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THE WEEK AHEAD

What to Watch For

Senate Democrats plan to vote this week to nationalize abortion rights, but they’re expected to fall short.
Russia’s Victory Day tomorrow commemorates its defeat of the Nazis, but Putin could use the occasion to expand his invasion of Ukraine.
The leaders of the Group of 7 will meet virtually today with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Nebraska and West Virginia hold primary elections on Tuesday.
The U.S. government will release data on consumer prices on Wednesday as it tries to slow inflation.
The White House will co-host a virtual Covid summit on Thursday.
The Pulitzer Prize winners in journalism, drama, literature and music will be announced tomorrow.
The winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will be decided this week.
Today is Mother’s Day. Here are some brunch, dinner and dessert ideas.

What to Cook This Week

Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

Why not let the oven do the work and spend your time playing Wordle or pouring yourself a drink instead, as Emily Weinstein suggests? That’s where gnocchi with sweet and hot peppers comes in. Her other recipe offerings for this week include broiled salmon and asparagus with herbs and shrimp pad Thai.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:

19 Across: 1990s sitcom starring Tia and Tamera Mowry

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — German

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 9, 2022

May 9, 2022

Continue reading the main story

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Good morning. It’s Victory Day in Europe — a holiday honoring World War II that has long been important to Putin.

Pro-Putin flags in Moscow in 2014.James Hill for The New York Times

Appease or confront

For much of the past two decades, the U.S. and its European allies have chosen not to confront Vladimir Putin.

Even as Russia invaded Georgia, annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, shot down a passenger jet and interfered in a U.S. presidential election, the West did relatively little to stop him. It imposed sanctions too porous to have much effect on the oligarchs around Putin and stayed far away from any military confrontation with Russia.

When Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, the strategy of non-confrontation seemed as if it would continue. Western leaders again imposed only modest sanctions and did not send any troops to Ukraine. The leaders feared sparking a larger war with Russia and — although they didn’t say so publicly — had decided that trying to save Ukraine was not worth the risk.

But then the Western leaders changed their minds.

Over the past two months, the U.S., the E.U. and their allies have shown an entirely new level of assertiveness toward Russia. As recent news stories have documented, the U.S. has gone so far as to provide Ukraine’s military with information that helped it kill Russian generals on the battlefield and sink the Moskva, a 200-yard-long warship that was the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The West also continues to send weapons to Ukraine and enforce harsh economic sanctions on Russia.

What explains the turnabout? I posed that question to my colleague Helene Cooper — one of the reporters who has broken stories about the collaboration between the American and Ukrainian militaries — and our conversation helped me understand the main reasons. Today’s newsletter focuses on this rapid and consequential change in American foreign policy.

‘Scarred’ no more

Over the past two decades, American officials have had a lot of experience collaborating with another country’s military during a war being fought on its soil. Much of that experience was in Afghanistan, and it was deeply frustrating for the U.S. Although many Afghan soldiers bravely fought the Taliban, the Afghan government was riddled with corruption and did not seem committed to victory.

The defeat there has haunted members of the Biden administration and the U.S. military. “They were scarred from Afghanistan,” Helene says.

On the surface, Ukraine initially looked like another lost cause. Its military was far smaller and less well armed than Russia’s, and Western experts expected Ukraine’s government to fall within days.

Ukrainian volunteers in Kyiv in February.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

From the first days of Russia’s invasion, however, Ukraine surprised the world. Its civilians demonstrated a patriotism that belied Putin’s claim that Ukraine was not a real country, and its military stopped Russia’s army from advancing in many places.

“Not only did Ukraine fight,” Helene said, “but they were winning.” This early success showed Western officials that trying to stop Putin might not be a hopeless cause.

‘We’re not afraid’

The start of fighting changed the West’s calculations in another way, too. Europe’s largest war in more than 75 years — since Nazi Germany surrendered — was underway. Russia was bombing cities and killing civilians, and millions of Ukrainians were fleeing their homes.

Putin’s earlier aggressions had been on a smaller scale. His previous attacks on Ukraine and Georgia were not full-scale wars. His interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was certainly aggressive, but it was also amorphous: Nobody could be sure exactly how much it mattered, and the Trump administration had an obvious incentive to downplay it.

The images coming from Ukraine were much more salient. They were sufficiently shocking as to change the way many Western leaders thought about their approach to Putin. Before, those leaders were willing to tolerate his aggressions, partly out of a fear of how much worse things could get. After the Ukraine invasion, these same leaders effectively came to believe that they had only two choices: appeasement or confrontation.

The change in the West’s policy has been remarkable. In the early weeks of the war, Helene points out, American officials were not willing to admit that they were sending shoulder-fired missile systems known as Stingers to Ukraine. “They were afraid to use the word ‘Stingers,’” she said.

Today, U.S. officials acknowledge helping Ukraine get access not only to Stingers but to other missiles, tanks and more. The American involvement in attacks on Russian generals and the Moskva ship, although not officially acknowledged, is even more aggressive.

As Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official, said, describing the new U.S. policy: “We will give them everything they need to win, and we’re not afraid of Vladimir Putin’s reaction to that. We won’t be self-deterred.”

Equipment sent by the U.S. in Kyiv in January.Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Too far?

The U.S. and its allies still have tough decisions to make.

Some officials and experts worry that the West continues to err on the side of caution and is not giving Ukraine what its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, says he needs to win. “We have been deterred out of an exaggerated fear of what possibly could happen,” retired Lt. Gen. Frederick Hodges, the former top U.S. Army commander in Europe, has said.

Other experts think the U.S. may be overcompensating for its initial weakness toward Putin and is now risking a wider confrontation. Thomas Friedman, the Times columnist, captured this worry in his most recent column. The sinking of the Moskva and targeting of Russian generals, he wrote, “suggest we are no longer in an indirect war with Russia but rather edging toward a direct war — and no one has prepared the American people or Congress for that.”

