Members phkrause Posted April 22 Author Members Share Posted April 22 April 22, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering the new aid package for Ukraine — plus Columbia University, bird flu and Lord Byron. Fighting in eastern Ukraine. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Help is on the way You have probably read that the war in Ukraine is a stalemate. But conditions have changed in recent months — in Russia’s favor. It has captured more territory, and it seems likely to launch a larger offensive later this spring or summer. In the meantime, Ukraine’s ability to fight back has deteriorated since the U.S. largely stopped sending aid in December. The $60 billion in Ukraine aid that the House passed over the weekend has the potential to change the situation yet again. The Senate is likely to pass the bill in the coming days, and President Biden has signaled that he will sign it. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how the aid package could affect the war. Ukraine’s needs American funds will help Ukraine restock two things that have played pivotal roles in the war: artillery shells and antiaircraft munitions. The war has often revolved around artillery, which are large guns that armies use to fire explosive shells and hit targets from a great distance. Both sides have used artillery to kill troops and destroy tanks and bunkers from miles away, weakening the enemy before an attack. Artillery has also stopped advancing armies. In recent months, though, Ukraine has started to run out of artillery shells. Russian forces have fired five to 10 times as many shells as Ukraine. “That’s just not sustainable,” my colleague Eric Schmitt, who covers national security, told me. “Ukraine would eventually have to give up territory and pull back.” In the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Nicole Tung for The New York Times Ukraine has also relied on antiaircraft weapons, such as U.S.-made Patriot missiles, that can shoot down planes and missiles. The threat of these weapons has kept Russia from unleashing the full might of its air force, because it fears that Ukraine would destroy its expensive planes. Russia has instead resorted to long-range missiles, and Ukraine has shot down many of them. But Ukraine had started to run out of those munitions, too. Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Ukraine’s short supplies for its inability to stop a Russian missile barrage that killed at least 17 people north of Kyiv. “This would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment,” Zelensky said. The new artillery and anti-air munitions will start to arrive in Ukraine just days after the bill becomes law. The $60 billion will pay for several months’ worth of weapons. Some of the aid will also go for training. That support will help address another Ukrainian shortage — in personnel — by allowing the military to prepare newer recruits for the front lines more quickly. It will also help teach Ukraine’s forces how to use some of the advanced weapons they have previously received from Western allies, including Abrams tanks and F-16 jets. What comes next Once the aid starts arriving, Ukraine is likely to put it to work on the eastern front, where Russia has recently taken the city of Avdiivka. It could halt Russia’s recent progress and prevent much larger advances. Some analysts have worried that an undersupplied Ukraine would struggle to defend the countryside around Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, after Kyiv, and its remaining territory along the Black Sea coastline. By The New York Times “With more aid, Ukraine will probably be able to solidify its defenses and keep its most important cities,” said my colleague Julian Barnes, who covers intelligence and national security. If all goes well, Ukraine could launch an offensive campaign in 2025, perhaps to retake territory in the country’s east and southeast. One important goal: to drive a wedge between Russia’s holdings in the eastern region of the Donbas and the southern peninsula of Crimea. Ukraine’s official goal is to retake all of the Donbas and Crimea. Many experts are skeptical that Ukraine can do that, especially after last year’s disappointing counteroffensive. And some critics of the aid package argue that it won’t even allow Ukraine to stop Russia’s advance. Senator J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, says that U.S. manufacturing can’t currently keep pace with Russian weapons production. The war simply matters more to Russia than the West, and Russia is dedicating more resources to it, these critics have argued. Still, most experts believe the additional aid will make a meaningful difference. They worry that an easier Russian victory could encourage it to invade other countries, or encourage China to invade Taiwan, by undermining confidence in the U.S. and its allies. The most realistic scenario for Ukraine is probably not a return to the prewar borders. The nation would be smaller, but it could retain most of its territory, then integrate itself economically and strategically with Europe. That’s a lot better than outright defeat. For more Ukraine is building trenches and laying obstacles called dragon’s teeth to fend off Russian attacks. These graphics show the defenses. The Donbas region was an industrial hub for Ukraine. It’s now the focal point for Russia’s ground offensives. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump Trial The opening statements in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York will be heard today. There is a lot of evidence against him, but a conviction isn’t assured. Two prospective jurors who were excused talked to The Times about their experience. One had his social media posts analyzed. In a video, a Times court reporter, Kate Christobek, explains what to expect. Israel-Hamas War Israeli soldiers. Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The U.S. is considering sanctions on some Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. Benjamin Netanyahu said such a move would be “a moral low.” The Israeli military has sent troops to address violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, The Wall Street Journal reports. The head of intelligence for Israel’s military resigned after his service’s failures before Oct. 7. Watch a video of one man’s journey to collect airdropped aid for his family back in Gaza. International Reaction Columbia will hold classes virtually today as pro-Palestinian protests at the school continue, NBC reports. Some Jewish students at the university said they felt unsafe, others rejected that view. Pro-Palestinian activists plan to protest this year’s Democratic convention in Chicago. In 1968, antiwar demonstrations overshadowed the convention — also in Chicago. More International News At a polling station in Manipur, India. Reuters Armed men attacked voting booths in northeastern India. The election authorities directed officials to redo voting at several polling stations. Ecuadoreans gave their president more powers to combat drug-related gang violence, a show of support for his hard-line stance. Torrential rain in southern China caused flooding and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate. Spain became the latest European country to end a visa program that offered residency to wealthy foreigners who buy real estate. Other Big Stories On Chepeconde Beach in Peru. Sebastian Castaneda/Reuters Bird flu has adapted to infect more mammals. But a human pandemic is by no means inevitable. Legislators in two dozen states, spurred by teenage girls, are trying to fight deepfake nudes generated by A.I. Hudson Yards, a New York real estate project, went from a ghost town during the pandemic to an office success story. A Tennessee Volkswagen plant voted to join the United Automobile Workers. Experts say the union could replicate its victory throughout the South. Opinions Planting trees is an Earth Day tradition. Cities forget that the preservation of their mature trees is more important, Margaret Renkl writes. This Passover, Jews should not only remember their suffering but also channel it toward compassion, both personally and politically, Shai Held writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump’s trial. Here are columns by David French on the differences among Christian movements and Carlos Lozada on the movie “Civil War.” 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 In Guinea Bissau. Cesar J. Pollo/Shutterstock Journey: Green sea turtles swim hundreds of miles to nest on this West African archipelago. A manufacturing boon: Ozempic is transforming a small Danish town. Great outdoors: What to know before you book a trip to a national park this summer. Car key conversations: Asking older people to give up driving can be painful. Experts offer advice to handle it with empathy. Metropolitan Diary: Doing that thing her husband hates. Lives Lived: Terry Anderson was the Beirut bureau chief for The Associated Press when he was kidnapped in 1985 by militants. He spent six years as a hostage. He died at 76. SPORTS Peres Jepchirchir Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Running: Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya won the London Marathon in a women’s only record time of 2:16:16. Alexander Mutiso Munyao, also from Kenya, won the men’s race. N.B.A.: The Los Angeles Clippers, despite missing Kawhi Leonard, beat the Dallas Mavericks. Golf: Nelly Korda won the Chevron Championship to earn a fifth win in her last five starts, which ties a record. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Toma Vagner Internet scams are everywhere: Strangers send bogus messages on LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Instagram. Deepfakes of celebrities hawk cookware and dental plans. Political donations, employment offers, rental contracts and medical billing can be suspect. They’ve gotten so sophisticated, young people are falling for them, too. “Being digitally native doesn’t inoculate you,” writes the Times reporter Steven Kurutz. “In fact, it makes you a target.” Read his story here. More on culture A painting of Lord Byron. Musée Fabre/Hulton Fine Art Collection, via Getty Images Lord Byron’s life story has sometimes obscured his poetry. Two hundred years after his death, his work is still worth reading, the author Benjamin Markovits writes. The Cut lists the conspiracies and Easter eggs hidden in Taylor Swift’s new album. The vegan chef Matthew Kenney runs a holistic wellness empire. His former employees say it is also full of bounced paychecks. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted artists including Cher and A Tribe Called Quest. An original “Star Trek” Enterprise model was discovered on eBay decades after it disappeared around 1979. It has been returned to the son of the series’ creator. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Romulo Yanes for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Vivian Lui. Try Katharine Hepburn’s famous brownie recipe. Stream these action movies. Eat at the best restaurants in Austin. Dress with sophistication. Locate your keys with a Bluetooth tracker. Test your home’s water quality. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was immunized. 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. Continue reading the main story 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted April 24 Author Members Share Posted April 24 April 23, 2024 By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. We’re covering the first big day of Trump’s New York trial — as well as campus protests, Narendra Modi and Taylor Swift fatigue. Donald Trump Pool photo by Victor J. Blue Two stories A criminal trial is often a contest between competing stories. In the trial of Donald Trump that’s just begun, prosecutors used their opening statement yesterday to tell a story about a man they say lied — and broke the law — to get elected president. The prosecutors said that Trump had paid $130,000 in hush money to a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair and that he had then filed false business records to pretend that the money was instead for legal fees. His actions were part of a pattern in which he repeatedly lied to shape his image, the prosecutors said, and it worked: He narrowly won the 2016 election. The story that Trump’s lawyers offered in their own opening statements had two main features. First, they urged the jurors not to trust the witnesses who will testify against Trump, including Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, who previously pleaded guilty to making false statements. Second, Trump’s lawyers argued that his attempts to affect the election were ordinary politics. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,” Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s lawyers, said in his opening statement. “It’s called democracy.” (Related: Our colleagues Jonah Bromwich and Ben Protess explain the trial’s opposing visions of Trump.) Beyond the courtroom The immediate audience for these dueling arguments is the jury of 12 New Yorkers who will decide the verdict. But there is also a larger audience that will judge the case, of course: American voters. Trump’s lawyers hope to persuade both the 12 jurors and this year’s voters that his behavior amounted to normal campaign tactics. The prosecutors, overseen by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, want to portray Trump as a man who lied and cheated in ways that had little precedent. “The case is not — the core of it’s not — money for sex,” Bragg said recently. “We would say it’s about conspiring to corrupt a presidential election and then lying in New York business records to cover it up.” A guilty verdict would not prevent Trump from serving as president again. Nothing in the Constitution bars people from office because of a conviction. But if Bragg’s team can persuade jurors of the argument, it may have a big impact on the 2024 campaign. In recent polls, a meaningful share of Trump’s current supporters say they would be less likely to vote for him if he were convicted of a crime. And because of how slowly the other three criminal cases against Trump are moving, this case may be the only one to complete a trial before the November election. In the rest of today’s newsletter, we’ll give you the highlights from yesterday’s opening arguments and testimony and preview today’s proceedings. Outside the courthouse in Manhattan. Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times Trial highlights David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, was the trial’s first witness. Pecker used the tabloid to suppress damaging rumors about Trump, and prosecutors say that Pecker helped negotiate the hush-money payment at the center of this case. He’s expected to continue testifying today. Trump made no outbursts inside the courtroom but shook his head when prosecutors said things he disagreed with. He also appeared to briefly fall asleep, as he did during jury selection last week. Trump’s relationship with Stormy Daniels, a former porn star, is crucial to the trial. Trump’s lawyer said yesterday that the two never had sex; Daniels may be called to testify. Trump may testify, though a ruling yesterday made it less likely: The judge said prosecutors could ask him about other cases he had lost, including a recent defamation case from the writer E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of rape. The judge, Juan Merchan, will hold a hearing this morning on Trump’s gag order, which bars him from criticizing witnesses, jurors and others. Prosecutors have asked the judge to fine Trump for violating it. The court will publish transcripts of each day’s proceedings. You can find them here. On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart critiqued the news media’s coverage of the trial. To understand more about the case, we recommend reading this Times Magazine profile of Bragg, Trump’s nemesis who was once a standout student and rumpled dresser. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Campus Protests At Columbia University. C.S. Muncy for The New York Times Universities are struggling to contain pro-Palestinian demonstrations; protesters are building encampments, and Harvard closed its yard to the public. See images from campuses. The police arrested protesting students at N.Y.U. and Yale for violating university warnings and rules. Protesters have demanded Yale divest from weapons manufacturers involved with Israel. Columbia held remote classes, days after officers arrested more than 100 pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and some Jewish students raised safety concerns. In a statement on Passover, President Biden denounced “harassment and calls for violence against Jews.” An aide said he was referring to Columbia. At encampments, some Jewish protesters prepared Seder dinners. Israel-Hamas War Six months into the war, Israel has weakened Hamas but failed to achieve its primary goals: freeing hostages and destroying the organization. “Another milestone showing how we aren’t whole”: With more than 130 hostages remaining in Gaza, many Israelis marked Passover — but did not celebrate. People in Gaza struggle to find enough food to eat each day. Read the stories of two families trying to keep their children alive. More International News In Bakhmut, Ukraine. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Ukraine’s military has used Silicon Valley military technologies in its war against Russia. The results have been mixed. The British Parliament passed a contentious law that allows the government to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, called Muslims “infiltrators” who would take the nation’s wealth if his opponents were elected. Two earthquakes shook Taiwan less than a month after the island’s strongest temblor in decades. The world’s military spending last year reached $2.4 trillion, a 35-year high. The United States spent more than one-third of the total. Politics On Earth Day, Biden announced grants for solar power and opened applications for the American Climate Corps. The prime minister of Papua New Guinea criticized Biden for suggesting that cannibals on the island had eaten Biden’s uncle, whose military plane crashed off the coast during World War II. Supreme Court The Supreme Court seems likely to uphold local ordinances that let an Oregon city ban homeless people from sleeping or camping in public spaces. Separately, the justices agreed to hear a case challenging the Biden administration’s regulation of “ghost guns,” homemade firearms assembled from kits. Artificial Intelligence A Californian start-up devised a way to use A.I. to create gene editors. The advance could help researchers combat diseases. A.I.-generated child sexual abuse material could overwhelm the authorities, a Stanford report cautioned. Other Big Stories Chief Murphy Paul of Baton Rouge, La. Dean Majd for The New York Times Baton Rouge’s police chief hoped police overhauls would help reduce gun violence. Measuring the success is complicated. Credit bureaus like Experian and TransUnion want “buy now, pay later” loans to appear on consumers’ credit reports. Karen, a 5-year-old ostrich known for her playful antics, died at a Kansas zoo after she swallowed a staff member’s keys. Opinions A photo by an eight-legged camera thief. The octopus, via Craig Foster An octopus took my camera, and the images changed the way I see the world, Craig Foster writes. The Manhattan criminal case against Trump is a legal embarrassment and a historic mistake, Jed Handelsman Shugerman argues. The Supreme Court should rule quickly on Trump’s immunity claim, Liz Cheney writes. Tesla’s struggles under Elon Musk are a new version of an old story: Pioneers often fail as managers, Peter Coy writes. Here is a column by Jamelle Bouie on Republicans and small businesses. 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 Hand-painted motifs. Simone Nocetti Local cooking: Buon Ricordo plates helped make regional Italian food popular in restaurants. Now they’re collectors’ items. Feelings: Researchers are trying to get inside the minds of animals. Prescriptions: Are you taking multiple medications? You might need to scale back. Much ado about nothing? Every year, millions visit a house known as Shakespeare’s Birthplace. The problem is, no one actually knows where he was born. Lives Lived: Lori and George Schappell were conjoined twins fused at their foreheads. Despite their incredible physical closeness, they managed to lead separate lives — and they said they had neither wanted to be surgically separated nor wished to have been born separately. They died at 62. SPORTS Craig Carton Amy Lombard for The New York Times Open conversations: On WFAN radio, the sports broadcaster Craig Carton invites former gambling addicts like himself to tell their stories. N.B.A.: The New York Knicks took a 2-0 lead over the Philadelphia 76ers after a six-point turnaround with just seconds left. Denver Nuggets: The defending champions pushed their series lead to 2-0 over the Los Angeles Lakers thanks to Jamal Murray’s buzzer beater. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS In Oakham, England. Joshua Bright for The New York Times A year and half after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Britain has begun to memorialize her with statues. While past works depicted monarchs like Queen Victoria as imposing and stern, many of Queen Elizabeth’s statues will show her as approachable. A sculpture in the town of Oakham depicts her with three corgis at her feet. Real-life corgis came out for a look. More on culture After the release of “The Tortured Poets Department,” Taylor Swift-mania has given way to another feeling: Taylor Swift fatigue. The creative team behind the 1999 horror movie “The Blair Witch Project” called for more retroactive compensation and to be consulted on a coming reboot. “Grenfell” at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York City is a “tense and enthralling” play about a fire in London that killed 72 people. A humble jacket has become a status symbol. Read why is everyone wearing a chore coat. