day. Today, my colleague Sarah Diamond has a story on the appeal, and the challenges, of being a military musician. We’re also covering Papua New Guinea, surveillance in China and commercials on streaming. —David Leonhardt The West Point Band. Christopher Lee for The New York Times From audition to boot camp By Sarah Diamond Picture the brass section of a symphony orchestra. Now, instead of formal attire and a brightly lit concert hall, imagine the principal horn player wearing camouflage fatigues, crouching over a loaded rifle at a firing range. For the thousands of classical musicians employed by the U.S. military, this seemingly incongruous image is a reality. The military calls itself the nation’s largest employer of musicians, and its ranks include some of the country’s most coveted musical performance jobs. Seats in premier military bands are often as competitive as those in the top symphonies in the country, in part because of their stability, pay and benefits. There are aspects of the job that might require adjustment for a civilian musician, though. Band members must adhere to strict military standards — such as passing physical fitness tests, wearing a uniform during rehearsal and, most daunting of all, completing 10 to 12 weeks of boot camp with no access to their instruments. My latest story, which published this morning, explores how some musicians become service members. I spent more than eight months following the journey of one euphonium player, Ada Brooks, from her audition for the West Point Band through a freezing stint at boot camp in the Ozarks, to her first concert. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain the unique role that military bands play in the classical music world and the intense demands that come with the job. Shipping out Music and the military have long been intertwined. Drums were used to set the pace of marches, and fifes served as battlefield communication before there were radios. The country’s first military band, the United States Marine Band — known as “The President’s Own” — was formed by an act of Congress in 1798. Loras John Schissel, a senior musicologist at the Library of Congress, said that during the Civil War, band members would put down their instruments, take up their weapons and fight — and then resume playing. Today, a military musician’s duties beyond music can involve performing drug tests for cadets or teaching classes. One West Point Band member told me that she helps maintain the band’s website. And while direct exposure to combat has become increasingly rare for military musicians, it is not unheard-of. In 1941, all 21 musicians aboard the battleship Arizona died in the attack on Pearl Harbor while passing ammunition to the ship’s guns. On Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Army Band helped with search and rescue at the Pentagon. Musicians are trained like infantry soldiers. Christopher Lee for The New York Times A stable career There are scores of regional military bands that represent the armed forces at ceremonies, parades and holiday celebrations across the United States. A smaller group of elite bands — including the West Point Band, The President’s Own, the U.S. Air Force Band, the U.S. Army Band and the U.S. Navy Band — perform at inaugurations and foreign dignitary visits. Seats in the premier bands are particularly attractive. The starting salary is about $70,000, and the musicians also receive tax breaks, education benefits and health care. Because of these factors, band members tend to stay for many years, if not their entire careers. This stability can be appealing for classical musicians, who have fewer opportunities to make a living than many other performers, as Donald Passman, an author and music business expert, explained to me. “It’s ironic that jazz and classical are the most difficult, challenging and require some of the most skilled people, and yet those two areas make much less than pop music,” Passman said. “If you’re a pop musician, you can still do concerts on your own, which is not as easy for a viola player.” Culture shock Some aspects of a military band audition — like playing for a jury hidden behind a curtain, to guard against potential bias — are familiar to most orchestra musicians. Other details are unique to the military. When I attended an audition for the West Point Band, two of the other four candidates said they had to lose weight to qualify, and the finalists were tested for proficiency in marching drills. Military life can be a shock to musicians, most of whom have no prior experience with the armed forces. One tuba player in the West Point Band, Staff Sgt. Alec Mawrence, said that at first it was “a little weird” to have to wear a full combat uniform to play the tuba. “Eventually, your head is shaved and you’re screaming, ‘Yes, drill sergeant,’” he said. But the benefits are apparent. Mawrence, who attended Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, said that he could think of very few others in his graduating class with a career in music. As Brooks, the euphonium player, told me: “Basic training is no big deal compared to 20 years of a performance job.” For more: Read my full story, which includes photographs by Christopher Lee of Brooks’s time at boot camp. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Asia In Papua New Guinea. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More than 2,000 people were buried alive in a landslide in Papua New Guinea, the authorities told the U.N. The ground is still unsteady, complicating efforts to reach survivors. In India, at least 34 people died in two separate fires over the weekend. Analysts have warned for years about the nation’s lack of fire preparedness. China has revived a Mao-era surveillance campaign. The efforts include keeping files on elementary school students. Israel-Hamas War Hamas launched a barrage of rockets at central Israel for the first time in months. The Israeli military said some of the rockets had been fired from Rafah, southern Gaza. Hours later, an Israeli airstrike on a tent camp killed at least 35 people in Rafah, according to the authorities in Gaza. The Israeli military said the operation was aimed at a Hamas compound. More than 60,000 Israelis from the region bordering Lebanon remain displaced, months after being evacuated because of threats from Hezbollah, The Wall Street Journal reports. Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, said he wanted to establish a commission to investigate the failure to stop the Oct. 7 attacks and to analyze Israel’s conduct in the war. More International News Bekkersdal, a Johannesburg township, in February 1994. Joao Silva/Associated Press Thirty years ago, Black South Africans voted for the first time. A photographer recalled the violence that preceded the vote. Europe and the U.S. are trying to catch up to Chinese dominance in clean energy and global manufacturing. One factory in Kenya supplies half of Africa’s syringes. See inside. In a small English village, a group of locals uncovered the remains of a lost Tudor palace. New York City The use of New York hotels as migrant shelters has created a shortage of tourist lodgings, a factor that has lifted the average room rate to record levels. E-bikes have soured the way some New Yorkers view the streets. “What used to be a wonderful walking city,” one resident said, has become “a nightmare.” Other Big Stories In Waycross, Ga. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Sgt. Kennedy Sanders was killed this year when an Iran-backed militia launched a drone attack on a U.S. outpost in Jordan. Her belongings, shipped home, show a glimpse of her life. Powerful storms hit Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Texas. At least 18 people died and hundreds of thousands were left without power. The Libertarian Party chose a former Democrat, Chase Oliver, over Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as its presidential nominee. Recent accidents in the U.S. involving trains controlled remotely has prompted a federal review. Covid variants are coming this summer. The Washington Post explains the government’s muted response and asks: Will anyone care about a surge? Opinions To society, a single, childless older woman is a tragedy. But for Glynnis MacNicol, her life has all the makings of a fantasy, she writes. Catholic traditionalism has organized against the church’s hierarchy and attempts to modernize. Ironically, the movement’s tactics are progressive, Ross Douthat argues. Here is a column by David French on grief and war. Our new offer starts now. Enjoy 7 free days to discover the complete Times experience, from news to games to cooking, sports and more, followed by your first six months for just $1 a week. Try The Times today. MORNING READS Michael Kors, left, and his husband, Lance Le Pere, at Pietro’s. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times A medium-rare goodbye: An old-guard Italian steakhouse — and its regulars — said farewell to the establishment’s longtime Midtown Manhattan home. A holiday’s origin: Read about the history of Memorial Day, which began as a way to remember soldiers killed in the Civil War. Nature: The Times science writer James Gorman suggests studying birds. Their lives are darker than you might imagine. Technology: She lost her right arm in a subway accident two years ago. Now she wears an A.I.-powered prosthetic. Ask Vanessa: “Is it possible to wear neon without looking like a highlighter?” Metropolitan Diary: Help from a well-known stranger. Lives Lived: Don Perlin was a veteran comic book artist who, after decades in the industry, helped create the popular but nontraditional superheroes Moon Knight and Bloodshot. He died at 94. SPORTS Rafael Nadal Dan Istitene/Getty Images French Open: Rafael Nadal, who has won the French Open 14 times, has been insulated from tough matches at the tournament for nearly 20 years — until now. Read a recap of the first day. Golf: The PGA Tour golfer Grayson Murray died by suicide, his family said in a statement. N.B.A.: The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves, pushing their series lead to 3-0. M.L.B.: Ronald Acuña Jr., last year’s National League M.V.P., will undergo season-ending surgery after tearing his A.C.L. Racing: Josef Newgarden won his second straight Indianapolis 500 after a daring last-lap pass of Pato O’Ward. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Kaitlin Brito There was a time that streaming offered a promise — under their models, commercials would be a thing of the past. However, Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+ and Max have recently added ads in exchange for a slightly lower subscription fee, while Amazon turns commercials on by default. Streamers had initially raced to acquire subscribers, but the issue of profit remained and Wall Street started to cool on their businesses. “Perhaps the changed viewing experience was inevitable,” Times reporter John Koblin writes. More on culture Some much-loved soundtracks. The New York Times The Times asked readers for their favorite movie soundtracks, hundreds responded. Read some of their picks, including “Pretty in Pink” and “8 Mile.” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” failed to meet Hollywood’s high expectations over the weekend. The box office is struggling. TikTok users have rediscovered an old rural beauty secret: Bag Balm, a moisturizer originally made for cows’ udders. The 2020s — like the 1970s and 2000s — is an era of experimentation with denim, The Washington Post reports. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times Make a quick and refreshing cucumber salad. Explore these (actually good) Memorial Day sales. Celebrate Pride Month in New York. Go dark when decorating. Sleep better with blackout curtains. Buy a gift for a co-worker. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was clickable. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 28 Author Members Share Posted May 28 May 28, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering China’s support for Russia — plus Rafah, abortion and theater in Ukraine. In Kharkiv, northern Ukraine. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times A proxy war Over the last few weeks, a Russian blitz has claimed more than a dozen villages in northeast Ukraine, near the country’s second-largest city. This summer, Russia will likely continue its offensive push in the country’s east. Russia’s ability to carry out these attacks is in some ways surprising. War is expensive. And Russia’s economy is limited by steep sanctions from some of the richest countries in the world. Yet Moscow has managed to keep paying for its war machine. How? U.S. officials point to China. China has vowed not to send weapons to Russia. But it has supported Russia’s economy by buying oil and expanding other kinds of trade. Russia uses the revenue from that trade to manufacture weapons. It has also bought parts for these weapons from China, according to U.S. officials: Last year, Russia got 90 percent of its microelectronic imports from China, using them for missiles, tanks and planes. Without Beijing’s help, Moscow might still continue its war, but it would do so in a weakened state. Of course, Washington and its allies have also provided support, including actual weapons, to Ukraine. From that angle, the war looks more like part of the broader contest between the U.S. and China — what some analysts call a new cold war — than a one-off conflict. “We are headed into 30 or 40 years of superpower competition and confrontation,” said my colleague David Sanger, who covers national security and recently published the book “New Cold Wars.” Ukraine is just the current front. Today’s newsletter will explain what China stands to gain — and lose — by backing Russia. China’s wager Support for Russia is risky. The U.S. and Europe have warned that they could place sanctions on China if it supports the war. But to China, the benefits of a Russian victory in Ukraine may outweigh the costs. Among those benefits: The war has entangled the U.S. and its allies in a faraway conflict, straining the U.S. military’s ammunition stockpiles. It has made Russia, a big military power, more dependent on China. It has also been instructive: China has ambitions to invade Taiwan, and it has watched Russia’s gamble to see the world’s response — one that has exposed the limits of America’s reach. While Washington got its closest allies to punish Russia for the invasion, big democracies such as Brazil and India continue to buy Russian oil. “Countries around the world won’t follow the U.S. where it wants to go, even with what U.S. officials consider a black-and-white issue like Ukraine,” my colleague Edward Wong, who covers foreign policy, told me. “That is much clearer since the war.” Sergio Lima/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Still, China’s support for Russia could backfire — and in some ways already has. It angered European leaders, who criticized Beijing’s involvement when China’s president, Xi Jinping, visited France this month. Arguably, China’s interference has made it easier for the U.S. to adopt tougher trade restrictions and other policies designed to hurt Beijing. The war united the U.S. and its allies to an extent not seen in decades. If Russia loses, China could be stuck with a diminished partner and frayed relations with some of the world’s biggest economies. To balance the risks and benefits, China has tried to walk a fine line. It has boasted about a “no limits” partnership with Russia. But it also claims it’s neutral in the war and has tried to maintain plausible deniability in its support for its partner. The bottom line Will China’s bet pay off? It depends on the conflict’s outcome. If the U.S. and its allies were to stop supporting Ukraine and it lost the war, China’s biggest partner would come out on top. The West would not look as strong or united as it once was. Knowing this, China might become more aggressive in its territorial claims in Taiwan, the South China Sea and elsewhere. But if the West remained united and Ukraine won, the opposite would be true. Russia would be weakened and embarrassed. The U.S. and its allies would have proved that they remained formidable. And China might reconsider if it could afford to take aggressive action to expand its borders. For more The world’s advanced economies are moving toward an agreement that would use profits from Russia’s frozen assets to help Ukraine. These maps show Russia’s recent advances in the war. Read more about how Russia’s economy has endured Western sanctions. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War In Rafah, southern Gaza. Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Israel faced international condemnation over a strike that was followed by a fire at a camp for displaced Palestinians, killing at least 45 people. Witnesses described charred bodies and flames. A doctor said the majority of the victims he saw were women and children. The strike killed two Hamas officials, the Israeli military said. Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of hiding among civilians and called the killings “a tragic accident.” An Egyptian soldier was killed in a shooting near the Rafah crossing, the Gaza border checkpoint where Israel seized control three weeks ago. More International News In Lucknow, India. Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times “Don’t let anyone divide you”: Aging activists in India are preaching harmony as the ruling party vilifies religious minorities. Many young South Africans, disillusioned with politics, do not plan to vote in tomorrow’s election. The Times spoke with some of them. Sierra Leone has declared a drug called kush a national threat, The A.P. reports. It’s a cheap, synthetic mix containing opioids and a cannabis derivative. British officials are trying to overhaul the financial sector and revitalize London’s reputation as a global financial hub. Politics Politically disengaged Americans are fueling Donald Trump’s poll lead. President Biden has a shot a winning them back — if he can reach them. Closing arguments in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial begin today. Read what to know. Trump has recently appeared in public with people convicted or accused of crimes. He is leaning into an outlaw image, Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich write. The Biden administration published guidelines on the use of carbon offsets, an attempt to increase confidence in the much-criticized practice. Abortion In Wyoming. Jimena Peck for The New York Times Women who terminated pregnancies for medical reasons have emerged as a post-Roe political force in support of abortion rights. Days after Trump’s 2016 election, conservative Christians began planning to overturn Roe v. Wade. Read the untold story from a new book by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer. Tech Space entrepreneurs say that SpaceX is using anticompetitive tactics to squash rivals. Elon Musk’s A.I. company, xAI, said it had raised $6 billion as it seeks to compete with its well-funded competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. OpenAI announced that it had started training a new A.I. model and created a new safety committee. Weather In Arkansas. Melyssa St. Michael for The New York Times “I’ve never seen anything like it”: Tornadoes in parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Kentucky have affected millions of families. Powerful storms are expected to bring strong winds and large hail to much of Texas. But the next few days could be a reprieve for Kentucky. A cyclone in India and Bangladesh killed at least 23 people. Over the last year, the average person experienced 26 extra days of abnormally high temperatures because of climate change, an analysis found. Other Big Stories Bill Walton Earl Wilson for The New York Times The basketball star and commentator Bill Walton died at 71. A dominant center with extraordinary passing and rebounding skills, he won two national college championships and two N.B.A. titles. Manhattanhenge — the few days when the sunset aligns with New York City’s streetscape, and social media fills with gold-fringed skylines — starts tonight. Read what to know. Opinions Senator Ted Cruz argues that paying student athletes is a federal issue. Up to a trillion cicadas will emerge this summer. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience that can make us happier and kinder, Dina Fine Maron writes. Here’s a column by Paul Krugman on climate denialism. Our new offer starts now. Enjoy 7 free days to discover the complete Times experience, from news to games to cooking, sports and more, followed by your first six months for just $1 a week. Try The Times today. MORNING READS At Ballet Tech. Bess Adler for The New York Times Ballet Tech: See inside this tuition-free New York City public school. Millennial midlife crisis: It has arrived. Some people aren’t taking it well, The Cut reports. Italy: A little island near Sicily wants to send its wild goats to new homes. Catching them won’t be easy. Conservation: See how the “tree lobster,” a rambunctious stick insect, escaped extinction. Safety: Gen Z are soaking up misinformation about sunscreen and skin cancer. Lives Lived: Stanley Goldstein helped start CVS in the 1960s and turned it into a pharmacy giant. He died at 89. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Boston Celtics defeated the Indiana Pacers to advance to the league finals. Tennis: Rafael Nadal lost his first-round match at the French Open to the fourth seed Alexander Zverev. It’s probably Nadal’s final time at the competition. N.H.L.: The Dallas Stars defeated the Edmonton Oilers in Game 3 of the Western Conference final. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS In Kyiv. Nicole Tung for The New York Times In downtown Kyiv, people line up for hours to buy tickets for “The Witch of Konotop,” a play based on a classic 19th-century Ukrainian novel that begins with the line: “It is sad and gloomy.” It follows a Cossack leader as he tries to root out witches believed to be responsible for a drought. All the while, a military threat from czarist Russia looms. “It is very hard to overplay the harsh reality Ukrainians are living in now, but theater should feel the mood of the time and the people,” the director said. More on culture Wayne Brady as the Wiz in the show’s Broadway revival. Richard Termine for The New York Times Wayne Brady and Nichelle Lewis, the stars of a revival of “The Wiz,” spoke with The Times about the beauty of an all-Black Broadway show. David Nicholls’s new novel is a love story set during a dayslong hike. That’s “an ideal structure for an affectingly hard-won romance,” our reviewer writes. The choreographer Shay Latukolan, who has worked with Jungle and Childish Gambino, blends old-school showmanship with TikTok dance vocabulary. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Ryan Liebe for The New York Times Make a cold salad with Italian antipasti ingredients. Save money at REI’s big sale. Try a low-impact HIIT workout. Transform your kitchen with an induction cooktop. Buy a very good gift for a very good dog. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was handily. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — German Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 29 Author Members Share Posted May 29 May 29, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the Democrats’ surprising early strength in Senate races — as well as Trump’s trial, U.S.-made bombs in Rafah and photos of space. Images from each of the six candidates’ campaign ads. The New York Times Six populists Recent polls contain a surprising combination of results: Democrats appear to be leading in six tough Senate races even as President Biden trails Donald Trump in the same states. What are these Democratic Senate candidates doing right? To answer that question, I studied their campaigns, looking at advertisements, social media posts and local news coverage. In today’s newsletter, I’ll highlight the single biggest theme that emerged: The six Democrats are basing their campaigns around a populism that harshly criticizes both big business and China. (In a follow-up newsletter, I’ll look at several other campaign themes.) It’s still early in the campaign, obviously, and some candidates who are leading now may lose in November. Still, most of the Democrats in these races aren’t merely ahead in the polls; they also have a track record of winning tough races by appealing to voters who are skeptical of the Democratic Party. I think that their use of populism is crucial to that appeal. ‘Corporate greed’ From a Bob Casey campaign ad. The New York Times Successful campaigns, like movies and novels, tend to have heroes and bad guys. Republicans are comfortable with this idea. Their bad guys in recent years have included criminals, illegal immigrants and cultural elites. Democrats are sometimes squeamish about naming antagonists (other than Republicans) and prefer a higher-minded version of politics. This year’s swing-state Democrats are not squeamish. They portray both China and big business as making life hard on working families. Here’s a flavor of what they are saying about corporations: “I’ll never stop fighting to crack down on corporate greed,” Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio says in one ad. Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania talks about corporate “greedflation” and “shrinkflation.” One ad, set to “Pink Panther”-style music, shows fictional C.E.O.s sneaking around a supermarket at night to shrink product sizes. In an ad for Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, workers talk about how “Wall Street greed” slashed their pensions and say that Baldwin “fought like hell” to restore them. Brown has run a similar ad, in which a truck driver talks about how Wall Street is trying to “screw Ohio workers.” An ad for Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada boasts that she “took on the big drug companies — and won.” Senator Jon Tester of Montana and Ruben Gallego, an Arizona congressman running for Senate, also criticize Big Pharma. “The rich and the powerful — they don’t need more advocates,” Gallego says in an ad introducing himself to voters. “It’s the people that are still trying to decide between groceries and utilities that needs a fighter for them.” ‘The greatest threat’ From a Sherrod Brown campaign ad. The New York Times The other main antagonist is China, which the candidates portray as using unfair trade tactics to undermine American jobs. Tester’s first television ad of the campaign described China as “the greatest threat facing our nation,” Marissa Martinez of Politico noted. Baldwin, in one of her ads, says, “We can’t let China steal Wisconsin jobs.” Casey and Brown have trumpeted their work on a law that requires the federal government to use American steel on infrastructure projects. “We were getting screwed,” a steelworker in Casey’s ad says. In another Brown ad, workers at a washing-machine maker joke about his reputation for looking rumpled, disheveled and wrinkled — and say they don’t care because he fights to protect their jobs against companies that break trade rules. Brown’s blue-collar reputation is central to his uncommon electoral success. He is the only Democrat to have won a Senate, governor or presidential race in Ohio over the past decade. He, Tester and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia (who’s retiring) are the only Democratic senators who represent states that Trump won in 2020. What about Biden? This kind of populism, in which politicians promise to fight for ordinary people against the powerful, was once core to the Democratic Party. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman were more populist than many people now remember. Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign was notably populist, too, as was Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. It’s true that almost all elected Democrats today favor some populist policies, like raising taxes on the rich. But as the party has become dominated by college graduates and white-collar professionals, it has tended to emphasize other issues, like climate change and cultural liberalism, that fail to resonate with working-class Americans. Remember — most Americans don’t have a bachelor’s degree. Biden has shown some signs of running a populist campaign this year. (He has begun to emphasize Trump’s wealth, as my colleague Jess Bidgood has noted.) Still, Biden devotes more attention to Trump’s anti-democratic behavior and to what Biden calls “the very soul of America.” Democracy is obviously a vital issue. So far, though, the polls suggest that pocketbook issues may be more resonant this year. For more: My recent essay on “neopopulism” tries to explain why many Americans are so frustrated with the economy. And you can watch the campaign ads mentioned in today’s newsletter here. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial Donald Trump Pool photo by Spencer Platt The prosecution and the defense made their closing arguments in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial. The jury will begin deliberating today. Trump’s lawyer tried to undermine Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s key witness, calling him the “M.V.P. of liars” and “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt.” Read takeaways from the trial. The prosecution walked jurors through their case over more than five hours, describing “a conspiracy and a coverup” and calling the hush money an “effort to hoodwink the American voter.” Prosecutors also sought to bolster Cohen’s credibility. In a moment of stagecraft, one of them feigned a short phone call to show that Cohen could have spoken to both Trump and his bodyguard in quick succession, as Cohen testified. 2024 Election Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the removal of Confederate monuments as “destroying history,” adding there were “heroes in the Confederacy who didn’t have slaves.” Many of the Republicans angling to be Trump’s running mate have visited him in court or joined him at rallies. Senator Marco Rubio is trying a quieter strategy. An early deadline threatened to keep Biden off the ballot in Ohio. To get around it, Democrats will nominate him virtually before their official convention. More Politics Justice Samuel Alito said his wife flew an upside-down American flag in response to a neighbor’s insult. But the name-calling happened weeks after the flag came down, and the neighbor says Alito’s wife started the conflict. The judge overseeing Trump’s classified documents case denied prosecutors’ request for a gag order. The request was a response to Trump’s claim that Biden authorized F.B.I. agents to kill him during their raid on Mar-a-Lago. In Senator Robert Menendez’s bribery case, prosecutors showed private messages between Menendez and his future wife — what they say was the start of a conspiracy. Israel-Hamas War Israeli forces used U.S.-made bombs in the strike that killed dozens of Palestinians on Sunday when fires spread quickly through a camp for displaced people near Rafah. Israel said it had sent more combat troops to southern Gaza. Nikki Haley wrote “Finish Them!” on Israeli artillery shells during a Memorial Day visit to Israel, CNN reports. A floating pier built by the U.S. to get more aid into Gaza broke apart in rough seas. The U.S. will try to repair it. The Great Omari Mosque has been central to life in Gaza for centuries. It has been badly damaged during the war. South Africa’s Election South Africans vote today. It’s the country’s most consequential election since the end of apartheid 30 years ago. Read what to know. Polls predict that the governing party will receive less than half the national vote for the first time since 1994. Learn about its competitors. More International News Pope Francis Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters Pope Francis apologized after the Italian media reported that he had used an anti-gay slur in a private meeting with bishops. Haiti named a new prime minister, Garry Conille. He takes office in a deep crisis and is expected to serve until elections can be held. There will be no French fries for athletes at the Olympics. France is trying to update its culinary reputation, and chefs will serve quinoa instead. Other Big Stories In Valley View, Texas. Julio Cortez/Associated Press A storm with high winds and golf-ball-sized hail killed one person in Texas and left half a million without power. In a private text thread, a group of Mississippi deputies joked about rape, shooting people and shocking suspects in the genitals, a Times investigation found. Their supervisor often joined in the conversations. A federal judge sentenced an executive at the failed crypto exchange FTX to seven and a half years in prison. Opinions Democrats want criminal law to decide whether Trump is worthy of a second term. It’s really for voters to decide, Matthew Walther writes. By taking fewer positions on hot-button issues, universities can promote the intellectual pursuit of truth, argue Noah Feldman and Alison Simmons, who helped write Harvard’s new policy. Here is a column by Bret Stephens on necessary wars. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover all of The Times, from news to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Discover The Times now. MORNING READS Wet striped shrimp. Chris M. Rogers/Gallery Stock Shellfish: Americans love shrimp. Is it good for you? Flaco the Owl: The American Museum of Natural History will keep Flaco’s remains. Ask Well: Influencers say you should delay your morning caffeine for a better buzz. We fact-checked their claims. Brief romance: A trailblazer, a magic dress and waiting in the rain. Enjoy readers’ Tiny Love Stories. Lives Lived: Sue Johnson, a British-born clinical psychologist and best-selling author, developed a method of couples therapy based on emotional attachment, challenging what had been the dominant behavioral approach. She died at 76. SPORTS M.L.B.: Starting today, the league will officially recognize Negro Leagues statistics from around a century ago, which will change who holds some records. N.B.A.: The Minnesota Timberwolves won Game 4 over the Dallas Mavericks. N.H.L.: Sam Reinhart’s overtime goal pushed the Florida Panthers past the New York Rangers, tying their Eastern Conference final series at 2-2. “Inside the NBA”: The TNT studio show, beloved by basketball fans for over two decades, may end after next season. Charles Barkley isn’t going quietly. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Images by ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA The European Space Agency recently released images and early science gathered from Euclid, a telescope that it launched into space last summer. The telescope can capture, in impressive detail, large swaths of sky. It will help astronomers make sense of two universal mysteries: dark matter and dark energy. See images captured by Euclid. More on culture The house from “Home Alone,” in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Ill., is for sale. Asking price: $5.25 million. A museum in Tasmania will let visitors hear songs from a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, which has never been played for the public. See what people are wearing on the streets of New York this season. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … John Kernick for The New York Times Combine beans and cheese for this easy five-ingredient dinner. Read books about California. Prepare for wildfires. Fight clothing stains with these products. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was namecheck. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. We heard from some readers who thought that our use of the phrase “happy Memorial Day” in Monday’s newsletter trivialized a day to honor Americans killed in wars. We understand that criticism, and we won’t use the phrase again. We always welcome feedback and critique from readers. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 30 Author Members Share Posted May 30 May 30, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the battle for Senate control — as well as Trump’s trial, extreme heat in New Delhi and a once-in-a-generation dancer. From a Ruben Gallego campaign ad. The New York Times Patriotism and diversity Climate change. Student debt. Diversity, equity and inclusion. The war in Gaza. These topics are central to progressive politics today. They are the subject of campus protests and online debates. They are also almost completely absent from the campaigns of Democratic Senate candidates trying to win tough races this year. In yesterday’s newsletter, I noted that Democratic candidates are leading the polls in six states where President Biden is trailing — and that all six have based their campaigns around populist themes of defending ordinary citizens against the powerful. Today, I’ll look at some other campaign themes. One is the contrast between the country’s most heated political debates and the top concerns of most voters. Those heated debates are shaped by policy experts, campaign donors and political activists, all of whom tend to be highly educated and relatively affluent. The full electorate often has different priorities. Student debt and housing costs make for a useful comparison. Student debt, a subject that the Biden administration has emphasized, may seem like the ultimate pocketbook issue. In reality, it’s more niche: Only 18 percent of U.S. adults have any federal student debt. That helps explain why, in a recent Harvard University survey of U.S. residents between 18 and 29 years old, student debt ranked dead last when the pollsters asked respondents which of 16 issues mattered to them. Israel and Palestine ranked 15th of 16. Climate change was 12th — and, again, this was a poll of voters under 30. The top three issues were inflation, health care and housing. No wonder that student debt is largely missing from these Democratic campaigns, while housing — a cost almost every family faces — is a focus. Senator Jacky Rosen, who’s running for re-election in Nevada, has devoted an entire ad to housing costs. Senator Jon Tester’s campaign lists the “housing crisis” as one of Montana’s biggest problems. A clarifying point about American politics is that people who follow it closely are very different from swing voters. With that in mind, I offer four other themes from the Senate campaigns: 1. Bipartisanship From a Tammy Baldwin campaign ad. The New York Times As polarized as the country is, many voters still hunger for bipartisanship. In their ads, the six Democrats generally treat Republicans with respect and celebrate collaboration. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio boasts about working with Republicans to pass a semiconductor law. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin shows videos of Donald Trump and Biden in one ad, and a narrator explains that she worked with both to crack down on Chinese imports. Rosen brags of being “named one of the most bipartisan senators.” The issue on which the Democrats try hardest to distance themselves from their own party is immigration, which polls show is a major Biden weakness. Rosen tells voters that she “stood up to my own party to support police officers and get more funding for border security.” A Tester ad says that he “fought to stop President Biden from letting migrants stay in America instead of remain in Mexico.” 2. Abortion Abortion is the opposite. It’s the issue on which the Republican Party is out of step with public opinion — and Democrats are on the offensive. Rosen describes her likely Nevada opponent, Sam Brown, as “another MAGA extremist trying to take away abortion rights.” Tester, when listing the ways he fights for Montanans, says, “We’ve got folks who want to take away women’s right to choose.” That said, abortion remains a secondary issue in most of these campaigns. 3. Patriotism From a Ruben Gallego campaign ad. The New York Times “Growing up poor, the only thing I really had was the American dream,” Ruben Gallego, an Arizona congressman running for Senate, says in the opening line of an ad. “It’s the one thing that we give every American no matter where they are born in life.” That sentiment is typical of the six campaigns’ unabashed patriotism. Gallego highlights his Marine service in Iraq. Veterans’ health care is a theme of a few campaigns. An ad for Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania that is focused on steel includes the line “Take that, China.” 4. Diversity, subtly The candidates’ ads portray a diverse America. When Rosen talks about housing, she shows a racially mixed group of young couples. A Brown campaign ad about the Ohio steel industry stars both Black and white workers. In a Baldwin ad, a Wisconsin businesswoman with a European accent praises the senator for fighting against federal rules about cheese making. Gallego talks about his mother’s struggles as an immigrant. But the campaigns treat diversity as a natural part of American life, rather than as a political project. They emphasize the commonalities of Americans with different backgrounds. It’s a different approach from an identity politics that centers race. Gallego has even achieved some notoriety for mocking the term Latinx. It disrespects the Spanish language, he has said, and is “largely used to satisfy white liberals.” He barred his congressional office from using the term. It reminds me of a point that Steve Bannon, the far-right political strategist, has made: When American politics focus on race, Republicans — like Bannon and Trump — tend to benefit. The flip side is that when campaigns focus on economic class, Democrats have the chance to benefit. You can see that lesson in these six populist campaigns. Related: Watch campaign ads from these candidates. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Politics Justice Samuel Alito told Congress he would not recuse himself from Supreme Court cases related to Jan. 6 after flags associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement flew above his houses. “My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not,” he wrote. Jurors in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial went home after deliberating for almost five hours and will return this morning. Read about the drab room where they will make their momentous decision. For months, Biden has trailed in national and battleground polls, but the race is still pretty close, Nate Cohn writes. Biden framed Trump as a racist at a rally in Philadelphia. “What do you think would have happened if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol? I don’t think he’d be talking about pardons.” Richard Grenell tried to overturn Nevada’s 2020 presidential election results. He hopes to become Trump’s secretary of state. Israel-Hamas War Israel said it had taken control of a slice of Gaza along the border with Egypt. An Israeli spokesman said Hamas used the zone to smuggle weapons. Israel’s national security adviser said he expected the war in Gaza to continue at least until the end of the year. Hamas has physically abused hostages, prevented them from speaking and denied them food and water, according to a former captive whose husband is still being held. The Israeli offensive in Rafah has forced all but one hospital to close, aid groups said. Transporting patients has been difficult and dangerous. War in Ukraine In the Russian town of Shebekino. Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times In northeastern Ukraine, a new front line divides families who live on either side of the border with Russia. Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that the U.S. might let Ukraine strike inside Russia using American-made weapons. From an apartment in Moscow, a former Florida sheriff’s deputy operates more than 160 fake news sites that spread Russian disinformation. An ammunition factory outside Dallas is making artillery shells for Ukraine. See inside. Extreme Weather In New Delhi. Rajat Gupta/EPA, via Shutterstock New Delhi recorded its highest known temperature: 126 degrees Fahrenheit. Several Indian states have been above 110 for weeks. In Texas, a Washington Post meteorologist encountered hailstones larger than grapefruits. Energy Oil companies announced two big deals in recent days: ConocoPhillips is buying Marathon Oil, and Hess shareholders approved a sale to Chevron. Saudi Arabia completed work on a solar farm covering 14 square miles of desert, its first major renewable energy project. Other Big Stories Hong Kong convicted 14 democracy activists of conspiracy to commit subversion in the city’s largest national security trial. A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted for the fifth time since December, spewing lava 150 feet into the air. Maurie D. McInnis, the president of Stony Brook University, will become Yale’s first permanent female president in July. After six panda-less months, the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington is getting two new fuzzy diplomats from China: Bao Li and Qing Bao. Opinions The U.S. can avoid war by building up its military, Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican, argues. The Justice Department should petition the other Supreme Court justices to require Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from Jan. 6 cases, Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, writes. Pro-Palestinian protesters have graduated, and their employers may not indulge their particular vision, Pamela Paul writes. Here are columns by Charles Blow on pro-Trump rappers and Nicholas Kristof on political differences between men and women. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover all of The Times, from news to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Discover The Times now. MORNING READS Ready for a close-up. Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times Fleet Week: Once a year, members of the Navy, the Marines and the Coast Guard cruise into New York. It feels like a movie. Myth: Remember that old map of taste buds on your tongue? It’s wrong. Sleepless: At night, a modified Dodge Charger is noisily roaming downtown Seattle. No one seems to be able to stop it. Social Q’s: “Why can’t I break into my new boyfriend’s friendship group?” Buy a dino: The largest Stegosaurus fossil ever found will be auctioned at Sotheby’s. Lives Lived: Despite having no formal training in painting or marine biology, Richard Ellis fused his artistic flair with his knowledge of ocean creatures to create works like the life-size blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He died at 86. SPORTS N.H.L.: The Edmonton Oilers defeated the Dallas Stars to even their series, 2-2. Women’s hockey: Minnesota became the first winner of the Walter Cup after beating Boston 3-0. This is the inaugural season of the professional women’s hockey league. Golf: The police dropped all charges against world No. 1-ranked golfer Scottie Scheffler, two weeks after his arrest at the PGA Championship. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Yumi Kawai and Sadao Abe in “Extremely Inappropriate!” TBS In the hit Japanese television show “Extremely Inappropriate!,” a grumpy phys ed teacher boards a bus in 1986 and steps out into 2024, where he must navigate a world that no longer accepts sexism and indoor smoking. The show has started conversation in Japan about changing norms: Some fans, even younger ones, find scenes set in the past refreshing, while critics decry the series as retro. More on culture Mira Nadon, 23, is a New York City Ballet principal and a once-in-a-generation dancer. Behind the denim curtain: Benjamin Talley Smith may have designed some of your jeans. Merch — like the New Yorker tote bag or tour T-shirts — dominated fashion for the better part of a decade. No longer, Samuel Hine writes for GQ. Bette Nash, a Guinness record-holder as the world’s longest-serving flight attendant, died at 88. She started flying in 1957 and never stopped. Her regular route from Washington to Boston was nicknamed the Nash Dash. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Bryan Gardner for The New York Times Get this easy gochugaru salmon on the table in 20 minutes. Escape the crowds during Paris’s Olympic summer. Grow edible flowers. Work with two screens anywhere using a portable monitor. Make your own ice cream. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was dogpile. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Our colleague Kitty Bennett contributed research to yesterday’s newsletter and today’s. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted May 31 Author Members Share Posted May 31 May 31, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering Trump’s conviction — as well as Justice Alito, the Scripps spelling bee winner and Banksy. Donald Trump Pool photo by Seth Wenig Guilty The criminal justice system finally caught up to Donald Trump. He has spent decades on the edge of legal trouble. First, he was a New York businessman whose company violated discrimination laws, failed to repay debts and flirted with bankruptcy. Then, he was a president who impeded an investigation of his 2016 campaign, tried to overturn the result of his re-election defeat and refused to return classified documents he took from the White House. Throughout, his central strategy was the same: delay. Try to push off legal problems for as long as possible and hope that a solution somehow presented itself. It usually worked, too. And it seemed to be on the verge of working again this year, with two federal trials and one state trial in Georgia all unlikely to finish before Election Day. Yesterday, however, a criminal jury judged Trump for the first time. The verdict was guilty, 34 times, pronounced late in the afternoon in downtown Manhattan. The prosecutors argued that Trump had falsified business records to hide a sexual affair from voters and corrupt the 2016 election. After two days of deliberation, the 12 jurors agreed. Trump has become the first former president of the United States to be a convicted felon. Yes, the caveats are important. He will appeal, and some legal experts think he has a case, given the novel combination of accusations that the prosecutors made. It is unclear when, or even if, he will go to prison. Most important, nobody knows whether it will help or hurt his presidential campaign. On the most basic level, however, Trump experienced a personal defeat yesterday unlike any other. My colleague Michael Gold, who has been covering Trump, said that as he left the courthouse — after making a combative statement but taking no questions — Trump “looked more somber than I have seen him at any point in the last several months.” Maggie Haberman, who has been covering Trump for years, notes that Trump and his aides frequently respond to bad news with spin about what actually happened. “By following this playbook, Trump’s team can usually create enough confusion to leave people questioning outcomes,” Maggie wrote. “Not so with a jury verdict.” In the rest of today’s newsletter, we’ll walk you through three key questions, round up the rest of The Times’s coverage and give you a selection of outside commentary. Three questions 1. Could Trump go to prison? Yes, but it’s not clear if he will. The judge, Juan Merchan, scheduled sentencing for July 11. Until then, Trump remains free. Each of the 34 counts on which Trump was convicted carries a sentence of up to four years. Most legal observers believe that a sentence of more than four years — in which Trump would serve consecutive terms, rather than concurrent terms — is unlikely. Merchan could also decide to sentence Trump to probation and no prison time. Before sentencing, Trump will sit with a psychologist or a social worker and have a chance to explain why he deserves a light punishment. Even if Merchan sentences Trump to prison time, it may not begin immediately. Merchan could instead allow Trump to remain free while courts heard his appeal. The appeals could take months or years, well beyond Election Day, and could rise to the Supreme Court. 2. Can Trump still be president? Yes. The Constitution does not bar him from holding office because of this felony. He could run for president from prison. If he was elected from prison, he could not pardon himself because the conviction is on state charges rather than federal charges. But he could sue for his release, arguing that his imprisonment prevented him from fulfilling his constitutional duties as president. Read more about what could happen next. 3. How will his conviction affect the campaign? Nobody knows. Political prognostication after unprecedented news is a recipe for regret. (The day after Richard Nixon resigned, a front-page story in this very newspaper said the resignation immediately made Gerald Ford the favorite to win the 1976 election; he lost.) But we understand that readers are hungry for analysis of this question because it may be the most important one. And we recommend this article by Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst. Nate points out that Trump’s current polling lead relies on voters who have traditionally supported Democrats, including younger and nonwhite voters. Some of them have previously told pollsters that a conviction would make them less comfortable with supporting Trump. Nate also emphasizes — and this will sound familiar — that nobody yet knows what will happen. In Manhattan. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times How Trump responded The courtroom was silent as the jury foreman read the verdict, saying “guilty” 34 times, into a microphone. Trump shut his eyes and shook his head. After his conviction, Trump blamed the judge, the jury and a country “gone to hell.” “This was a rigged trial,” Trump said after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people,” he added. Trump’s Republican allies blasted the verdict. Speaker Mike Johnson called it “a purely political exercise, not a legal one.” But Republicans who oppose Trump were more supportive. Larry Hogan, running for Senate in Maryland, asked Americans to respect the verdict. More coverage President Biden’s campaign responded by asking for donations on social media. “There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box.” The verdict gave Biden’s campaign a new way to frame the race — as a choice between someone who is a felon and someone who is not. Here’s how Alvin Bragg, the district attorney, and his team made their case. You can also see the verdict, count by count.) Savannah Guthrie scrambled. Rachel Maddow took notes. Every major TV network cut in to cover what CNN’s Jake Tapper called “an unbelievable moment in American history.” If Trump goes to prison, the Secret Service agents who protect the former president will join him there. Commentary “The greatest good to come out of this sordid case is the proof that the rule of law binds everyone, even former presidents,” The Times’s editorial board wrote. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board argued that “the conviction sets a precedent of using legal cases, no matter how sketchy, to try to knock out political opponents.” “If Donald Trump ends up in a jail cell this year, it will be thanks in part to the remarkable testimony of a porn star whom he’s been doing everything in his power to shame, silence, and discredit for eight years,” Laura Bassett wrote in The Cut. “The Biden campaign may be tempted to flood the zone about the conviction,” the Democratic strategist David Axelrod wrote, adding: “The right play for Biden may be to lean even more into the day-to-day concerns of people. The contrast would be powerful.” “Some legal observers said Bragg was stretching,” The Guardian’s Sam Levine wrote. “But over the last several weeks, prosecutors transformed a complex legal case into a carefully constructed narrative that was easy for jurors to understand.” “What a time to be alive!” Here’s how people around the country reacted to the verdict. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Erin Schaff/The New York Times Chief Justice John Roberts said he would not compel Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from Jan. 6-related Supreme Court cases. Democratic lawmakers had asked Roberts to do so after The Times reported that flags associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement had flown over Alito’s homes. Alito said he did not need to step aside because his wife had flown the flags, not him. Legal ethics experts said they found his rationale unpersuasive. The court ruled that the National Rifle Association could pursue a First Amendment claim against a New York State official who had encouraged companies to stop doing business with the gun-rights group. More on Politics Some Republican candidates in competitive Senate races have softened their positions on abortion. The issue has hurt their party in recent elections. “The institution’s not functioning”: Retiring members of Congress, including top-ranking legislators and rising stars, say that serving is no longer worth the frustration. War in Ukraine The Biden administration authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike inside Russia, though it limited the targets to those related to Russia’s advance on Kharkiv. After the announcement, Russia struck Kharkiv. International A dog rescued from a flooded area in Canoas, Brazil. Andre Borges/European Pressphoto Agency In Brazil, catastrophic floods have separated thousands of pets from their owners. Slovakia’s prime minister left the hospital two weeks after an assassination attempt. India’s stock markets are surging. Big global investors are looking there for growth. Other Big Stories Bruhat Soma Ting Shen for The New York Times Bruhat Soma, 12, from Tampa, Fla., won the Scripps National Spelling Bee. He prevailed in a rare spell-off, blazing through 29 difficult words in 90 seconds. The U.S. sued Hyundai and two other companies, accusing them of employing a 13-year-old in a factory in Alabama. The American economy grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter, slower than initially estimated, as consumers spent less. PTSD has surged among college students, climbing during the pandemic, researchers found. A man in Idaho was found guilty of murder in three killings. They were known as the “doomsday” killings because of his religious beliefs. Opinions Sports leagues’ entanglement with gambling puts athletes under untenable pressure, Leigh Steinberg writes. Here’s a column by Paul Krugman on the importance of the 2024 election. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. MORNING READS Calligraphy by Alice Fang. Image by Marcelle Hopkins. Hobbies: The ancient art of calligraphy is experiencing a revival. Deep sea: A ghoulish fish has weird sex — extremely weird sex. Hollywood: Travis Kelce has big career plans, The Cut reports. “I’m looking for movie deals,” he said. Totonno’s: A beloved 100-year-old pizzeria on Coney Island survived a fire and a pandemic. Its future is now in question. Lives Lived: The Hollywood producer Albert Ruddy helped create the sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” and the Oscar-winning moves “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby.” He died at 94. SPORTS N.B.A.: Luka Doncic scored 20 points in the first quarter of Dallas’ blowout win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Dallas is going to the N.B.A. Finals. N.H.L.: The Florida Panthers are one win away from their second straight Stanley Cup Final appearance after beating the New York Rangers. College football: Shilo Sanders, the son of the Colorado coach Deion Sanders, filed for bankruptcy after a Texas court ordered him to pay $12 million in damages over an alleged assault. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS A visitor inside the Banksy Museum last week. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times The Banksy Museum, which opened this month in New York City, does not own or display any actual works by the pseudonymous street artist. Rather, Max Lakin writes in The Times, it features 167 “decent-enough reproductions,” with life-size paintings on panels treated to look like exterior walls. “There is something perverse in paying to experience an ersatz street to look at artificial graffiti, as if the real version wasn’t available outside for free,” Max writes. More on culture Calvin Klein named Veronica Leoni as its creative director. She will be the first woman to run the brand. Paul Mescal and Natalie Portman took a smoke break in London together in matching white T-shirts, The Cut reports. The internet spun out. Frank London — who has worked for decades at the crossroads of Jewish music and jazz — is battling cancer, but his work hasn’t slowed. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … David Malosh for The New York Times Sauté shishito peppers and toss them with raw corn for crunchy, smoky summer salad. Download these apps onto your kid’s first phone. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was quoting. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David P.S. Join the hosts from “The Daily” at a special live event at the Tribeca Festival on June 9. Get more info — and buy tickets — here. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 2 Author Members Share Posted June 2 June 1, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. Summer returns, and with it all the feelings and fantasies and fears we associate with the season. María Jesús Contreras Summer romance June! Again! I know! Where has the time gone? It’s boring to even raise the issue — your subjective experience of the months and years passing so quickly, how it seems just yesterday you were doing something (making plans to see Barbenheimer, maybe? That was last summer!) and now here we are, doing this again. If summer is a play, June is its opening act. If summer is a feeling, based on my recent conversations, it’s either hope or dread. For me, it’s all hope, all anticipation. Let the longer days spread out before us. Let us spread ourselves out in them, lie down in the grass or on the beach or in the air-conditioned splendor of the living room, early afternoon, for a climate-controlled snooze. Last weekend, in the country, I had a run-in with a bunch of winged creatures — wasps, I decided, based on the scientific description I found on an exterminator’s website: “Generally speaking, wasps are much scarier looking than bees.” No nest in sight, but a bunch of them, thronging the porch. Perhaps because I spend most of my time in the city, with its predictable insect population, I had almost forgotten about wasps, about yellowjackets and hornets and the menace I’ve always associated with their presence. Fear of wasps is rooted in childhood, deep and reflexive. Don’t move, don’t look them in the eye, don’t even acknowledge their presence, or else. As a child, one wasp in the house was reason enough to flee until an adult could dispense with it. Now, ostensibly an adult myself, I observed myself observing the swarm, feeling that fear surge and then subside. Here were emissaries of the season, summer’s welcoming committee. I could sip a lemonade beside them and, if not exactly relax, then at least contemplate remediation. Where had the time gone? When did the fear of being stung become manageable? I looked at the wasps and thought, “Yes, you too.” If I am going to throw open my arms to welcome the sunlight and barbecues and lake swims and the air that’s the exact same temperature as my skin, then the wasps are invited as well. “I think the extra sunlight makes me manic,” my friend Leigh texted me this week in what sounded like despair. Leigh’s one of my seasonal adversaries, the people who greet June’s arrival with dread. We engage in this back-and-forth every year, whenever the season changes, me twirling around in a sundress, her grimacing under a comically large-brimmed hat. I’ve heard her arguments against: the heat, the sweat, the perils of midday sun and the ordeal of sunscreen, the pressure to be always doing things. I want to tell Leigh about the wasps, about how expansive and openhearted I have become this year, but I don’t want to gloat too much, and I’m aware I may sound slightly deranged. “THE DAY NEVER ENDS,” she texts, as if that’s a bad thing. “The day doesn’t end, you just give up and go to bed when it’s still light out.” Maybe we both sound deranged. It’s June again, whether you’re apt to rejoice or just surrender. It’s June and “The green will never / again be so green, so purely and lushly / new,” as the poet Marge Piercy put it. That alone, the brand-newness of the month and the season, the brand-newness of who you or I might be this time around, might not be enough to make you love this time of year, but perhaps it’s enough to make you curious, to consider how you might be different, to consider whom or what you might, this year, admit into your summer plans. For more They’re breezy and adaptable: NYT Cooking has you covered with 100 summer recipes. You don’t have to travel to avail yourself of the season’s pleasures. It’s going to be another hot summer in Europe. Last year, we discussed the entertaining practice of selecting a theme for the season. Mine was the “Enjoy Your Time” summer. ADVERTISEMENT THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Mikey Madison plays a sex worker in “Anora.” Neon Which Cannes films might become Oscar contenders? Kyle Buchanan, our awards-season columnist, said one to watch was “Anora,” a comedy about a Brooklyn stripper who marries into Russian wealth. It won the Palme d’Or. “Robot Dreams,” a wordless animated film in which a dog and his robot friend explore 1980s New York, is one of 10 movies our critics are talking about this week. Ron Howard’s new documentary about Jim Henson has a lot to teach creators, our critic writes. The showrunners of the Max comedy “Hacks” spoke with The Times about the final twist of Season 3. Music Jerry Garcia in 1979. Associated Press A new exhibit at Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum explores the surprisingly deep bluegrass roots of the Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. Bill Walton, the N.B.A. Hall of Famer who died this week at 71, was also a Grateful Dead superfan. He claimed to have seen the band live over 869 times. A guitar John Lennon played on multiple Beatles songs was sold at auction for almost $3 million. This week on “Popcast,” the hosts discussed how artificial intelligence has changed music. Art Months of delay and allegations against a prominent artist threatened to tarnish Dak’Art, the biennale in Senegal. But local galleries put on their own showcase. The Cleveland Museum of Art agreed to give up its ownership of a rare 2,200-year-old sculpture that was stolen from Libya years before the museum acquired it. Other Big Stories A twist in the fight over Elvis Presley’s estate, Graceland: An identity thief emailed our reporter and said his ring was behind the effort to force the sale of the landmark. Jaap van Zweden will soon wrap up his time as music director of the New York Philharmonic, which will likely be remembered for its brevity — the shortest tenure since the 1970s, interrupted by the pandemic. They were best friends as teenagers in Texas. Now, they’re all Broadway stars — two in “Hamilton” and one in “The Lion King.” THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War President Biden in the White House yesterday. Cheriss May for The New York Times President Biden endorsed a new Israeli cease-fire proposal that included the possibility of an enduring end to the fighting, saying that Hamas was no longer capable of launching an Oct. 7-style attack. “It’s time for this war to end,” Biden said. In response, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said that the war would not end until all hostages were returned and Hamas was eliminated. Hamas reacted positively to the proposal. Israeli forces advanced into central Rafah, pushing deeper into the southern Gaza city. U.S. congressional leaders invited Netanyahu to address Congress but set no date. Other Big Stories “The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Biden said of Donald Trump’s criminal conviction. He called attacks on the verdict “reckless.” Trump criticized prosecutors and the judge in a speech filled with falsehoods. His campaign said it had raised nearly $53 million online after the verdict. Senator Joe Manchin left the Democratic Party to become an independent. The move won’t alter Democrats’ control of the Senate, but it could allow Manchin — who previously said he would retire — to run again. Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama’s mother who helped raise the Obama daughters at the White House, died at 86. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. CULTURE CALENDAR By Desiree Ibekwe 🎧 “brat” by Charli XCX (Friday): The latest project by the British singer Charli XCX is a sonic homecoming of sorts: a club album. “When I first started making music, I was playing at illegal warehouse raves in Hackney in London,” she told Vogue Singapore. “That’s home to me.” Singles from the album, like “Club Classics,” are almost overwhelmingly frenetic. Some of the songs also bear the hallmarks of hyperpop, a subgenre of which Charli is a star. She came to hyperpop through her collaborations with the producer SOPHIE, who died in 2021 and to whom she pays tribute on the album in the song “So I.” ADVERTISEMENT RECIPE OF THE WEEK David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. By Mia Leimkuhler Raspberry-Almond Clafoutis There’s a lot to love about this new raspberry-almond clafoutis from David Tanis — those sweet-tart raspberries, of course, but also a plush, puddinglike batter that swaps in almond flour for the usual all-purpose variety. (This swap makes it a great dessert for gluten avoiders.) REAL ESTATE Pam Hoffman chose between three homes in Peoria, Ill. Michelle Litvin for The New York Times The Hunt: A 66-year-old first-time buyer tested her $220,000 in Illinois. Which house did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $4 million: A 1766 Dutch farmhouse in Claverack, N.Y.; a two-bedroom condo in Boston; or a 1912 Colonial Revival house in Philadelphia. Most popular: The most clicked story in The Morning last month was a calculator to tell you if you should rent or buy. Check it out. LIVING Animations by Gaia Alari Mango and Walnut: Pets teach us about life, love and death. That last one is especially important, Sam Anderson writes in this animated feature. Rebuilding: A Brooklyn suit maker offers free formal wear to newly exonerated men and women. Financial signs: People who develop dementia often fall behind on paying bills long before they are diagnosed, new research shows. Italy: Visit a wind-whipped island that’s close to Sicily, but without the crowds. Secret weapon: Whom do Kate Moss and Paris Hilton call for a major party look? Annie Doble. Girlhood: Children from marginalized groups tend to start their periods at younger ages. No one knows why. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER The best kind of Father’s Day gift If you’re anything like me and know a dad who insists he doesn’t need anything, here’s my advice: Try something unexpected that connects your family. Last Father’s Day, my sisters and I splurged on one of Wirecutter’s favorite smart bird feeders — a cheery, yellow house with a built-in camera that captures high-res footage of its visitors. A year later, our family group chat is still popping off with snapshots of first-time feeders and old regulars alike. If you’d prefer a less avian route, why not encourage summer hangs with a portable hammock or family dinners with a pizza stone? Whatever shape your new tradition takes on, start looking with our expert’s Father’s Day gift ideas. — Brittney Ho GAMES OF THE WEEK Citlaly Gutierrez of Texas. Bryan Terry/USA Today Network Women’s College World Series: The Red River Rivalry is alive and well in N.C.A.A. softball. Texas and Oklahoma are top-seeded teams in this year’s World Series, and for the first time in four years, it’s not Oklahoma in the No. 1 spot. That went to Texas, which led the country in batting average this year. Oklahoma, winner of the past three national championships, had the second-best team average. The teams met four times this season and split those games, with each winning twice. Six teams remain in the World Series; they’ll play a double-elimination tournament this weekend on ESPN networks. The championship series begins Wednesday. More on sports A newly constructed stadium on Long Island will host Cricket World Cup matches, including perhaps the world’s biggest rivalry, India vs. Pakistan. Then, it will be dismantled. EA Sports’ College Football 25, due out in July, is the first new college-football video game in a decade. The Athletic played a preview. Female climbers are increasingly reporting sexual abuse in the sport, with two accusing the renowned climber Nirmal Purja of harassment. (Purja denies the allegations.) Biden hosted the Kansas City Chiefs, winner of this year’s Super Bowl, at the White House. (Taylor Swift did not make an appearance.) NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were vibrato and vibrator. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 2 Author Members Share Posted June 2 June 2, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Rukmini Callimachi has a story on troubling economic trends for people trying to buy, or sell, starter homes. We’re also covering Israel, the South African election and the online afterlife of Franz Kafka. —David Leonhardt In Chicago. Michelle Litvin for The New York Times Stuck at the start By Rukmini Callimachi I cover real estate, with a focus on the affordability crisis. Buying your first home has long been a milestone of adulthood. So has selling your first home and moving into something bigger. But in the last few years, many Americans have gotten stuck in their starter house. That’s because the U.S. housing economy is being hammered by three forces: the highest interest rates in around two decades, record home prices and near rock-bottom inventory. “Home affordability is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist, told me. Many of those who bought their homes in recent years are unable to trade up, hampering the ability of the group behind them to purchase its own starter homes. In today’s newsletter, we’ll look at how the housing market trapped both groups. Twice as expensive In the past, the starter home served as a bridge: Families just starting out would squeeze into a smaller home and build equity. With time, as their careers grew and their incomes increased, they cashed in the equity and moved to something bigger. But now that process has hit a wall. “The trade-up buyer has just disappeared,” Sam Khater, chief economist of Freddie Mac, said. A majority of homeowners — six out of 10 — have mortgages with interest rates that are locked at 4 percent or lower. With rates now hovering around 7 percent, most people who buy a home today will pay much more interest on their new mortgage. Economists put it to me like this: If you were to sell your house today and buy an identical one across the street, your payment would double — and that’s before you factor in how much the house across the street has gone up in value. (Which is a lot: According to Redfin, home prices are at a record high.) In Chicago, Chris and Alison Wentland told me about the predicament in which they found themselves. Last year, they decided to sell their townhouse in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Their children, at 2 and 6, were sharing a room not much bigger than a walk-in closet, with their daughter’s bed pressing up against their toddler’s crib. They began looking for a four-bedroom. They had purchased their townhouse in the low $500,000s, and would likely be able to sell it for $700,000. But getting that one extra bedroom in the popular Lincoln Park neighborhood would put their next home in the $1 million range. Despite having a sizable equity from their starter home, the higher rates and higher cost meant that their monthly payments would go from around $3,000 to at least $7,500, their real estate agent warned. Now, the professional photographs that their broker had taken of the townhouse — including a snazzy 3-D video — are languishing on a hard drive, out of the public’s view. Their home is one of 50 properties that the brokerage has photographed but has not been able to list. Nothing to buy It has also become harder to buy your first home. Starter homes — defined as those that cost 75 percent or less of the median home price in a given market — have gone up faster in value than any other category of home. The problem is being exacerbated not just by rising prices and high interest rates, which affect every tier of the housing market, but also by something more fundamental: The number of new entry-level homes being built has fallen off a cliff. In the 1970s, more than 400,000 entry-level homes were built every year. By 2020, only 65,000 were built. One reason for the drop is the rising cost of materials; smaller homes just don’t pencil out for builders. So the supply of starter homes is not being replenished — by builders or by the last generation moving out and selling. The first rung of the ladder of homeownership, long a key part of the American dream, has become especially hard to climb. As just one example: I spoke to a pair of sisters in Oakland who decided to pool their resources to buy a duplex, each sibling taking one unit. Before the pandemic, they were approved for $850,000. But even in that price range, they couldn’t find anything in a city with famously high property values; one house had a rat infestation, another had fungus, the sisters told me. Their banker recently told them that they were now qualified for only a $750,000 loan — $100,000 had evaporated because of rising interest rates. If they couldn’t find anything at the higher amount, they wonder, how will they find anything at this lower price point? ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War Benjamin Netanyahu Ronen Zvulun/Reuters A day after President Biden called for a truce in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that Israel would not agree to a permanent cease-fire as long as Hamas retained power there. Two far-right members of the Israeli government — Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — threatened to quit the coalition should Netanyahu accept a cease-fire plan laid out by Biden. Thousands of protesters rallied in Tel Aviv and other cities in Israel, calling on Netanyahu to accept the cease-fire proposal. Officials from Israel, Egypt and the U.S. are expected to meet in Cairo today to discuss reopening the Rafah crossing, an important route for aid into Gaza. More International News In the Seshego township, South Africa. Paul Botes/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In South Africa, the A.N.C. failed to win an outright majority in a national election for the first time since the end of apartheid. Voters explain why they turned away from the party. Russian officials took children living in a Ukrainian foster home. A Times investigation found that the authorities had later put many of them up for adoption. Mexicans will vote today in an election that could put a woman in the presidency for the first time. Inequality in India is a hot topic during the nation’s elections. CNN explored the different lives of two women living in Mumbai. Starlink, the Space X satellite service, connected an isolated Brazilian tribe to the internet. The Times traveled into the Amazon to see what happened next. North Korea has sent roughly 1,000 balloons filled with trash into South Korea in the past few days. Politics A jury in Manhattan found Donald Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records this past week. Here’s where his three other criminal cases stand. Some wonder how America’s system of checks and balances would work if the next president is already a felon. Read Peter Baker’s analysis. Hunter Biden will stand trial this week on charges that he failed to disclose his addiction when buying a gun in 2018. The president has refused to treat him as a political liability. Other Big Stories A hotel shelter run by Catholic Charities. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times American faith-based organizations have helped manage migrant arrivals for decades. In recent years, they have become the targets of extremists. Burst water pipes caused widespread disruption in Atlanta. In New York City, the coming introduction of congestion pricing has inflamed an old argument: drivers versus those who embrace public transit. Dr Pepper now ties Pepsi as the second-most popular soda in the U.S., behind Coke. It has increased its market share through advertising and novel flavors, The Wall Street Journal reports. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Does Donald Trump’s guilty verdict matter for the 2024 election? No. Trump’s supporters were unfazed by his impeachments and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks, and they’re unlikely to be fazed now. “It’s all the more reason for him — and for them — to press on,” Times Opinion’s Frank Bruni writes. Yes. A criminal conviction has the potential to sway crucial undecided voters. “Trump’s felony conviction might end up more like a whimper than a bang … but, sometimes, even a whimper can be decisive,” MSNBC’s Michael Cohen writes. FROM OPINION Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, is a pragmatic alternative to Netanyahu’s populist leadership, Dahlia Scheindlin argues. The United States needs to combat fossil fuel interests’ disinformation if it wants to expand renewable energy, Andrew Dessler writes. Here are columns by Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd on the Trump trial. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. ADVERTISEMENT MORNING READS Photo illustration by Ricardo Tomás An online afterlife: Franz Kafka, 100 years after his death, has become a pop idol of digital alienation. Brick by brick: A model of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is all the hype among adult Lego fans. Pride month: In the 1980s, the photographer Nicholas Blair captured early iterations of parades and political marches. See some of his photos on CNN. Life coaching: They wanted to improve their circumstances and well-being. Instead, they lost their savings. Look closer: New York is constantly changing, but you can still spot old public artworks between towers and in traffic triangles. Vows: Finding love and acceptance, thanks to church and therapy. Lives Lived: U Tin Oo was a former Burmese armed forces chief and minister of defense who turned against his country’s repressive government to become a leader of the pro-democracy movement. He died at 97. THE INTERVIEW Richard Linklater Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is the director Richard Linklater. His latest film, “Hit Man,” is a stylish, sexy thriller that also sneaks in some provocative ideas about the shifting nature of personal identity. I’m curious how you think about your identity at 63 years old. Do you feel like it’s fixed? It’s the kind of thing I’ve thought a lot about my entire life: What could transform me? I was probably more in the camp of we’re fixed, give or take whatever little percentage around the edges. So I was interested in this notion lately that, oh, you can change, the personality isn’t fixed. That seems current: this notion of self and identity, gender. I sort of like that it’s all on the table, that everybody’s thinking you kind of are who you say you are. One idea of the film, [“Hit Man”], is that we all have the power to create our own identity. The film then suggests that this includes the identity of someone capable of murder and living happily after having committed murder. That’s pretty dark! Yes, but I don’t mind. I mean, everybody wants someone dead, probably. I’ve been in the film business over 30 years. Of course I could murder somebody. Whom do you want dead? No, I don’t want anyone dead. I’ll spread that out: I don’t want anything dead. But I think there’s a surprising number of people in the world who, to whatever degree voluntary or involuntary, have done something that has ended a life and can compartmentalize it away. A lot of killers among us. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Illustration by Gaia Alari Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS Keila Shaheen Eli Durst for The New York Times Online: TikTok has changed the way books are sold and marketed. Keila Shaheen’s “The Shadow Work Journal” shows how. There’s a spell for that: “Cunning Folk” explores a time when the use of “service magic” was an everyday practice. Summer reads: Lounge in the sun with this year’s crop of historical novels, including “The Tower,” about Mary, Queen of Scots. Our editors’ picks: “Finish What We Started,” about the MAGA grass roots, and five other books. Times best sellers: Stephen King’s latest short story collection, “You Like It Darker,” is a No. 1 debut on the hardcover fiction list. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Watch these movies before they leave Netflix. Try this restaurant trick when making steak. Escape with a romance novel. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For India’s general election results are set to be announced on Tuesday. The Tribeca Film Festival begins on Wednesday. European Parliament elections begin on Thursday. London Fashion Week begins on Friday. A deadline for Netanyahu to come up with a postwar plan for Gaza, set by Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s war cabinet, is Saturday. Meal Plan David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. This week, Cooking unveiled the Summer 100 — recipes that the team thinks you should have on repeat for the next three months. In the Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein includes one of the meals featured on the list: summer shrimp scampi with tomatoes and corn. Emily also suggests making pepper-crusted flank steak and spanakorizo with jammy eggs. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were engulfed and unfledged. Can you put eight historical events — including the discoveries of Galileo, the creation of “Back to the Future,” and the debut of Julia Child — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 5 Author Members Share Posted June 5 June 4, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleagues Jeffrey Gettleman and Marco Hernandez help you understand the reality inside Ukraine. We’re also covering immigration, India’s election and photos that defined the modern age. —David Leonhardt. Source: Analysis by Jamon Van Den Hoek, Corey Scher and The New York Times | By Marco Hernandez Measuring what Ukraine lost By Jeffrey Gettleman Graphics by Marco Hernandez Imagine your hometown being wiped off the map. Imagine a city where no one lives. Imagine the landmarks in your life — where you went to school, where you were married, where you worked and played and loved and prayed — erased. This is what happened to Marinka, a small town in Ukraine’s east with nearly 200 years of history. Photos of it look like those of Hiroshima. Its destruction has become a symbol of Ukraine’s war. Destroyed buildings in Zavodskaya Street in Marinka. Photo by Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times It’s hardly the only Ukrainian town like this. The Times worked with researchers to measure every town, street and building in Ukraine blown apart since the Russians invaded in 2022. In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain how we did it — and what we found. Source: Analysis by Jamon Van Den Hoek, Corey Scher and The New York Times | By Marco Hernandez Measuring a nation’s destruction wasn’t an easy thing to do. It was possible only by viewing Ukraine from space. Radar-equipped satellites took frequent images of the country during the war. Then, researchers from the City University of New York Graduate Center and Oregon State University analyzed years of data — more than 10,000 images of Ukraine in total — to track small changes in blocks or even discrete buildings. The project took more than a year. More buildings have been wrecked in Ukraine than if every building in Manhattan were leveled four times over. In some places, like Marinka, not a single resident is left. Pre-war Wikimedia via Ліонкінг; Serhii Nuzhnenko, Reuters; Gleb Garanich, Reuters; Leonid ХВ Ragozin via social media | By The New York Times Beyond the debris, what interested us most was the impact on people. So many Ukrainians have lost not just their homes but their entire communities. Marinka represents this loss. I walked its streets while it was under siege in July 2022. Not many people still lived there; I didn’t see how any could. But I stepped into an apartment building and found, in light so dim that it was hard to see, a mom, her 13-year-old daughter and their cat sitting in a quiet, half-destroyed room. The front line between Russia and Ukraine was on their doorstep. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times They eventually left, along with everyone else. The Russians took control of the city last year. But there wasn’t much left. As one soldier put it, “Whatever could burn, burned.” Our story, published today, visualizes the scope of Ukraine’s annihilation. Sources: Jamon Van Den Hoek and Corey Scher (InSar data); OpenStreetMap (building street maps); Maxar Technologies via Google (satellite images from June 2023) | By Marco Hernandez For more Can Ukraine find new soldiers without decimating a whole generation? Volodymyr Zelensky has pressed the Biden administration to let Ukraine strike deep inside Russia with American-made weapons. So far, the White House has refused. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Immigration Along the banks of the Rio Grande. Christopher Lee for The New York Times President Biden plans to sign an executive order today that would temporarily seal the southern border to most migrants. Donald Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. About half of Americans support his plan, polls suggest. Arizona Republicans are pushing for a ballot measure that would make it a state crime for migrants to enter Arizona from Mexico and allow state judges to deport them. 2024 Elections At a fund-raiser, Biden described Trump as a felon and accused him of responding to his conviction with an “all-out assault” on the American justice system. Trump and the Republicans said they had raised $141 million in May, about half of it in the two days after the conviction. Trump almost certainly won’t face trial before November over the effort to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results. In October, an appeals court there will hear his effort to disqualify the prosecutor over a secret relationship with a subordinate. The Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who is on trial on bribery charges, filed to run for re-election as an independent. Israel-Hamas War Israel said that four more hostages who were abducted in the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 died months ago, and that the circumstances of their deaths were still being examined. Israeli airstrikes in Syria killed an Iranian general who was there as an adviser, the Iranian media said. Two far-right lawmakers threatened to collapse Benjamin Netanyahu’s government if Israel agreed to the cease-fire proposal that Biden outlined last week. Netanyahu claimed Biden hadn’t given the “whole picture” in describing the proposal, which the war cabinet approved but his right-wing allies did not. But Netanyahu also expressed openness to at least a 42-day pause in the fighting in Gaza. Mexican Election Claudia Sheinbaum with supporters. Fred Ramos for The New York Times “I do not arrive alone,” Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president-elect, said. “We all arrived, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our ancestors.” Women also lead both houses of Mexico’s Congress, its Supreme Court and its central bank. Sheinbaum won by more than any Mexican presidential candidate in decades and her party won supermajorities in most state legislatures. With his handpicked successor’s victory, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reshaped Mexican politics. He says he will retire to his family’s ranch when his term ends. More International News In New Delhi. Atul Loke for The New York Times India is releasing results from its general election. Early returns showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead by a narrower margin than expected. See images from the campaign. “We lose parts of our collective memory”: In China, websites are disappearing. The reasons are both technical and political. Nigel Farage, a prominent Brexit campaigner, will run in Britain’s general election. He could siphon votes from the governing Conservatives. Covid Dr. Anthony Fauci Tom Brenner for The New York Times Dr. Anthony Fauci, in congressional testimony, denied Republican claims that he had helped fund research that sparked the pandemic or had covered up indications that it might have originated in a lab. The hearing was testy at times, with Democrats praising Fauci and Republicans criticizing him. “You belong in prison,” Marjorie Taylor Greene said. New strains of Covid, known as the “FLiRT” variants, are circulating, but there’s been little rise in emergency room visits or positive tests. Other Big Stories Harvard’s largest faculty division will no longer require job applicants to submit diversity statements. Opening arguments begin today in Hunter Biden’s federal trial on charges of lying about his drug use on a gun application. The president said he wouldn’t comment on the trial but was proud of his son for overcoming addiction. Climate change worsened flooding in the south of Brazil, scientists said. Downpours there killed at least 172 people and displaced more than half a million. Opinions Antihero or felon? Eleven undecided voters struggle with how they see Trump after his criminal conviction in Manhattan. Growing evidence suggests that Covid came from a lab leak, argues Alina Chan, a molecular biologist. Maps and charts help make the case. Here are columns by Paul Krugman on Biden’s economy and Maureen Dowd on Justice Samuel Alito. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. MORNING READS Gordon Parks, “Department Store, Mobile, Alabama” (1956). © The Gordon Parks Foundation The experts speak: 25 photos define the modern age. See them here. His own reckoning: Ibram X. Kendi galvanized readers with his doctrine of antiracism. The last four years have tested him and his ideas. Right after the Big Bang: A new observatory in Chile investigates a mystery from the beginning of time. Ask Climate: Looking for an eco-friendly way to control backyard bugs? Meet the “bucket of doom.” Lives Lived: Sam Butcher’s doe-eyed, pastel-hued porcelain figurines ignited a global collecting frenzy, made him a wealthy man and inspired him to build his own version of the Sistine Chapel in Carthage, Mo. He died at 85. SPORTS N.F.L.: The Vikings agreed to a four-year, $140 million contract extension with the wide receiver Justin Jefferson, making the highest paid non-quarterback in the league’s history. M.L.B.: The former Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Tucupita Marcano faces a possible lifetime ban over accusations that he bet on the team while he was on the injured list for them. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS In Paris. Joann Pai for The New York Times If you’ve visited Paris in August, you’ve probably noticed the word “fermé” — that is, “closed” — on many boutiques and bistros whose owners have left town for vacation. Not so this year: With the Olympics expected to draw nearly 15 million visitors, businesses say they’re planning to stay open for the summer. “It’s one of the biggest events in the history of Paris,” said Etheliya Hananova, an owner of the restaurant Comice. “We’re here to be part of the welcoming committee.” More on culture At The Museum of Modern Art. Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York Times Oluremi Onabanjo is a curator in the Museum of Modern Art’s photography department. Read about a week in her life. Demand for “dad sneakers” is up and so are shares in Asics, a Japanese running-shoe maker, The Wall Street Journal reports. Jon Stewart discussed Trump’s conviction on “The Daily Show.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … David Malosh for The New York Times. Combine shrimp with tomatoes and corn for a summery shrimp scampi. Submit your advice about fatherhood. Avoid ingesting microplastics. Hand wash clothes with a good detergent. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was doughnut. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. Nate Cohn, who oversees The Times’s political polling with Siena College, spoke to New York magazine about the state of the presidential election. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 6 Author Members Share Posted June 6 June 5, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the story behind Biden’s immigration order — as well as Ukraine, Sudan and a road trip through Saudi Arabia. Venezuelan migrants walk along the Rio Grande. Paul Ratje for The New York Times The asylum loophole President Biden’s latest executive actions on immigration are an attempt to shrink a loophole that has allowed many people to enter the country without legal permission. That loophole is the asylum system. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why experts consider the asylum system to be broken and why a long-term solution will almost certainly require a new law from Congress. Not as intended The modern idea of asylum stems from World War II. It is meant to protect people fleeing political oppression — Jews during the Holocaust, dissidents from the Soviet empire, Iranians after the revolution and, in recent years, Muslim Uyghurs, Afghans, South Sudanese and Ukrainians. But asylum has expanded far beyond its original intent. Today, many migrants claim asylum even though they are not at risk of being persecuted. They instead want to move to the U.S. — understandably enough — because it is a richer, politically freer and less violent place than much of the world. After migrants arrive at the U.S. border and request asylum, the federal government allows many to remain in the country while their cases are considered. The process can take years, partly because the system is overwhelmed and doesn’t employ enough border agents and immigration judges to decide cases quickly. The situation has become self-reinforcing, giving more migrants reason to come to the U.S. As my colleague Miriam Jordan has explained: It is not just because they believe they will be able to make it across the 2,000 mile southern frontier. They are also certain that once they make it to the United States they will be able to stay. Forever. And by and large, they are not wrong … Most asylum claims are ultimately rejected. But even when that happens, years down the road, applicants are highly unlikely to be deported. With millions of people unlawfully in the country, U.S. deportation officers prioritize arresting and expelling people who have committed serious crimes and pose a threat to public safety. Two decades ago, the typical way that people tried to enter the U.S. without legal permission was to evade border agents. Today, the typical way is to surrender to agents and request asylum. It’s true that migrants typically face difficult circumstances at home, but that alone doesn’t explain the recent surge. The 1970s and ’80s offer a telling comparison: Global poverty was far higher then than now, and much of Latin America was convulsed by political violence. Yet the number of people who tried to cross the U.S. border was far lower than in recent years. The recognition of the asylum loophole (along with other factors, like social media and affordable airfares) is a major reason. ‘A simple truth’ The Mexican National Guard. Paul Ratje for The New York Times As a result, the U.S. now has an immigration system that permits many more entrants than Congress intended — and many more than Americans support. Polls show that most Americans consider illegal immigration to be a serious problem and favor tougher border security. Mayors and governors, who are dealing with the costs and turmoil associated with the surge, are also unhappy. As Noah Smith, who’s generally pro-immigration, recently wrote on Substack, “Americans like immigrants, but they strongly dislike the idea of giving up popular democratic control over immigration.” Biden made a similar point at the White House yesterday, while surrounded by officials from border communities. “We must face a simple truth,” he said. “To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now.” Biden’s executive actions are an effort to address both a substantive problem and a political threat to his re-election. The new policy, which started at midnight, prevents most people from claiming asylum if they enter the country without legal permission. They will instead have to remain in Mexico or return to their home country. The policy will remain in place unless daily migration falls well below its current level. Legal experts are divided on whether judges will uphold Biden’s order. On the one hand, federal law calls for a generous initial approach to asylum claims. On the other hand, the Supreme Court recently ruled that immigration law “exudes deference to the president.” Congress, of course, has the power to resolve this uncertainty. It could pass a law making clear who deserves an asylum hearing. Congress also has the power to hire more agents and judges, to reduce the system’s yearslong backlog. Until recently, Biden and many other Democrats were uninterested in passing such a law unless it also expanded legal immigration. Democrats, sensing their political vulnerability, changed their approach late last year and agreed to a bipartisan border-security bill — only to watch Republicans kill it at the urging of Donald Trump. Trump preferred letting the border crisis fester to hurt Biden. Yesterday’s executive order was Biden’s response. Whatever happens in the courts, the executive order may reduce migration simply by sending a signal that Biden has become more serious about border security. But the order falls well short of a lasting fix to the asylum loophole. Any true fix will have to be part of the immigration overhaul that politicians have talked about for decades and still have not passed. For more Biden’s executive order is rooted in a 73-word sentence in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Many Democrats support Biden’s move, but progressives criticized it as going too far while Republicans criticized him for not acting sooner. Arizona Republicans voted to put a referendum before voters in November that would make unlawfully crossing the border from Mexico a state crime. The late night hosts reacted to Biden’s executive order. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Primary Elections Representative Andy Kim won the New Jersey Democratic primary for Bob Menendez’s seat in the U.S. Senate. Menendez, on trial on bribery charges, plans to run as an independent. Curtis Bashaw, a moderate hotel developer, won the Republican primary. Menendez’s son, Representative Rob Menendez, won a tough primary race for his House seat in New Jersey. Biden’s Time Interview In an interview with Time magazine, Biden blamed Hamas for the failure to reach a cease-fire deal but said Israel had made mistakes. “A lot of innocent people have been killed.” Biden responded aggressively when asked whether he was too old to be president. “I can do it better than anybody you know,” he said. The president said China appeared to be meddling in the campaign to help Trump. “All the bad guys are rooting for Trump, man.” More on Politics At Hunter Biden’s trial, prosecutors played the audiobook of his memoir and showed the jury text messages as evidence that he was abusing drugs when he applied for a gun in 2018. “Nobody is allowed to lie, not even Hunter Biden,” one prosecutor said. Merrick Garland, Biden’s attorney general, rebutted the false claim that the Justice Department was behind Trump’s criminal conviction in Manhattan. “That conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself,” he said. Wisconsin charged three former Trump advisers in a 2020 fake electors scheme. Indian Elections In Varanasi, India. Atul Loke for The New York Times Narendra Modi claimed a third term as India’s prime minister, but his party, the B.J.P., lost seats in Parliament. He’ll need a coalition to govern, including parties that don’t share his Hindu nationalist agenda. The weak showing punctured the aura of invincibility that had surrounded Modi. Read our reporters’ takeaways. Congress, India’s main opposition party, has appeared diminished in recent years. Its performance in this election beat expectations. War in Ukraine @dosye_shpiona/Telegram Ukraine struck missile launchers inside Russia using American weapons, days after getting U.S. permission to do so. Russia is building weapons with chips made in the U.S., workers in a Ukrainian lab claim. They take missiles apart in this video from The Wall Street Journal. More International News In Omdurman, Sudan. Ivor Prickett for The New York Times In Sudan, a war has displaced millions and a looming famine threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. Times reporters spent three weeks traveling there. Israel organized a campaign that used fake online accounts to push U.S. lawmakers to support the war in Gaza, a Times investigation found. Rishi Sunak, Britain’s prime minister, and Keir Starmer, his main rival, clashed in a bad-tempered debate. Read what to know about next month’s election. European leaders are worried that the continent can’t compete with the productivity of the U.S. and China. Other Big Stories Louisiana passed a bill that would let courts order the surgical castration of men convicted of sexually abusing children. Employees accused OpenAI of failing to do enough to prevent its artificial intelligence systems from becoming dangerous. An F.D.A. advisory panel rejected the use of MDMA — or Ecstasy — to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Read about MDMA therapy and its risks. Opinions Rather than dismissing boys as privileged, progressives should sympathize with issues they face, like isolation, Ruth Whippman writes. If the Supreme Court lets companies use bankruptcy law to limit payouts to those they have harmed, it will undermine the justice system’s ability to deter bad behavior, Melissa Jacoby writes. Here are columns by Bret Stephens on NATO’s challenges and Thomas Edsall on A.I. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. MORNING READS At the Curtis Institute of Music. James Estrin/The New York Times Philadelphia: At this school, students young and old study music with a monastic focus. Treasure hunt: A family discovered a rare juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton while hiking in North Dakota. Missing: A bald eagle couple, named Nick and Nora, are searching for their eaglets after a storm in Texas, CNN reports. Amanda Knox: She was convicted and then exonerated of murdering her housemate in Italy. Now she’s returned to court in Italy over slander charges. Ask Well: Spray sunscreen is convenient. But does it work? New Orleans: Read books that capture the city’s many cultural influences. Lives Lived: Janis Paige made her mark at 22 in the all-star 1944 film “Hollywood Canteen” and became the toast of Broadway in the hit musical “The Pajama Game” before enjoying a long career on the stage, in films and on television. She died at 101. SPORTS Men’s soccer: Real Madrid’s signing of the French star Kylian Mbappe was years in the making. Read the inside story. Women’s soccer: The U.S. team beat South Korea after Lily Yohannes, 16, scored in the 82nd minute. N.B.A.: The Los Angeles Lakers are close to hiring JJ Redick, a former player and ESPN broadcaster, as their head coach. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Qasr al-Farid, the unfinished tomb of Lihyan, son of Kuza. In the past few years, Saudi Arabia’s royal family has spent lavishly to improve the country’s reputation overseas. That includes a nearly trillion-dollar investment in tourism. But what is it like to travel through a country that not long ago mostly prohibited tourism and enforced strict religious codes? Stephen Hiltner, a journalist for The Times’s Travel section, took a 5,200-mile road trip across the kingdom to witness its transformation. Read about his journey. More on culture A former protégée accused The-Dream, a producer who has made hits with Beyoncé and Rihanna, of rape and battery. He called the allegations “untrue and defamatory.” The Times critic Tejal Rao visited Something About Her, a Los Angeles sandwich restaurant started by two stars from Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules.” Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, sold his stake in Revolt, a media company he founded. Several women have sued Combs in recent months, accusing him of sexual assault. A documentary about the Brat Pack will premiere at the Tribeca Festival. Read about five defining teen movies of the 1980s. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Cook this fast and easy summer pasta dish with shrimp, linguine, zucchini and corn. Strengthen your friendships with a five-day challenge from Well. Entice birds into your backyard with a smart feeder. Keep your bedroom cool this summer. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was implant. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David P.S. In letters to the editor, Times readers debated German Lopez’s recent newsletter on overdose trends and related coverage. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 7 Author Members Share Posted June 7 June 6, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Alex Travelli helps you understand Modi’s India. We’re also covering Israel, D-Day and Brooklyn. —David Leonhardt Narendra Modi at his party’s headquarters. Atul Loke for The New York Times Modi’s choices By Alex Travelli I’ve covered India for the past 11 years. Narendra Modi has just won re-election as India’s prime minister, though by a far narrower margin than expected. With his third consecutive term, the charismatic strongman has still sealed his position as the country’s most significant leader in generations. Despite having led India for a decade, Modi has in some ways kept his country guessing about his vision. On major issues — India’s relationships, its economy, its society and its government — it’s still unclear what sort of country Modi wants India to be. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain four of the big questions. Where will India find friends? India has spent recent years deepening its relationship with the United States. It has gotten closer to American allies, including Japan and Australia, and ordered high-end American weapons systems — the kind that create dependence down the road. And it is unlikely to side with China. In 2020, Chinese troops crossed into territory controlled by India and killed 20 soldiers in a skirmish. Modi has kept Beijing at arm’s length since then. But Modi, 73, has signaled that he doesn’t want to be a U.S. ally. Some officials in his inner circle still regard the United States warily. American diplomats complain about New Delhi’s apparent efforts to erode democratic norms and the rights of minority groups. So India keeps its options open. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States tried in vain to persuade India to take a stand against the war. India still processes Russian oil (picking up the slack created by international sanctions). It still buys weapons from Russia. India spent the Cold War trying to position itself as a nonaligned power. Old habits die hard. Workers in a factory in Coimbatore, India. Atul Loke for The New York Times What type of economy? India recently overtook China as the most populous country and the fastest-growing large economy. Still, most of the country remains poor. Some 800 million people need help filling their stomachs. Modi’s ideas about how to help them can be contradictory — they’re both globally minded and protectionist. One path would be to follow East Asian countries, which escaped poverty by manufacturing goods for export. To that end, Modi unfurled a “Make in India” initiative in 2014, an effort to replace China as the world’s factory. But exports have barely risen, even as Modi has thrown new subsidies at them. Some Indian economists say it’s better to focus on exporting services, like I.T. and remote professional work. Another Modi vision is for a “self-reliant India,” which would reduce the country’s exposure to global supply chains. Shielding Indian companies from foreign competition is at odds with preparing them for it. In the face of big economic decisions, Modi sometimes seems equivocal. Like Reagan and Thatcher, he came to power promising to pare down government. In practice, the state wields a heavy hand in most sectors — imposing radical, sometimes half-baked reforms by decree. Protecting minority groups? India’s founders crafted a constitution for a diverse and secular republic. Modi has been recasting the country as an explicitly Hindu nation. He converted Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state, into a heavily policed federal territory. He built a giant Hindu temple on a disputed site where mobs had torn down a mosque. During the campaign this year, he called Muslims, who make up 14 percent of the population, “infiltrators.” India’s Muslims say they have been turned into second-class citizens. Modi’s third term will be a test: Has the Hindu nationalist project been fulfilled, or is there more he can do to assert one faith’s supremacy? The call to put Muslims in their place is the lifeblood of Modi’s party, creating winning majorities within a hugely diverse and caste-riven Hindu population. In a third term, Modi could choose new targets, for instance by agitating for more Hindu temples to replace historic mosques. He may be constrained, however, by his new political partners, who are not beholden to his party’s Hindu-first projects. Indian Muslims in Jahangirpuri. Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times How much authoritarianism? One reason for Modi’s enduring popularity is that he’s effective. Modi often imposes reforms suddenly, relying on boldness and even the element of surprise to cut through red tape. He streamlined the tax system and even started a semiconductor industry from scratch. He has no patience for obstacles of any kind. One result is that the world’s biggest democracy has set aside many democratic norms. The police have thrown leaders of the opposition in jail, swelling the number of political prisoners. The Election Commission has been stacked with pro-Modi appointees. The judiciary hardly ever stands in the way of government priorities. Modi seems to have kept his job but lost his parliamentary majority. Now he’ll need to placate coalition partners and consult them on major changes. Maybe that will protect some of the institutions that were built to preserve fair play. The other possibility is that Modi will crack down harder than ever, making full use of the agencies that answer directly to him, to ensure that his party stays ahead of the invigorated competition. Modi has made it this far despite all the complaints about repression. If anything is to hold him back now, it will have to come from within his new governing coalition. For more Modi struggled to stay on top — and three other takeaways from the election. In countries like India and Turkey, where some feared authoritarian leaders would consolidate power, democracy has proved resilient, Mark Landler writes. Global investors have pivoted to India, looking for profits they can’t find in China. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War The New York Times visited part of the Sde Teiman base. Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times Israel has been holding blindfolded, handcuffed Gazan detainees without legal representation at a military base. See inside. Israel began an offensive in central Gaza, and an Israeli airstrike on a school there killed dozens of people. Israel said it was targeting Hamas; Palestinians said the strike killed displaced civilians. The C.I.A. director met with Qatari and Egyptian officials in an attempt to broker a cease-fire. Qatari officials also met with Hamas leaders, who have yet to formally respond to Israel’s latest proposal. (Here are the hurdles to a deal.) Benjamin Netanyahu threatened additional military action against Hezbollah, two days after it launched rockets and drones into northern Israel from Lebanon. Police officers arrested 13 pro-Palestinian protesters who had barricaded themselves in the office of Stanford University’s president. D-Day Anniversary George Mullins, an American veteran, at the grave of William Lemaster, who died next to him in northern France in 1944. Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the pivotal World War II battle on beaches in Normandy. Few veterans of the battle are alive. War has returned to Europe. President Biden will visit Normandy and link the fight for Ukraine with the Allied effort on D-Day. 2024 Election After Donald Trump’s conviction, The Times contacted participants in past Times/Siena College polls and found a slight shift toward Biden. (Hear some voters explain their decision on the “Run-Up” podcast. ) Trump said he might seek to prosecute political opponents if he won. Threats like that damage the rule of law, legal experts told The Times’s Adam Liptak. Byron Donalds, a House Republican and potential Trump running mate, suggested that Jim Crow had an upside for Black Americans because “the Black family was together” and “more Black people voted conservatively.” More on Politics An inflatable I.U.D. outside Washington’s Union Station this week. Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The New York Times Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to guarantee access to contraception. Two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted to advance it. At Hunter Biden’s federal trial, his ex-wife and a former girlfriend testified about his drug and alcohol abuse. House Republicans recommended that the Justice Department charge Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, with lying to Congress. Republicans’ claims appear to include misrepresentations of Hunter Biden’s testimony. International The Slovak prime minister spoke publicly for the first time since an assassination attempt hospitalized him. A train crash in the Czech Republic killed at least four people. Papua New Guinea will end its search for victims of a landslide that leveled remote villages. It appears to have killed hundreds of people, rather than thousands, as local officials once feared. A gunman opened fire on the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, injuring a security guard before Lebanese security forces shot and captured him. Congestion Pricing Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York abruptly halted a plan to charge drivers who enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. It had been set to take effect this month, and she cited economic harm for her change of mind. The program, known as congestion pricing, would have been the first of its kind in the U.S., with proceeds funding public transit. Similar programs in London, Singapore and Stockholm have largely succeeded. Other Big Stories In Cape Canaveral, Fla. Joe Raedle/Getty Images The Boeing Starliner spacecraft carried two NASA astronauts into orbit after years of costly delays. Separately, SpaceX is set this morning to launch Starship, the largest rocket built. Leaders of a California city voted to stop scientists from testing a salt-spraying device they say could help cool the planet. The officials cited health risks, despite a report finding none. F.D.A. advisers recommended that Covid vaccine manufacturers update their shots to combat new variants ahead of a fall vaccination campaign. Opinions Isolationism is a delusion. The only way to make America safe is to build its defense now, Senator Mitch McConnell writes. Miami’s needle exchange program proves harm reduction can work even in red states, Maia Szalavitz writes. Here’s a column by Lydia Polgreen on India’s elections. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. MORNING READS Coney Island. Karsten Moran for The New York Times 36 Hours: There’s so much to do in Brooklyn in the summertime. A local writer picked her favorite spots. Wing bearers: In Britain, owls take a starring role in weddings. Social Q’s: “Is it disrespectful to my dead father if I speak to his estranged brother?” Health: A report highlights the persistence of long Covid for millions of Americans. Lives Lived: Bertien van Manen was a Dutch photographer who captured intimate images of daily life in China’s discos and villages, in post-Soviet Russia and in Kentucky mining country. She died at 89. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Dallas Mavericks and the Boston Celtics face off tonight in Game 1 of the N.B.A. Finals. W.N.B.A.: Chicago Sky players reported being harassed outside their team hotel in Washington, less than a week after the Sky guard Chennedy Carter’s hard foul on Caitlin Clark sparked outrage. College football: The schedule for the sport’s first 12-team playoff is published. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Benjamin Bolger Benjamin Bolger, 48, has spent his life earning degrees: 14 advanced degrees, as well as an associate’s and a bachelor’s. He has studied at Brandeis, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, Yale and elsewhere, and is now pursuing a master’s at Cambridge. In an era of cynicism about higher education, Joseph Bernstein explores what we can learn from him. More on culture Jenna Lyons, a former J. Crew president and “Real Housewives of New York City” star, hosted a stoop sale. This is what she sold. Late night hosts joked about Boeing. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Couscous risotto with tomatoes and mozzarella. Kerri Brewer for The New York Times. Use pearl couscous instead of rice to halve your stirring time for this caprese-inspired “risotto.” Calm caffeine-related anxiety. Upgrade your sleeper sofa. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was beekeeping. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 10 Author Members Share Posted June 10 June 8, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. If you’ve been having trouble finding a show to watch, you’re not alone. Here are some upcoming offerings that might grab your attention. María Jesús Contreras Blank screen Blame it on the better weather and its privileging of being out over staying in, but I’ve been having a hard time getting into any streaming entertainment these days. I’ve started dozens of shows and abandoned them after an episode or two, never to return. Are recent shows just poor matches for my taste? Has TV become boringly mid, as my colleague James Poniewozik described? Or perhaps it’s more serious: Have I finally and irretrievably reached the outer limits of my own attention span? It’s no great tragedy, not having something to watch — go for a hike! watch a sunset, why don’t you! — but being deeply engaged with a show is one of the chief comforts of the enthusiastic cultural consumer. When the algorithm fails and the queue dries up, the world becomes a cold and unwelcoming place. When my eyes snapped open at 3 a.m. recently, I reached, as always, for the iPad, for something to watch, something amply distracting to induce a sleep that would stick. For an hour, I stared at the grid of shows on the Netflix app, and the grid stared back, each option equally unappealing. So I was relieved to find that our critic Mike Hale this week issued his list of 30 shows to watch this summer. I won’t lie and say I’m certain that something on the list will reconnect me to the streaming tides, but I’m hopeful. There are a bunch of suspenseful shows in particular that seem designed to grab my anemic attention and hold on tight. From left, Ricky Staffieri, Jeremy Allen White and Matty Matheson in “The Bear.” Chuck Hodes/FX On Wednesday, David E. Kelley’s new adaptation of Scott Turow’s legal thriller “Presumed Innocent” arrives. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a prosecutor suspected of murdering his lover, played by Renate Reinsve from the film “The Worst Person in the World.” I’m willing to forget that I know how the story ends (you’ll recall the 1990 movie version, starring Harrison Ford) if the show proves entertaining enough. Kelley’s recent addictive shows include “Big Little Lies” and “The Undoing,” so I feel like this one has promise. In July, Natalie Portman stars in a screen adaptation of Laura Lippman’s novel “Lady in the Lake” as a newspaper reporter in the 1960s investigating two mysterious deaths. The show also stars Moses Ingram (“The Queen’s Gambit”), Y’lan Noel (“Insecure”) and Mikey Madison (“Better Things”) and it’s written and directed by Alma Har’el, who directed “Honey Boy,” that very good Shia LaBeouf movie from 2019, images from which still pop up in my mind with a curious frequency. Another book-to-screen project I’ve got my eye on for August: Carl Hiaasen’s 2013 novel “Bad Monkey,” which Janet Maslin called a “comedic marvel,” is getting new life as a series by Bill Lawrence, a co-creator of “Ted Lasso” and “Shrinking.” It stars Vince Vaughn as a detective turned restaurant inspector who’s pulled back onto the beat by a fisherman’s grisly discovery of a severed arm. Vaughn is one of those actors who seem to make everything they’re in a little cooler, a little funnier, a little daffier. I look forward to spending time with him. Speaking of daffy, I’m back and forth on the madcap appeals of “Only Murders in the Building,” but I watched the trailer and it seems the trio of accidental gumshoes are headed to Hollywood for the fourth season. Perhaps it’s just my fond memories of “L.A. Story” and “Bowfinger,” but I am excited to see Steve Martin bumble his way into the star-making apparatus of Los Angeles. The new season arrives at the end of August. Oh, and it’s not suspenseful per se (although those elaborately choreographed montages of the kitchen staff assembling orders with virtuoso precision do make me hold my breath), but I will tune in for the third season of “The Bear” on June 27, and I think you should, too. This is one of those shows that it seems everyone loved when it first came out — it won a lot of awards, its stars became megastars — and now I’m hearing lots of critical grumbling about how it’s overrated. I’m going to ignore this, not only because I’m desperate for something to watch, but also because I maintain that the show’s earnest depiction of the rewards of collaboration makes for extremely satisfying viewing, and Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri are so quirky and compelling I can’t stay away. ADVERTISEMENT THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Adria Arjona and Glen Powell in “Hit Man.” Netflix “Hit Man,” a comedy from Richard Linklater about a reserved philosophy professor who finds himself posing as a hit man, is one of eight movies our critics are talking about this week. Glen Powell, the star of “Hit Man,” is trying to beat the Hollywood-superstar odds. The films screened at this year’s Tribeca Festival are big on vibe, for better and for worse, our critic writes. Francis Ford Coppola discussed the inspirations for characters in “Megalopolis” and “The Godfather,” as well as recent allegations made against him. Alec Baldwin announced that he will star in a TLC reality show with his wife and seven children. He is scheduled to stand trial next month on an involuntary manslaughter charge. Pat Sajak, whose last episode as host of “Wheel of Fortune” aired last night, spent four decades as an unflappable presence in America’s living rooms. Music Cyndi Lauper Thea Traff for The New York Times “Who the hell I am is who the hell I am”: Cyndi Lauper, 70, is preparing for her final tour. In an interview, she reflects on her life and career. Halsey was diagnosed with lupus and a rare lymphatic disorder. “Long story short, i’m Lucky to be alive,” the singer wrote on Instagram. “This place will always be my home”: Antonio Pappano, who spent 22 years as the music director at the Royal Opera House in London, is leading his final production. Art American museums, faced with dwindling attendance, are shifting their strategies to feature newer talent or cater to local audiences. Philip Guston’s teenage drawings for The Junior Times — a Sunday Los Angeles Times supplement — could add to our understanding of the man and his art. Other Big Stories The roving production of “The Comedy of Errors.” Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times While the Delacorte Theater in Central Park is being renovated, the company behind Shakespeare in the Park is performing in outdoor spaces across New York. Vulture picked 65 book-to-screen adaptations to read this summer, including “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen and “A Man in Full” by Tom Wolfe. Druski, an online comedian, broke through with videos about warehouse workers and high school coaches. Now he hangs out with rappers and pro athletes. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Justice Clarence Thomas at Old Parkland, a property in Dallas owned by Harlan Crow. Allison V. Smith for The New York Times Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged in a Supreme Court financial disclosure that a Republican donor paid for two luxury trips Thomas took in 2019. The Biden administration tightened fuel mileage standards, in an effort to boost electric and hybrid vehicles. A New Jersey businessman testified that he gave Senator Bob Menendez’s girlfriend a car in exchange for the senator’s “power and influence.” The prosecution rested its case in Hunter Biden’s federal trial for lying on a gun application. His daughter Naomi testified in his defense. Other Big Stories Alex Jones, the Infowars conspiracy theorist, is seeking to liquidate his assets to pay Sandy Hook families, whom he owes more than $1.4 billion for lying about the 2012 school shooting. The U.S. economy added 272,000 jobs last month and wages rose, a sign of robust growth even as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent. A federal jury in Minneapolis convicted five people for embezzling millions from government programs meant to feed children during the pandemic. William Anders, who flew on the first manned space mission to orbit the moon and took the famous “Earthrise” photograph in 1968, died at 90 in a plane crash. His photo became an icon of the environmental movement. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. CULTURE CALENDAR By Alexis Soloski 🎥 “Inside Out 2” (Friday): We last saw Riley, the tween hero of Pixar’s “Inside Out,” in 2015. Apparently it’s taken this whole time for her to hit puberty. The first film depicted Riley’s inner life by imagining a command center of the soul, staffed by the likes of Joy, Sadness and Anger. In this sequel, new characters arrive: Anxiety, Ennui, Embarrassment, etc. Considering “Moana,” “Turning Red” and “Frozen,” we are in an 18-karat golden age for animated movies about the lives of girls and young women that don’t center on romance. And considering that these new emotions don’t include Libido, “Inside Out 2” looks to be one more. But how long will we have to wait for “Inside Out 3: Perimenopause”? ADVERTISEMENT RECIPE OF THE WEEK Alex Lau for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Coconut-dill salmon Now’s the time to break out the grill if you didn’t get to it over Memorial Day weekend. Yewande Komolafe’s coconut-dill salmon with green beans and corn is a good place to start, especially if grilling fish makes you nervous. Instead of dealing with a fish basket or worrying about delicate fillets sticking to the grill grates, Yewande wraps the salmon in heavy-duty foil before placing it over the fire; the foil allows the fish to steam in a fragrant dressing of coconut cream, mustard, vinegar and dill. Then she grills green beans in a separate foil package alongside. For serving, the salmon and green beans are tossed with corn, tomatoes and more dressing. It’s a perfect meal to cook for a crowd. REAL ESTATE Clementine Martini Katarina Premfors for The New York Times The Hunt: After years of renting in Dubai, a French woman decided to put down roots. Which home did she buy? Play our game. What you get for $700,000: A three-bedroom condo in a converted Gothic Revival church in New Haven, Conn.; an 1873 rowhouse in Lambertville, N.J.; or a 1938 bungalow in Atlanta. For sale: The pink one-story home in Louisville, Ky., where Muhammad Ali grew up is up for sale. It’s listed, along with two neighboring properties, for $1.5 million. LIVING Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times A lost art: Film photography is having a renaissance, but some new photographers are leaving something behind: negatives. Old flames: Rumors of a breakup between Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are a reminder of the pressures and messiness of rekindled love. Unplugging: One writer documented her phone-free girls’ trip to Costa Rica. (She used a pen, paper and a disposable camera.) Father’s Day: Looking for something to get Dad? T magazine’s picks include colorful watches, Japanese toolboxes and a mini synth. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER Bring your own chair The ground beckons to me every summer: picnics, beach trips and campfires. If you, like me, require back support, I recommend a tiny packable camping chair. One of Wirecutter’s favorites is a permanent fixture in my bag. It’s so light and compact it slides right into my tote. Meeting a friend for a walk? Who knows where we’ll end up! Quick coffee run? Why not! The chair sets up in seconds and is more convenient to travel with than a clunky beach chair or even a picnic blanket. If you prefer to be even closer to the ground, my colleague Elissa Sanci swears by this legless chair. — Hali Potters GAME OF THE WEEK Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics after a dunk in Game 1. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images Dallas Mavericks vs. Boston Celtics, N.B.A. finals: The core of this Celtics team is young — Jayson Tatum is 26, Jaylen Brown is 27 — but it has been remarkably successful. In their seven seasons together on the Celtics, Tatum and Brown have reached the Eastern Conference finals five times. They haven’t yet won a title, but this could be the year: The Celtics had the best record, the best offense and one of the best defenses in the N.B.A. this season. They cruised past the Mavericks in Game 1 on Thursday. The most striking statistic from that game: Luka Doncic, the Mavs’ superstar, had only one assist, the lowest of any playoff game in his career. Game 2 is Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC More on sports The Stanley Cup finals begin tonight, with the Edmonton Oilers facing the Florida Panthers. Here’s a preview from The Athletic. Iga Swiatek beat Coco Gauff in straight sets to reach her fourth French Open final. She will face Jasmine Paolini of Italy. In the men’s final of the French Open, Carlos Alcaraz will face Alexander Zverev. Today is the Belmont Stakes, the last leg of the Triple Crown. Because of construction, this year’s race will be run on the storied track at Saratoga. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was cacophony. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 12 Author Members Share Posted June 12 June 9, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Kashmir Hill writes about the apps quietly tracking our driving habits. We’re also covering Israeli hostages, the U.S.-Mexico border and stand-up comedy. —David Leonhardt Mike Blake/Reuters Eyes on the road By Kashmir Hill I’m a technology reporter who focuses on privacy. You know you have a credit score. Did you know that you might also have a driving score? Driving scores are based on how often you slam on the brakes, speed, look at your phone or drive late at night — information that, likely without your knowing, can be collected by your car or by apps on your smartphone. That data is sold to brokers, who work with auto insurers. These scores can help determine how much drivers pay for insurance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: Experts say that basing premiums on how we actually drive — rather than on our credit scores and whether we’re married or went to college — could be a fairer system, and ultimately improve road safety. But this tracking will only lead to safer driving if people know that it is happening. How it happens The smartphone apps collecting driver data might not be obvious at first glance. One, Life360, is popular with parents who want to keep track of their families. MyRadar offers weather forecasts. GasBuddy can help you find cheap fuel on a road trip. But all of these apps also have opt-in driving analysis features that offer insights into things like safety and fuel usage. Those insights are provided by Arity, a data broker founded by Allstate. Arity uses the data to create driving scores for tens of millions of people, and then markets the scores to auto insurance companies. “No one who realizes what they’re doing would consent,” said Kathleen Lomax, a New Jersey mother who recently canceled her subscription to Life360 when she found out this was happening. Arity says that insurers ultimately need consent to link a person’s driving data to their auto insurance rate. But in some cases, the request for smartphone data may appear as boilerplate contract language — “third party data and reports” — that online shoppers regularly click past without reading. Chi Chi Wu, a consumer rights lawyer, raised an important concern regarding data collected this way: How do insurers know when a person is driving a car, versus riding in it? (Arity said it “uses advanced technology” to determine this.) Insurers are also getting driving data directly from people’s cars. I’ve previously written about how General Motors sold data on millions of drivers to LexisNexis, a practice it ceased after our story. A Chevrolet assembly line. Carlos Osorio/Associated Press But any car with an internet connection, which most modern cars have, can send data back to the automaker. Rob Leathern, a tech executive in Texas, was surprised last year when he got an email from Toyota saying he could get “big savings” from Progressive because he’d been identified as a safe driver, based on information collected from his 2023 Sequoia. He didn’t realize his driving was being monitored and wanted to get to the bottom of it. It took a month of emails, phone calls and data privacy requests to find out that a data broker affiliated with Toyota called Connected Analytic Services had a Microsoft Excel file with second-by-second records listing every time he had driven faster than 85 m.p.h., slammed on his brakes or accelerated rapidly. The possible upside For a previous story on automakers sharing people’s data, a law professor told me that people who sign up to be monitored by their insurers, in what are commonly called usage-based insurance plans, drive better as a consequence. If drivers knew they would pay more for risky driving, we could get safer roads as a result. Those roads have gotten more dangerous in the U.S., as a recent Times Magazine story detailed. There are more fatalities, and people are driving faster. At the same time, the police are giving out fewer tickets. That decline in ticketing has been a problem for insurers, because traffic citations are a metric for how risky a driver someone is. It’s part of why insurers want access to real-world driving behavior, one industry expert told me. And drivers — at least the good ones, which most of us think we are — might actually want that, too. Because the way auto insurance is priced right now can be quite unfair, said Michael DeLong of the Consumer Federation of America. If you have a bad credit score, for example, you will pay more for auto insurance even if you have never been in an accident or received a ticket. For that reason, DeLong is in favor of insurers looking at driving behavior instead. But he has concerns: Consumers need to know it’s happening, he said, and we need to be wary of possible new forms of discrimination. Driving late at night can hurt a person’s score because of the poorer visibility and greater percentage of tired and inebriated drivers on the road. But that could in turn penalize low-income people who work a night shift, such as janitors. So how do you know if this is happening to you? Check the privacy settings on your car’s dashboard system and smartphone apps. If an app connects to your car, or gives you feedback about your driving, that’s a good place to start. But don’t worry about Google Maps or Waze. Google, which owns both apps, said it doesn’t provide driving data that’s linked to individuals to third parties. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War Almog Meir Jan, center, one of the four rescued hostages, in Israel. Marko Djurica/Reuters Israeli forces rescued four hostages whom Hamas and its allies had held since kidnapping them on Oct. 7. The four returned to Israel and reunited with their families. See video of their return. One of the four is Noa Argamani, 26, who became a symbol of the hostages after video showed her crying out in desperation while assailants abducted her. Read more about the four. Israeli officials conducted the operation — in a neighborhood in central Gaza — during the day in the hope of catching Hamas off guard. The mission, which included a heavy air and ground assault, killed scores of Palestinians, hospital officials said. It was not clear how many were civilians and how many were Hamas militants. Around 120 captives remain in Gaza. The Israeli military has confirmed that at least 30 of them have died. More International News Near the front line in eastern Ukraine. Emile Ducke for The New York Times In Ukraine, frontline troops are hooked on energy drinks. Many are marketed specifically to soldiers. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is striking a more modest tone after the recent election eliminated his parliamentary majority. Millions of voters in the European Union’s 27 member states are heading to the polls for European Parliament elections. Read about what to watch for. Tourism in Japan has surged, partly because the yen is weak. The influx of visitors is testing the patience of a generally polite society. On Saturday, Emmanuel Macron hosted President Biden at a state dinner. Macron, who relishes fine cuisine, has revived the French tradition of culinary diplomacy. Politics Near the U.S.-Mexico border. Paul Ratje for The New York Times Shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border were quieter — and their residents more anxious — in the days after a Biden executive order effectively closed the border for most migrants. North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, has little national profile. Yet, he has emerged as a contender in Donald Trump’s search for a running mate. Biden, in an effort to charm audiences, exaggerates details when recounting episodes from his life. The Times fact-checked of some of his most repeated tales. Other Big Stories Stanford reinstated a standardized test score requirement for undergraduate admissions. Several other elite colleges have also restored the practice after abandoning it during the pandemic. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist, was found dead in Greece. Mosley was widely known for popularizing the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Is congestion pricing dead in New York? Yes. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s indefinite postponement of congestion pricing included few details about a plan for reinstating it. “She took a quick exit to avoid the political traffic ahead,” Newsday’s editorial board writes. No. The postponement is mostly a product of timing. “If the political trouble passes in November and Democrats feel good about themselves again, they can just as easily put congestion pricing back in play,” Tom Wrobleski writes for SI Live. FROM OPINION Nicholas Kristof, the son of a refugee, says that Biden’s new asylum policy is the right one for the country. Paramount’s financial struggles threaten cultural touchstones like MTV and “The Daily Show.” The problems can be traced to the whims of one Hollywood family, William Cohan writes. Panda diplomacy gets the United States and China to work together when political tensions are high, Vicki Constantine Croke argues. Here are columns by Jamelle Bouie on Trump’s supporters and Michelle Goldberg on Mafia-inspired conservatism. Readers of The Morning: For a limited time, enjoy 7 free days. Discover all of The Times, from expert coverage to games to cooking, sports and more, free for one week, then $1/week for your first six months. Try The Times now. ADVERTISEMENT MORNING READS In New York City. Andrew Kelly for The New York Times The front row: Banter with the audience, known as crowd work, has become more common in stand-up comedy. Forced to leave: See photos from CNN of life on an overcrowded island in Panama, threatened by rising sea levels. Argentina: Buenos Aires Yoga School promised spiritual salvation. Prosecutors say it was a sex cult. Vows: Many women joke about marrying their best friend. These two did it. Lives Lived: Jürgen Moltmann drew on his experiences as a German soldier during World War II to construct transformative ideas about God and salvation, becoming a leading Protestant theologian. He died at 98. THE INTERVIEW Julia Louis-Dreyfus Philip Montgomery for The New York Times By Lulu Garcia-Navarro This week’s subject for The Interview is actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus. We talked about her new, more serious film role, political correctness in comedy and what she’s learned hosting the podcast “Wiser Than Me.” I recently heard an episode of “Wiser Than Me” in which you interviewed Patti Smith, and you talked about the different ways that you’ve processed the death of people in your own life. Have the conversations you’ve been having on your podcast helped you? Yeah, it’s really one of the many impetuses to making this podcast, because all of these women I’m talking to have lived very full, long lives. And that of course means they’ve experienced loss. And I’m really interested to talk to them about how they move beyond it or with it or into it. I’m just loving those conversations. I find what’s comforting about them, and sometimes a little depressing, is how many of the same themes — sexism, prejudice, self-doubt — they have experienced themselves. What is your takeaway from hearing these women having gone through so many of the things that we’re still going through? There’s a sense with most of them, not everybody, but there’s a sense of, OK, I’m done with that [expletive]. I don’t know if we can swear. You can swear. But anyway, I’m done with that. I’m done with self-doubt. I’m done with shame. I’m done with feeling weird about being ambitious. You know, the list is long. We all know what it is. I think for me, the takeaway is: Oh, we can be done with that sooner than we thought. We don’t have to take 60, 70 [expletive] years to come to that conclusion. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by David Guttenfelder for The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS In Amsterdam. Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times The translation market: As English fluency has increased in Europe, readers have started to buy American and British books in the original language. Publishers are worried. Nonfiction: In “Stories Are Weapons,” the journalist Annalee Newitz explores how America has used narrative to manipulate and deceive. Our editors’ picks: “The Swans of Harlem,” a portrait of five Black ballerinas from the 1960s and ’70s, and six other books. Times best sellers: “Life’s Too Short,” a memoir by Darius Rucker, the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, enters the hardcover nonfiction list this week. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Fall in love with South African jazz. Wear a surfer-approved sun hat. Give yourself a good ice cream scoop. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For The T20 World Cup group match between India and Pakistan is today. The French Open men’s tennis final is today. The Peabody Awards are today. The U.S. Open golf tournament begins on Thursday. The G7 summit begins on Thursday. Switzerland hosts a peace summit on Saturday. Ukraine aims to build support for its plan to end Russia’s invasion. Meal Plan Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein features a linguine with zucchini, corn and shrimp, a recipe that was recently described by a Cooking editor as “a pasta that tastes like summer.” Emily also suggests making a tomato beef stir-fry and garlicky Alfredo beans. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was charged. Can you put eight historical events — including Cleopatra’s reign, the discovery of New Zealand, and the Electric Slide dance craze — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 13 Author Members Share Posted June 13 June 11, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Michael Bender writes about the race to become Donald Trump’s running mate. We’re also covering Israel, Nigeria’s economy and Asian grocery stores. —David Leonhardt Donald Trump Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times Who will Trump pick? By Michael C. Bender I’ve covered Donald Trump’s three presidential campaigns and his four years in the White House. Discipline, experience and risk aversion are not traits typically associated with Donald Trump’s political brand. But his search for those values in a running mate has helped him narrow the field, for now, to a top tier of contenders, people in his orbit tell me. Trump has an unusual amount of freedom with this choice. He believes voters will cast their ballots based on the top of the ticket, so he needn’t pick someone from a battleground state to help win it. People already know him, so he doesn’t need someone to woo a particular constituency, as Mike Pence did with evangelicals in 2016. But he worries that a running mate can create unwanted distractions. As a result, Trump has tightened his V.P. list to dependable and loyal campaigners. Still, the search hasn’t escaped his freewheeling style. Advisers say he keeps injecting new contenders into the mix and pressuring his campaign for an announcement during the Republican Party’s convention next month. He wants a good show, preceded by lots of buzz. To generate it, his team has requested personal information and other vetting documents from a far broader list of Republicans than the few candidates he has shown the most interest in. The top tier From left: Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum and J.D. Vance. Kenny Holston/The New York Times, Pool photo by Curtis Means, Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Doug Burgum. The former president collects wealthy white businessmen as if they were porcelain dolls — and the North Dakota governor has amassed a fortune from building billion-dollar companies. Burgum is well versed in energy policy, which Trump has said is a Day 1 priority, and he could help persuade pro-business stalwarts frustrated by both Trump and President Biden. He’s already having an effect: Tom Siebel, a billionaire tech investor who loves Burgum, told me he wrote his first check to Trump — for $500,000 — because the North Dakotan was in the mix for the Republican ticket. But Burgum is relatively untested on a national stage. He’ll face questions about the abortion ban he signed into law last year that does not allow for rape and incest exceptions after six weeks of pregnancy. Marco Rubio. During the 2016 race, Trump taunted the Florida senator as “Little Marco.” But the men quietly reconciled once Trump took office. Rubio has been a close adviser on foreign policy and other issues. And Trump likes the idea of having a Spanish speaker on the ticket to sell his hard-right anti-immigration policies. Yet Rubio hasn’t been as public as others about his desire to join the ticket. He wasn’t among the V.P. contenders who sat with Trump in a Manhattan courtroom during his trial. He’s not a fixture at Trump’s rallies. Part of the reason may be tactical: Trump is known to erupt on anyone who inches too close to his spotlight. But the approach has left Trump confused. “Does he even want the job?” Trump recently asked one Republican operative. J.D. Vance. The senator from Ohio — a graduate of Yale Law School and a best-selling author — is the closest thing in the top tier to a fire-breathing ideologue. He ably defends Trumpism on television, knowing when to dial up the rhetoric and when to turn self-effacing. He’s raised lots of money to finance the campaign. Plenty of people around Mar-a-Lago tell me how much Trump likes Vance. But the former president also likes people with experience. The average age of his cabinet in 2017 was 62. Vance is only 39 years old, barely above the minimum for a president (35) and roughly half Trump’s age. He’s less than two years into his first elected office. Contingency plans From left: Tim Scott, Tom Cotton and Bill Hagerty Kenny Holston/The New York Times, Valerie Plesch for The New York Times Tom Cotton. Trump often talks about finding figures from “central casting,” and the senator from Arkansas fits the mold: The 6-foot-5 Ivy League graduate is a decorated military veteran whom the former president views as one of his most effective defenders on television. Bill Hagerty. The senator from Tennessee is making a last-minute push for consideration. He showed up at Trump fund-raisers in Alabama and California last week, for instance. It might be working. Trump has repeatedly asked his inner circle in recent days for opinions about Hagerty, who spent a career in private equity before he became Trump’s ambassador to Japan — and later won election to the Senate. Tim Scott. Since ending his own presidential campaign in November, Scott seems to be doing all the right things. The senator from South Carolina fires up Trump crowds on the campaign trail. He highlights his close ties to big donors who haven’t yet committed. He promises to woo minority voters. But Trump expressed disappointment in Scott’s debate performance last summer. Still in the orbit Ben Carson. Trump keeps mentioning his former cabinet secretary as a potential running mate. But Carson was the subject of several scandals while serving as Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone in Trump’s inner circle pushing for his promotion. Elise Stefanik. Trump loved Stefanik’s brutal questioning of college presidents about antisemitism on campuses, people close to the former president said. Stefanik, 39, is the youngest person to serve in House Republican leadership and was just 30 when she was elected. There may be no harder worker on this list. But the congresswoman can seem too practiced and rehearsed for Trump, who often riffs through his speeches. The final call Others still nominally in contention include people like Representative Byron Donalds of Florida and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas. But the early chatter that Trump would pick a woman or a character beloved by his base seems wrong. That explains why Kari Lake, the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the energetic Ohio businessman, are no longer on the list. Instead, the advisers around Trump, many of whom I’ve known for years, said the former president had returned to his comfort zone with potential running mates who are mostly white and male. Of course, even following his own convention deadline, Trump still has time to change his mind. More on Trump Trump had a virtual interview with a New York City probation official, which is required before the judge sentences him in the hush-money case, The A.P. reports. The judge overseeing Trump’s classified documents case narrowed the indictment, striking one charge over an incident involving a sensitive military map. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War The U.N. Security Council endorsed a U.S.-backed cease-fire plan in Gaza. Neither Israel nor Hamas have formally embraced the proposal. Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, met with Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in Jerusalem. Blinken also urged Egypt’s president to pressure Hamas to accept the cease-fire proposal. Israel’s military said that three of the hostages rescued from Gaza last week had been held in a Hamas member’s house. Military officials said that showed the group was using civilian homes to shield its activity. When a truck carrying some of the rescued hostages broke down and was surrounded by militants, the Israeli military ordered an airstrike that killed many Palestinians. Read the full story of the raid. More International News In Kano, Nigeria. Taiwo Aina for The New York Times Millions in Nigeria are struggling to buy food as the country faces its worst economic crisis in a generation. The removal of some fuel subsidies and the floating of the currency have caused major price rises. President Emmanuel Macron has challenged the sincerity of voters’ support for the far right in European elections by calling a snap parliamentary election in France. It’s a risky move, Roger Cohen writes. Italy will host the G7 this week. It’s a chance for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who emerged as a big winner in the E.U. elections, to show her influence on a global stage. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told an activist posing as a Catholic conservative that he agreed with her claim that the U.S. should return “to a place of godliness.” Chief Justice John Roberts, secretly recorded at the same event, disagreed. Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, told the activist that she had wanted to fly a Catholic flag at their home in response to a Pride flag in their neighborhood. She said her husband had replied, “Oh, please, don’t put up a flag,” when she made the suggestion. More on Politics Hunter Biden Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Hunter Biden’s defense lawyers rested their case at his federal gun trial after he chose not to testify. The jury began deliberations. The president of the Teamsters union asked to speak at both parties’ conventions this summer. The union has yet to endorse a presidential candidate. Business and Economy TikTok suspended the account of a prominent abortion service four times without explanation. Abortion groups claim that tech platforms are suppressing their posts about abortion services. High interest rates in the U.S. haven’t hit upper-middle class and rich people in the usual way. Jeanna Smialek explains why in a three-minute video. In Wyoming, Bill Gates is backing the construction of the first of a new generation of nuclear power plants. He told The Times he’s in it for the emissions-free electricity. Other Big Stories In Phoenix, Arizona. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times Programs that provide nursing home and other services to America’s aging homeless population are emerging across the country. South Florida expects heavy rain this week. Flash floods could threaten urban areas. After a driver crashed his truck in a ravine in Oregon, his dog ran nearly four miles for help. Opinions To the college rejects and high school dropouts: This doesn’t have to be the end of your story, Megan Stack writes. Many young liberals’ idea of success in their 20s — having a college degree, a fulfilling career and a romantic partnership — leaves little room for having children, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman argue. If Tesla shareholders withhold Elon Musk’s roughly $46 billion pay package, it could incentivize him to take the company’s problems seriously, J. Bradford DeLong argues. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Republicans, and Jamelle Bouie on capitalist democracy. The Games Sale. Limited time offer. Come play with us. Subscribe to New York Times Games for 50% off your first year. Strengthen your Wordle strategy with WordleBot (now in the app), reach Genius on Spelling Bee, and play The Crossword, Tiles and more. MORNING READS Foraging in California. Rachel Bujalski Mushroom hunters: Mycologists and hobbyists keep finding new species of fungi. Animal calls: Every elephant could have its own name, according to a study. See video of an elephant apparently perking up to hers. What’s your friendship style? Take this quiz. Doggy drag show: See the contestants, such as Dogatella Versace, in The Cut. Cooking: What is the best way to cut an onion? J. Kenji López-Alt, using computer models, tries to figure out. Travel 101: Here’s what to do if you lose your passport. Ask Well: I struggle with incontinence. How can I avoid accidents when I leave home? Lives Lived: The Rev. James Lawson Jr., who studied Gandhi’s principles of civil disobedience, was an influential strategist for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He taught protesters the painful techniques of nonviolence and confronted racial injustice in America for five decades. He died at 95. SPORTS NHL N.H.L.: The Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final, taking a 2-0 series lead. Evan Rodrigues scored two goals in the third period. N.B.A.: The UConn coach Dan Hurley declined a six-year, $70 million offer to coach the Los Angeles Lakers. College baseball: N.C. State earned the final spot in the 2024 World Series after defeating Georgia. They will join three other A.C.C. teams and four S.E.C. teams. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS At H Mart. Tommy Kha for The New York Times Many Asian grocery stores in the U.S. opened as mom-and-pop shops during the soaring immigration of the 1970s and ’80s. Some — including H Mart and 99 Ranch Market — have become sleek chains that cater to millions of Americans who enjoy foods such as Shin Ramyun instant noodles and chili crisp. Read Priya Krishna’s article about how these stores are reshaping America’s eating habits. More on culture The James Beard Foundation named Michael Rafidi of the Arab-influenced Albi, in Washington, D.C., as outstanding chef at its awards. See the full list of winners. Much of reality TV is fueled by drunkenness and physical confrontation. Lawsuits against popular shows could be a reckoning for the industry. “Skibidi Toilet,” a bizarre animated YouTube series in which singing heads pop out of toilets, is popular among middle and elementary schoolers. Some parents are freaked out, Wired reports. Breast pockets on shirts are disappearing. Vanessa Friedman explains why. Movie press tours can sometimes be more entertaining than the films themselves. The Times’s Styles section categorized some common genres. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini. Toss creamy feta and avocado into this chopped salad with chickpeas. Pack for a two-week trip. Use a warm and durable bath towel. Pick the best ice cream sandwiches. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was biological. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. Lawrence Ingrassia, a former top editor at The Times, has lost many close relatives to cancer. His new book tells the mysterious story of cancer genetics. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 14 Author Members Share Posted June 14 June 12, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering immigration’s role in European and U.S. politics — as well as Hunter Biden, South African politics and BTS. Migrants arriving in the Canary Islands. Carlos De Saa/EPA, via Shutterstock A dominant issue The recent elections for the European Parliament are the latest sign of the political potency of immigration. The elections’ biggest winners were right-wing parties that promised to reduce the flow of migration. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why this subject is shaping Western politics and what may happen next. Rapid change The first thing to understand is how unusual the modern migration boom has been. In nearly every large Western country, the foreign-born share of the population has risen sharply since 1990: Source: Migration Policy Institute | Figures are rounded. | by The New York Times It’s not clear whether immigration has ever previously risen so quickly in so many different countries. (If anything, the chart here understates the trend because it ends in 2020, the last year with available data.) This migration boom has had big advantages. It has allowed millions of people to escape poverty and violence. It has diversified Western culture. It has brought workers into Europe and the U.S. who have held down the cost of labor-intensive businesses. But the boom has also had downsides. More labor competition can obviously hurt the workers who already live in a country. Governments have strained to provide social services to the arrivals. And the rise in immigration has been so rapid that many citizens feel uncomfortable with the associated societal changes. Historically, major immigration increases tend to spark political backlashes. The pattern has held in recent years. The shockingly successful Brexit campaign in 2016 emphasized immigration. So have Europe’s fast-growing, far-right political parties. In the U.S., polls show that immigration threatens President Biden’s re-election. For years, mainstream Western politicians, from the center-right to the center-left to the left, have dismissed voters’ concerns about immigration. Some politicians describe it as a free lunch, with only economic benefits and no costs. They portray worries about immigration — worries shared by millions of people of different races, especially those with lower incomes — as inherently ignorant or xenophobic. Some politicians claim that governments are helpless to control their borders. Many voters responded by drifting to the only parties that promised to reduce immigration — parties on the extreme right. To be clear, these parties do traffic in racism, as well as conspiracy theories, violent rhetoric and authoritarianism. To many voters, though, the parties were also the one part of the political system willing to listen to public opinion about rising immigration. Andrew Sullivan, the political journalist (and an immigrant to the U.S.), points out that the disconnect has been particularly stark over the past few years. “As the public tried to express a desire to slow down the pace of demographic change, elites in London, Ottawa and Washington chose to massively accelerate it,” Sullivan wrote on Substack. “It’s as if they saw the rise in the popularity of the far right and said to themselves: Well now, how can we really get it to take off?” In the elections for the European Parliament this week, the National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, won more votes than any other in France. In Germany, the AfD, an ultranationalist party, finished second, ahead of the left-leaning party that governs the country. In Italy, the right-wing party that already runs the country finished first. A new tack? Migrants walk along the Rio Grande. Paul Ratje for The New York Times It wasn’t so long ago that the political left and center took a different approach to immigration. They treated it as a complex issue that required moderation. President Barack Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders both fell into this category. They were part of a progressive tradition dating to labor and civil rights leaders who celebrated immigrants — but also supported tough border security, believing that unchecked immigration could destabilize society and increase inequality. There are some signs that the center-left and center-right are returning to this approach and becoming more respectful of public opinion: Biden, after loosening border rules early in his presidency and watching migration soar, has reversed himself. In Britain, the Labour Party has criticized the Conservative Party as lax on immigration. During a debate last week, Keir Starmer, the Labour candidate for prime minister, described Rishi Sunak, the Conservative incumbent, as “the most liberal prime minister we’ve ever had on immigration.” In the E.U. elections, center-right parties finished first partly by adopting a more restrictive stance on immigration, my colleague Matina Stevis-Gridneff notes. (I recommend her succinct summary of the results.) The clearest example may be in Greece. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, an establishment conservative, has taken a hard line, refusing to allow some migrants to land there after years of surging migration. Even as other center-right parties struggled in the E.U. elections, Mitsotakis’s party finished first in Greece. Japan and South Korea are moving toward a moderate position, albeit from the opposite direction. After decades of highly restrictive policies, they have begun to admit more immigrants, largely for economic reasons. The moves by Japan and South Korea are a recognition of immigration’s unavoidable complexity. Very high levels of immigration can cause political and economic problems. So can very low levels. What’s next? Britain and France will hold domestic elections in the next month. Those elections will be more telling than this week’s, Matina says, because voters typically care more about their own government than about the E.U. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Hunter Biden Hunter Biden with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and Jill Biden, the first lady. Hannah Beier/Reuters A federal jury convicted Hunter Biden on three felony counts for lying about his drug use when he applied to buy a handgun in 2018. Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, though nonviolent first-time offenders typically receive much less. The judge will likely sentence him by the fall. The president, who said he would respect the trial’s outcome and has ruled out pardoning his son, flew to Delaware, where the trial occurred. They embraced on the tarmac. Hunter Biden is set to stand trial in September in a separate tax case. The verdict complicates Republican claims of a rigged justice system. The late-night hosts discussed Biden’s conviction. “Frankly, I’m shocked,” said Jordan Klepper of “The Daily Show.” “We’re actually enforcing gun laws in America.” 2024 Elections Sam Brown, a Trump-endorsed former Army captain whom party leaders consider a strong candidate, won Nevada’s Republican Senate primary. He’ll face Senator Jacky Rosen, a first-term Democrat. North Dakotans imposed an age limit on members of Congress from their state, barring candidates who would turn 81 before their term ends. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeals to some Latino voters in battleground states. This could hurt Biden more than Donald Trump. More on Politics A federal judge struck down parts of Florida’s ban on gender transition care for minors, as well as its restrictions on adults seeking such care. The Biden administration moved to enact a rule that would remove medical debt from Americans’ credit reports. This would make it easier to qualify for loans. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito were named to the Supreme Court within months of each other. They’ve come to embody very different strains of conservatism, Adam Liptak writes. Israel-Hamas War A U.N. commission accused both Israel and Palestinian groups of war crimes. Its report was the U.N.’s first detailed examination of Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza. An Israeli strike killed a prominent Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah said. Hamas militants blew up a building in Rafah, Gaza, killing four Israeli soldiers, Israel said. In private messages, Yahya Sinwar, a Hamas leader, expressed disregard for civilian lives and signaled that Israel had more to lose from the war in Gaza than Hamas, The Wall Street Journal reports. Watch two Palestinians describe how they have been affected by raids and settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the Oct. 7 attacks. War in Ukraine Biden approved sending a second Patriot missile system to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses. Ukraine used mostly Western-provided air defense systems to shoot down Russian missiles overnight. Ukraine plans to sell around 20 state-owned companies to help fund the war effort and bolster its economy. More International News John Steenhuisen, the leader of the Democratic Alliance party. Joao Silva/The New York Times The leader of South Africa’s second-largest party — a white man — must navigate issues of race to secure a place in the nation’s next government. Pope Francis was accused of using a homophobic slur again in a meeting with priests. A boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of Yemen. At least 49 people died, and 140 others were missing. The U.S. banned imports from three Chinese companies, citing their links to forced labor in Xinjiang. Other Big Stories The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge has upended life in Baltimore. Traffic there has worsened and businesses have been affected. A jury in South Florida ordered Chiquita, the banana producer, to pay millions to the families of eight people killed by a Colombian paramilitary force, which Chiquita funded from 1997 to 2004. Opinions More than 60,000 evacuated residents of northern Israel also need a cease-fire in Gaza, Mairav Zonszein writes. Factory farms produce cheap meat and dairy. They also increase consumers’ risk of contracting viruses like bird flu, David Quammen writes. Here are columns by Thomas Edsall on the Biden campaign and Bret Stephens on Biden’s theory of victory. The Games Sale. Limited time offer. Come play with us. Subscribe to New York Times Games for 50% off your first year. Strengthen your Wordle strategy with WordleBot (now in the app), reach Genius on Spelling Bee, and play The Crossword, Tiles and more. MORNING READS Morrie Markoff in 2023. via Markoff family Lives Lived: The man believed to be the oldest in the U.S. has died at 110. Morrie Markoff was born six months before World War I began. He walked regularly, blogged and read The Los Angeles Times every morning until his final months. His brain will be donated for research on aging. Food trucks: Why are prices going up? We break down the costs of one brisket sandwich. Wordle tips: The game’s editor has some expert tricks for you. The vaquita porpoise: Meet the most endangered marine mammal. High Valley Books: Inside the Greenpoint apartment — and bookstore — where stylish Brooklynites peruse a vast collection of vintage magazines. SPORTS N.F.L.: The Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is not at the team’s mandatory minicamp, coach Robert Saleh said, as Rodgers is attending an “event that’s important to him.” Golf: Jon Rahm, a two-time major winner, will not play in this weekend’s U.S. Open because of a toe infection. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Nikki M. James, center, as Ida B. Wells in “Suffs.” Sara Krulwich/The New York Times When “Suffs,” a musical about the suffragists’ crusade, premiered Off Broadway in 2022, reviews were mixed. But after two years, and extensive revisions, “Suffs” is on Broadway and nominated for six Tony Awards. Elisabeth Vincentelli writes about the many changes the show’s creators made, including the addition of a catchy song, “G.A.B.” More on culture Jin, after his discharge, in South Korea. Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Jin, a member of the South Korean group BTS, became the first of his bandmates to complete mandatory military service. The last of the group is expected to complete his service in 2025. Watch Glen Powell and Adria Arjona fight and flirt in the new movie “Hit Man.” The director Richard Linklater narrates a pivotal scene. Penny, a New York seafood counter and sibling of the restaurant Claud, opened in March. Its “shrimp cocktail is worth a visit all by itself,” Pete Wells writes in his review. Disney will reopen a version of Splash Mountain at its Florida theme park. The ride now features characters from “The Princess and the Frog,” instead of ones from the racist 1946 film “Song of the South.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Pan-fry crumbled tortillas then mix with cheesy eggs, jalapeño, onion and garlic. Clean a smelly tent. Play music in your backyard from one of these speakers. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was legitimize. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 16 Author Members Share Posted June 16 June 14, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the origin of the Covid virus — as well as the G7 summit, policing and soccer. An exhibition on the fight against Covid in Wuhan, China. Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times Dueling theories The origin of the Covid virus remains the pandemic’s biggest mystery. Did the virus jump to human beings from animals being sold at a food market in Wuhan, China? Or did the virus leak from a laboratory in Wuhan? U.S. officials remain divided. The F.B.I. and the Department of Energy each concluded that a lab leak was the more likely cause. The National Intelligence Council and some other agencies believe that animal-to-human transmission is more likely. The C.I.A. has not taken a position. The question remains important partly because it can inform the strategies to reduce the chances of another horrific pandemic. A recent Times Opinion essay — by Alina Chan, a biologist — refocused attention on the issue by making the case for the lab-leak theory. In today’s newsletter, I’ll try to lay out the clearest arguments for each side to help you decide which you consider more likely. The case for natural transmission 1. It’s the norm. Covid is part of the coronavirus family, so named because the virus contains a protein shaped like a spike. (Corona is the Latin word for crown.) In recent decades, the main way that coronaviruses have infected people is through animal-to-human transmission, which is also known as natural transmission. The SARS virus, for example, appears to have jumped from civet cats, a relative of the mongoose, to humans in Asia in 2002. MERS seems to have jumped from camels to people in the Middle East around 2012. There is no previous example of a major coronavirus escaping a lab. When you’re trying to choose between a historically common explanation for a phenomenon and an unusual explanation, the common one is usually the better bet. 2. Look around the market. Two scientific papers have pointed out that a suspiciously large number of early confirmed Covid cases had connections to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. Many of these cases, in late 2019, occurred in people who lived near the market. This map comes from a Times story about the research: Source: Michael Worobey et al., preprint via Zenodo | By The New York Times Importantly, the market also sold live animals, including raccoon dogs, that scientists previously found to be susceptible to coronaviruses. 3. Look inside the market. Shortly after Covid began spreading, Chinese scientists swabbed walls, floors and other surfaces inside the Huanan market for the virus. They found a cluster of positive samples in the market’s southwest corner, where 10 stalls sold live animals. “Strikingly, five of the samples came from a single stall,” my colleagues Carl Zimmer and Benjamin Mueller wrote. That stall appears to have had a history of selling raccoon dogs. The case for a lab leak 1. Follow the lab. If historical logic points to natural transmission, a different concept arguably points to a lab leak: Occam’s razor. It’s a philosophical principle holding that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is usually the correct one. In this case, a new SARS-like virus started in a city with one of the world’s leading labs for researching SARS-like viruses. Many Chinese cities have markets selling live animals; only one is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan lab maintained “one of the world’s largest repositories of bat samples, which has enabled its coronavirus research,” U.S. intelligence officials have written. Before the pandemic, the lab’s scientists traveled to faraway caves to collect virus samples. And bats, like raccoon dogs, can carry coronaviruses. One possibility is that a virus that would otherwise have remained in the caves infected a lab employee. Another possibility is that scientists in Wuhan engineered a contagious new virus while researching cures and that the virus accidentally escaped. Notably, there is no evidence of any infected animals, dead or alive, from the Huanan market. Consider this table, from Chan’s Opinion essay: By The New York Times 2. Leaks happen. In recent decades, reports suggests that laboratory employees working on a variety of diseases have been accidentally infected in the United States, Britain, China, Germany, Russia, South Korea and elsewhere. Even before the pandemic, the Wuhan lab seemed to present a safety risk. When one outside expert heard that the lab planned to research coronaviruses without using state-of-the-art precautions, he wrote in 2018 that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” 3. China controls the evidence. It’s worth asking which of the two stories China would rather the world believe. Either would be damaging, but a lab leak seems significantly more so. It would mean that China’s scientific incompetence killed millions of people — which could explain why Chinese officials have worked so hard to restrict outside research and scrutiny about the virus’s origins. The bottom line Do you find both explanations plausible? I do. As I’ve followed this debate over the past few years, I have gone back and forth about which is more likely. Today, I’m close to 50-50. I have heard similar sentiments from some experts. “No one has proof,” Julian Barnes, who covers intelligence agencies for The Times, told me. “Everyone is using logic.” Julian’s advice to the rest of us: “Be wary, keep an open mind, rule nothing out.” Related: Read the letters that The Times published in response to Chan’s essay. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Supreme Court The Supreme Court upheld access to the abortion pill mifepristone, unanimously rejecting a challenge by a group of anti-abortion doctors. The ruling was narrow, based on procedural grounds. In a separate case, the court ruled in favor of Starbucks regarding workers it fired. The ruling makes it harder for the government to intervene when workers accuse companies of suppressing union organizing. The justices also rejected a California lawyer’s attempt to trademark the phrase “Trump too small,” but disagreed over the rationale. Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose three more trips on a Republican donor’s private jet, a Senate investigation found. Trump in Washington Trump with Senate Republicans. Doug Mills/The New York Times Donald Trump met with Republicans on Capitol Hill for the first time since his presidency, receiving cheers. He also told a group of executives — including Tim Cook of Apple and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase — that if re-elected he would cut the corporate tax rate again. Trump complained about Taylor Swift and criticized the city of Milwaukee, which will host the Republican convention next month. Trump turns 78 today. Yesterday, congressional Republicans sang “Happy Birthday” and gave him a cake topped with an American flag. “They always return to the scene of the crime”: Late night hosts recapped his trip. More on Politics President Biden and his son Hunter. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times President Biden said he would not commute the sentence of his son Hunter, whom a jury convicted on federal gun charges this week. Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill that would have protected access to in vitro fertilization. Two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted to advance it. “I know what it’s like to struggle,” Biden said in a new ad, aimed at Hispanic voters, that focuses on his efforts to cut costs for consumers. G7 Summit The Group of 7 economies promised Ukraine a $50 billion loan with frozen Russian assets as collateral. Biden warned that Putin “cannot wait us out.” Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky signed a 10-year security pact designed to put Ukraine on a path to joining NATO. Zelensky also announced a security deal with Japan. Leaders from India, Brazil, the Middle East and Africa will join discussions today, a nod to the changing global balance of power. Israel-Hamas War Why is a Gaza cease-fire elusive? Both sides are pursuing maximalist demands, Isabel Kershner writes. Hezbollah launched what the Israeli military called the group’s most serious rocket and drone assault in more than eight months of hostilities. Hamas said it did not know how many of the remaining hostages taken on Oct. 7 were still alive. The United Automobile Workers union is coping with tensions between its student members focused on the war in Gaza and its blue-collar workers focused on pocketbook issues. Other Big Stories Floodwaters in Hallandale Beach, Fla. Saul Martinez for The New York Times Heavy rain has deluged the southern tip of Florida for several days, causing widespread flooding that has killed at least two people. Tesla shareholders approved a pay package for Elon Musk worth more than $45 billion. A judge, who voided the deal earlier this year, will decide whether to reinstate it. The F.A.A.’s administrator called the agency’s oversight of Boeing “too hands-off” and promised more safety inspections. The site of the Parkland school shooting, the former freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, will be torn down. A police officer pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child in his police car. Spend some time with this long story from The Washington Post that looks at the case — and how officers accused of child sexual abuse often evade consequences. Opinions A former governor is using the courts to stifle local reporting. If he prevails, it will hurt press freedom nationwide, Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor in chief, writes. Ronald Reagan governed like an old man, even when he received criticism about his age. Biden’s problem is he seems to be in denial, Maureen Dowd argues. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on the movie “The Apprentice” and David Brooks on gifted children. The Games Sale. Limited time offer. Come play with us. Subscribe to New York Times Games for 50% off your first year. Strengthen your Wordle strategy with WordleBot (now in the app), reach Genius on Spelling Bee, and play The Crossword, Tiles and more. MORNING READS The muddied, wet bills and coins found in the safe that was hoisted out of a creek. Alex Kent for The New York Times Treasure hunter: A magnet fisherman pulled up a safe holding thousands of dollars. One problem: The bills were disintegrating. No headphones: Some people are bothered by the liberal use of speakerphones. Ethicist: “My son’s ex-girlfriend wants to keep her pregnancy. Is that unfair to him?” Lives Lived: Moody ballads like her 1962 breakthrough, “Tous les Garçons et les Filles,” made Françoise Hardy a hero to French youth. Her lithe look and understated personality incarnated a 1960s cool her nation still treasures. She died at 80. SPORTS European Championship: The most important man in Germany this month is its soccer coach. N.H.L.: The Florida Panthers outlasted the Edmonton Oilers to go up 3-0 in the Stanley Cup Final, one win away from a championship. N.F.L.: The Jacksonville Jaguars agreed to a five-year, $275 million contract extension with quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Golf: At the U.S. Open, Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay both shot five-under 65s to tie for the first-round lead. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Judith Jones Natalie Conn Meet an editor who altered American culture: Judith Jones. She discovered Julia Child and saved the diary of Anne Frank from a slush pile. But her most significant contribution was developing modern cookbooks, turning them into literary works with her high standard for prose. “Judith wasn’t just interested in recipes,” said Madhur Jaffrey, an Indian-born cookbook author who worked with her. “She was interested in the people behind them and their culture. This was radical for the time.” More on culture “Bridgerton,” set in Regency-era England, relies on a team of historical consultants. The production team (mostly) takes their advice. This year, the reigning Miss USA and Miss Teen USA resigned. It was the culmination of long-simmering issues within the organization that runs the pageant. Lonely members of Gen Z are attending dinner parties with strangers to make real-life connections, Bon Appétit reports. Idina Menzel will return to Broadway next year in “Redwood,” a new musical about grieving and ancient trees. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Erin Jeanne McDowell. Showcase fresh summer peaches with a simple cake-style cobbler. Reap the sweet rewards of bitter melon. Slather on a user-friendly sunscreen. Create a new tradition by giving a simple tote bag as a gift. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was nightly. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David P.S. Ahead of the Tonys this weekend, two Times theater writers, Jesse Green and Michael Paulson, will take part in a Q.&A. on Reddit’s Broadway forum today. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 17 Author Members Share Posted June 17 June 16, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Michael Paulson is writing about a recent change in the theater world. We’re also covering Father’s Day, the Princess of Wales and Serena Williams. —David Leonhardt “Illinoise,” based on an album by Sufjan Stevens. Richard Termine for The New York Times A new sound By Michael Paulson I’ve been covering theater since 2015, when only two of the 10 new musicals had scores by pop stars. Tonight is the one night of the year when millions of Americans are focused on Broadway. That’s because it’s the annual Tony Awards, which, by virtue of being televised, are often the first way that many people learn about what’s new onstage. I write full time about theater, so I’m always thinking about what’s changing in that world, and this year I’ve been struck by the notion that the source of Broadway’s sound is shifting. More and more musicals are being written by artists who built their careers in pop music, and fewer by people trained in theater. I did the math, and here’s what I found: Just over half of the 15 new musicals that opened on Broadway during the 2023-24 season featured scores credited to artists whose primary credentials are in the music business. They include Alicia Keys, Barry Manilow and Britney Spears; Huey Lewis, Sufjan Stevens and David Byrne; Jamestown Revival and Ingrid Michaelson (whose song “My Days,” from “The Notebook,” is taking off on social media). Pop musicians are even helping to make plays. The leading contender for best play tonight is “Stereophonic,” a behind-the-music drama with bespoke song fragments by Will Butler, a former member of Arcade Fire, and this fall a Broadway production of “Romeo and Juliet” will feature music by Jack Antonoff, a frequent collaborator of Taylor Swift. “Stereophonic,” features songs by a former member of Arcade Fire. Sara Krulwich/The New York Times “We haven’t had this since Tin Pan Alley — folks who are trained at creating an entire world in four minutes, now creating pieces that are two and a half hours long,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of “Hamilton.” “I find it exciting,” he added. “I always think musical theater is more interesting when it’s in conversation with the world.” Is this really new? In some ways, this is an everything-old-is-new-again phenomenon. In the early 20th century, figures like Irving Berlin and Cole Porter found success both onstage and on the radio. “Back in the day, musical theater created music for the masses, but something happened in the past 50 years where musical theater got stuck in a time warp,” said Amanda Ghost, a British singer and music executive who is producing a new musical, “Gatsby,” with a score co-written by Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine. For years there have been jukebox musicals — shows with scores made up of previously released pop songs, like “Jersey Boys” and “Mamma Mia!” Several of those are now running on Broadway, including “MJ,” and more variations on this theme are in development: An Avett Brothers musical, “Swept Away,” arrives this fall, and Dolly Parton just announced that “Hello, I’m Dolly” will arrive in 2026. Now a growing number of pop artists are also writing original scores, so that what was once a trickle (Cyndi Lauper, Duncan Sheik and Anaïs Mitchell have won Tonys writing scores) is becoming a flood. John Legend, Elvis Costello and Nas are all working on musicals, as are Neko Case and Mitski. Elton John, a Broadway veteran, has two more musicals just this year: “The Devil Wears Prada” in England and “Tammy Faye” on Broadway. Why is this happening? For the theater industry, which has seen audiences shrink and costs rise since the pandemic shutdown, the allure of pop stars is similar to the appeal of film and book adaptations: Familiarity sells tickets. “Economically, the margins of success are so thin with musicals, inevitably it changes the way people approach developing musicals,” said Justin Levine, who won a Tony for orchestrating the pop songs used in the stage version of “Moulin Rouge!” and is now again a Tony nominee for his work with the country folk duo Jamestown Revival on the score of “The Outsiders.” “That’s why, often, you can identify at least one, if not two, things that form the basis for having a built-in audience.” For pop musicians, there are both artistic and economic motivations. “You can’t make a living from releasing records alone,” said Sara Bareilles, the singer-songwriter who wrote the score for “Waitress” and is now writing songs for her second musical, a stage adaptation of “The Interestings.” “Artists in general understand how diversification of creative output is not just helpful, but kind of essential.” But is it good for theater? That’s up for debate. Some theater fans worry that pop songs don’t advance storytelling; some pop musicians say an obsession with forward narrative motion can lead to weak tunes. “A great musical can come from any kind of songwriter,” argues Shaina Taub, a singer-songwriter and the Tony-nominated creator of “Suffs.” And Tom Kitt, who won a Tony for his own score in “Next to Normal,” and is now nominated again for orchestrating Alicia Keys’s songs in “Hell’s Kitchen,” said, “All of it is for the better, because it enriches the art form.” “Hell’s Kitchen” features a mix of hits and new songs by Alicia Keys. Sara Krulwich/The New York Times More on the Tonys The prime-time ceremony begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, with Ariana DeBose hosting. Here’s how to watch. The Times photographed 43 of the nominated performers and asked about their early theater memories. See the photo shoot. In our annual survey of Tony voters, Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” was a strong favorite for best musical revival. This was a huge year for female directors. Read five things to know about today’s Broadway. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Politics Donald Trump’s opponents are drafting potential lawsuits in case he is elected in November and carries out mass deportations, as he has vowed. See what Trump has said he will do if he wins, including targeting journalists and having adversaries indicted. In a divided country, organizations working on infrastructure projects are finding common ground. Israel-Hamas War Israeli soldiers. Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Israel announced a daytime pause in fighting in part of southern Gaza. It said that the pause would allow more humanitarian aid to enter and that its offensive in Rafah would continue. Protests incited by the war have brought disorder and violence to some campuses in the United States. But on one Belgian campus, the same tactics aren’t as polarizing. Europe Catherine, Princess of Wales Chris Jackson/Chris Jackson Collection, via Getty Images Catherine, Princess of Wales, appeared in public for the first time since her cancer diagnosis. Our chief fashion critic analyzed the symbolism of her white dress. Across France, people have been protesting against the far right, which did well in the recent European elections. The Washington Post’s publisher and its incoming editor are said to have used stolen records in Britain, a Times investigation shows. Other Big Stories Millions of Americans from Texas to Maine will face intense heat this week, according to forecasters. A gunman injured at least eight people, including two children, at a Michigan splash park in what appears to be a random attack. The box office has been struggling, but “Inside Out 2” is an exception. It’s projected to collect about 60 percent more in North America than anticipated. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Were Justice Samuel Alito’s religious remarks inappropriate? Yes. While being secretly recorded, Alito agreed that the U.S. should return “to a place of godliness.” But none of it is new: “The justice shows bad judgment and has a right-wing, theocratic bias that should be disqualifying,” The Los Angeles Times’s Jackie Calmes writes. No. Alito made no mention of any pending case, party or specific political matter. “I would suggest that they are not so extreme as to merit denunciation. On the contrary, they are reasonable, even commonplace,” Marc DeGirolami writes for Times Opinion. FROM OPINION Fatherhood changes men’s brains. By how much depends on the bond they have with their child, Darby Saxbe writes. “Dementia is nothing if not a test of endurance”: Cornelia Channing looks back on her years growing up with her father’s illness. The F.B.I. tried to use Samuel Freedman’s father’s communist background against him. Despite the consequences, his father held true to his beliefs, he writes. After multiple relapses, David Sheff’s son is 13 years sober. He relates as a father to President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, he writes. Here is a column by Jamelle Bouie on Justice Alito. The Games Sale. Limited time offer. Come play with us. Subscribe to New York Times Games for 50% off your first year. Strengthen your Wordle strategy with WordleBot (now in the app), reach Genius on Spelling Bee, and play The Crossword, Tiles and more. ADVERTISEMENT MORNING READS Gabriel Alcala Father’s Day: The best advice for dads, according to dads. Square feet: Los Angeles wants to combat homelessness with tiny homes. Coming to a city near you: Cricket supporters are negotiating leases and approvals for stadiums across the U.S. Supersmeller: Meet Joy Milne, the woman who could smell Parkinson’s. Vows: From the start, they committed to each other “in sickness and in health.” Lives Lived: Lynn Conway was a pioneering computer scientist who was fired by IBM in the 1960s after telling managers that she was transgender. She later fought for transgender rights. She died at 86. THE INTERVIEW Serena Williams Philip Montgomery for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is Serena Williams. We talked about her adjustment to post-tennis life, how she looks back on her career and whether she’ll push her kids as her dad pushed her. Your dad famously saw something in you and your sister Venus when you guys were little and then worked so hard to help you achieve it. Do you see something in your daughters in the way that your dad saw something in you? That’s a really good question. I don’t know. I always look at my dad, and I think, How were you able to do that? Because I’m like, Oh, they’re so cute. I just want them to relax and I don’t want to over-push them. But I would be devastated if I wasn’t pushed, because we wouldn’t be having this interview and there would never have been a Serena Williams. It worked out pretty well for you! It worked out well. [Laughs] But what do I see? The 8-month-old is so tiny, but Olympia is such a bright light, and she’s so athletic, to the point where it’s just not even humanly possible. Even Venus, she was like, “That kid has more talent than you and I combined,” and she’s not lying. So I can see how my dad may have seen some potential in us. I’m just trying to figure out a way to harness all that. I already told my dad, “Maybe you have to coach her, because I’m too nice.” You’re too soft. I’m too soft, yeah. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Naila Ruechel for The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS A.I. chatbots: Writers including Roxane Gay and John Banville sold their voices to help bring classic texts to life. Looking for a summer read? See a list of 33 novels coming this season. Our editors’ picks: “This Strange Eventful History,” a novel inspired by the author Claire Messud’s family history that unfolds over seven decades, and eight other books. Times best sellers: James Patterson completed Michael Crichton’s novel “Eruption” at the behest of his widow. It debuts at No. 1 on the hardcover fiction list this week. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Try buttermilk tres leches, a twist on a classic Latin American dessert. Churn ice cream with a kid-friendly maker. Ditch your sun hat for a packable visor. Avoid sweat stains on your white tees. Save money on summer essentials with these sales. Play this year’s biggest new video games. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For Today is Father’s Day. Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday, begins today. The Tony Awards are today. Wednesday is Juneteenth. In Paris, men’s fashion week begins Wednesday. The summer solstice — the longest day of the year — begins in the northern hemisphere on Thursday. Meal Plan Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Emily Weinstein said she was never excited to have a green salad for dinner — until she discovered really good croutons. Good croutons are salty and craggy, and they crunch assertively and even push back a little when you bite into them. They are typically handmade, unlike those small, sad salad-bar croutons. She recommends a chopped salad with chickpeas, feta and avocado and four other recipes this week. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were nonvalid and vindaloo. Can you put eight historical events — including the creation of Notre-Dame, the Forbidden City, and “Schoolhouse Rock” — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 19 Author Members Share Posted June 19 June 19, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering why humanitarian aid can’t get into Gaza — plus, Vladimir Putin, Willie Mays and Justin Timberlake. In northern Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Different priorities Humanitarian groups have thousands of tons of food, fuel and medicine ready to send to Gaza. That aid is sitting in Egypt, Jordan and Cyprus, just hours away, or less, from the people who need it. But much of it can’t get in. Why? Some problems are typical for a war zone. Aid groups want to protect their workers from bombs and gunfire. Roads and warehouses are destroyed, making the terrain difficult to navigate. But there have been bigger problems: Israel has enforced opaque rules that turn back trucks meant for Gaza, citing security concerns. Egypt has blocked aid to protest Israel’s military operations. Hamas has stolen, or tried to steal, aid shipments for its own use. In other words, the people in charge of allowing aid into Gaza have prioritized their own interests over helping hungry Palestinians. In doing so, they’ve repeatedly made decisions that humanitarian groups can’t overcome. Today’s newsletter will explain what’s keeping aid out of Gaza. Israel’s concerns Israel typically cites two justifications for blocking aid: It wants to stop any supplies that can help Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7. And it wants to keep aid workers out of harm’s way. The first reason is the more contentious. American officials and humanitarian groups argue that Hamas has intercepted very few shipments. Critics say that Israel has been too careful about an overblown threat — or, worse, has used the aid as a weapon against Palestinians. “They are trying to provide a plausible cover story for collective punishment,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, a humanitarian organization. But Hamas has intercepted some aid, and Israel says its precautions keep the group from taking more. Other Hamas tactics have also made Israel more cautious. The group often hides behind civilians by placing its operatives in hospitals and stashing weapons in schools. Israel worries that Hamas could hide behind humanitarian groups and workers, too. So Israel requires aid groups to report their activities. For example, it signs off on specific routes in part to ensure that these really are humanitarian missions and not covert enemy operations. Those checks can still fail. In April, Israel killed seven World Central Kitchen workers, even though the group said it coordinated its mission with the military. Israel called the strikes a mistake and apologized for the killings. It fired two of the officers involved and reprimanded others. “That was a turning point,” said my colleague Adam Rasgon, who’s based in Jerusalem. After the killings, Israel opened more crossings to let aid into Gaza. The Israeli military also announced this week that it would stop operations in parts of southern Gaza during daytime hours; the pause in fighting could help get more aid to hungry Palestinians. Additional hurdles Protesters vandalized an aid shipment in Israel. Oren Ziv/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Since Israel controls what goes in and out of Gaza, it has taken a lot of the blame for the crisis there. But it is not the only country that has stopped supplies for Palestinians. Egypt has, too. After Israel moved into the southern city of Rafah last month, Egypt protested the incursion by blocking aid shipments. It did not want to look like it accepted Israeli control of the Rafah crossing, and was upset that Israel was operating so close to the Egyptian border. (Consider: Egypt once occupied Gaza, but lost control in 1967 in a war with Israel.) Egypt has since started allowing some aid through Kerem Shalom, a crossing on the border with Israel. Still, the amount of aid getting into Gaza has dropped by nearly two-thirds since Israel started its operation in Rafah, according to the United Nations. Despite these problems, humanitarian groups rarely criticize Egypt for its role in the crisis. “They know that Egypt is really important to their operations and also extremely unreceptive to public criticism,” Adam told me. Separately, Palestinians have looted some shipments, out of hunger and desperation or to sell the supplies in Gaza’s black markets. Far-right Israeli activists have also intercepted aid trucks traveling from Jordan to Gaza and smashed their supplies. The activists argue that Palestinians shouldn’t receive aid until Hamas returns Israeli hostages. The U.S. placed sanctions last week on Tsav 9, one of the groups involved in these attacks. Humanitarian groups also face some practical problems, such as insufficient fuel to drive aid trucks deep into Gaza and back. Some countries have sought creative solutions — with limited success. The U.S. has airdropped aid and built a floating pier off the coast of Gaza to send in supplies. But those efforts haven’t delivered much additional support. The pier, which broke apart in heavy seas, might shut down soon. A choice In Khan Younis. Jehad Alshrafi/Associated Press Aid workers often argue that the blame for all of these problems ultimately falls on Israel: People in Gaza are starving because Israel started its military campaign in the territory; it has the power to stop the war. But Israel has genuine national security interests in destroying Hamas. It wants to ensure that nothing like the Oct. 7 attack can happen again. To do that, Israeli leaders believe they have to fight across Gaza. In that sense, Israel has put Israelis’ security above Gazans’ — a predictable, if controversial, choice in war. Related: The fighting in Gaza has left millions of tons of debris, which itself poses a health risk, the U.N. said. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Russia Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un in North Korea. Pool photo by Vladimir Smirnov/Sputnik, via Shutterstock Vladimir Putin is in North Korea, visiting Kim Jong-un. They vowed to build an alliance against the U.S. Moscow needs weapons, like artillery shells and missiles, that North Korea can provide for its war in Ukraine. More International News Darfur, a region once synonymous with genocide, is in a civil war. Fighters have laid siege to one of its biggest cities and burned thousands of homes. If the city falls, there may be little to stop a massacre. Britain has struggled with a decade of slow economic growth. That’s a major issue in the upcoming election. Who owns Alexander the Great? North Macedonia is laying a claim as it builds a national identity. But its Balkan neighbors aren’t happy. Politics In Virginia, a whistle-blower central to Trump’s first impeachment won a Democratic House primary. A Republican primary race between Representative Bob Good and John McGuire is too close to call. President Biden announced a program that would help many undocumented young adults, known as Dreamers, get a work visa quickly. Robert F. Kennedy won’t make the ballot in enough states to qualify for the first presidential debate, The Washington Post calculates. The research of one Georgetown professor is cited frequently in legal cases against gun restrictions. He never disclosed that the gun lobby funded his work. Education California’s governor called for a statewide ban on smartphone use in schools. The Los Angeles Unified School District — the nation’s second-largest — voted to approve a ban. More than 12 percent of students accepted into New York City’s most prestigious high schools this year are Black or Latino, the highest share in a decade. Other Big Stories The Nvidia chief executive, Jensen Huang. Jim Wilson/The New York Times The computer chip maker Nvidia surpassed Microsoft and Apple to become the world’s most valuable public company. Its stock price has soared because of demand for its chips in A.I. systems. A major heat wave has arrived. Officials declared emergencies in northeastern states, and temperatures rose above 100 degrees in Maine. A Texas megachurch pastor, Robert Morris, resigned after sexual abuse allegations. Archaeologists found 35 bottles of preserved fruit under George Washington’s Virginia mansion. Opinions How scared should you be of bird flu? Jennifer Nuzzo offers a guide to assess your risk. Compulsory prison labor is a form of slavery, but it’s still legal in most of America, write Andrew Ross, Tommaso Bardelli and Aiyuba Thomas. Immigrants have made a profound difference in Americans’ lives. This gets lost in immigration debates, Glenn Kramon writes. Easy money has destroyed much of what used to make capitalism an engine of middle-class prosperity, Bret Stephens writes. Here’s a column by Thomas Edsall on why we hate each other. Games for relaxation. Games for concentration. We have them all. For a limited time, save 50% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription and enjoy new puzzles every day. MORNING READS Anxiety at the controls. Disney/Pixar Inside Out 2: Pixar’s new hit has many lessons about anxiety. Dorm drama: An N.Y.U. freshman (and Russian heiress) is suing her roommate, accusing her of stealing designer goods and selling them, The Cut reports. Carnivores: Oxtail is gaining fans. Not everyone is happy about that. Renters: Looking for friends? How about 23 housemates? Shower in a bird cage? In Milan, an architect converted an old wood shop into a maximalist home. Today’s great read: What Trump learned over his decades of friendship with Don King. History: During the Harlem Renaissance, libraries fostered communities of Black writers. Scholars are uncovering stories of the women who made it all happen. Lives Lived: The French actress Anouk Aimée became an international sensation as the aloof, enigmatic and sensual star of Claude Lelouch’s 1966 romance “A Man and a Woman.” She died in Paris at 92. SPORTS Willie Mays in 1967. The New York Times Baseball: Willie Mays, the legendary Giants center fielder, has died at 93. Many considered him the greatest all-around player in history. He was electric in the field, earning 12 Gold Gloves. He had 660 home runs. More on Mays: “Numbers and accolades tell only part of his story,” The Times’s Kurt Streeter writes. “For it was how Mays played — the way he bent the confines of baseball to his will with his smarts, his speed, his style and his power — that set him apart as the most deeply beloved of stars.” Olympics: Ralph Lauren unveiled this year’s Team U.S.A. uniforms. See them here. W.N.B.A.: The Fever-Sky game last weekend, a showdown between the rookie sensations Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, was the league’s most-watched game in 23 years. Injury: The Los Angeles Sparks rookie Cameron Brink was carried off the floor with a knee injury. N.H.L.: The Edmonton Oilers forced Game 6 in the Stanley Cup Final with a win over the Florida Panthers on the road. Soccer: Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo beat the Czech Republic at the Euros thanks to a 92nd-minute goal, while Turkey beat Georgia in one of the tournament’s best games so far. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS The Juneteenth Food Festival in Brooklyn. Juan Arredondo for The New York Times Today is Juneteenth, a federal holiday. More people have been celebrating the holiday across the U.S. over the past few years. Many celebrations take place among families, often in backyards. But some cities, like Atlanta and Washington, hold larger events, including parades and festivals with residents and local businesses. Here’s a guide. More on culture Justin Timberlake Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press Justin Timberlake was arrested in the Hamptons and charged with driving while intoxicated. TikTok helped Hozier’s new single make it to No. 1. Late night hosts trolled Trump after a book said he had “severe memory issues.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Top Right: Christopher Testani, Top Left: Evan Sung, Bottom Left: Haemi Lee, Bottom Right: Linda Xiao, for The New York Times Stay cool in the kitchen with these no-cook recipes, perfect for a heat wave. Make your own popsicles. Take a good thermos to the beach (or pool, or wherever you’re cooling off). Create an oasis with the best patio furniture. Transform a mom bun with this pin. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram were backbite and tieback. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —German Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted June 20 Author Members Share Posted June 20 June 20, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the heat — as well as a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico, the upcoming presidential debate and an heiress who gave her money away. In Manhattan. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times A hot new base line I still remember how hot the summer of 1993 felt. I was an intern working at The Boston Globe, and, when I would return to the office in the afternoon after reporting trips around the city, I had to steel myself for the walk across the sweltering parking lot. As one Globe headline put it — describing the entire city — “Pavement buckles, people lose cool and fans just blow hot air.” Since then, I have often thought of 1993 as the hottest summer of my life. But it wasn’t, according to historical weather data. It just felt that way because the intensity and frequency of heat was unusual at the time. Today, many of us have become accustomed to heat waves like the one now blanketing the eastern half of the country and much of the Southwest. They feel almost normal. They’re not normal, however, or at least their frequency is not. As my colleague Manuela Andreoni has written, “2023 was the planet’s warmest year on record and perhaps in the last 100,000 years.” This year may break the record again. Last month was the 12th straight to be the hottest month of its kind on record. This chart shows the global trend: Source: Copernicus/ECMWF | By The New York Times In Boston, for example, the temperature reached at least 95 degrees on six different days in 1993. The same has been true in four of the past eight years there. (From the Times archives: See how much hotter your hometown has become.) Or consider Washington, where I now live. This chart shows the number of days each year that the temperature reached 95. What once qualified as an unusually hot year is now typical: Source: National Weather Service | By The New York Times Obviously, there are cyclical aspects of weather that have little to do with climate change. The summers of 1930 and 1943, when the atmosphere wasn’t filled with nearly as much carbon dioxide as it now is, were also stiflingly hot in Washington and elsewhere, for instance. But the base line has shifted. Intense summer heat — the kind that’s unpleasant for millions of people and dangerous for some — is now routine. The rest of today’s newsletter gives you the highlights of Times coverage of the first major heat wave of 2024. I have included some of the best work from our Climate and Graphics desks that puts the changing weather into context. A programming note: Do you have questions about this newsletter? Or about the news? We want to hear them. Fill out this form — Ask The Morning Anything! — and we’ll publish a selection of questions and my answers soon. More on the heat wave At Millennium Park in Chicago. Scott Olson/Getty Images The temperature in Chicago topped 90 for the fourth day this week. Because of the Juneteenth holiday, only one of the city’s cooling centers was open. Americans said they were surprised by how early the heat had arrived. “Corn is supposed to be knee-high by July 4, but it is already higher than that,” an Iowa resident, Dean Schantz, said. In New York City, public pools are not yet open for the summer. The heat was pronounced in New England. Caribou, a city in the northernmost part of Maine, matched its record of 96 degrees. Storms earlier this week knocked out electricity for thousands in the Pittsburgh area, leaving some without air conditioning as the heat index climbed toward 100 yesterday. Utility crews traveled from Ohio and West Virginia to help restore power lines. There’s a meteorological reason for the prolonged heat: a “heat dome.” If you vacation during the heat wave, experts advise that you keep your sightseeing to the evening and early morning. “In the mid- to late afternoon you either go back to the hotel to sit by the pool or go to the beach,” one travel agent said. To cool a home without A.C., close blinds and use stick-on solar film. Read more tips. Times weather graphics The New York Times It’s not your imagination: Summers are getting hotter. These charts let you trace the changes. Maps show where the heat is reaching dangerous levels in the U.S. and around the world. Earth’s oceans are the hottest they have been in modern history, by a wide margin. Times journalists visited two cities transformed by extreme heat — Kuwait City and Basra, Iraq — to document the effects. More weather news Tropical Storm Alberto, the first major storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, brought floods to Texas. Mexico is bracing for landfall. Intense heat in Saudi Arabia has killed dozens during the hajj, a holy pilgrimage. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Russia Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Vladimir Putin promised North Korea technological help, which could mean support for a nuclear program. Putin is now in Vietnam; see the Soviet-era plane that took him there. Jimmy Fallon mocked Kim Jong-un and Putin for making things official. More International News Israel’s military said it could not defeat Hamas without installing a new administration in Gaza. The European Union warned France to rein in its debt or risk financial penalties. President Emmanuel Macron’s opponents have promised to spend more. A nationwide blackout hit Ecuador. Two beluga whales were rescued from an aquarium under bombardment in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and flown to Spain. An Austrian heiress decided to give away most of her inheritance. Read where it’s going. The political tensions between mainland China and Hong Kong have arrived in the city’s restaurants. 2024 Election Biden’s recent actions have clarified his approach to immigration: Help those who are already in the U.S., but limit arrivals. Donald Trump has long cast Biden as a man who struggles to speak. But as the first debate approaches, Trump is trying to shift those expectations. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime lover of birds, keeps ravens as wild pets. They’re better behaved than his old emu, his wife says. More on Politics Female Marine recruits training in South Carolina in 2019. Lynsey Addario for The New York Times The military is struggling with recruitment. Congress is debating proposals to expand conscription to women and make registration automatic, but both face an uphill path to becoming law soon. Louisiana passed a law that requires public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Other Big Stories An OpenAI co-founder who helped briefly oust Sam Altman has started his own company. He wants to build A.I. technologies that are smarter than humans but not dangerous. Wildfires in New Mexico killed two people. Thousands fled. Researchers found the oldest shipwreck ever discovered in deep water. It likely sank sometime between 1400 B.C. and 1300 B.C. Opinions The sites of nuclear tests. The New York Times The nuclear-weapons tests of the past eight decades have left illness and displacement in their fallout, W.J. Hennigan writes. Putin’s attempt to restore Russian greatness has instead made Russian emigrants ashamed of their country, Serge Schmemann writes. Executive orders aren’t enough. Lasting change comes from pressuring Congress to pass laws, Sarah Isgur argues. Here’s a column by Pamela Paul on why she doesn’t like protesting. Games for relaxation. Games for concentration. We have them all. For a limited time, save 50% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription and enjoy new puzzles every day. MORNING READS Is your leftover rice trying to kill you? Karsten Moran for The New York Times Rice: Leftover cooked rice has a scary reputation. Here’s a guide to storing and reheating it safely. Solstice: Today is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Learn how that works. Airlines: Flying is still safe, but you can take precautions. Ask Well: Does stress cause ulcers? Fitness trackers: See what your heart rate can tell you. Lives Lived: Ricardo Urbina was a trailblazing Latino lawyer who scored victories for civil liberties as an empathetic federal judge. As a record-breaking track star, he helped fuel a protest at the 1968 Olympics. He died at 78. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Detroit Pistons fired their coach Monty Williams after just one season. It was a partnership destined for failure, our columnist writes. Soccer: The host, Germany, advanced to the round of the 16 at the Euros and appears primed to make a deep run. Croatia is in danger of crashing out. Olympics: The American swimming star Caeleb Dressel officially qualified for the Paris Games — but he won’t get to defend his 100-meter freestyle gold. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS In the entrance to a bachelor pad. Jackson DeMatos Many people have too much stuff and not enough space. Open storage — making the clutter into a display — has become a popular solution. Read designers’ tips on how to do it. More on culture Sabrina Carpenter’s blazer dress went viral after Pharrell Williams’ Louis Vuitton men’s spring show, The Hollywood Reporter writes. TikTok is fueling a chiropractor frenzy. After Justin Timberlake’s arrest, news crews went to the Hamptons. They didn’t find many answers. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks. Make the salad version of elotes, the Mexican corn on the cob. Cool your pets in the summer heat. Give yourself a manicure at home. This guide can help. Camp with this gear. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was pituitary. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.—David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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