There are no easy answers here. The old strategy — appeasement without calling it so — encouraged Putin to become more aggressive, believing the West was too frightened to respond. The new strategy — confrontation without fully acknowledging it — risks a fight with a nuclear power that many Americans and Europeans do not want. Putin knows that, which is part of the reason he has been willing to take such enormous risks.

More on Ukraine

Preparation for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow.Maxim Shipenkov/EPA, via Shutterstock

Today is Victory Day, an important holiday in Russia. Under Putin, it has become a celebration of military might.
In a speech, Putin hailed Russia’s military and cast his invasion of Ukraine as a continuation of World War II.
A Russian bomb demolished a school building where dozens of people had been sheltering in eastern Ukraine.
Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine and met with the nation’s first lady.
Zelensky honored a bomb-sniffing dog named Patron who has found more than 200 explosive devices.


A MESSAGE FROM 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical'
	Tony Winner for Best Musical! “Spectacular! Euphoric! Gasp-inspiring! In ‘Moulin Rouge,’ life is beautiful.” – The New York Times Get Tickets

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

Would Republicans implement a national abortion ban? Senator Mitch McConnell said it was “possible,” and Democrats are raising alarms.
The leaked draft opinion that would eliminate the constitutional right to abortion sent mixed signals about what other precedents might be at risk.
New York is home to stars on different sides of the Democratic Party: Eric Adams and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They haven’t spoken in nearly a year.
QAnon groups are intercepting migrant children at the southern border, motivated by a conspiracy theory.

Other Big Stories

Covid treatments are plentiful in the U.S., but scarce in poorer nations.
Across the U.S., suicidal teenagers sleep in hospital emergency departments every night. They have nowhere else to go.
A shortage of baby formula in the U.S. is causing some retailers to limit how much customers can buy.
Voters in the Philippines are choosing their next president today. The top contenders are the current vice president and the son of a former dictator.
Three Americans died under mysterious circumstances at a Bahamas resort. Officials didn’t suspect foul play.
Ncuti Gatwa, who stars in “Sex Education,” will be the first Black man to play the lead role on “Doctor Who.”

Opinions

John McWhorter is pro-choice, but doesn’t think pro-lifers are bad people, he writes.

Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss J.D. Vance, Roe v. Wade and more.

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MORNING READS

Denis Grosmaire, a free diver, swimming with sharks.Antoine Janssens

Free divers: They swim in open water with sharks. For fun.

Zoom in: This Dutch still-life painting narrates history on a global scale.

Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.2. Can you do better?

Cost of living: Calculate how you’re experiencing inflation.

Advice from Wirecutter: Budgeting apps to plan for higher prices.

Lives Lived: George Pérez, a self-taught artist from the South Bronx, created comics for Marvel and DC. In the 1980s he gave new life to Wonder Woman, leaning into the Greek mythology of her origin story. Pérez died at 67.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A post-truth game show

To be on most trivia game shows, you have to know a lot of facts. Not on Netflix’s “Bullsh*t the Game Show,” hosted by Howie Mandel.

The show isn’t so much about being right as it is about seeming right. Players try to win up to $1 million either by answering questions correctly or by giving incorrect answers and convincing other contestants that they’re right.

Here’s how it works: A contestant answers a multiple choice question and explains the reasoning behind her response. Three other contestants decide whether they believe her. If the player chose the correct answer, she moves on to the next round. If not, she still advances if at least one of the three was duped.

Game shows often reflect their era, and “Bullsh*t” is a “fiendishly timely symbol of our scam-saturated culture,” James Poniewozik writes in The Times. “The show isn’t meanspirited; it just wears its comfort with our truth-optional times like a snakeskin suit.”

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

David Malosh for The New York Times. Food stylist: Simon Andrews.

Adding artichokes (a Roman favorite) to carbonara (another Roman favorite) is a tasty riff on a classic.

Dance

A Sean Paul show in Brooklyn, a 1,000-person yacht party on the Hudson River: See inside New York’s dancehall party scene.

What to Listen to

Bad Bunny’s new album “Un Verano Sin Ti” is inspired by Caribbean music.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was blizzard. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Beginner’s ___ (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. Today is Spelling Bee’s fourth birthday. Did you know the game’s cartoon bee mascot has a name? It’s Beeatrice.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about U.S. drone pilots.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 10, 2022

May 10, 2022

Good morning. We look at the mental health crisis facing adolescents — and the role of digital technology.

The local Boys and Girls Club in Glasgow, Ky.Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

On the phone, alone

Many measures of adolescent mental health began to deteriorate sometime around 2009. It is true of the number of U.S. high-school students who say they feel persistently sad or hopeless. It’s also true of reported loneliness. And it is true of emergency room visits for self-harm among Americans ages 10 to 19.

This timing is suspicious because internet use among adolescents was also starting to soar during the same period. Apple began selling the iPhone in 2007. Facebook opened itself for general use in late 2006, and one-third of Americans were using it by 2009.

Last month, The Times began publishing a series on adolescent mental health, and the latest piece — focusing on pediatricians who are struggling to help — has just published.

The author of the series is Matt Richtel, who has spent more than a year interviewing adolescents, their relatives and their friends. In my recent conversations with Matt about his reporting, he has gone out of his way to emphasize the uncertainty about the specific causes of the crisis, including how much of a role social media plays.

“When you look at specific research on the role of social media impacting young people, it’s quite conflicted,” he said. Some studies find that adolescents who use social media heavily are more likely to feel sad or depressed, while others find little or no effect. There is no proof that, say, TikTok or social media’s “like” button is causing the mental-health crisis.

But Matt also thinks that some of these narrow questions of cause and effect are secondary. What seems undeniable, he points out, is that surging use of digital technology has changed life’s daily rhythms.