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Craig Lee for The New York Times Roast this classic roasted chicken Provençal. Play a video game about African myths. Check whether you’re eligible for a tax refund. Clean your microwave. Shave with an electric razor. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were corking, crooking and rocking. 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 and Ian Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Continue reading the main story 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted April 25 Author Members Share Posted April 25 April 24, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering TikTok’s pro-China tilt — as well as Trump’s trial, abortion and Mark Zuckerberg’s style. TikToking. Luke Sharrett for The New York Times A turnabout The debate over TikTok has shifted very quickly. Just a few months ago, it seemed unlikely that the U.S. government would force ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell it. The platform is popular, and Congress rarely passes legislation aimed at a single company. Yet a bipartisan TikTok bill — packaged with aid for Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel and Palestinians — is now on its way to becoming law. Late last night, the Senate passed the measure, 79 to 18, three days after the House passed it, 360 to 58. President Biden said he would sign it today. If ByteDance does not sell TikTok within 12 months, it will be banned in the United States. What explains the turnabout? I have asked that question of policymakers and their aides in recent weeks and heard a similar answer from many. Parts of the debate over TikTok — about the overall benefits and drawbacks of social media, for instance — are complicated, and they would not justify the forced sale of a single company, the policymakers say. But at least one problem with TikTok falls into a different category. It has become a leading source of information in this country. About one-third of Americans under 30 regularly get their news from it. TikTok is also owned by a company based in the leading global rival of the United States. And that rival, especially under President Xi Jinping, treats private companies as extensions of the state. “This is a tool that is ultimately within the control of the Chinese government,” Christopher Wray, the director of the F.B.I., has told Congress. When you think about the issue in these terms, you realize there may be no other situation in the world that resembles China’s control of TikTok. American law has long restricted foreign ownership of television or radio stations, even by companies based in friendly countries. “Limits on foreign ownership have been a part of federal communications policy for more than a century,” the legal scholar Zephyr Teachout explained in The Atlantic. The same is true in other countries. India doesn’t allow Pakistan to own a leading Indian publication, and vice versa. China, for its part, bars access not only to American publications but also to Facebook, Instagram and other apps. TikTok as propaganda Already, there is evidence that China uses TikTok as a propaganda tool. Posts related to subjects that the Chinese government wants to suppress — like Hong Kong protests and Tibet — are strangely missing from the platform, according to a recent report by two research groups. The same is true about sensitive subjects for Russia and Iran, countries that are increasingly allied with China. Consider this data from the report: Source: Network Contagion Research Institute | Actual hashtags do not include spaces. Black Lives Matter hashtag is #BLM. | By The New York Times The report also found a wealth of hashtags promoting independence for Kashmir, a region of India where the Chinese and Indian militaries have had recent skirmishes. A separate Wall Street Journal analysis, focused on the war in Gaza, found evidence that TikTok was promoting extreme content, especially against Israel. (China has generally sided with Hamas.) Adding to this circumstantial evidence is a lawsuit from a former ByteDance executive who claimed that its Beijing offices included a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members who monitored “how the company advanced core Communist values.” Many members of Congress and national security experts find these details unnerving. “You’re placing the control of information — like what information America’s youth gets — in the hands of America’s foremost adversary,” Mike Gallagher, a House Republican from Wisconsin, told Jane Coaston of Times Opinion. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, has called Chinese ownership of TikTok “an unprecedented threat to American security and to our democracy.” In response, TikTok denies that China’s government influences its algorithm and has called the outside analyses of its content misleading. “Comparing hashtags is an inaccurate reflection of on-platform activity,” Alex Haurek, a TikTok spokesman, told me. I find the company’s defense too vague to be persuasive. It doesn’t offer a logical explanation for the huge gaps by subject matter and boils down to: Trust us. Doing so would be easier if the company were more transparent. Instead, shortly after the publication of the report comparing TikTok and Instagram, TikTok altered the search tool that the analysts had used, making future research harder, as my colleague Sapna Maheshwari reported. The move resembled a classic strategy of authoritarian governments: burying inconvenient information. The coming fight The fight over TikTok won’t end even when Biden signs the bill. Chinese officials have signaled that they will not allow ByteDance to sell TikTok, and ByteDance plans to fight the law in court. It will have some American allies, too. On the political left, groups like the A.C.L.U. say that the TikTok bill violates the First Amendment. (You can read the A.C.L.U.’s argument here.) On the right, Jeff Yass, who’s both a TikTok investor and a major Republican campaign donor, is leading the fight against the bill. He is also a former board member at the Cato Institute, which has become a prominent TikTok defender. Yass may be the person who convinced Donald Trump to reverse his position and oppose the bill. These opponents hope to use TikTok’s popularity among younger Americans to create a backlash in coming weeks. And they may have some success. But they are in a much weaker position than they were a few months ago. As Carl Hulse, The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, told me, “The fears that TikTok gives China too much of a way into the U.S. seem to be overriding any political concerns.” There is a long history of members of Congress overcoming partisan divisions to address what they see as a national security threat. Even in today’s polarized atmosphere, it can still happen. For more Under the proposed law, ByteDance will have to sell TikTok within 270 days. It will probably have a hard time finding a buyer with enough money. Read more about the U.S. push to force a sale of TikTok. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial Donald Trump Pool photo by Timothy a Clary David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified yesterday that he hatched a plan in 2015 with Trump and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, to help Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. That effort entailed publishing positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his rivals, including one falsely linking Ted Cruz’s father to the J.F.K. assassination. It also meant buying and then burying information about possible scandals. Pecker called Trump “very cautious and very frugal” and “almost a micromanager,” which may help prosecutors show that Trump paid hush money and falsified records to hide a sex scandal. The judge didn’t rule on whether Trump had violated the gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses and others. But he scolded Trump’s lawyer for not offering evidence in Trump’s defense, saying, “You’re losing all credibility with the court.” Trump appeared frustrated. At times he yanked his lapels, frowned and shook his head. On social media, he accused Merchan of taking away his rights. The N.Y.P.D. appears to be using a dump truck to block news photographers from seeing Trump as he enters and exits the courthouse. The late-night hosts discussed the gag order hearing. “Has Trump ever considered paying himself hush money?” Jordan Klepper asked. More on Politics Biden won Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary. A sizable share of Republican primary voters cast ballots for Nikki Haley, even though she dropped out. Here are more takeaways. In Florida, Biden criticized the state’s six-week abortion ban and urged voters to support a referendum to restore abortion access there. Tennessee’s legislature passed a bill to allow teachers to carry concealed handguns on school grounds. The governor is likely to sign it. Israel-Hamas War Israel says it will expand a humanitarian zone along the Gaza coast if it invades Rafah, a southern city where more than a million displaced Palestinians are living. Palestinian officials claim to have found mass graves outside two hospitals in Gaza after the withdrawal of Israeli troops there. The U.N. called for an independent investigation. A class of university students finished training in Gaza a week before the war began. The Times spoke with them to learn how their lives had changed. Campus Protests A student at the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Bing Guan for The New York Times At Columbia, pro-Palestinian student protesters agreed to remove some tents and bar discriminatory language. The school delayed police action to disband the protests while talks continue. The university’s officials are trying to balance student safety with free speech. Read the inside story of the crisis on campus. Many universities expect protests to disrupt the end of the school year. Columbia will allow students to attend the last week of classes remotely, and the University of Michigan told students to expect demonstrations at graduation ceremonies. More International News In Myanmar. Adam Ferguson for The New York Times Myanmar’s military has cut off phone and internet service in areas controlled by rebel groups. Locals play music to pass the time. Residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine, are trying to live as normal despite daily Russian attacks. See life in the city. At least five people died during an attempt to cross the English Channel, including a young girl. They were on an inflatable boat that was overloaded with more than 100 passengers. Germany arrested an E.U. lawmaker’s aide on suspicion of spying for China. Horses on the loose galloped through London this morning. One appeared to hit a double-decker bus and smash the windshield. Other Big Stories The Justice Department will pay $139 million to resolve claims by women who said they were abused by the former U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. The Federal Trade Commission banned noncompete clauses, which restrict workers from switching to a rival company in the same industry. Tesla’s first-quarter profits fell 55 percent. Sales are down, even as the company lowered the price of its cars to attract buyers. No, officer, he wasn’t drinking: A Belgian man suspected of drunken driving was instead diagnosed with auto-brewery syndrome, a rare condition in which the gut makes its own beer. Opinions Administrators allow discrimination against Jewish students that they would never tolerate against other minorities, Bret Stephens argues. Parents of students suspended by Columbia University and Barnard College wrote a letter to the editor to express their outrage. Student protesters can make their point without shutting down campus life, John McWhorter, a Columbia professor, writes. And here is a column by Thomas Edsall on polarization in 2024. 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 Near the Norris Back Basin at Yellowstone. Diane Renkin/National Park Service Yellowstone: Wolves were thought to have rebalanced the national park’s ecosystem. New research questions that story. Ask Well: Are nasal sprays addictive? Read what to know. Creativity: Artists, including Joan Baez, offer advice on squashing self-doubt and procrastination. Lives Lived: Phyllis Pressman began working at Barneys so she could spend more time with her husband, who had taken over the store from his father. She created Chelsea Passage, the store’s home goods bazaar, a pivot point in Barneys’ evolution from a discount men’s wear store to an elite lifestyle behemoth. She died at 95. SPORTS N.B.A.: Luka Doncic scored 32 points to help the Dallas Mavericks tie their series with the Los Angeles Clippers at 1-1. N.H.L.: The New York Rangers beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3, to take a 2-0 series lead. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Arizona cowboys in 1879. C.S. Fly/Buyenlarge, via Getty Images Cowboy aesthetics are back in fashion, as seen in Beyoncé’s release of her album “Cowboy Carter.” In his critic’s notebook, the Times reporter Guy Trebay tries to explain what exactly cowboy style is. “How do you arrive at any single meaning of ‘cowboy’ when the stylistic variants run from western to modern to rhinestone to preppy to line-dancing Saturday night buckaroo to Black?” he writes. More on culture Mark Zuckerberg Yonhap/EPA, via Shutterstock Meta-morphosis: Mark Zuckerberg, once known for wearing the same outfit regularly, has had a makeover. A former cameraman for Megan Thee Stallion said he was forced to watch her have sex, and has filed a lawsuit against her for harassment, NBC reports. The celebrity bag designer Nancy Gonzalez was sentenced to 18 months in prison for smuggling handbags made from protected wildlife skins from Colombia. David Beckham is suing the fitness brand F45, which is co-owned by Mark Wahlberg, for an alleged breach of a financial agreement. X introduced a dedicated app for smart TVs. Elon Musk is trying to expand the company’s video ambitions, according to The Hollywood Reporter. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Armando Rafael for The New York Times Bake sweet and spicy chicken thighs with hot honey and lime. Build a better grocery budget. Add a sprint to your exercise routine. Play pickleball with a good paddle. Work out with earbuds that won’t fall out. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was ambulant. 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. Continue reading the main story 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted April 26 Author Members Share Posted April 26 April 25, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the protests roiling college campuses — as well as the foreign aid bill, soccer and the Venice Biennale. Outside Columbia University. Adam Gray for The New York Times Dueling priorities Arnold Kling, an economist, published a book a decade ago that offered a way to think about the core difference between progressives and conservatives. Progressives, Kling wrote, see the world as a struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed, and they try to help the oppressed. Conservatives see the world as a struggle between civilization and barbarism — between order and chaos — and they try to protect civilization. Like many frameworks, Kling’s is a simplification, and it’s easy to find exceptions. But his book has been influential because the framework often sheds light on political arguments. The debate over pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia and other universities has become an example. If you want to understand why university leaders are finding the situation so hard to resolve, Kling’s dichotomy is useful: The central question for colleges is whether to prioritize the preservation of order or the desire of students to denounce oppression. In today’s newsletter, I’ll lay out the cases of the dueling sides. Confronting injustice A Jewish student wearing a watermelon kippah, a symbol of Gaza. Bing Guan for The New York Times For the student protesters, the injustice in Gaza is so horrific that it takes precedence over almost anything else. The death toll in Gaza since Oct. 7 is more than 30,000, the Gaza Ministry of Health reports. Entire neighborhoods are rubble. Israel has slowed the entry of basic supplies into Gaza, and many families are hungry. (My colleagues Vivian Yee and Bilal Shbair profiled two families trying to find their children enough to eat.) The protesters view this suffering as an atrocity that demands action, much as Jim Crow laws, the Vietnam War and South African apartheid did for earlier students. In a statement yesterday, a pro-Palestinian group at Columbia cited as inspiration the anti-Vietnam War demonstrators who were killed at Kent State University in 1970. If classes must be canceled and graduation ceremonies can’t happen, all the better, the students say. The disruptions will force the world to confront what the protesters describe as a genocide. “Big picture, genocide is happening, and this is where we stand,” one Columbia graduate student told the publication Hell Gate. Many protesters specifically call for their universities to divest from companies that do business in Israel or help produce military equipment. Some students have framed the debate as being about free speech, and free-speech principles do play a role. But I don’t think they are as central as Kling’s frame. Both sides, after all, have tried to restrict speech. Supporters of Israel have doxxed pro-Palestinian students and tried to penalize slogans like “From the river to the sea.” Pro-Palestinian protesters have ripped away Israeli and U.S. flags and tried to prevent pro-Israel students from speaking. The protesters’ abiding principle is not freedom of speech. It is justice for the oppressed. Preventing chaos The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Bing Guan for The New York Times For the protesters’ critics, the breakdown of order is the central problem — because a community that descends into chaos can’t function. Protesters have frequently violated colleges’ rules. They have erected tents in public places and overwhelmed those areas. Columbia has switched to hybrid classes because of the turmoil. Even worse, some protests have involved harassment and violence. The University of Michigan had to cut short an honors ceremony for students. At Vanderbilt, more than 20 protesters stormed the president’s office, injuring a security guard and shattering a window. At Columbia, videos have shown protesters threatening Jewish students with antisemitic vitriol, including a sign talking about Hamas’s “next targets.” If universities do not enforce their own rules against such behavior, the rules have no meaning, administrators fear. Other protesters, seeing their own causes as existential, could likewise halt normal life. Perhaps they would be climate activists or students outraged by China’s oppression of Uighurs — or even demonstrators with right-wing views unpopular on American campuses. If anti-abortion protesters were to take over a quad for days, would university administrators ignore their own campus rules? Jason Riley, a Wall Street Journal columnist, has compared the protesters’ tactics to those of the white residents of Arkansas who tried to use physical intimidation to prevent the enforcement of a law they didn’t like: school desegregation. President Dwight Eisenhower responded by proclaiming that “disorderly mobs” could not triumph, Riley noted. College administrators are not making such analogies. Many express sympathy for the protesters’ concerns. But some insist that society can’t function if people violate rules without consequence. “We cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view,” Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president, wrote to the campus this week. What’s next? I recognize that not everybody will accept Kling’s framework for this debate. Pro-Palestinian students will say that Israel is the true source of disorder, while pro-Israel students will say that Hamas is the true oppressor. Still, I think the Kling dichotomy captures the dilemma that university leaders face. The protests continue, and graduation season is approaching. Those leaders will have to make difficult decisions about what values to prioritize. The latest on the protests “Go back to class,” Speaker Mike Johnson told protesters while visiting Columbia. He suggested calling in the National Guard. At the University of Texas, police officers in riot gear blocked protesters and arrested at least 20 of them. The protests at Columbia, and the school’s response, have galvanized demonstrations at universities across the U.S. Columbia’s president is fighting for her job. Some professors now oppose her, but she has the support of the school’s board. Benjamin Netanyahu called student protesters in the U.S. “antisemitic mobs.” Trump said the demonstrations were worse than the violent 2017 white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, where a woman was killed. Brandeis, a historically Jewish university outside Boston, extended its deadline for transfer applications, promising an environment “free of harassment and Jew-hatred.” Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Foreign Aid Bill President Biden signed a bill with aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, calling it “a good day for world peace.” The administration plans to send Ukraine more weapons this week. The bill includes $1 billion in humanitarian aid. “Israel must make sure all this aid reaches the Palestinians in Gaza without delay,” Biden said. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, was a linchpin in winning aid for Ukraine, pushing back against isolationists in his own party. Elections An Arizona grand jury charged Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and others over their efforts to help Donald Trump overturn his 2020 election loss. The indictment names Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial resumes this morning. This graphic shows the links between Trump and other figures in the case. Biden mocked Trump for suggesting as president that disinfectant injections might treat Covid. The bleach “all went to his hair,” Biden said. More on Politics In Shanghai. Pool photo by Mark Schiefelbein Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, is in China. Economic tensions are high. The Supreme Court sounded divided over whether to allow doctors to perform emergency abortions in states with strict bans. Today the court will hear Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution over Jan. 6. Three Arizona Republicans voted with Democrats to repeal the state’s 1864 abortion ban. The bill heads to the State Senate. Building union leaders endorsed Biden. They plan to mobilize their members to support him in swing states, CNN reports. Donald Payne Jr., a six-term Democratic congressman from New Jersey known for wearing bow ties, died at 65. International In Nairobi, Kenya. Daniel Irungu/EPA, via Shutterstock Floods across Kenya have killed at least 32 people and displaced more than 40,000. The U.S. secretly shipped new long-range missiles to Ukraine. Hamas released a video showing for the first time that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli American taken hostage on Oct. 7, remains alive. Other Big Stories The Justice Department is investigating the consulting firm McKinsey over its role helping drug companies sell opioids. The Agriculture Department finalized new school meal guidelines with less salt and sugar. To combat avian flu, the Biden administration will require tests for cows that cross state lines. NPR is in turmoil: The broadcaster’s audience is shrinking, its sponsorship revenue is declining, and its leaders are struggling with political strife. Opinions Trump’s criminal trials make him seem like a victim. That could help him on Election Day, Stuart Stevens, a Republican political consultant, writes. The federal government should test people for avian flu now, before an outbreak starts, Zeynep Tufekci writes. Here’s a column by Charles Blow on the Vietnam War and the Gaza protests. 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 In Athens. Angelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Athens: A Saharan dust cloud has turned the city orange. Meet Cait Bailey: She’s a publicist to major celebrities, and her boyfriend is a famous chef. But she’d prefer to keep a low profile. Diet: Could calorie restriction or intermittent fasting help you live longer? Read what scientists know. Broods: Trillions of cicadas are emerging after more than a decade of feeding on tree roots. Get ready. Lives Lived: Helen Vendler’s power as a poetry critic derived from her close and impassioned readings. A fellow critic called her a “colossus.” Vendler died at 90. SPORTS In England. Team Green Photography Queens Park Ladies: An under-12 girls’ soccer team in England joined a boys’ league — and went undefeated. “They definitely underestimated us,” Edith Wragg, one of the players, said. N.F.L. Draft: Four quarterbacks are expected to go in the first round tonight. N.B.A.: The Miami Heat shocked the Boston Celtics in a 111-101 road win to even the series at 1-1. College football: Reggie Bush’s 2005 Heisman Trophy was reinstated, nearly 14 years after he forfeited it during a scandal. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS In Venice. Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times The Venice Biennale, the world’s best event to discover new art, opened with a Prosecco-soaked weekend. Artists, along with critics and collectors, filled the city. The Times’s critic Jason Farago was one of them. While he loved some of the work, he didn’t love the theme, “Foreigners Everywhere,” which he felt reflects a problem in our culture. “It’s often preachy, but that’s not its biggest problem. The real problem is how it tokenizes, essentializes, minimizes and pigeonholes talented artists,” he writes. Read his review. Related: Venice is trying to limit tourism with a small fee on busy days. More on culture A scene from “Challengers.” Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures “Challengers,” from the director Luca Guadagnino, is about love and tennis. The Times spoke with its stars, including Zendaya, about the film and life in the public eye. The American Film Institute is giving Nicole Kidman a lifetime achievement award this week. See what makes her work singular. The Getty Museum agreed to return an ancient bronze head to Turkey. A long-lost Gustav Klimt painting sold for $37 million at auction. Jimmy Kimmel dunked on Trump’s billion-dollar stock bonus. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Orzo & Asparagus with Lemon, Garlic Breadcrumbs & Herbs. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Toss a 20-minute lemony orzo with asparagus and garlic bread crumbs. Navigate grief with these books. Understand the new airline refund rules. Buy a gift for a green-thumbed friend. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was topiary. 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. Lauren Jackson — one of the Times journalists in London who update this newsletter while you’re sleeping — has been promoted to associate editor. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Continue reading the main story 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted April 27 Author Members Share Posted April 27 April 26, 2024 SUPPORTED BY GE AEROSPACE Good morning. Today my colleague John Eligon is writing about an important anniversary for South Africa. We’re also covering the Supreme Court, Harvey Weinstein and bird flu. — David Leonhardt Nelson Mandela in 1994. Joao Silva/Associated Press After apartheid By John Eligon He is The Times’s Johannesburg bureau chief. South Africa’s apartheid government died in an election 30 years ago tomorrow. For the first time, Black South Africans were among those casting ballots. In the regime’s place, voters inaugurated a democracy led by people who look like the country’s majority. Hopes ran high: Nelson Mandela became president and vowed to help Black communities prosper by giving them access to the wealth, land and mines — South Africa is rich in gold and diamonds — colonizers had taken. Toppling the racist regime, it turns out, was just the beginning. Three decades later, Mandela’s vision is far from realized. Most Black South Africans don’t earn enough to meet their basic needs, and many lack reliable services like electricity and water. Racial disparities in employment, education and income are still massive. Communities where people live in tin shacks and use latrines sit alongside suburbs with swimming pools and electrified walls. With a major national election next month, my colleague Lynsey Chutel and I have been reporting to understand how South Africa got here. We’ve sifted through data, interviewed experts and chatted with dozens of residents from every walk of life. (Read our story here.) Today’s newsletter will explain what happened. Joyful progress In Soweto, South Africa. Joao Silva/The New York Times For all its problems, South Africa has still achieved something remarkable. After apartheid, its democratic government, led by the liberation movement, the African National Congress, drafted a constitution that enshrines equal rights for everyone. Since 1994, the country has held six peaceful and credible democratic elections. Even though the A.N.C. has had a grip on power, the political arena is fierce and combative. This year, a record 52 parties will be on the national ballot. In many places, you see an inclusive joy these days that would not have been possible under apartheid. On any given night, you’ll find Black partygoers in swanky nightclubs or high-end restaurants, sucking on hookah pipes or posing for Instagram snapshots. Some townships, which the apartheid government had designed to keep the Black population ostracized, have vibrant arts and culture scenes. Festivals are frequently held in all parts of the country and draw multiracial crowds. Many thump with amapiano, a South African brand of house music, and revelers doing smooth robotic jiggles. The economic situation is not uniformly bleak. The upscale shopping malls and modern office towers are no longer the preserve of white South Africans. In 2022, there were 16 times more Black South Africans living in households among the top 15 percent of earners than there were in 1995. Even when it comes to venting frustrations with the government, there is a lively protest culture, with people of all shades and socioeconomic backgrounds taking to the streets. Civil society thrives: Many human rights organizations advocate for the most vulnerable. A robust and independent press calls out government wrongdoing. A stubborn legacy Near Carletonville, South Africa. Joao Silva/The New York Times Mandela’s government raced to provide homes, electricity and water to the millions of Black South Africans deprived of those basics under apartheid. Over time, though, progress slowed. Some advocates argued that the government should quickly seize banks, mines and land. But policymakers worried about scaring international investors and institutions. So they often took a gentler approach. Instead of nationalizing corporations, the government mandated greater Black representation among business owners in order for companies to get contracts from the state. Instead of taking land from white owners, the government simply urged them to sell some of it. Some did, and a few Black buyers — mostly with government support — had the means to purchase land, but not nearly enough to transform the economy. Source: Statistics South Africa | Unemployment rates include those discouraged from seeking work. | By Lauren Leatherby Today, white people, who are 7 percent of the population, still own most land and big business. Black South Africans have made some inroads. But the benefits have mostly gone to a small number of politically connected Black people at the top of the economic ladder. This elite enrichment is tied to the country’s persistent corruption, which began even as the new country took shape. The A.N.C. back then was filled with revolutionaries who had been tortured, imprisoned or exiled by the white-led regime. Suddenly, many of those same liberation fighters became top government officials. They had access to resources and power they’d never known before. Multiple A.N.C. veterans have told me that some party members couldn’t resist grabbing the spoils. They felt that they had sacrificed so much and it was time for them to eat. South Africans today live with the consequences. The state-owned power company, for instance, was pilfered and now struggles to keep plants working, leading to frequent blackouts. Commercial ships and trucks have been backed up at South Africa’s vital shipping ports because of the dysfunctional state-owned logistics company. A young nation’s future South Africa, like other African nations and even the United States, has not figured out how to undo economic inequities created by hundreds of years of racial oppression. But history is not destiny. Frustrated South Africans head to the polls next month. For the first time since full democracy began in 1994, the A.N.C. may lose its majority in Parliament. If it does, voters will be exercising a freedom they gained that is not in question: to choose, and dispatch, leaders as they wish. Related: Read John’s guide to the South African election. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM GE AEROSPACE GE Aerospace’s Q1 Earnings Report Released GE Aerospace launched as an independent, public company and delivered strong results in the first quarter of 2024. Learn more here. THE LATEST NEWS Supreme Court The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears likely to rule that ex-presidents have some immunity from prosecution. That would narrow the federal Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump, and make it less likely that he would face trial before the 2024 election. The court usually issues major rulings in late June or early July. Even that could be enough to delay Trump’s trial past the election, The Times’s Adam Liptak explains. During arguments, several justices focused on presidential power generally rather than Trump. “We’re writing a rule for the ages,” Justice Neil Gorsuch said. Trump’s lawyer suggested that criminal immunity could apply even if a president ordered the military to kill a rival or stage a coup. Trump on Trial Donald Trump Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, told the jury in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial that he helped buy and bury three scandalous stories about Trump during the 2016 election. Pecker heard in October 2016 that the adult film star Stormy Daniels was trying to sell her story of a tryst with Trump and suggested that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, buy it. That hush money, which Trump reimbursed Cohen for, is now central to prosecutors’ case. Pecker acknowledged that the hush money was effectively an illegal donation to Trump’s campaign and said that Trump was worried about how the stories could affect the race, not about his family finding out. That may help prosecutors argue that Trump sought to win the election through illegal means. Pecker testified that after Trump won, he attended a meeting at Trump Tower in which Trump thanked him for purchasing the stories in front of James Comey, the F.B.I. director. Harvey Weinstein Harvey Weinstein in 2020. Desiree Rios for The New York Times New York’s highest court overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for sex crimes. It said the judge had erred by allowing witnesses unrelated to the charges. The Manhattan district attorney must decide whether to seek a retrial. Weinstein will be moved to a prison in California, where he was separately sentenced to 16 years for rape. “The criminal case against him has been fragile since the day it was filed,” wrote Jodi Kantor, whose reporting revealed decades of accusations against Weinstein and helped kick off the #MeToo movement. Read the full ruling. Campus Protests Protesters at N.Y.U. Andres Kudacki for The New York Times Pro-Palestinian encampments have spread across the country, and hundreds of people have been arrested. This map shows where. U.S.C. canceled its main graduation ceremony because of the protests. Demonstrations are rare in the school’s 144-year history. Israel-Hamas War Biden and the leaders of 17 other nations called on Hamas to release all its hostages, in an effort to raise pressure on the group to agree to a cease-fire. Western aid groups in Gaza have repeatedly come under fire from the Israeli military, even after they shared their locations with officials, a Times video investigation found. China Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, met with Xi Jinping. A Chinese company is Americans’ favorite drone maker. The U.S. government considers it a security threat. More International News In Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press A ruling council took office in Haiti as Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned. The country faces widespread gang violence and a humanitarian crisis. The U.S. said it would withdraw troops from Chad, days after saying the same about Niger. Both African countries have been strengthening ties with Russia. Other Big Stories About 20 percent of milk sampled nationwide showed genetic traces of bird flu, the F.D.A. found. There was no sign the milk was unsafe to drink, but it suggests the outbreak is widespread in cows. A high school athletic director in Maryland was arrested on charges that he used A.I. to fake an audio clip of the principal making racist and antisemitic remarks. The authorities in Mississippi have issued playing cards depicting victims of unsolved murders, hoping for leads. Opinions Toby Kiers had a choice between being a bad scientist or a bad mother. She chose defiance, she writes, and brought her children with her on expeditions. Mike Johnson deserves praise for standing up against his party to pass aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Frank Bruni writes. You’ve been wronged. That doesn’t mean your complaints are right, Pamela Paul argues. Here are columns by David Brooks on rising federal debt and Paul Krugman on the progress of unions. 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 Dommaraju Gukesh Arun Sankar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Check mate: The next world chess champion could be the youngest ever. Teddy’s here, too: Sharing a bed with a partner sometimes means making room for their stuffed animal. Fines: A Wyoming town penalized a 13-year-old for selling Girl Scout cookies in the wrong place, The Cowboy State Daily reports. Homes: A study suggests that Gen Z has it better in the housing market than the millennials who came before. Lives Lived: Carrie Robbins made a classic wig and poodle skirt for “Grease” — using a bath mat and a toilet cover — and turned other actors into Spanish inquisitors, British highwaymen and more. She died at 81. SPORTS N.F.L. Draft: U.S.C.’s Caleb Williams went No. 1 to the Chicago Bears, as expected, in the first round of the draft. The Atlanta Falcons’ selection of the Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. shocked league insiders. N.B.A.: Joel Embiid, recently diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, scored 50 points to power the 76ers past the Knicks and narrow their series lead to 2-1. N.H.L.: The New York Islanders face a 3-0 series deficit after losing 3-2 to the Carolina Hurricanes at home. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM GE AEROSPACE GE Aerospace’s Q1 Earnings Report Released GE Aerospace launched as an independent, public company and delivered strong results in the first quarter of 2024. Learn more here. ARTS AND IDEAS On the video podcast Club Shay Shay. Club Shay Shay Young people are spending more time on TikTok and YouTube. To stay relevant, many podcast hosts have started recording their conversations in video as well as audio. While a “video podcast” might seem contradictory, people watch. Interview-driven series like “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” and “Drink Champs” reach millions of subscribers on YouTube and Spotify, which added support for video in 2020. More on culture The Onion was sold to a group of media veterans whose firm — Global Tetrahedron — took its name from an Onion joke. Artifacts from the Titanic — including its bandleader’s violin case — are up for auction this weekend in England, 112 years after the ship sank. A new production of “The Great Gatsby” on Broadway is a lot of fun, our critic writes, but it falters in serious moments. Ahead of the White House Correspondents Dinner, the comedian Roy Wood Jr. — who hosted last year — discussed humor and the 2024 election on “The Run-Up” podcast. Listen here. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Kelly Marshall for The New York Times Mix six ingredients for a quick miso-mascarpone pasta. Make your shower more luxurious. Learn the new rules for visiting Venice. Pack a sleeping pad for your car camping trip. Refresh your bathroom for $50 or less. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was blithely. 