It has led adolescents to spend less time on in-person activities, like dating, hanging out with friends and attending church. Technology use has also contributed to declines in exercise and sleep. The share of high-school students who slept at least eight hours a night fell 30 percent from 2007 to 2019, Derek Thompson of The Atlantic has noted.

Technology use is not the sole cause of these trends. Modern parenting strategies, among other factors, play a role as well. But digital technology — be it social media, video games, text messaging or other online activity — plays a strong role, many experts say.

“If you’re not getting some outdoor relief time and enough sleep — and you can almost stop at not enough sleep — any human being is challenged,” Matt said. “When you get the pubescent brain involved in that equation, you are talking about somebody being really, really challenged to feel contented and peaceful and happy with the world around them.”

The role of any specific social-media platform or behavior may remain unknown, but the larger story about American adolescents and their emotional struggles is less mysterious.

“They have too much screen time, they’re not sleeping, on phones all the time,” Dr. Melissa Dennison, a pediatrician in central Kentucky who sees many unhappy adolescents, told Matt. Dennison regularly encourages her patients to take walks outdoors or attend church.

It’s true that the decline of in-person interactions has had a few silver linings. Today’s adolescents are less likely to use tobacco, drink alcohol or get pregnant. But the net effect of less socializing is negative. Most human beings struggle when they are not spending time in the company of others.

The Covid-19 pandemic, of course, has exacerbated isolation, loneliness and depression. In December, the U.S. surgeon general warned of a “devastating” mental health crisis among America’s youth.

A 12-year-old patient of Dr. Dennison in Kentucky.Annie Flanagan for The New York Times

I find Covid to be a particularly relevant comparison. Over the past two-plus years, millions of American parents have demonstrated intense concern for their children by trying to protect them from Covid. Fortunately, Covid happens to be mild for the vast majority of children, causing neither severe illness nor long-term symptoms. One sign of that: Young children, not yet eligible for vaccination, are at considerably less risk on average than vaccinated people over 65.

Still, I understand why so many parents remain anxious. Covid is new and scary. It taps into parents’ fierce protective instincts.

What makes less sense to me is why our society has done so little to protect children from the apparent damages of ubiquitous digital media. They are almost certainly larger for most children than the threat from Covid.

For more:

Matt’s latest story describes the difficulties facing pediatricians, who now routinely deal with complex psychiatric issues and often prescribe powerful psychiatric medications for lack of better alternatives. (The full series is here.)
“The most important change we can make to reduce the damaging effects of social media on children is to delay entry until they have passed through puberty,” Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, writes in The Atlantic.
In The Washington Post, Ellen McCarthy profiles parents who refuse to give their children smartphones.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

The Victory Day military parade in Moscow.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press

Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day speech was notable for what it left out: It contained no claims of victory and no calls for a wider conflict.
In his own speech, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said that Russia was “repeating the horrific crimes of Hitler’s regime today.”
The Ukrainian military’s counteroffensive in the east has forced Russian forces to redeploy. And in the south, Russia launched missile strikes into Odesa, the Black Sea port city.
President Biden agreed to send weapons to Ukraine more quickly, deepening U.S. involvement in the war.
“He doesn’t understand what he has to do with it”: In Europe’s schoolyards, Russian-speaking students face bullying.

International

Supporters of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Manila yesterday.Jes Aznar for The New York Times

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is expected to win the Philippines presidential election. The country ousted Marcos’s father, a dictator, in the 1980s.
Sri Lanka’s prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned after months of protests over an economic crisis.

Other Big Stories

States are cutting taxes to help people cope with rising prices. But those cuts are also making inflation worse.
A hunt for a corrections officer and the inmate she helped escape ended in a crash. The inmate surrendered, and the officer fatally shot herself.
Across the U.S., white evangelical churches are at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions.
Andy Warhol’s silk-screen of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million at auction, a record for an American artist.
To cut emissions, large energy companies are selling off polluting assets worth billions. But they often sell to buyers with looser climate goals.
New York Times journalists won four Pulitzer Prizes, while “The Netanyahus” won for fiction and “Fat Ham” for drama. See the list.

Opinions

Words like “phases” and “offensives” can make the war in Ukraine sound tidy, but it’s not clear where war stops and normal life begins, Tanya Kozyreva writes.

Overturning Roe v. Wade is morally right, but doing so may turn out to be economically and socially damaging, Matthew Walther argues.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Reinventing pitching: Does anyone know more about throwing things than Tom House?

Diagnose: Why heart disease in women is often missed or dismissed.

A Times classic: Stories that bind families together.

Advice from Wirecutter: Two-factor authentication keeps your accounts safer.

Lives Lived: Midge Decter, an architect of neoconservatism, abandoned liberal politics, challenged the women’s movement and championed the Reagan Republican agenda. She died at 94.

ARTS AND IDEAS

“A Strange Loop” is about a Black queer man’s self-perception in relation to his art.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

The Tony Awards

Yesterday, the Tony Awards announced nominees. The ceremony will be hosted by Ariana DeBose, who won an Academy Award for “West Side Story” this year.

Most-nominated: “A Strange Loop,” a Pulitzer-winning musical about an aspiring theater writer, written by Michael R. Jackson. The show earned 11 nominations, including best musical. Good luck finding tickets.

Awards for everyone! Of the 34 shows eligible for nominations, 29 received at least one nod, including the critically scorned “Diana.”

OK, not everyone: It’s not a real awards show unless somebody is snubbed. “Pass Over,” a well-reviewed play by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, was shut out. So were the married couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, who are in a popular revival of “Plaza Suite.” Daniel Craig didn’t score a nomination for his role in “Macbeth,” though his co-star, Ruth Negga, did.

How can I watch? The show, scheduled for June 12 at Radio City Music Hall, will feature two parts: an hourlong awards segment streamed on Paramount+, followed by a three-hour, performance-heavy show broadcast on CBS.

Here’s the list of nominees.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

The Tajín sauce on this grilled chicken is just as electric on fish or shrimp skewers.

What to Watch

“Chan is Missing,” a seminal 1982 neo-noir comedy set in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

What to Read

The essay collection “Tacky,” by Rax King, finds joy in the bad-taste era of Creed and frosted lip gloss. The critic Dwight Garner calls the book “ebullient.”

Late Night

The hosts discussed what Mark Esper said about Donald Trump.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was backyard. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and a clue: Dummy (five letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. The Times’s Andrea Elliott won a Pulitzer for her book about Dasani, a girl who grew up homeless in New York. (This newsletter has written about Andrea’s reporting.)

Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter incorrectly stated it was Victory Day in Europe. It was Victory Day only in Russia. (Victory Day in Europe was May 8.)

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about Victory Day. On “Popcast,” a decade of drill music.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 11, 2022

May 11, 2022

Good morning. What distinguishes the few Republicans willing to confront Donald Trump?

Kevin McCarthy, left, and Mitch McConnell at the White House last year.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Family ties

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, was so appalled by Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack that he signaled to colleagues shortly afterward that he was open to convicting Trump in an impeachment trial — and barring him from holding office again. A month later, however, McConnell voted to acquit him.

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, told colleagues in the days after Jan. 6 that he was going to call Trump and urge him to resign. But McCarthy soon changed his mind and instead told House members to stop criticizing Trump in public.

By now, this pattern is familiar. (It’s a central theme of “This Will Not Pass,” a new book about the end of Trump’s presidency, by my colleagues Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin, which broke the news of McCarthy’s comments.)

Many prominent Republicans have criticized Trump, sometimes in harsh terms, for fomenting violence, undermining democracy or making racist comments. Privately, these Republicans have been even harsher, saying they disdain Trump and want him gone from politics.

But they ultimately are unwilling to stand up to him. They believe that doing so will jeopardize their future in the Republican Party, given Trump’s continued popularity with the party’s voters. “Republican lawmakers fear that confronting Trump, or even saying in public how they actually feel about him, amounts to signing their political death warrant,” Jonathan Martin told me. “For most of them, it’s not more complicated than that.”

There have been only a few exceptions. If you follow politics, you can probably tick off the most prominent names: Liz Cheney, the House member from Wyoming; Mitt Romney, a senator representing Utah; and Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland.

All three of them happen to have something in common: They grew up around politics, as the children of nationally known officials.

A long-term view

Liz Cheney’s father, Dick, capped a long political career by serving as vice president, and her mother, Lynne, was a high-profile chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Mitt Romney’s father, George, was a presidential candidate, cabinet secretary and governor of Michigan. Larry Hogan’s father, Lawrence, was the only Republican on the House Judiciary Committee to vote for each article of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

Together, the three make up “a kind of shadow conscience of the party,” as Mark Leibovich, now an Atlantic writer, has put it.

Other than their stance on Trump, the three have many differences. They come from different political generations — Romney, who’s 75, has run for president twice, while Hogan, 65, and Cheney, 55, did not hold elected office until the past decade. They also have different ideologies. Cheney is deeply conservative on most policy questions, while Hogan is a moderate, and Romney is somewhere in between.

From left, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney and Larry Hogan.From left: Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times; Stephen Speranza for The New York Times; Andrew Mangum for The New York Times

If anything, these differences make their shared family histories more telling. All three are treating politics as involving something larger than the next election or their own career ambitions. They have a multigenerational view of the Republican Party and American democracy. They expect that both will be around after they have left the scene — as they have watched their parents experience.

That view has led all of them to prioritize their honest opinion about Trump over their career self-interest.

In Hogan’s case, the stance arguably brings little downside, because he governs a blue state and is barred from running for a third term. But Cheney has already lost her post as a Republican House leader and faces a primary challenge from a candidate both Trump and McCarthy support. Romney will likely face his own challenge in 2024.

“Unlike the bulk of their colleagues who are eager to remain in office, Romney and Cheney have decided continuing to serve in Congress is not worth the bargain of remaining silent about an individual they believe poses a threat to American democracy,” Jonathan told me. “They also can’t understand why Republican colleagues they respect don’t share their alarm.”

In an interview for Jonathan’s and Alex’s book, Cheney specifically mentions her disappointment with McConnell: “I think he’s completely misjudged the danger of this moment.”

Last night’s elections

Nebraska and West Virginia held primaries last night, and they produced a split decision for Trump’s preferred candidates.

In West Virginia, where redistricting forced two Republican House members to face each other, Alex Mooney beat David McKinley. Trump had endorsed Mooney.

McKinley had the support of both the Republican governor, Jim Justice, and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. McKinley had recently voted for President Biden’s infrastructure law and for the creation of a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission.

Mooney received 54 percent of the vote, to McKinley’s 36 percent.

In Nebraska’s Republican primary for governor, Jim Pillen, a University of Nebraska regent, won, with 33 percent of the vote, despite not having Trump’s support.

Trump instead backed Charles Herbster, an agribusiness executive who attended the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack; multiple women have accused Herbster of groping them. Herbster received 30 percent of the vote.

More in Politics

Steve Schmidt, a former aide to John McCain, apologized for lying to discredit a 2008 Times article about McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist.
For financial help and counsel, Hunter Biden has turned to a Hollywood lawyer.
Pentagon officials will testify about U.F.O.s before a House panel next week, the first such hearing in more than 50 years.
Elon Musk said he would reverse Twitter’s ban of Trump.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

Clearing remains of a Russian tank in Ukraine yesterday.David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Despite its stumbles, the Russian military has seized much of eastern Ukraine. It could soon control the Donbas region.
The House passed $40 billion more in aid for Ukraine, totaling about $53 billion over two months.
A leader of the punk protest band Pussy Riot escaped Russia, wearing a disguise.