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted April 28 Author Members Share Posted April 28 April 27, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. The advice to live each day to its fullest can seem like a cliché, but figuring out how to actually do that can be pretty challenging. María Jesús Contreras Saving time Any advice I’ve ever been given that’s actually resonated has boiled down to a variation on the same basic theme: Life is short. Stop wasting it. It comes packaged in varying poetic guises, each profound or corny, depending on how receptive or cynical one is feeling. “Don’t borrow trouble” is my favorite, a solid distillation of “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” from the Gospels. The poet Andrew Marvell addressed himself to his mistress with the persuasive “The grave’s a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace.” A million memes have bloomed from the Mary Oliver line “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / With your one wild and precious life?” The message is consistent and irrefutable: Memento mori. Remember you’re going to die. Or, if you prefer, YOLO. I find all of these exhortations urgent and moving and also difficult to absorb. So I’m always grateful to hear the message again, to be reminded to be intentional about how I’m spending or wasting time. I had just such a reminder recently listening to a conversation between The Times’s David Marchese and the actress Anne Hathaway. David asks her about turning 40 and entering middle age. She said she was hesitant to mark this time in her life as the middle because she could get hit by a car later today. “We don’t know if this is middle age,” she says. “We don’t know anything.” I myself am approaching a milestone birthday, one I’m trying not to think of as some kind of deadline or reckoning, and I welcomed Hathaway’s perspective on how we consider time. It’s easy to default into picturing one’s life as a timeline, to chart our progress along that line, certain we know where the beginning, middle and end are. Hathaway recalled a moment of awakening when, lost in stress, she realized: “You are taking your life for granted. You have no idea. Something could fall through the sky and that would be lights out for you.” Here you are, burning daylight and borrowing trouble and going gentle into that good night. Memento mori. Something could, at any moment, fall through the sky. If we really and truly understood that, how would today be different? There are good books that dig into this: Ernest Becker’s “Denial of Death,” Oliver Burkeman’s “Four Thousand Weeks,” Stephen Levine’s “A Year to Live.” I’ve read them each more than once, periodic efforts to keep the fire under myself ablaze. Sometimes it burns so brightly I find myself hurrying through my life, another way of wasting time. On a recent revisiting of Levine’s book I found myself resentful of the time it was taking to read it: What if I was spending too much time considering how I’m spending my time? At that point, I probably was. As David says in the interview, we know we can’t take for granted how much time we have left, but “internalizing that so that we can treat each day and moment of our lives like it could be the last, which would be the most powerful change we could make in our lives, is also maybe the hardest thing to actually do.” It’s one thing to intellectually understand the finitude of our lives and another to actually live it out. Whatever it takes to truly get it is worthwhile, whether it’s reading and rereading the same books, or talking it out with friends; whether it’s a meditation practice or a sticky note on your monitor or just paying close and compassionate attention to how you’re spending your time. It can be tempting to dismiss easily commodified inspiration. I’m skeptical of “seize the day”-style wisdom that I can picture painted in splashy cursive on a piece of shiplap and sold in a home décor store. But maybe that’s the point: Reminders of our mortality have broad appeal because their implications are relevant for literally everyone. We don’t need to wait until we see something falling through the sky, headed our way, to live as if something might. As Levine writes in “A Year to Live,” “Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to live or die, the work is always the same.” For more David Marchese’s talk with Anne Hathaway is part of a new Times series called “The Interview,” which will come out each week as both a podcast and an article. You can get the podcast here, or read the interview here. “Contemplating death is like a cold plunge for the soul, a prick to the amygdala. You emerge renewed, your vision clarified.” On the 50th anniversary of “Denial of Death.” Meet the nun who wants you to remember you will die. “Pretending death can be indefinitely evaded with hot yoga or a gluten-free diet or antioxidants or just by refusing to look is craven denial.” From 2013, Tim Kreider on watching a parent get old. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE WEEK IN CULTURE Music Republic Records, via Associated Press “The Tortured Poets Department,” Taylor Swift’s latest album, is not universally loved. The Times’s pop music team discussed its lukewarm reception. Beyoncé shared her hair-care routine on Instagram to promote her new line of products. In it, she rejected the idea that “people who wear wigs don’t have long and healthy hair.” RZA, the leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, spoke to The Times about his veganism and the connection between masculinity and meat. The estate of Tupac Shakur threatened to sue Drake over his use of the rapper’s voice — likely generated by A.I. — in a diss tracked aimed at Kendrick Lamar, Pitchfork reports. The Spice Girls reunited at Victoria Beckham’s 50th birthday party. A video of them singing their 1997 song “Stop” was posted on Instagram by David Beckham. Film and TV Bill Skarsgard in “Boy Kills World.” Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate Read The Times’s critics on the films that are worth seeing — or at least knowing about — this week, including Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” and “Boy Kills World,” starring Bill Skarsgard. The rom-com “Anyone but You,” which is led by Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, beat box-office odds to become a hit. The actors discussed its success and leaning into on-set romance rumors. Other Big Stories A Second City performance in Brooklyn. Carlos Perez New York City’s improv scene took a hit during the pandemic. Now, a new energy can be seen in performances throughout the city, our comedy columnist writes. In the latest Fashion Chatter column, Ruth La Ferla spoke to the activist Gloria Steinem, who was tapped to promote a campaign about self-acceptance, about her beauty ideals. The nominees for the Turner Prize, the prestigious British art award, were announced. The four chosen artists draw on personal history and identity in their work. Here are 10 highlights from the Venice Biennale, which opened last week. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles will return an ancient bronze head to Turkey. An antiquities dealer sold the work in 1971, but it was later found to have been looted. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Donald Trump on Friday. Dave Sanders for The New York Times Donald Trump’s lawyer tried to find inconsistencies in testimony given by David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial. Pecker responded defiantly, saying he had been “truthful to the best of my recollection.” The Biden administration delayed a decision on whether to ban menthol cigarettes. Tobacco companies and some Black supporters of President Biden oppose a ban. Biden said in an interview with Howard Stern that he would be “happy” to debate Trump and criticized the Supreme Court as “maybe the most conservative in modern history.” The Times’s Charles Homans attended seven Trump rallies and was stunned by how different the former president sounded compared to his 2016 campaign. Other Big Stories The U.S. said it would not suspend aid to Israeli military units accused of human rights abuses in the West Bank, so long as Israel holds them accountable. Columbia University barred from its campus a student leader of the pro-Palestinian protests who said on video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” The student apologized. The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation remained stubbornly elevated last month. That could prompt Fed officials to keep interest rates high for longer. King Charles III will return to public duties next week, an encouraging sign of recovery about three months after he disclosed that he had cancer. Congestion pricing, which charges drivers more to enter certain parts of New York City in an effort to ease traffic, will take effect June 30. It’s the first such program in the country. 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. CULTURE CALENDAR By Alexis Soloski 📺 Hacks (Thursday): Can’t you take a joke? This HBO comedy, starring Jean Smart in her career best as a legacy comic and Hannah Einbinder as a gawky millennial upstart, returns for a third season. The show has laughs to burn, many of them from its terrific supporting cast, which includes Megan Stalter and Poppy Liu. But “Hacks” is at its best totaling the high cost that celebrity and comedy exact. 🎥 The Fall Guy (Friday): Ryan Gosling, America’s boyfriend, stars opposite Emily Blunt in this reboot of the 1980s TV series. Stunt casting? Exactly. In this giddy ode to movies and the people who make them, Gosling plays Colt Seavers, an injured stuntman hired for a movie directed by Jody (Blunt), his snappish ex. David Leitch, a veteran stuntman, directs. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT RECIPE OF THE WEEK Christopher Testani for The New York Times By Genevieve Ko Matzo Pizza Gluten-free pizza options may abound now, but nothing beats the crackle of a matzo crust, especially during Passover. In her matzo pizza, Melissa Clark brilliantly starts by toasting olive oil-slicked matzo on its own so it stays crisp. (Using a thicker pizza sauce, like this one, also helps.) It’s great on its own or with more toppings. REAL ESTATE Jaida and Keeva Haynes. Dustin Chambers for The New York Times The hunt: A mother and daughter wanted a home outside Atlanta with enough room for some privacy. Which one did they choose? Play our game. What you get for $700,000: A 1926 brick house in Lexington, Ky.; a two-bedroom condo in Lyme, N.H.; or a Tudor Revival home in Minneapolis. Rebuilding: A writer lost nearly everything in a fire. She reflects on what she learned. LIVING A scene from “Challengers.” Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Normcore: Members of The Times’s Styles desk have feelings about the fashion in the tennis-slash-love triangle movie “Challengers.” Easy listening: Podcasts like “The Happiness Lab,” hosted by the academic Dr. Laurie Santos, can help soothe the anxious mind. London: In a few years, you could be eating dinner, going to fashion shows and walking through gardens in tunnels below the city. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER The easiest Mother’s Day gift of them all As a parent of young children, all I want for Mother’s Day is a couple hours without them. Conversely, my older sister, a parent of teenagers, is thirsty for any scraps of time with her kiddos, phones down. Where we’re aligned: Save your flowers and skip the gift certificate. If you’re in a position to give time on May 12, apart or together, do that! But as Wirecutter’s gift editor, I’ve got a front-row seat to dozens of inexpensive gifts I’d graciously receive. Every pick combines delight, beauty and utility, and ideally serves as a joyful reminder of your appreciation. (All that for under $50!) Our advice is to do both: Save your money, give your time. That’s what moms really want. — Hannah Morrill GAME OF THE WEEK The Bruins and the Maple Leafs on Wednesday. Claus Andersen/Getty Images Boston Bruins vs. Toronto Maple Leafs, N.H.L. playoffs: One of hockey’s oldest rivalries gets another installment. How old? These two first played one another a century ago, in 1924. Toronto hasn’t beaten Boston in a playoff series since 1959, and it’s currently down two games to one. But don’t count the Leafs out: They still have the best player on the ice in Auston Matthews, the N.H.L.’s leader in goals this season, who is among the favorites to win M.V.P. 8 p.m. Eastern on TBS NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was pothead. 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. P.S. For anybody who wants to reflect on yesterday’s Times crossword puzzle, David Leonhardt was the guest columnist for Wordplay. Continue reading the main story 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted April 29 Author Members Share Posted April 29 April 28, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Debra Kamin, a real estate reporter, explains why Americans are entranced by the glitzy world of celebrity home sales. — David Leonhardt In Los Angeles. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times Selling a dream By Debra Kamin She is a real estate reporter. There are few acts more optimistic than shopping for a home. You walk through its doors, run your fingertips along its appliances and see your face reflected in its windows and mirrors. You consider untapped versions of your life, imagining yourself waking up every day in that bedroom, cooking every day in that kitchen and letting the years unfold between those walls. Real estate agents understand this allure. The good ones package it up, serving it to clients in the form of property tours that show off not only a house, but also the life that a house can offer. And the really good ones are so adept at spinning the fantasy that they’re building careers on television out of it. For a new story for The Times’s real estate section, which published this morning, I spent time with agents from shows like “Million Dollar Listing” and “Buying Beverly Hills” to understand how they became stars in their own right, and what that tells us about the state of housing in the U.S. Hollywood luxury Late last year, I flew to Los Angeles to attend an awards show for some of Hollywood’s most famous real estate agents. Seated in the backyard of a sprawling estate once owned by Madonna, I watched as Mauricio Umansky, who stars on Netflix’s “Buying Beverly Hills,” cracked jokes and presented awards like “Stratospheric Sale of the Year.” (The winner was Kurt Rappaport, who represented Beyoncé and Jay-Z in their purchase of a $190 million Malibu pad last May.) “This is the Oscars of real estate,” Alexander Ali, a public relations official, told me that night. He runs a company, the Society Group, devoted solely to promoting celebrity agents and the houses that they list. Millions of us are hooked on his clients’ content. The most recent season of “Selling Sunset” brought in about 3.2 million streaming viewers per episode, according to Nielsen Media Research; “Buying Beverly Hills” drew 1.7 million per episode in its first season. At a Los Angeles Power Broker Awards party. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times I also toured homes with some of the celebrity agents, and felt the seductive power of their extravagance firsthand. One of my hosts was Aaron Kirman, who starred on CNBC’s “Listing Impossible.” We drove around Los Angeles while he pointed out houses owned by Chrissy Teigen and Leonardo DiCaprio. At a red light, he reached into his Range Rover’s center console, which is refrigerated and stocked with protein shakes, then helped me put my seat into massage mode, so a dozen nodules could melt away the knots in my back. We pulled up to a $58 million home in Bel Air. The house, a temple of glass and curved steel, has nine bedrooms, 13 bathrooms and a central spiral staircase that alone cost $1.25 million. Usher borrowed the space to shoot his music video for “Ruin” just before this year’s Super Bowl. I sat on the home’s plush sofas and stared at the soaring ceiling of its primary suite. Outside, its infinity pool glinted in the sun. And I wondered: In an alternate timeline, one marked by different life choices, could this have been my home? Refuge in fantasy In the real world, the dream of homeownership is more elusive than it has been in decades. Housing affordability in the U.S. is at a crushing low, with skyrocketing prices, elevated mortgage rates and a shortage of inventory for low- and middle-income households. Instead of turning us away from escapist real estate television, though, these struggles seem to have increased the programs’ allure. The reason, one sociologist told me, is the “parasocial relationship” that viewers can form with celebrity agents: They feel like friends to us, and as a result, we live vicariously through them when we watch. In one of the cruelest housing markets in history, Americans are turning to television to fulfill their real estate desires. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Politics President Biden Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times President Biden joked about Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner. “The 2024 election’s in full swing and yes, age is an issue,” he said. “I’m a grown man running against a 6-year-old.” No major American presidential candidate has talked like Trump now does at his rallies, not even Trump himself, Charles Homans writes. Environmental rules are imposed, gutted and restored with each election. Economists say that’s creating an unstable business environment. At Trump’s criminal trial, the testimony of David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, offered a window into the golden era of tabloids. As Earl Blumenauer, a longtime Oregon congressman, prepares to retire, he is trying to persuade his fellow Democrats to embrace federal marijuana legalization. Israel-Hamas War Hamas released a video of two hostages that appeared to have been made recently. The circumstances of how the video was filmed were unclear. Development agencies and Middle Eastern businesses have been meeting to plan Gaza’s long-term economic future. The U.S. military is building a humanitarian pier in Gaza. Read about how it will work. Campus Protests At Northeastern University in Boston. Sophie Park for The New York Times The police arrested more than 200 protesters yesterday at Northeastern University, Arizona State University, Indiana University and Washington University in St. Louis, officials said. Some colleges that initiated police crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests have since taken a different tack. Others have defended the move. See images of the student protests from Reuters. More International News Guatemalan security forces. Daniele Volpe for The New York Times As fentanyl has largely displaced heroin in the U.S., the world’s largest market for illicit drugs, poppy farmers in Guatemala are losing their primary income. In Ukraine, prisoners of war are returning with physical and psychological wounds. Soldiers are sent back to active duty, often without adequate treatment. “I came to the U.K. for the U.K.”: Asylum seekers in Britain expressed anxiety about a law that brings the possibility of their deportation to Rwanda closer. Other Big Stories The Louisiana Supreme Court cleared the way for a new city to be created out of part of Baton Rouge, carving out a largely white and more affluent section of the city. A Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 plane lost its emergency slide soon after takeoff, prompting it to return to New York. It was not immediately clear what caused the slide to detach. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Was Mike Johnson courageous to advance military aid for Ukraine? Yes. The speaker pushed military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan at great personal risk to himself. “This political underdog from Louisiana has demonstrated that courage and a spirit of unity still have a place in American politics,” Earle Mack writes for The Hill. No. It should not have taken so long to advance a popular measure, held back only by his apparent fear of Trump loyalists. “That Johnson finally relented merits a sigh of relief, not celebration,” The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin writes. FROM OPINION Conservatives should once again become champions of environmental policy, Benji Backer writes. Harvey Weinstein had so many victims that it allowed him to be held to account in the court of public opinion. It also saved him in the court of law, Jessica Bennett writes. Even if the government’s near-total ban on noncompete agreements is legal, enforcing it is going to be tricky, Peter Coy writes. Here are columns by Ross Douthat on what students read before they protest and Nicholas Kristof on U.S. arms transparency. 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. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE INTERVIEW Yair Lapid Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times This weekend, The New York Times is publishing the first entries in a new feature called The Interview, the successor to David Marchese’s Talk column from The Times Magazine. The Interview will feature two alternating hosts — David, as well as Lulu Garcia-Navarro, whom you may know from her work on the podcast “First Person” and from NPR. Their conversations will also appear as a podcast, “The Interview.” Below is an excerpt from Lulu’s first interview in the series, with Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s opposition party. By Lulu Garcia-Navarro Israel is being accused of genocide, of war crimes. And as we’ve talked, you’ve defended the conduct of the war. And you’ve referred to yourself as an Israeli patriot. But can patriotism not also be defined as questioning the conduct of this war? Of course it can. I assume what I was reacting to is what I feel is the betrayal of the intellectuals. Meaning that the intellectuals of the West, or some of them, have betrayed the idea of complexity. And the dialogue we have with the outside world is either with people who are chanting slogans they don’t really understand or who are determined to make this into a one-sided story. What I’m thinking about actually is just what it means in a moment like this to effectively, even if you care about Israel and the Israelis, say this is not OK. You know, earlier you disparaged the young people in the U.S. marching for Palestinian rights, and you say that they’re clueless and misled. I don’t think they’re marching for Palestinian rights. I think they’re marching against Palestinian rights. I think what they’re doing is against the best interest of the Palestinian people. Doesn’t that dismiss their legitimate concerns about civilian deaths? Well, I think they should understand that there is a reason why everything is happening, and the reason is Hamas. The reason is not Israel. I mean, not to be able to even track why what is happening is happening is a total lack of even, I don’t know, intellectual dignity or at least curiosity. You can read, or listen to, the full interview here. MORNING READS David B. Torch for The New York Times Start-up: This company aims to make head-to-toe body scans part of the annual health checkup routine. Senior year: Members of the class of 2024 feel anxious and frustrated with the state of the world. A $275 bus ticket: After a decade of flying passengers to eastern Long Island on helicopters, Blade is getting into the luxury coach business. The Culture Desk: Alicia Keys discusses “Hell’s Kitchen,” a Broadway musical that draws on her life story and discography. “Posture panic”: This academic is re-examining conventional wisdom about proper posture. Vows: They exchanged vows on 4/20, complete with a weed-infused reception. Lives Lived: Andrew Davis was an ebullient British conductor who brought passion to hundreds of opera performances. He died at 80. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS In Dallas. Desiree Rios for The New York Times Dallas: Meet the publishers and booksellers putting this Texas city on the literary map. Early influencers: “Liberty Equality Fashion” explores the clothes that embodied the ideas of the French Revolution. Our editors’ pick: “Great Expectations,” about a Black campaign aide working for a candidate who resembles Barack Obama, and eight other books. Times best sellers: Michelle Obama’s “The Light We Carry” and Patti Smith’s “A Book of Days” both make appearances on the paperback nonfiction list. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Improve your sex life with these exercises. Read what to know about antidepressants. Bolster your Wi-Fi speed. Clean your yard. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For Nominations for the Tony Awards are announced on Tuesday. The Federal Reserve meets this week. Local elections in England are held on Thursday. The Kentucky Derby is on Saturday. Meal Plan Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein highlights an easy new recipe that’s already earning rave reviews: roasted chicken thighs with hot honey and lime, which is ready in a total of 35 minutes. Emily also suggests roasted salmon with peas and radishes, and spicy shrimp patties. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was placebo. Can you put eight historical events — including origins of chess, Pueblo cliff dwellings and instant ramen — 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. Continue reading the main story 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted April 30 Author Members Share Posted April 30 April 29, 2024 SUPPORTED BY By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the reasons that Trump has avoided legal penalties for 2020 — as well as campus protests, Senate races and risqué movies. Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021. Pete Marovich for The New York Times Delay, delay, delay It now seems likely that Donald Trump will be able to run for president this year without having faced any legal penalties for his effort to overturn the last presidential election. To many of his supporters, of course, this outcome is just. But it is also striking. Most Americans believe that Trump committed serious crimes, polls show. He chose not to order the authorities to stop a violent attack on the Capitol, even when his vice president was in danger. And he directed state election officials to “find” him votes. Even so, Congress did not sanction him, and neither of the criminal trials related to his actions may even start before the 2024 election. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how this happened, by focusing on the three crucial groups of people: Republican senators, Democratic (or Democrat-appointed) prosecutors and Republican appointees on the Supreme Court. 1. Republican senators The simplest path for addressing Trump’s attempts to overthrow an election was always in Congress. Congress has the power to impeach officials and bar them from holding office again, and it has used this power before. Most criminal convictions, by contrast, do not prevent somebody from holding office. In early 2021, Congress seemed to be on the verge of barring Trump. The House impeached him, with 10 Republicans joining every Democrat in voting to do so. In the Senate, convicting him would have required at least 17 Republicans. That seemed plausible. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, signaled that he supported impeachment. As people close to him told The Times, McConnell believed that the process would make it easier to purge Mr. Trump from the party. Other Republican senators sent similar signals. Ultimately, though, they backed down. Trump remained popular with Republican voters, and many senators feared confronting him. McConnell played the central role. He delayed the trial until after Trump left office — and some senators then justified their acquittal votes by saying Trump was no longer president. Seven Republicans, a mix of moderates and conservatives, did vote to convict: Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Others who were witheringly critical of Trump in private — like Roy Blunt of Missouri and Rob Portman of Ohio — voted to acquit, making it possible for Trump to become the Republican nominee this year. 2. Democratic prosecutors After the Senate acquitted Trump, the next focus became the criminal investigations of his postelection actions. But these investigations moved slowly. At the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland and his deputy, Lisa Monaco, worried that an indictment of Trump would appear partisan and told aides to proceed with extreme caution. Their caution was reminiscent of Robert Mueller’s decision as special counsel in 2019 not to announce a conclusion about whether Trump had broken the law during his 2016 campaign — even after Mueller presented such evidence. In both cases, top prosecutors were hoping to remain above the political fray. To some Justice Department officials working for Garland and Monaco, this was an impossible goal in today’s political atmosphere. As The Washington Post put it: “Some prosecutors below them chafed, feeling top officials were shying away from looking at evidence of potential crimes by Trump and those close to him.” The F.B.I. did not open a probe into election interference for more than a year, and the Justice Department did not charge Trump until August 2023. The investigation, as The Times described, was methodical, slow and at times dysfunctional. The one state prosecution for election interference, in Georgia, has also been chaotic. Last year, Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, filed a sprawling indictment involving 18 defendants, which made a speedy trial impossible. Willis also assigned the case to a lawyer she was secretly dating, causing further delays. 3. Republican justices Even with the Justice Department’s go-slow approach, Trump’s federal trial for election interference had a chance to finish before Election Day, but the Supreme Court intervened. It did so in a way that caused several delays. First, the justices declined to hear Trump’s appeal — in which he claimed that presidents are immune from prosecution — on the expedited schedule that Jack Smith, the Justice Department’s special counsel, requested. Then the justices did agree to hear the case. And during oral arguments last week, the Republican-appointed majority suggested it would issue a broad ruling setting a new precedent, which could take months. On their own, each of these decisions can be defended. The overall approach, however, is very different from the one the court took in 2000 during Bush v. Gore. Then, the justices acted urgently, recognizing the political calendar, and said that their decision was a narrow one, applying only to a single election. This time, as Justice Neil Gorsuch put it, they seek a ruling “for the ages.” Critics have pointed out that in both 2000 and 2024, Republican-appointed justices chose an approach that benefited the Republican presidential nominee. A fast, narrow ruling in 2000 stopped the vote count in Florida and let George W. Bush take office. A slow, broad ruling in 2024 may push the start of Trump’s federal trial past Election Day. All these decisions — by senators, prosecutors and justices — have played into Trump’s central legal strategy: delay. It’s a strategy he used to fight investigations during his business career, and it seems to have worked again in this campaign. And in New York: The one trial that has moved ahead — involving Trump’s payment of hush money in 2016 — resumes on Tuesday. Related: Trump’s trial could bring consequences for his words. That’s a rarity, Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich write. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM AT&T BUSINESS Sleep tight Your network runs like a dream. Get AT&T Business, the Next Level Network. Learn more THE LATEST NEWS Campus Protests At the University of Pittsburgh. Jared Wickerham for The New York Times The demonstrations are dividing the Democratic Party in a major election year. University leaders are confronting a difficult question: When does a protest cross a line? The police have arrested more than 800 people across the country. Jewish students are feeling a mix of emotions — fear, anger, hope. The Washington Post spoke to many about their views. Israel-Hamas War Hezbollah’s near-daily attacks on the Israeli military have driven patients and workers at a hospital underground. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with top diplomats from Arab countries to discuss cease-fire talks, which have stalled. World Central Kitchen said it would resume operations in Gaza, nearly a month after drone strikes killed seven aid workers. The International Criminal Court is considering arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as for Hamas leaders, Israeli officials believe. The war has led to demonstrations across the Arab world, and leaders are cracking down on them. More International News In Ukraine. David Guttenfelder for The New York Times The number of Ukrainian cities and towns that have been damaged is growing. See images from the third year of the war. An assassin killed one of Iraq’s most famous TikTok personalities, Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi. Conservatives had criticized her videos. The Philippines closed schools because of dangerous heat. Senate Sam Brown Emily Najera for The New York Times An explosion in Afghanistan nearly killed Sam Brown. Now, he’s running for Senate in Nevada. Once an underdog, Rep. Andy Kim has become the favorite to win Robert Menendez’s Senate seat in New Jersey. Other Big Stories Harvey Weinstein’s victims can never get back their missed career opportunities, but they helped change the workplace, Jodi Kantor writes. Strong storms that brought tornadoes to Oklahoma and Iowa killed at least five people, including an infant. Two major A.I. executives grew up together in London. Now they are leading competing programs at Microsoft and Google. Opinions Young writers want their characters to be free of misogyny or racism. But art should be complex, Jen Silverman writes. After the pandemic, Shanghai residents have lost faith in their government, Gish Jen writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss Trump’s trial. Here are columns by Ezra Klein on San Francisco’s $1.7 million toilet and David French and Lydia Polgreen on student protests. 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 In Littleton, N.H. John Tully for The New York Times Littleton: How a mural of a blooming iris and dandelions tore a small New Hampshire town apart. Small gestures: Read how to support a friend who is getting divorced. Tourism: A semi-secret web of tunnels beneath London, once used for espionage and as bomb shelters, could soon be open to the public. Retirement: Some seniors are checking into faith-based communities — despite lacking religious belief. Now, relax: Want to try a sound bath? Experts discuss the health benefits. Dinosaur: A giant velociraptor relative may have been discovered, paleontologists suggest. Metropolitan Diary: An accidental act of recycling. Lives Lived: Robbi Mecus was a forest ranger who helped foster an L.G.B.T.Q. climbing community. She died after falling about 1,000 feet from a peak in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. She was 52. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Minnesota Timberwolves finished a sweep of the Phoenix Suns with a 122-116 win. M.L.B.: Nike will alter its controversial new uniforms for next season after criticism from players, according to a memo. W.N.B.A.: Candace Parker, a women’s basketball legend, announced her retirement after 16 years in the league, a run that includes three championships and two MVPs. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM AT&T BUSINESS Sleep tight Your network runs like a dream. Get AT&T Business, the Next Level Network. Learn more ARTS AND IDEAS Josh O’Connor and Zendaya. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures In the 2000s, movie studios moved away from erotic movies like “Basic Instinct” and “Cruel Intentions” that were popular in the 1980s and ’90s in favor of animation and PG-13 franchises. The companies were interested in genres that could capture a global audience — namely in China — and sell merchandise. Now, as intimacy coordinators proliferate and Chinese audiences have cooled on Hollywood, sex in movies is back, with films like “Challengers” and “Saltburn.” Brooks Barnes explores the trend. More on culture At the White House Correspondents’ dinner, Colin Jost’s jokes fell flat. See celebrities’ best looks from the event. Titanic artifacts were auctioned this weekend. A watch worn by John Jacob Astor on the ship sold for about $1.4 million. The nominations for the Tony Awards will be announced tomorrow. “Hell’s Kitchen,” about Alicia Keys’s life and music, is expected to do well. Read what to expect. FX’s Japanese period drama “Shogun” ended last week. For fans of the show, Vulture suggests what to watch next, including “Lady Macbeth” starring Florence Pugh. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times Bake Joan Nathan’s timeless poppy seed cake. Make sense of mental health with these books. Don’t let wedding planning ruin your friendships. Brighten a work space with a desk lamp. Maximize space in your small bedroom. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was italicize. 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. This month marks 10 years since The Times launched The Upshot, which specializes in data-driven explanatory journalism. (Our own David Leonhardt was its founding editor.) For the anniversary, its editors picked 100 of their favorite stories. 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted Saturday at 09:58 PM Author Members Share Posted Saturday at 09:58 PM May 2, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering the effect of new abortion bans — as well as campus protests, student debt and a portrait of King Charles. A prescription machine. Tracy Nguyen for The New York Times The speed of tech After the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, red states raced to restrict abortion, as Florida did yesterday with a new ban after six weeks of pregnancy. It was reasonable to expect the number of abortions in the U.S. to decline. Instead, it appears to have risen slightly. Why? One factor is pills prescribed online, which now make up one in six abortions. The dynamic encapsulates a broader trend: The combination of a relatively new technology (the web) and an old one (the mail) has made it easier for Americans to bypass laws that they don’t like. It’s true about abortion but also other issues, some of which liberals and conservatives see very differently. Drugmakers in China and India often ship the narcotic fentanyl and its ingredients to the U.S. Gun owners assemble untraceable firearms, known as ghost guns, from parts ordered online or made with 3-D printers, another relatively new technology. Today’s newsletter will cover some of the ways that technology has outpaced the law. Broader trend People have embraced these new workarounds. Nearly two-thirds of abortions are carried out with pills (most still from in-person clinics), up from a little more than half in 2020. Fentanyl’s spread has caused overdose deaths to more than double in the U.S. since 2014. The number of ghost guns seized at crime scenes increased more than tenfold from 2016 to 2021. Officials have enacted measures to stop shipments of abortion pills, fentanyl and ghost gun parts. They have a few tools to inspect the mail, like drug-sniffing dogs and X-ray machines. But they simply don’t have the time or resources to sift through the hundreds of millions of letters, packages and other mail delivered each day. With abortion pills, states face another hurdle: The federal government runs the U.S. Postal Service and regulates the mail, so states can’t intercept letters or packages on their own. And while the Biden administration wants to control the supply of fentanyl and ghost guns, it has supported access to abortion pills through the mail. (A future administration could take a different approach.) States with abortion bans could try to get around federal oversight by going after the people sending the mail. But other states have made that difficult by enacting legal protections for abortion providers who ship pills to other states. Jacksonville, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Uneven access New technologies can help Americans get around a restriction, but that doesn’t make the law toothless. Some can’t evade it. Women without much access to the internet or other resources might struggle to get an abortion pill and carry more births to term. Those who can easily get pills online might find abortion more accessible than ever. Florida’s six-week abortion ban could offer an example of the unequal effects. Until yesterday, the state was among the least restrictive in the Southeast. So women from across the region traveled there, as my colleague Margot Sanger-Katz, who covers health care policy, told me. Now, women in Florida and across the South will have to travel much farther (as these maps show). Some of those women won’t be able to take time off work or pay for a trip hundreds of miles away to get an abortion in person. And they might not have internet access, a reliable home address or the knowledge to order pills online. Yet for others, an abortion is now just a few clicks away. And as more groups work to offer the pills at lower prices, more women may gain access. In that scenario, the total number of abortions could continue to increase. For more Arizona lawmakers voted to repeal an 1864 law that imposed a near-total ban on abortions. Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill today. In Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris said that a Donald Trump win would mean “more bans, more suffering, less freedom.” ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Campus Protests At U.C.L.A. Aude Guerrucci/Reuters The police briefly entered a pro-Palestinian encampment at U.C.L.A, hours after they ordered protesters to leave or face arrest. Follow live updates. Student protesters have linked the Palestinian cause to broader struggles involving policing, discrimination and global warming. Many of the protesters mask their faces with scarves. University leaders worry that could make it easier for outsiders to infiltrate campuses. Columbia and Brown chose different paths to end the student protests, but neither seems likely to agree to demands to divest from Israel. President Biden will speak about antisemitism at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum next week. War in Gaza Gustavo Petro, the leftist president of the country Colombia, called Israel’s government “genocidal” and said he would sever diplomatic ties. Israeli settlers attacked aid trucks headed to Gaza from Jordan, according to Jordanian officials. The U.S. wants to focus on a cease-fire and on rebuilding Gaza, while Israel pushes for a new offensive. Congress Marjorie Taylor Greene Valerie Plesch for The New York Times Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would demand a vote next week to unseat Speaker Mike Johnson. Democrats have pledged to protect him. Senate Democrats reintroduced legislation that would legalize marijuana. It is unlikely to pass with Republicans in control of the House. More on Politics Biden canceled $6 billion in student debt for 317,000 people who attended the Art Institutes, a defunct for-profit college network. In Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy proceedings, his financial disclosures have been incomplete and inaccurate. His creditors want to know if he’s hiding money. As a senator, Biden never faced serious threats to his re-election. His final campaign could be the opposite, Reid Epstein writes. International In Brazil. Victor Moriyama for The New York Times A drought has made cattle farming in the Amazon more difficult. Some companies hope reforestation projects will offer communities a lifeline. The Biden administration imposed sanctions on Chinese companies that it said had helped Russia restock military equipment in Ukraine. Days of heavy rain in southern China led to the collapse of an expressway, killing 36 people. The Solomon Islands has a new prime minister. The nation is at the center of power rivalry in the Pacific, The Washington Post reports. Other Big Stories Manhattan prosecutors said they would retry Harvey Weinstein on sex crime charges after a court overturned his conviction. The United Methodist Church reversed a ban on ordaining gay clergy and will allow L.G.B.T.Q. weddings. The Fed left interest rates unchanged, and Jerome Powell, the central bank’s chair, signaled rate cuts might not happen soon because of continuing inflation. China’s government announced that it would send two giant pandas — Yun Chuan and Xin Bao — to the San Diego Zoo. Opinions Universities must protect student activism — but only until it infringes on other students’ rights, David French says in The Opinions. Antiwar protesters’ vandalism is a bad way to support a good cause, Nicholas Kristof argues. Gardens can be evil or good: We need gardens that cool cities and provide a corridor for wildlife, Olivia Laing writes. Here is a column by Charles Blow on a microaggression toward Kamala Harris. 