U.S. Economy

Biden called bringing down inflation his “top domestic priority.” The government will release inflation figures this morning.
Some Fed officials are acknowledging that they responded too slowly to rapid price rises last year. Now they’re forced to constrain the economy more abruptly.
But for millions of Americans, these are boom times.
The Senate confirmed Lisa Cook as the first Black woman to serve as a Federal Reserve governor.

Other Big Stories

A shooting investigation in New Jersey in 2020.Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

Gun-related homicides in the U.S. reached their highest recorded number, rising 35 percent in 2020. The toll on young Black men was the worst.
Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist for Al Jazeera, was fatally shot in the West Bank during clashes between the Israeli military and Palestinians.
A shortage of baby formula in the U.S. has caused some parents to drive for hours in search of supplies.
A judge in Boston found the celebrity chef Mario Batali not guilty of groping a woman at a bar in 2017.
Tom Brady will join Fox Sports as its lead N.F.L. analyst after he retires.
In his 11th career start, Reid Detmers of the Angels threw a no-hitter against Tampa Bay.

Opinions

The F.D.A.’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes — which Big Tobacco has long targeted at Black people — is overdue, Keith Wailoo says.

“The human toll of this misinformation”: Amanda Makulec lost her baby. Antivaxxers falsely claimed Covid vaccines caused his death.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Elizabeth Olsen is now the Marvel actress with the most hours clocked.Rosie Marks for The New York Times

Wanda Maximoff: How Elizabeth Olsen came into her powers.

Farewell to the iPod: After 22 years, Apple is ending production.

Transition: More trans men are opting for phalloplasty, one of medicine’s most complex procedures.

Literature: Her novel was pulled for plagiarism. So was her explanation.

Advice from Wirecutter: Tips for organizing your closet.

Lives Lived: Alfred C. Baldwin III was the lookout for the Watergate break-in, tasked with warning the burglars if law enforcement was approaching. He later became a witness for the government. He died, at 83, in 2020, though the news only recently came to light.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2021.Clive Rose/Getty Images

F1 in America

Formula 1, an international motor-racing sport, attracts a global audience. Historically, its attempts to break through in the U.S., where NASCAR reigns supreme, haven’t been very successful — until now.

In 2017, Liberty Media, an American company, purchased Formula 1. Liberty executives saw it as “one of the few truly global sports, on the scale of FIFA or the Olympics, that could still capture a gigantic live audience,” Austin Carr writes in Bloomberg.

In the years since, the sport’s footprint in the U.S. has grown. The Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive,” which focuses on the drivers’ personalities, is among the most popular shows on the platform. The sport is adding new races in the U.S. — in Miami this year and Las Vegas next year — and viewership is higher than ever for ESPN’s broadcasts.

Before the Netflix show premiered in 2019, the driver Daniel Ricciardo said one or two fans would recognize him in the U.S. “At customs when I landed in the States, I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m an F1 driver,’ and they’d ask, ‘Is that like NASCAR?’ ” Ricciardo told Bloomberg. “After the first season, every day I was out somewhere someone would come up being like, ‘I saw you on that show!’”

For more: Take a 3-D tour of a Formula 1 car.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Mushroom stroganoff is a vegetarian version of the dish that is just as rich and decadent.

What to Watch

“Heartstopper” tells a heartwarming boy-meets-boy tale through live action and animation.

What to Read

“Either/Or,” Elif Batuman’s follow-up to “The Idiot,” follows the same character into her second year at Harvard.

Late Night

The hosts discussed Trump’s Twitter account.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was monoxide. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: 52 cards (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. Thousands of rail car factory workers in Chicago walked off the job 128 years ago today, beginning the Pullman Strike.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about abortion providers. On “The Argument,” a debate about Trump’s influence.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 12, 2022

May 12, 2022

Today, my colleague German Lopez looks at the latest inflation news and at why rising prices have such a big effect on the national mood. — David Leonhardt

Good morning. Inflation is still high — and many Americans are upset.

Grocery shopping in California.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times

Inflation anger

Americans are unhappy about the economy. They report less confidence in it than they did at the start of the Covid pandemic, when the unemployment rate was four times as high as it is now. Their feelings toward the economy are almost as low as they were during the depths of the Great Recession in 2008.

How is this possible, given that the unemployment rate is low and the economy has rapidly grown over the past two years? The culprit is what Americans describe as one of the most important problems today: high inflation.

Inflation stands out from other problems because it is so inescapable. Unlike unemployment, it affects everyone. And people encounter it every day — when they go to the grocery store, drive by a gas station or buy almost anything.

Inflation also contributes to a sense of powerlessness. Rising prices feel like something done to people rather than a problem they brought on themselves. Short of cutting their spending, individuals cannot do much about inflation.

And after decades of stagnant wages and salaries, inflation is yet another example of Americans’ livelihoods failing to keep up with the cost of living.

“People are so raw at this point, having lived through two years of Covid, that any new thing is going to make them upset and angry,” said George Loewenstein, a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University. “It just feels like it’s one thing after another.”

The problem is not getting much better. The government reported yesterday that prices rose 8.3 percent over the 12 months ending in April. High inflation has not persisted like this since four decades ago — at a time when Ronald Reagan was president, only two Star Wars movies had hit theaters and the internet did not exist.

Chart shows year-over-year percent change. | Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Inflation’s harms

When everything costs more, people make up for it by cutting back on spending — sometimes on essentials. “A lot of people are living close to the edge,” Loewenstein said. “So an uncontrollable increase in any aspect of your budget can be pretty disastrous.”

Some states have enacted tax cuts and other stimulus measures to provide relief against rising prices. But those approaches can actually make inflation worse, by fueling more spending and demand.

Rising prices are a sign of an economy running too hot — too much spending resulting in too much demand for a limited supply. Policymakers can prevent this by deliberately slowing down the economy; they can raise interest rates (increasing the cost of borrowing money), hike taxes or cut budgets.

The Federal Reserve has increased interest rates. The central bank’s chair, Jerome Powell, said he is aiming for a “soft landing” — essentially, avoiding going too far and causing a recession — but there is no guarantee that he will succeed. In the 1980s, the Fed tanked the economy to put down stubbornly high inflation.

Some economists worry that America is now heading down a similar path. Inflation came down in April compared with a 40-year high in March, but it is still high. And April’s rate was higher than some experts expected. That could push policymakers to get more aggressive — and increase the risk of a future recession.

For more

Food prices have increased 17 months in a row.
Republicans are railing against inflation, but supporting policies that could make it worse, Peter Coy argues in Times Opinion.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

A damaged home in Vilkhivka, Ukraine.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Vicious close-range battles are playing out in eastern Ukraine, The Times’s Michael Schwirtz and Lynsey Addario report from the front line.
The E.U. again failed to agree on an embargo of Russian oil. Hungary’s leader, an ally of Vladimir Putin, blocked the effort.
Finland wants to join NATO, moving away from a history of military nonalignment. (What is NATO?)

Politics

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Capitol Hill yesterday.Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to protect abortion rights. Two moderate Republicans had proposed a narrower bill.
A Florida judge said he would block Gov. Ron DeSantis’s new congressional map, saying it would hurt Black voters.
A New York State judge released Donald Trump from a contempt order, but threatened to reinstate it if Trump did not pay a $110,000 fine.
A Trump-allied lawyer urged a Pennsylvania lawmaker to throw out votes for Joe Biden shortly after the 2020 election.
Across the country, Democrats are worried about electability.

Other Big Stories

U.S. deaths from overdoses, most of which are caused by fentanyl or meth, set another record in 2021.
More than 500 Native American children died at mandatory government-run schools from 1819 to 1969, an inquiry found.
Families of victims from last year’s condominium collapse in Surfside, Fla., reached a nearly $1 billion settlement.
North Korea ordered a nationwide lockdown over what it called its first Covid outbreak. North Koreans are unvaccinated.
The Hong Kong police arrested three prominent activists, including a former bishop, for their work with a legal aid organization that helped protesters.

Opinions

Many patients want experimental treatments, but drug companies hesitate to give them access. There’s a better way, Dr. Daniela Lamas argues.

The West needs a strategy that guarantees Russia will end up worse off than before it invaded Ukraine, Nigel Gould-Davies writes.

Conservatives who want to constrain women’s sexual activity won’t stop with Roe v. Wade, Gail Collins says.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

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MORNING READS

Across the political spectrum, people have embraced George Carlin.Illustration by Edmon de Haro; Mark Junge/Getty Images

Provocative: The strange afterlife of George Carlin.

Out there: Has the Milky Way’s black hole come to light?

Crypto: Bitcoin is increasingly acting like just another tech stock.

Nuptials: Wedding crashers welcome!

Calorie-tracking: A writer lost his pandemic weight, but it didn’t mean winning.

A Times classic: Learn to can jam.

Lives Lived: As a columnist for Time and U.S. News & World Report, John Leo was often labeled a libertarian and a conservative. He saw himself as a social skeptic, in the mode of Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken. Leo died at 86.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The “da Vinci” Stradivarius, from 1714.Andrew White for The New York Times

A rare Stradivarius

For the first time in decades, a Stradivarius from the early 1700s — considered the “golden period” of violin making — will be up for auction.

The Stradivarius, known as the da Vinci, was the instrument of choice for Toscha Seidel, who bought it for $25,000 in 1924. (The sale made the front page of The Times.) Seidel was quite famous: He had a weekly broadcast on CBS in the 1930s, and he gave lessons to Albert Einstein. He played the da Vinci on some celebrated film scores, including “The Wizard of Oz.”

Seidel, who died in 1962, treasured the violin and said he wouldn’t trade it “for a million dollars.” When the auction ends next month, it could fetch as much as $20 million.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Donna Hay.

Carne asada fries, French fries topped with the fillings of a steak taco, are a California-Mexican classic.

What to Listen to

The singer-songwriter Ethel Cain wants to be a different kind of pop star. She’s doing it from rural Alabama.

What to Read

Joshua Cohen’s novel “The Netanyahus” and other 2022 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists.

Late Night

Jimmy Kimmel discussed the blocking of an abortion rights bill.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was chapping. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tourist ___ (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. Jim Dao, The Times’s Metro editor, is leaving to become the editorial page editor of The Boston Globe. We will miss him.

Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about inflation. “Sway” is about CNN+. On “Popcast,” why we collect.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 13, 2022

May 13, 2022

Good morning. The baby formula shortage highlights four larger problems with the U.S. economy.

Ashley Aguirre, 20, feeding her son.Kaylee Greenlee for The New York Times

‘Really scary’

Is my baby getting enough food? It is a typical fear among new parents — and an acute one now, because of a national shortage of baby formula.

A potential bacteria outbreak led to the February shutdown of a Michigan factory that makes Similac formula, and the plant still has not reopened. Its closure has aggravated shortages created by broader pandemic supply-chain problems. Last week, stores stocked about 43 percent less baby formula than usual.

“It gets really scary,” Carrie Fleming, who lives near Birmingham, Ala., told The Times. Her 3-month-old daughter, Lennix, can tolerate only one brand of formula, and Fleming could not find it anywhere near her. She finally located four small cans in New York — for $245.

In Oceanside, Calif., north of San Diego, Darice Browning was recently despondent after failing to find formula for her 10-month-old daughter, Octavia, who cannot eat solid foods. “I was freaking out, crying on the floor and my husband, Lane, came home from work and he’s like, ‘What’s wrong?’” Browning said, “and I’m like, ‘Dude, I can’t feed our kids, I don’t know what to do.’”

For many families, baby formula is a necessity. Some babies cannot drink breast milk — or enough of it to stay healthy — while many lower-income mothers work hourly jobs that do not provide time to breastfeed.