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 In Atlanta. Gem Hale for The New York Times Roll up: Black roller skaters from around America are bringing their regional styles to Atlanta’s rinks. New Jersey: The most decorated battleship in U.S. history gets an overdue face-lift. Third Wheel: A Times dating columnist explores whether pictures of an ex should be removed from your Instagram account. Next trip: Spend 36 hours in Minneapolis. Lives Lived: Olga Fikotova Connolly won a gold medal in track and field for Czechoslovakia in the 1956 Olympics and watched Harold Connolly of the U.S. win one the next day. They married in 1957 in a Cold War romance that breached the iron curtain. She died at 91. SPORTS Brittney Griner Mickalene Thomas for The New York Times Basketball: In an interview with The Times Magazine, Brittney Griner discussed her time in Russian prison and her path to recovery. N.B.A.: Both the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics routed playoff opponents. The Mavericks took a 3-2 series lead over the Los Angeles Clippers, while the Celtics eliminated the Miami Heat. M.L.B.: The league suspended four players involved in a brawl between the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS In New York. James Estrin/The New York Times Gustavo Dudamel, the maestro and next music director of the New York Philharmonic, has vowed to expand the orchestra’s presence in schools, as he did during his time with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He recently led 95 high school musicians for a week of rehearsals, which culminated with a concert. “It’s crazy to think that I’m up here playing with him,” Olivia Okin, a percussion player from Staten Island, said. More on culture Jonathan Yeo Mary Turner for The New York Times The artist Jonathan Yeo is about to unveil a portrait of Charles III, the first large-scale painting of the king since he became monarch. The Athletic’s Hannah Vanbiber needed a hat for the Kentucky Derby. She visited the woman behind the event’s most coveted headwear. Beyoncé, with her album “Cowboy Carter,” has mainstreamed country styling and defined the look of the moment, Vanessa Friedman writes. Duane Eddy, a virtuoso who influenced a generation of guitarists with his rock ’n’ roll twang, died at 86. The late-night hosts mocked Trump for appearing to fall asleep in court. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist; Hadas Smirnoff. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgepeth. Serve oven-roasted chicken shawarma with pita and tahini. Find relief during allergy season. Bring a hammock to the park. Pick a good online flower delivery service. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was conclude and concluded. 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted Sunday at 07:05 PM Author Members Share Posted Sunday at 07:05 PM May 3, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering Covid vaccine side effects — as well as Donald Trump’s trial, Taiwan and the definition of a song. Shaun Barcavage Hannah Yoon for The New York Times ‘I’m not real’ Let me start with a disclaimer: The subject of today’s newsletter will make some readers uncomfortable. It makes me a little uncomfortable. The Times has just published an article about Americans who believe they suffered serious side effects from a Covid vaccine. More than 13,000 of them have filed vaccine-injury claims with the federal government. My colleague Apoorva Mandavilli tells some of their stories in the article, including those of several people who work in medicine and science: Ilka Warshawsky, a 58-year-old pathologist, said she lost all hearing in her right ear shortly after receiving a Covid booster shot. Dr. Gregory Poland, 68 — no less than the editor in chief of Vaccine, a scientific journal — said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first Covid shot. Shaun Barcavage, 54, a nurse practitioner in New York City, has experienced a ringing sound in his ears, a racing heart and pain in his eyes, mouth and genitals for more than three years. “I can’t get the government to help me,” Barcavage said. “I am told I’m not real.” This subject is uncomfortable because it feeds into false stories about the Covid vaccines that many Americans have come to believe — namely, that the vaccines are ineffective or have side effects that exceed their benefits. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, has promoted these stories, as have some Republican politicians and conservative media figures. “The scale of misinformation,” Dr. Joshua Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins University told Apoorva, “is staggering.” So let me be clear: The benefits of the Covid vaccines have far outweighed the downsides, according to a voluminous amount of data and scientific studies from around the world. In the U.S. alone, the vaccines have saved at least several hundred thousand lives and perhaps more than one million, studies estimate. Rates of death, hospitalization and serious illness have all been much higher among the unvaccinated than the vaccinated. Here is data from the C.D.C., in a chart by my colleague Ashley Wu: Source: Our World in Data, C.D.C. | Numbers for the group “All” are age adjusted. | By The New York Times Not only are the vaccines’ benefits enormous, but the true toll of the side effects may be lower than the perceived toll: Experts told Apoorva that some people who believe Covid vaccines have harmed them are probably wrong about the cause of their problems. How so? Human beings suffer mysterious medical ailments all the time. If you happened to begin experiencing one in the weeks after receiving a vaccine, you might blame the shot, too, even if it were a coincidence. So far, federal officials have approved less than 2 percent of the Covid vaccine injury-compensation claims they have reviewed. Still, some ailments almost certainly do stem from the vaccines. The C.D.C. says some people are allergic (as is the case with any vaccine). Both the C.D.C. and researchers in Israel — which has better medical tracking than the U.S. — have concluded that the vaccines contributed to heart inflammation, especially in young men and boys. Officials in Hong Kong — another place with good health care data — have concluded that the vaccines caused severe shingles in about seven vaccine recipients per million. Honesty and trust These side effects are worthy of attention for two main reasons. First, people who are suffering deserve recognition — and the lack of it can be infuriating. Dr. Janet Woodcock, a former F.D.A. commissioner, told The Times that she regretted not doing more to respond to people who blame the vaccines for harming them while she was in office. “I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously,” Woodcock said. The second reason is that public health depends on public trust, and public trust in turn depends on honesty. During the pandemic, as I’ve written in the past, government officials and academic experts sometimes made the mistake of deciding that Americans couldn’t handle the truth. Instead, experts emphasized evidence that was convenient to their recommendations and buried inconvenient facts. They exaggerated the risk of outdoor Covid transmission, the virus’s danger to children and the benefits of mask mandates, among other things. The goal may have been admirable — fighting a deadly virus — but the strategy backfired. Many people ended up confused, wondering what the truth was. The overall picture Here’s my best attempt to summarize the full truth about the Covid vaccines: They are overwhelmingly safe and effective. They have saved millions of lives and prevented untold misery around the world. They’re so valuable that elderly people and those with underlying health conditions should be vigilant about getting booster shots when they’re eligible. For most children, on the other hand, booster shots seem to have only modest benefits, which is why many countries don’t recommend them. And, yes, a small fraction of people will experience significant side effects from the vaccines. Eventually, scientific research may be able to better understand and reduce those side effects — which is more reason to pay attention to them. Overall, Covid vaccines are probably the most beneficial medical breakthrough in years, if not decades. I encourage you to read Apoorva’s article. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial Donald Trump Doug Mills/The New York Times The jury in Donald Trump’s criminal trial heard audio — secretly recorded by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen — that seemed to show Trump’s involvement in the hush-money payments to two women who allegedly had affairs with him. In one recording, Cohen claimed that Trump hates “the fact that we did it,” referring to paying off Stormy Daniels. In another, Trump and Cohen discussed the deal with Karen McDougal. The jury also saw texts from 2016 in which Daniels’s former lawyer acknowledged that the hush money might have helped Trump win the election. “What have we done?” he wrote. Prosecutors asked the judge to hold Trump in contempt for again violating a gag order. Jimmy Kimmel joked about texts that mention his show being entered into evidence. “Why was I not asked to testify?” he said. More on Politics In North Carolina, a swing state, President Biden announced more funding to replace toxic lead pipes. He also met with the families of police officers killed this week in Charlotte. Biden, defending America’s history of immigration, called Japan and India — U.S. allies — xenophobic and said that China and Russia “don’t want immigrants.” Senator Bob Menendez’s lawyers want a psychologist to testify at his corruption trial that traumatic experiences explain the cash he stockpiled. Campus Protests In a televised statement, Biden condemned violence and intimidation on college campuses. “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” he said. In recent weeks, more than 2,000 demonstrators have been arrested or detained on campuses across the U.S., according to a Times tally. The House passed a bill that would crack down on antisemitic speech at colleges. About one-third of Democrats voted no, and some far-right Republicans criticized it as a threat to Christian teachings. A teakettle, sleeping bags and guard shifts: This is what it was like inside a building at Columbia occupied by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Universities including Brown agreed to consider ending investments linked to Israel in response to protests. It’s a gamble that risks angering influential donors. Israel-Hamas War In southern Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Hamas’s political leader said the group was studying Israel’s latest cease-fire proposal with a “positive spirit” and would soon resume in-person negotiations. Some senior Israeli officials are weighing a postwar plan for Gaza in which Israel would share oversight of the enclave with an alliance of Arab nations. The war strategies of Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, leave little room for compromise, The Wall Street Journal reports. More International News In Dajia, Taiwan. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times In Taiwan, Times reporters joined the faithful on pilgrimages honoring Mazu, sometimes known as the Goddess of the Sea. The U.S. accused Russia of using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops, in violation of a global ban. At least 29 people died after several days of heavy rain in southern Brazil. Business and Economy Workers in the Gulf of Mexico. Erin Schaff/The New York Times Oil companies, betting that the world is not yet ready to move past fossil fuels, have expanded drilling into deeper waters. (See photos of life aboard a facility 80 miles out to sea.) The restaurant chain Dave & Buster’s, which features arcade games like Skee-Ball, announced that it will soon allow customers to gamble on the games. Sony Pictures and the private equity company Apollo Global Management formally expressed interest in acquiring Paramount for around $26 billion. Other Big Stories A judge declared a mistrial in a lawsuit from three Iraqi men who said they were tortured at Abu Ghraib prison two decades ago. The Kentucky Derby will take place tomorrow. The breakdown of 12 horses after the event last year has led to existential questions about the sport. Opinions New York City police infringed on First Amendment rights when they blocked journalists from witnessing their raid on Columbia University, Mara Gay writes. Gerrymandering turned Michigan into a bastion of minority rule — until democracy activists fought back and won, Ari Berman writes. Here are columns by David Brooks on how the protests help Trump, Michelle Cottle on Biden’s wise words about the protests and Michelle Goldberg on Kari Lake’s abortion stance. 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 The Grand Palais in Paris during the 1924 Olympic Art Competition. Costas Dimitriadis Archives, Collection Katia Iakovidou and Yiannis Anagnostou Medals: For decades, the Olympics included art competitions. The winning entries are largely forgotten. ‘Queer food’: Scholars gathered to discuss the role gender and sexuality play in the food space. (Snacks were plentiful.) Night sky: The Eta Aquarids meteor shower, a result of debris from Halley’s Comet, will be at its peak this weekend. Here’s how to watch. Lives Lived: Peggy Mellon Hitchcock was born into privilege but enthusiastically supported the 1960s counterculture. She offered Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert her brother’s mansion after they lost their jobs at Harvard for experimenting with psychedelic drugs. Hitchcock died at 90. SPORTS N.B.A.: The New York Knicks defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in a thrilling game on the road. The Knicks will face the Indiana Pacers in the second round of the playoffs. N.H.L.: The Toronto Maple Leafs fended off elimination and forced a Game 7 against the Boston Bruins in a tense 2-1 win. Kentucky Derby: Larry Demeritte, the trainer of long-shot West Saratoga, will become the first Black trainer with a Derby entrant since 1989. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Rob Verhorst/Redferns, via Getty Images; Let’s Get It On: written by Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend A new story by Ben Sisario, The Times’s music industry reporter, explores the surprisingly complicated answer to what seems to be a simple question: What is a song? When it comes to copyright — and the multimillion-dollar lawsuits that come from it — a song is often defined by only the notes written on a piece of sheet music, and not by the much fuller recording. “It is completely divorced from actual music-making practice,” said Joseph P. Fishman, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School. More on culture Times Book Review editors gathered their picks for the best books published since 2000. Hip-hop’s popularity is growing in China. Artists there must strike a balance between creative expression and appeasing censors, The A.P. reports. TikTok and Universal Music Group reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that blocked songs from pop’s biggest stars from the platform. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Megan Hedgpeth. Roast simple miso salmon as part of a traditional Japanese breakfast spread. Snuggle into bed with a comfy duvet. Buy a gift for an occult enthusiast. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was motorway. 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. For World Press Freedom Day, A.G. Sulzberger, The Times’s publisher, and Joseph Kahn, the executive editor, wrote a letter calling attention to missing and detained journalists across the globe. 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted Monday at 01:11 AM Author Members Share Posted Monday at 01:11 AM May 4, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. A recent study offers some suggestions on the best time of day to exercise. But optimizing a routine requires having a routine to begin with. María Jesús Contreras Moving target Back in the years 2020 and 2021, years that are increasingly easy to categorize as “the past” rather than the ongoing present, I worked from home every day, and on most of those days I exercised from home, too. In the late morning between meetings, or around lunchtime, I rode a stationary bike or lifted weights or danced to Rihanna with a choreographer who broadcast a daily live class from an enviable house in Joshua Tree. It was easy, in those days when nothing much else was easy, to find time to exercise. The routine that had evaded me most of my life was, during those years, achievable. In the years since, this routine has become unrealistic most of the time. Days are once again organized around the office and its commute. The options for how to spend nonwork time are no longer confined to a limited lockdown menu of what can be accomplished at a distance of six feet or more. Exercise has, once again, become something that I put on a to-do list and try to squeeze in before or after work, an essential practice, but one that now competes with the entire open world for my time and attention. I’ve settled where many of us do, on a non-routine whereby I exercise whenever I can: a before-work jog when I can rouse myself, quick rounds of strength training between meetings on days I work remotely, longer workouts on weekends. I constantly feel that I’m not doing enough, not engaged in a rigorous enough program of optimization. I read this week about a recent study in which people who exercised in the evening saw their risk of death decline by as much as 28 percent compared with those who exercised in the morning or afternoon. This, I thought, was compelling! I should become an after-work exerciser, one of those people who changes into their gym clothes before leaving the office, who runs on a treadmill while watching “The Bachelor,” and — who knows what else might be possible? — eats three ounces of lean protein for dinner at 8, spends a good 20 minutes melting the ravages of sitting from my hips with a foam roller and is in bed with a book — no screens! — by 10. I quickly realized this was a ridiculous fantasy. I’m a dutiful exerciser, a doing-it-because-I-have-to person, always under slight duress, wanting to have it done so that I can feel accomplished but also always fighting my essential nature, which is, I’ve grown OK with admitting, a little lazy. My exercise regimen is not a movable feast that I can shift into an optimal time slot. I jumped to the part in The Times’s story on the study that I always look for in stories of this ilk, the one that assures me that while the study is convincing, the most important thing about exercise for most people is that they do it. There it was, courtesy of Angelo Sabag, an exercise physiologist who led the study: “Whenever you can exercise,” Dr. Sabag said. “That is the answer.” Here is where I’d like to stop, having determined that any exercise is better than none, and pat myself on the back for doing enough. And I will, for today, because it’s Saturday and I have the luxury of midday exercising and I’m not going to waste it. But I’m trying these days to approach things about myself that seem fixed with more curiosity. So while I jog around the park in the springtime sun, I’m committed to mulling some questions. What is it about the way I approach exercise that fills me with a bit of dread, that makes it a chore rather than a joy or a privilege or at least something I approach with interest? If I wanted to exercise in the evenings, for potential health benefits or just because it might be nice to switch things up, how can I do that in a way that doesn’t feel like punishment? Last week I wrote about considering the way we’re spending our days, remembering that our time is limited. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” as Annie Dillard wrote. “What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” If what we are doing this or that particular hour is exercising, how can we make it a little more agreeable? How can we make it a blessed hour rather than a cursed one? For more How to exercise when it’s the last thing on earth you want to do. The secret to sustainable workouts? Accountability. In praise of slow running. ADVERTISEMENT THE WEEK IN CULTURE Music From left: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Cash App; Amy Sussman/Getty Images The beef between two rap superstars, Kendrick Lamar and Drake, continues to escalate. After Lamar released “Euphoria,” a blistering six-minute track attacking Drake, the two men released three more diss songs on Friday. Dua Lipa released “Radical Optimism,” her latest album. “It’s an album of nonstop ear candy,” the Times pop critic Jon Pareles writes. The Eurovision Song Contest begins next week. Casual observers may tune in once a year for the final, but for superfans it’s a yearlong celebration of pop music. Film and TV “The Idea of You,” in which Anne Hathaway plays a 40-year-old mom in a relationship with a member of a boy band, is one of eight movies worth knowing about this week. Watch the director David Leitch narrate a scene from “The Fall Guy,” a movie about a stuntman starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Blue Ivy Carter, Beyoncé’s 12-year-old daughter, will make her feature film debut in a prequel to Disney’s 2019 “The Lion King” remake. Jerry Seinfeld, in his directorial debut, puts forward a satirical take on the origin of Pop-Tarts. Read about the real story and test your Pop-Tart knowledge with a quiz. It’s May 4, known as “Star Wars Day.” Read about how fans digitally restored the original movies, and how the actor who played Jar Jar Binks overcame fan backlash. Other Big Stories Paul Auster, photographed in Brooklyn in 2009. Todd Heisler/The New York Times The author Paul Auster died this week at 77. See a list of books that best represent his work. At Venice Biennale, some artists, like the Brazilian Glicéria Tupinambá, are making the case for the restitution of looted artifacts. THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial Hope Hicks on Capitol Hill in 2019. Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times Hope Hicks, a former aide to Donald Trump, testified for several hours in his Manhattan criminal trial. She seemed nervous and at one point broke down in tears. Hicks said that Trump was a micromanager and that the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump bragged about assaulting women, sent his 2016 campaign into a frenzy, a possible motive for silencing Stormy Daniels. But Hicks also said that Trump was worried about his wife’s reaction to a story about one of his affairs, which may help his defense. Prosecutors have argued that the hush money was meant to help Trump win the election. Israel-Hamas War Destroyed buildings in Khan Younis. Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock Israel is under pressure to end the war. Behind the scenes, its officials are considering a postwar plan in which Israel would oversee Gaza alongside Arab countries and the U.S. Turkey halted trade with Israel until Israel stops bombarding Gaza and allows in more humanitarian aid. A Times investigation, based on videos from journalists and witnesses, shows how counterprotesters instigated violent clashes with a pro-Palestinian encampment at U.C.L.A., and how the police waited hours to respond. Some faculty members at U.C.L.A., Columbia and other universities have joined pro-Palestinian student protesters, given them food and even been arrested. China, Iran and Russia have mounted online campaigns amplifying the protesters’ messages, criticizing the police and otherwise stoking U.S. political divisions. Other Big Stories Federal prosecutors accused Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, and his wife of participating in a yearslong bribery scheme. Cuellar denied the allegations. The Canadian police arrested three Indian nationals in the June killing of a Sikh leader in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused India of orchestrating the murder. The U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs in April, a slowdown compared with recent months. The unemployment rate remained low. President Biden gave Nancy Pelosi, the Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky and several others the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 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. CULTURE CALENDAR By Andrew LaVallee 😹 “Woke Foke” (Saturday): Even if you didn’t watch the Katt Williams interview that broke the internet earlier this year, you probably read a hot take, watched a highlights reel or were vaguely aware that he had a beef with someone. My colleague Elena Bergeron got into all of that in a new profile of Williams that was published this week, and this weekend his comedy special “Woke Foke” airs on Netflix. It’s only the second time the streamer has gone live with a comedian (the first was Chris Rock in 2023), and as Williams told Elena, discussing himself in the third person, “The benefit of Katt Williams live is that you don’t, in any way, know what he’s going to say.” ADVERTISEMENT RECIPE OF THE WEEK Ryan Liebe for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Tarragon Tart We’ve reached peak asparagus season in much of the country, meaning now is the time to show it off. My asparagus, goat cheese and tarragon tart is perfect for a light dinner, a delicate appetizer if you’re doing a multicourse meal, or a festive springtime nibble to serve with drinks. It’s at its flakiest, creamiest best while warm, but still good a few hours later after cooling down. REAL ESTATE Lindsey Williams in Brooklyn. Clark Hodgin for The New York Times The hunt: An Alabama native looked around Brooklyn for a one-bedroom for less than $500,000. Which home did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $2.1 million: An 1830 Cape Cod-style house in Provincetown, Mass.; a 1939 two-bedroom cottage in Austin, Texas; or an 1840 house in Charleston, S.C. Living small: The tiny Bolt-Together House in Delancey, N.Y., had no heat or toilet, but it was theirs for $85,000. LIVING Tania Yakunova No surprise needed: Some couples, rejecting traditional engagements, are opting for joint proposals. Beauty: As a child, Sofia Coppola used to melt down lipsticks to look like a character in a Roman Polanski film. That’s inspired her new line of tinted lip balms. Travel: Chacarita is a quirky low-profile neighborhood in Buenos Aires where you can find Art Deco houses on cobblestone streets and decadent churros. Senior daters: Rates of certain sexually transmitted infections are rising among older people. Read about how to be safe. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER It’s time to clean out your camera roll If you’re anything like me, your phone’s photo library is a mess. I have more than 50,000 images stored in Google Photos, and while powerful search tools and facial recognition make managing this massive collection easier, I still spend a lot of time scrolling to find what I’m looking for. To get organized, Wirecutter’s experts have some advice, including building a “delete day” habit. Take a few minutes daily to search the day’s date in your photo software of choice and then delete, hide or sort photos from that day in years past. With a little work, you can transform your photo warehouse into a curated gallery. — Max Eddy GAME OF THE WEEK Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards. Abbie Parr/Associated Press Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Denver Nuggets, N.B.A. playoffs: The Timberwolves, fresh off their first playoff series win in two decades, must now face last year’s champions. The Nuggets have the two-time M.V.P. Nikola Jokic, a 7-footer whose water polo-inspired passing makes him unlike anyone else in the game. But do they have an answer for Anthony Edwards, the Timberwolves’ 22-year-old star, whose explosive athleticism (check out this dunk from the first round) has drawn comparisons to a young Michael Jordan? 7 p.m. Eastern tonight on TNT NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was backfill. 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted Monday at 02:15 AM Author Members Share Posted Monday at 02:15 AM May 5, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Joe Drape explains the troubled state of horse racing in the U.S. We’re also covering campus protests, Latino evangelicals and retired couples. — David Leonhardt At Churchill Downs in Kentucky. Jon Cherry for The New York Times Human error By Joe Drape He has covered the Kentucky Derby for 25 years. It was a thrilling finish: A long-shot named Mystik Dan held off a late charge by Sierra Leone and a colt from Japan named Forever Young on Saturday to win the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, America’s oldest major continuing sporting event, bringing to a close a much-needed casualty-free week of thoroughbred racing. It was a welcome conclusion for the multibillion-dollar sport imperiled by frequent racing fatalities, reckless breeding, dodgy doping practices and the old-fashioned greed of veterinarians, trainers and owners. Last year, 12 horses perished at Churchill Downs in the days surrounding the famous race. It only got worse. Two weeks later, a horse trained by one of the sport’s most recognized trainers died at Pimlico Race Course. At the historic Saratoga Race Course in New York a few months later, another 13 horses died while racing and training at the sport’s signature summer meet, including two that seemed poised to win their races before they broke down near the finish line on nationally televised broadcasts. Ambulances rumbled onto the track, emergency workers erected privacy screens and, behind them, vets euthanized the horses with injections. All of it put the social acceptability of one of America’s oldest sports at risk. The root of the problem Ahead of the race. Audra Melton for The New York Times Why do racehorses die? As beautiful as a thoroughbred is in full flight, the legs that seemingly rarely touch the ground are fragile. Ankles the size of a Coke bottle and hooves the size of a crystal ashtray propel a 1,200-pound thoroughbred at speeds up to 35 miles per hour. Over the past 12 months, my colleague Melissa Hoppert and I analyzed confidential documents and covert recordings made by law enforcement authorities to report on why so many horses, supposedly in peak physical condition, were breaking down. (Our investigation, which you can read here, also became a documentary, “The New York Times Presents: Broken Horses,” which is streaming on Hulu.) As is so often the case, money is the root of the problem. Trainers push horses too hard, sometimes giving them illegal performance-enhancing drugs. That’s because owners know that a signature win will turn their million-dollar investment into a multimillion-dollar A.T.M. in the breeding shed. Do the math: Sierra Leone can be retired tomorrow and enter a life where he mates twice a day, to 155 mares, potentially earning $31 million annually over a breeding career that can last 10 years or more. Even at the more modest levels of the sport, trainers sometimes rely on illegal drugs. More often, though, the problem is overuse of legal corticosteroid medications that mask pain and allow at-risk thoroughbreds to run until they perish. Among the cluster of 13 deaths at Saratoga, for example, 11 were the result of injuries to a fetlock joint, which can be weakened by injections. Three of the 11 received corticosteroid injections within 30 days of racing. Another three had been declared unsound by veterinarians before their breakdowns, though their owners and trainers still managed to get them into competition. In short, the humans failed the horses. Most people involved in the sport have put their horses first, and they were integral in creating the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the federal body that now polices the sport. But if that group does not do its job, horse racing could be in trouble. It is at risk of losing its core audiences, including horse lovers, who do not want to see animals die, and gamblers, who now have many other options for betting on sports. Along with a multibillion-dollar economy, an important part of American history and its soul would be lost. For more The 150th running of the Kentucky Derby. Audra Melton for The New York Times “And they’re off”: See photos from this year’s race. Attendees donned wide-brimmed hats adorned with spring florals and soft feathers. Here are images of the best ones. Yesterday, Larry Demeritte became the second Black trainer since 1951 to compete in the Kentucky Derby. Mike Repole is racing’s loudest critic and a prominent horse owner. He’s still trying to win his first Derby. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War Two Israeli men who were thought to have been taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 were actually killed during the attacks, according to the Israeli authorities. A doctor from Gaza who was detained by Israeli forces and held for four months has died in Israeli custody, Palestinian officials said. Iran says it has released the crew of an Israeli-linked container ship that its forces had seized last month. Campus Protests In Ann Arbor, Mich. Nic Antaya/Getty Images The police arrested at least 25 people yesterday at the University of Virginia and took down an encampment on campus. Pro-Palestinian supporters briefly interrupted a commencement ceremony at the University of Michigan. And at Indiana University, protesting students walked out of a ceremony, some shouting “free, free Palestine” as they left. At Vassar, protesters dismantled their encampment after the college agreed to review a divestment proposal. The protests are the latest in a tradition of student-led, left-leaning activism dating back at least to the 1960s. Tensions appear to be spreading to campuses in several countries, including France, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied a building at Science Po, an elite university. War in Ukraine At a morgue in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Nicole Tung for The New York Times The families of some Ukrainian soldiers say they have spent months trying to get official death confirmations. The military, they say, is overloaded with casualties. Russia’s army is recruiting more women to fight in the war. That effort clashes with Vladimir Putin’s conservative agenda. More International News Voters in Britain appear hungry for change after 14 years of Conservative government. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seems unable to persuade them otherwise. Xi Jinping has chosen France, Serbia and Hungary — nations that, to varying degrees, embrace China’s push for a new global order — for his first trip to Europe in five years. Months after a coup in Niger, its deposed president is still imprisoned in the presidential residence without access to his phone or his lawyers, members of his inner circle said. Politics Pastor Camilo Perez at his church in Henderson, Nev. Isadora Kosofsky for The New York Times Latino evangelicals are helping to re-energize the Republican coalition. Read about how one pastor became a foot soldier for Donald Trump. “The chattering class is freaking out”: At dinner parties and receptions, many in official Washington joke about where they would go if Trump returns to the White House. Florida banned the production and sale of lab-grown meat, a move considered by other states. Other Big Stories Many U.S. jails and prisons are ill-equipped to deal with the thousands of inmates estimated to have major psychological problems. One man’s story illustrates the system’s failure. At this point in the year, high school seniors should be celebrating their college choices. A new FAFSA application has left some unsure of which college they will be able to afford. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Who puts campus safety at risk? The protesters. Pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on college campuses disobey rules and orders meant to protect everyone. “It is terrifying to contemplate where such occupations might end — and who might get hurt,” Jay C. Hartzell writes for Houston Chronicle. The universities. The choice to call riot police leaves administrators directly responsible for the escalation of tensions. “For the administration to sanction violence against its students without a fundamental understanding of what they are voicing is embarrassing,” Antonio Wu writes for CalMatters. FROM OPINION Most people trust vaccines. The true barrier to people getting vaccinated is poverty and lack of access, Jessica Grose writes. The best college you can go to is one where you don’t fit in, Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, writes. Here are columns by Nicholas Kristof on a photo from Gaza, David French on Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ross Douthat on Covid vaccine injuries. 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 Sharing space. David Hilliard for The New York Times Golden years: Retired couples have time; they have money; they have leisure. They also have a problem: They are driving each other mad. The wood age? An analysis of 300,000-year-old wooden tools revealed that Neanderthals were better craftsmen than was originally thought. Vows: When she sent him an Instagram DM, she had no idea about his run on “The Bachelor.” Lives Lived: The artist Frank Stella moved American art away from Abstract Expressionism toward cool minimalism. His exploration of colors and form were constantly on exhibit. He died at 87. THE INTERVIEW Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is the comedian and actor Marlon Wayans. We talked about his upcoming standup special, “Good Grief,” which is about how humor helped him heal after the death of his parents, and also what he’s learned from his transgender son. How do you find the funny thing in the sad thing? I mean, all of us Wayanses, we’re crazy people. The worst thing happens, and the first thing we’d think is What’s funny about it? I remember when my cousin Ceddy died and my auntie buried him on jeans and a T-shirt and some Air Force 1s and a baseball cap. [Wayans’s brother] Damon looks and goes, “If there’s a dress code in heaven, I don’t think Ceddy’s getting in.” Are there elements of the new special that you could point to and say, This is the kind of material that I couldn’t have done five or 10 years ago? When you talk about real-life pain, like parents passing, and you can get through that set and you can still be irreverent, edgy, crazy, silly, thought-provoking and vulnerable, I think that’s growth. I miss my parents dearly, but I’m a different human with my parents gone than I was when they were here. Now I’m a man. In the special, you talked about how you learned to be a man from your dad. And here with me you talked about how finding a way to move forward after your parents died also helped you grow into manhood. But I’m curious what you learned about manhood and masculinity from your son. It’s OK to be vulnerable. It’s OK to unstrap from your masculinity and your ego. Sometimes it’s not about trying to teach them. Maybe God’s trying to teach you something. It’s OK to have those stupid thoughts — those egotistical thoughts like, Nah, I think I can control everything. Then God breaks you down, and life breaks you down, and when you realize you’re on your knees, that’s when God can whisper to you, and you’re like, Oh, that’s what you’re trying to teach me. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Mickalene Thomas for The New York Times. Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. BOOKS Robert Cormier Paul Miller/Fairfax Media, via Getty Images Robert Cormier: “The Chocolate War,” published 50 years ago, became one of America’s most challenged books. Its author spent years fighting attempts to ban it. Modern classics: Looking for your next read? The Book Review has a new collection showing its favorite books from 2000 to 2023. Our editors’ picks: “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” in which Salman Rushdie recalls surviving an attempted assassination, and seven others. Times best sellers: Emily Henry’s romance “Funny Story” lands at No. 1 in its first week on the hardcover fiction list. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with delicious Asian snacks. Survive your high school reunion. Start composting. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For Panama’s presidential elections are today. Xi Jinping begins a tour around Europe this week, starting in Paris. The Met Gala is tomorrow. The Eurovision Song Contest final is on Saturday. Meal Plan Julia Gartland for The New York Times In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests using leftover chicken to make crispy Cheddar chicken tacos, or pouring a glass of white wine to enjoy with spaghetti al limone with shrimp (the dish is ready in 25 minutes). NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were deceiving and evidencing. Can you put eight historical events — including the first European universities, Joan of Arc and roller disco — 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted Tuesday at 01:37 AM Author Members Share Posted Tuesday at 01:37 AM May 6, 2024 Good morning. My colleague Ellen Barry offers a fresh way to think about growing mental health problems among young people. We’re also covering the Israel-Hamas war, women in China and abstract art. — David Leonhardt At a mental health fair. Rebecca Kiger for The New York Times Too much talk? By Ellen Barry She covers mental illness. For years now, policymakers have sought an explanation for the mental health crisis among young people. Suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations were rising even before the pandemic. Then the rates of anxiety and depression doubled worldwide. Why is this happening? The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt points to smartphones, and the algorithms that draw kids away from healthy play and into dangerous, addictive thought loops. No, his critics say. The real problem is a grim social landscape of school shootings, poverty and global warming. Or academic pressure. Or insufficient health care. A group of researchers in Britain now propose another, at least partial, explanation: We talk about mental disorders so much. I cover this notion in a story The Times published today. This hypothesis is called “prevalence inflation.” It holds that our society has become so saturated with discussion of mental health that young people may interpret mild, transient suffering as symptoms of a medical disorder. This is a problem, they say, because identifying with a psychiatric diagnosis may not be helpful. Students who self-label as anxious or depressed are more likely than similar students who don’t self-label to view themselves as powerless over the disorder, recent studies have shown. They may respond by avoiding stressful situations like parties or public speaking, which could make their problems worse. One of the psychologists behind the prevalence inflation theory, Lucy Foulkes of the University of Oxford, traces her skepticism back to 2018, when she began teaching undergraduates. They were “bombarded” with messages warning that they might be in crisis, she said. “It seemed like the more we were trying to raise awareness about it, it wasn’t getting better, and in fact, it only seemed to be getting worse.” She grew critical of curricula that teach children to recognize and manage their emotions, sometimes referred to as social emotional learning. Schools have introduced an array of programs, teaching children the basics of techniques like mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy, which have proved beneficial in adults. Several recent studies have found lackluster or negative effects for students who received trainings, especially those who started out with more severe symptoms. That evidence has done little to dampen their popularity, Foulkes said. An urgent need Many experts in the field of adolescent mental health defend awareness campaigns and school-based trainings. “Especially with teens, we need more universal interventions, not less,” said Zachary Blumkin, a child psychologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The main reason, they say, is that traditional, one-on-one therapy and psychiatric care is not easily available. Teenagers in crisis can wait months to see a clinician. They often land in emergency rooms as a last resort. For that reason, the field has gravitated toward preventive models. These teach all students — not just the troubled ones — to manage distressing emotions. A 2023 meta-analysis of 252 such programs concluded that, generally, children benefit from them. There is also promise in a more tailored approach, one that lets schools focus on kids with the most acute needs. Some experts also disagree that over-diagnosis is a problem. Andrew Gerber, a child psychiatrist, says we should think of mental illness as a spectrum: Disorders like anxiety or depression occur in a bell curve distribution, so they’re more like hypertension than appendicitis. And like hypertension, he said, they’re worth treating early in their progression, with medication and therapy. “Anyone who tries to define a sharp line between ‘real’ illness and what is not real, no matter where they put the line, is doomed to get it wrong and do damage in the process,” said Gerber, the president and medical director at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn. Lucy Foulkes Sandra Mickiewicz for The New York Times Foulkes disagrees. Even when we have good treatments, we’re bad at identifying whose disorder is likely to deteriorate, she said. And some children struggle because something is wrong at home, like domestic abuse or poverty or bullying. Mindfulness trainings are unlikely to help these kids. “A lot of the time, what’s causing the problem is not something that’s going to improve with medication or therapy,” she said. “You’re running the risk of just telling people they have a problem without helping alleviate it.” A generation is growing up fluent in the language of mental health, something that will benefit teens who badly need treatment. But others may apply medical diagnoses to the painful, normal adversity of growing up. The “prevalence inflation” hypothesis asks us to keep an eye on those excesses. People hurt after breakups and struggle to adjust to new schools; negative feelings aren’t always a sign of mental illness. They can even teach us resilience. For more Rates of mental health disorders are rising among American adolescents. Read one 13-year-old’s story. There aren’t always enough resources to support teenagers’ mental health. As schools search for solutions, some student-led clubs step in. Are smartphones driving teenagers to depression? It’s complicated, writes David Wallace-Wells in Times Opinion. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War In Rafah, in southern Gaza. Hatem Khaled/Reuters The Israeli military said it was asking tens of thousands of Gazans sheltering in eastern Rafah to temporarily evacuate to what it described as a humanitarian zone. Hamas claimed responsibility for a rocket attack that Israeli officials said killed three soldiers and left three more critically wounded. Israel moved to shut down local operations of Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based news outlet. Cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas are at an impasse. The main obstacle is the duration of a pause. Four children from Gaza arrived in the U.S. to receive urgent medical treatment. They were greeted at Kennedy Airport with toys and balloons. Campus Protests U.C.L.A. said that it would resume in-person classes today and that it had created a new campus security office. New York Magazine and the Columbia student newspaper surveyed the campus about the protests. More than 60 percent of respondents said they had views on the conflict they avoided saying publicly. More college professors — many of whom came of age during the era of Vietnam War protests — are joining student demonstrations, The Wall Street Journal reports. More International News In Shanghai. Qilai Shen for The New York Times Around Shanghai, women gather in bars and bookstores to debate their place in a country ruled by men. Panamanians elected José Raúl Mulino, a former public security minister, as their next president. Paris committed to making the Olympics more accessible for people with disabilities. Advocacy groups are concerned that the city remains unprepared. In the 19th century, Belgian troops decapitated a Congolese leader and took his skull as a trophy. The leader’s descendants are struggling to have his remains returned. Business Kim Godwin, the first Black woman to run a broadcast news division, said she would step down as president of ABC News after a tumultuous tenure. Sony and the private equity firm Apollo are in talks to acquire Paramount. Other Big Stories M.T.A. workers. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times New York City’s congestion pricing program aims to generate $15 billion for the mass transit system, but lawsuits threaten that windfall. In Florida, Chinese residents expressed frustration with a new law that prohibits many Chinese citizens from buying homes in the state because of national security concerns. Opinions We should welcome the emergence of this year’s cicadas with wonder, Margaret Renkl writes. Ross Douthat suggests books and essays that could improve the intellectual diversity of university curricula. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss campus protests and Donald Trump. Here are columns by Maureen Dowd on the three faces of Trump and Thomas Friedman on Israel and Saudi Arabia. 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 In Queens, N.Y. Raúl Vilchis for The New York Times Community: For generations of immigrants, Sunday soccer in a park in Queens is more than a game. Health: Ultraprocessed foods are linked to poor health. But what are they exactly? Loneliness: Social connection experts offer advice on cultivating a sense of belonging. Ask Vanessa: “How do I know if my untucked shirt is too long?” Kocktails: As nonalcoholic cocktails become a staple on American menus, some children have begun to partake. Metropolitan Diary: A necklace rescue in Midtown. Lives Lived: Bernard Hill was a British actor who incarnated humble masculine leadership as Capt. Edward J. Smith in “Titanic” and as Théoden, the king of Rohan, in two “Lord of the Rings” films. He died at 79. SPORTS Lando Norris Giorgio Viera/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Formula One: McLaren’s Lando Norris secured his first victory at the Miami Grand Prix. No punches pulled: At a live Netflix comedy roast, former Patriots players and Kevin Hart among others roasted Tom Brady about his divorce and Deflategate. N.H.L.: The Dallas Stars eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Las Vegas Golden Knights in a thrilling 2-1 Game 7 win. N.B.A.: Donovan Mitchell’s 24 second-half points led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a comeback win in their own Game 7 against the Orlando Magic. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Frank Stella Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo by Todd Heisler/The New York Times The artist Frank Stella, who helped usher in the Minimalist movement of the 1960s, died on Saturday at 87. His career began during the Eisenhower era, when artistic tendencies — much like ideas about gender and sexuality — fell into fixed categories: one was either a figurative artist or an abstract one. Things changed, the critic Deborah Solomon writes, but Stella did not. “He never stopped insisting on the inherent superiority of abstract painting,” she adds. Read her full appraisal of Stella. More on culture At Copacabana Beach, in Rio de Janeiro. Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York Times Madonna ended her retrospective Celebration Tour with a free show in Rio de Janeiro, which was attended by an estimated 1.6 million people. Trying to find your own song of the summer? Vulture has published a bracket to sort through this year’s pop deluge. The HBO series “The Sympathizer” is a rebuttal to a Hollywood staple. It is its own Vietnam War movie and a detailed work of film criticism, James Poniewozik writes. Over the weekend, “The Fall Guy,” starring Ryan Gosling, earned only $28.5 million. It is Hollywood’s lowest start to the summer box office season since 1995. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times Make Dolester Miles’s famous coconut pecan cake. Watch the Met Gala red carpet tonight. Stargaze with a telescope for beginners. Clear your phone’s camera roll. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was maypole. 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. Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter named two different Kentucky Derby winners. The winner was Mystik Dan, not Sierra Leone. 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted 23 hours ago Author Members Share Posted 23 hours ago May 7, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Vanessa Friedman is covering the Met Gala, the biggest night in fashion. —David Leonhardt Nina Westervelt for The New York Times, Amir Hamja/The New York Times The show By Vanessa Friedman She is The Times’s chief fashion critic. If you are wondering why your social media feeds are awash this morning with culture-shapers of all kinds (actors, athletes, musical artists, politicians) dressed up in the most over-the-top outfits you’ve ever seen, it’s because last night was the Met Gala — also known as the Oscars of the East Coast and the party of the year. Every Gala has a dress code, which is tethered to the exhibition. This year, the show is titled “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” Guests were instructed to dress according to a “Garden of Time” theme, an allusion to a 1962 J.G. Ballard short story. Yes, there is occasionally something cynical and commercial here. We’ve seen meme-baiting fashions in recent years: Katy Perry costumed as a chandelier, Rihanna as the pope, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a fox in the fabulous henhouse. (She wore a white ball gown with “Tax the Rich” scrawled on the back in 2021.) The famous faces often serve as quasi-advertisements for fashion brands. All of which makes it easy to forget this is actually an important fund-raiser for one of New York’s cultural pillars: the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It was once a free-standing museum, but when it merged with the Met in 1946, part of the deal was that the Costume Institute would have to pay for itself. It is the only curatorial department in the museum where that is true. Hence the gala, which raises all the funds for the institute’s operating budget. (Last year, it made $22 million.) One reason the institute is treated like a sideshow is that it has always been controversial in some quarters to treat fashion as fine art. (Shock! Horror! Clothes with the Kandinsky!) The Costume Institute itself has historically been housed in the museum’s basement — a clear statement about its status at the museum. But the fashion exhibitions have become more ambitious and more popular as the curator in charge, Andrew Bolton, has focused on the intersection of dress and zeitgeist. He has aimed at themes such as camp, or fashion and Catholicism. Three of the 10 most visited exhibitions in the Met’s history are Costume Institute shows. That has made it harder for the museum to justify its prejudice. Last year, it announced plans to renovate the gift shop into the new costume galleries, meaning those galleries will be among the first any visitor sees. And that is a reflection of the growing importance of fashion as part of culture, high and low. The gala, with its carefully documented entrances, has simply become everyone’s pass to gleefully render judgment on the game. Feel free to do so yourself: Here are some of the more — well, eye-opening looks from last night. Amir Hamja/The New York Times Harris Reed wearing his own design. Nina Westervelt for The New York Times Lana Del Rey in Alexander McQueen. Nina Westervelt for The New York Times Demi Moore in Harris Reed. Amir Hamja/The New York Times Ariana Grande in Loewe. Nina Westervelt for The New York Times Barry Keoghan in Burberry. Nina Westervelt for The New York Times Nicki Minaj in Marni. Amir Hamja/The New York Times Bad Bunny in Maison Margiela. Nina Westervelt for The New York Times Amelia Gray in Undercover, left, and Rachel Zegler in Dior, right. Nina Westervelt for The New York Times Gigi Hadid in Thom Browne. For more Zendaya made two appearances on the carpet in two different dresses. Cardi B required eight ushers to arrange her voluminous skirt. Gigi Hadid said her dress bore 2.8 million beads. See more of the night’s unforgettable looks. More influencers, fewer actors: The Washington Post tracked and categorized a decade of Met Gala attendees. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israeli Forces in Rafah In Rafah, in southern Gaza Strip. Hatem Khaled/Reuters The Israeli military said that it had sent tanks overnight into part of Rafah — the city near Gaza’s border with Egypt where many Palestinians have taken refuge — in what it called a limited operation aimed at Hamas targets. Earlier, Israel had ordered more than 100,000 Gazans to evacuate the city. Israeli forces took operational control over the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing, an important route for aid. The military said, without offering evidence, that troops found three tunnel shafts near the crossing and that about 20 militants were killed during the operation. The incursion did not appear to be the long-discussed full ground invasion. Cease-Fire Negotiations Hours before the attacks, Hamas endorsed a cease-fire proposal. Officials told The Times that it was mostly similar to one Israel had previously endorsed. Israeli officials said that the proposal was unacceptable but that they would send a negotiating team to Cairo. The White House sees Hamas’s announcement as a counteroffer to gain negotiating leverage, Peter Baker writes. Hamas also told negotiators that the 33 hostages it was willing to release in a cease-fire’s first phase included the remains of some who had died as well as those still living. Campus Protests Pro-Palestinian protesters at M.I.T. resisted a university order to clear their encampment. Columbia University canceled its main commencement, citing security concerns. The police arrested 64 people at an encampment at the University of California, San Diego, and more than 40 at U.C.L.A. Russia Russian authorities detained a U.S. soldier in the port city of Vladivostok last week on charges of criminal misconduct. Russia is planning military exercises to practice for the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, a display calibrated to discourage further Western intervention in Ukraine. More International News Kotono Hara, a career diplomat. Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times After decades of government and industry efforts, Japanese women are finally making progress in the workplace. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has near-total control over the nation’s politics — except in the wealthier, ethnically diverse south, The A.P. reports. Trump on Trial The jury in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial saw the invoices and checks that prosecutors accuse Trump of falsifying to hide a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels. Two witnesses — current and former Trump employees — testified that Trump paid close attention to outgoing cash and that much of the reimbursement for the payment came from his personal account. The judge again fined Trump for violating a gag order by criticizing the jury. Addressing Trump directly, the judge said he would consider jailing him if he kept violating it. Prosecutors have about two weeks of their case left to present. The defense then gets its turn, followed by closing arguments. More on Politics Social Security and Medicare will run out of money later than previously estimated — by the mid-2030s. The strong labor market has improved the programs’ financial health. Most young voters oppose Biden’s position on the Israel-Hamas war, but few rank it as their top election issue. Most care more about inflation and housing. Bernie Sanders, 82, plans to run for a fourth Senate term this fall. Health Kendric Cromer, 12. Kenny Holston/The New York Times A new gene therapy may cure sickle cell disease. Last week, a 12-year-old boy in Washington, D.C., became the first patient to get the treatment. People with a particular gene variant are almost certain to get Alzheimer’s, a study found, meaning patients could be diagnosed years before any symptoms. Other Big Stories Dozens of former inmates at Illinois youth detention centers — now adults — sued the state, accusing it of allowing workers to abuse detainees for decades. Boeing is under yet another F.A.A. investigation: It told regulators it might have skipped required inspections on its 787 Dreamliners, a separate model from the one that lost a panel midflight. Opinions Europe’s radical right is rising because no other political group recognizes that the European Union is undemocratic, Lea Ypi argues. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act and Paul Krugman on Florida’s ban on lab-grown meat. 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 On Staten Island. Ye Fan for The New York Times Rolling out: On a chilly May evening, Roller Jam USA — New York City’s only year-round roller-skating rink — hosted its final night of operation. Hustling: Meet the schemers and savers obsessed with ending their careers as early as possible. Lives Lived: Kris Hallenga received a Stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis at 23. She spent the next 15 years educating other young people about early detection through her nonprofit and in a memoir. Hallenga died at 38. SPORTS N.B.A.: Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves stunned the defending-champion Denver Nuggets, 106-80, to go up 2-0 in their playoff tilt. N.H.L.: The Boston Bruins beat the favored Florida Panthers 5-1 on the road to open their playoff series with a 1-0 lead. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Children in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times The Times won three Pulitzer Prizes yesterday — for its coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas, an investigation into migrant child labor and a Magazine story on a family’s experience with Alzheimer’s. The Washington Post also won three prizes, while The New Yorker won two. The Invisible Institute, a nonprofit based on the South Side of Chicago, also won parts of two prizes. In the book categories, the winners tended to focus on discrimination and identity, including: a biography of Martin Luther King Jr.; a portrait of Black workers in 19th-century Boston; a story of escape from bondage in Georgia; the reconstruction of a school-bus explosion that killed Palestinians; a memoir touching on violence against women in Mexico; and poetry about a multicultural upbringing. Read the complete list of winners. More on culture Ten years ago, the bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst won Eurovision, prompting celebration and condemnation. Her creator, Tom Neuwirth, looks back. In The London Observer, one writer extols the benefits of a transformative — if a little embarrassing — practice: reading books aloud with your partner. “It’s like she thought ‘All Dogs Go to Heaven’ was a personal challenge”: Jordan Klepper joked about Gov. Kristi Noem on “The Daily Show.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times Smash portobello mushroom caps with a heavy skillet to make this burger. Fight fleas. Wear a sun hat on a hike. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were attachment, catchment, enchantment and enhancement. 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 By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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