As my colleague Amanda Morris, who has been reporting on the shortage, says: “Most of the parents I spoke with around the country who were feeling the impact of this the hardest were ones that either had limited resources or time, or ones whose babies had allergies or disabilities that severely limited their choices.”

F.D.A. officials say they are trying to alleviate the crisis. Some members of Congress — including Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, and Senator Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican — say the federal government needs to do more.

In addition to being an urgent problem for families, the shortage highlights four larger problems within the U.S. economy. Today’s newsletter focuses on them.

1. The ‘everything shortage’

The pandemic has created shortages for many goods, including cars, semiconductors and furniture.

The main reasons: Factories and ports are coping with virus outbreaks and worker shortages at the same time that consumer demand for physical goods has surged, because of government stimulus programs and a shift away from spending on services (like restaurant meals). As a result, much of the global supply chain is overloaded.

The baby formula industry was already coping with these issues before an Abbott Nutrition factory in Sturgis, Mich., shut down. The company shut the factory after four babies — all of whom had drunk formula made there — contracted a rare bacterial infection; two of the babies died. It remains unclear whether the formula caused the infections.

Because sales of baby formula do not fluctuate much in normal times, factories generally lack the ability to accelerate production quickly, Rudi Leuschner, a supply-chain expert at Rutgers University, said. As a result, other factories have not been able to make up for the Sturgis shutdown.

2. Big business

The baby formula business has something in common with many other U.S. industries: It is highly concentrated.

Three companies — Abbott, Gerber and Reckitt — make nearly all of the formula that Americans use. Abbott is the largest of the three, with roughly 40 percent of the market.

A baby formula display shelf in San Diego.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

Over the past few decades, this kind of corporate concentration has become more common in the U.S. economy, and it tends to be very good for companies. They face less competition, allowing them to keep prices higher and wages lower. Thomas Philippon, an economist at N.Y.U., refers to this trend as “the great reversal.” The subtitle of his 2019 book on the subject is “How America Gave Up on Free Markets.”

For workers and consumers, concentration is often problematic. The baby-formula shortage is the latest example. If the market had more producers, a problem at any one of them might not be such a big deal. It’s even possible the problem would not happen at all.

“Abbott does not fear consumers will flee,” Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, which advocates less concentration, told me. “And it does not fear government, which has a pathetic track record when it comes to holding powerful corporations and executives accountable.” (The Times has profiled Miller and her work.)

3. Big bureaucracy

Even as the industry seems to be under-regulated in some crucial ways, it may be overregulated in other, superficial ways.

This newsletter has covered ways that the F.D.A.’s bureaucratic inflexibility has hampered its Covid policy, and baby formula turns out to be another case study.

Many formulas sold in Europe exceed the F.D.A.’s nutritional standards, but they are banned from being sold here, often because of technicalities, like labeling, Derek Thompson of The Atlantic has noted. Donald Trump exacerbated the situation with a trade policy that made it harder to import formula from Canada. These policies benefit American formula makers, at the expense of families.

The inflexibility of American regulatory and trade policy, Thompson wrote, “might be the most important part of the story.”

4. The gerontocracy

The U.S. has long put a higher priority on taking care of the elderly than taking care of young families.

Americans over 65 receive universal health insurance (Medicare), and most receive a regular government check (Social Security). Many children, by contrast, live in poverty. Relative to other affluent countries, the U.S. spends a notably small share of its budget on children; President Biden’s stalled Build Back Better plan aimed to change this, Urban Institute researchers have pointed out.

Alyssa Rosenberg, a Washington Post columnist, argues that the formula shortage is part of this story. “Babies and their well-being have never been much of a priority in the United States,” Rosenberg wrote this week. “But an alarming shortage of infant formula — and the lack of a national mobilization to keep babies fed — provides a new measure of how deeply that indifference runs.”

In her column, Rosenberg suggests the creation of a national stockpile, as exists for some other crucial resources, to prevent future shortages.

For more: The Times’s Well has a guide for parents searching for formula, and Politico’s Helena Bottemiller Evich has offered tips on Twitter.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

A funeral for a Ukrainian soldier yesterday.David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Ukraine’s ability to win largely depends on how many powerful weapons the West can provide.
Vladimir Putin is against NATO expansion. Instead, Finland (which borders Russia) wants to join, and Sweden may be next.
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, delayed a bipartisan effort to send $40 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Children are paying a heavy price, with millions displaced and schools in disarray.
Russia is attacking Ukraine’s hospitals, this Times Opinion video shows.

Politics

Kevin McCarthy on Capitol Hill yesterday.Tom Brenner for The New York Times

The Jan 6. committee subpoenaed Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, and four of his colleagues.
The Senate confirmed Jerome Powell for a second term as the Federal Reserve chair.
Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate Democrat, once seemed like the front-runner in Pennsylvania’s Senate race. Now, he’s trailing by double digits.
The looming loss of abortion rights has re-energized the Democratic Party’s left flank, and put anti-abortion members on the defensive.

Other Big Stories

At least 11 people died, and 31 others were rescued, after a boat carrying migrants capsized near Puerto Rico.
North Korea says Covid has been spreading “explosively” in the country.
Cryptocurrency prices collapsed this week. Some traders are comparing it to the start of the 2008 financial crisis.
Here’s how two Florida middle schoolers ended up in a police shootout.
The winner of the Kentucky Derby, Rich Strike, will skip the Preakness, forgoing the chance to win a Triple Crown.

Opinions

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a culture warrior without Trump’s baggage, is the new Republican Party, Rich Lowry argues.

The pandemic has left college students disengaged, Jonathan Malesic writes.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Helicopters vs. homeowners: A very Hamptons fight.

Surgery: Butt lifts are booming. Recovery is no joke.

The promoter: Jake Paul helped bring women’s boxing to new heights. Yes, that Jake Paul.

A Times classic: Inside one boy’s magnificent mind.

Advice from Wirecutter: How to pack for a national park.

Lives Lived: Susan Nussbaum began using a wheelchair after she was hit by a car at 24. She became an integral part of Chicago’s disability-rights scene, and an acclaimed playwright and novelist. She died at 68.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Ukraine’s delegation, The Kalush Orchestra.Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times

Eyes on Eurovision

About 200 million people are expected to tune in tomorrow to the finals of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Here’s how to watch from the U.S.

The favorite: Oddsmakers say it’s Ukraine, largely because of popular support for the country. The band Kalush Orchestra will perform “Stefania,” a combination of folk music and hip-hop. Ukraine has won the competition twice in the past 20 years. Russia and its ally Belarus are barred.

The reward: The winning act receives no money, only a trophy — and its country hosts the event the following year. Fame doesn’t necessarily follow, though past winners include Abba (in 1974) and Celine Dion (representing Switzerland in 1988.)

Standout lyrics: Norway will sing, “And before that wolf eats my grandma / give that wolf a banana,” and Serbia’s entry asks, “What is the secret of Meghan Markle’s hair?” Latvia’s song about being environmentally friendly, “Eat Your Salad,” didn’t make it to tomorrow’s finale.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Bryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne

Pistachios add color and crunch to this bucatini.

What to Watch

Four children develop unusual abilities in “The Innocents,” a wonderfully eerie Norwegian horror movie.

What to Read

In “Nasty, Brutish, and Short,” Scott Hershovitz takes readers on a tour of philosophy, based on conversations with his two sons.

Take the News quiz

Test your knowledge of this week’s headlines.

Late Night

The hosts discussed North Korea’s reported Covid outbreak.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was injected. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Party thrower (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. Elisabeth Goodridge, The Times’s deputy travel editor, will study travel reporting in an era of climate change as a 2023 Nieman fellow at Harvard.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about America’s Covid death toll. “The Ezra Klein Show” features Patrick Deneen. “Still Processing” is about Keanu Reeves.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 14, 2022

May 14, 2022

By Melissa Kirsch

Good morning. Fill your cultural calendar with Pulitzer winners, piano bars and 24 ways to make eggs.

Kate Dehler

Make plans

When “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’s adaptation of “Hamlet” set in the American South, debuted last year as a streaming-only production from Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater, my colleague Jesse Green lauded it as “the rare takeoff that actually takes off.” This week, “Fat Ham” won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and began in-person performances at New York’s Public Theater.

Until I get to see it, I’m listening to the companion playlist Ijames and the play’s director, Saheem Ali, have curated on Spotify; it includes selections from Emily King, Radiohead and Joan Armatrading. Why not make it the soundtrack for your week?

Another contender: Kevin Morby’s “This Is a Photograph.” Grayson Haver Currin deems it “a confident 45-minute sashay through vulnerable devotionals and existential reflections, tuneful folk and handclap soul.” Or make it Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti,” and keep it on repeat all summer.

You could also just stick with a Pulitzer theme and cue up Kendrick Lamar’s new album, his first in five years. (He won the Pulitzer for music in 2018.) Then listen to the poet Ada Limón sharing a work by this year’s winner in poetry, Diane Seuss, and check out Limón’s new collection, “The Hurting Kind.”

This weekend I’m willing spring weather to stop its flirting and commit. Wherever you are, whatever the season, I hope you’ll be able to get outside, to check out what’s happening. In Detroit, there’s a new production of Anthony Davis’s first opera, “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.” In Las Vegas, Lauryn Hill, Usher and TLC headline the Lovers & Friends festival. There’s a grilled cheese festival in Sacramento. A three-week arts festival in Brussels. In New York, there’s a piano bar revival underway. (The song that makes the whole room go wild? Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles.”)

You could think about planning a trip for the coming months. Perhaps a storied resort in Mexico? A nightlife tour of Ibiza? Have a look at what’s new in Rome. And in outer space. Or stay right where you are, make breakfast for dinner with one of our 24 egg recipes (Melissa Clark chose a favorite below) and take in a dreamy depiction of Ireland in Sally Rooney’s “Conversations with Friends,” debuting Sunday on Hulu.

What do you have planned for the weekend? Tell me about it.

For More

Here’s the full list of Pulitzer winners and a guide to the winners and finalists in books.
Ada Limòn is a full-time poet. Read and listen to some of her work.
Previously in our What’s New travel series: London and Manhattan.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Michael Che.Andre D. Wagner for The New York Times

Michael Che is contemplating his future at “Saturday Night Live.”
Netflix could add ads by the end of the year. And its first Netflix Is a Joke Fest blanketed Los Angeles with 298 shows.
Creating a TV version of the Sally Rooney novel “Conversation With Friends” was complicated for showrunners.
After recent physical attacks, comics are asking whether the stage is safe.
Apple is ending production of the iPod. It was iconic.
Everything is a trend, so nothing is, Terry Nguyen writes at Vox.
A new crop of campus satires explores — and lampoons — privilege and identity.
Ernie Barnes’s painting “The Sugar Shack,” which was on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s album “I Want You,” sold for $15.3 million at auction.
The Broadway musical “Mrs. Doubtfire” will close this month.
The Guggenheim removed the Sackler name from an education center over the family’s ties to the opioid crisis.

THE LATEST NEWS

Ukrainian mechanics repaired a tank in Kharkiv yesterday.Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops farther from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Follow our updates.
Britain imposed sanctions on people close to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, puncturing the secrecy surrounding his personal life.
After soaring for years, stock market prices have fallen for weeks.
The end of Roe v. Wade could backfire for Republicans.
Israeli police officers attacked mourners at the funeral procession of a slain Palestinian American journalist.
Elon Musk said his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter was on hold.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.

By Melissa Clark

Gyeran bap (egg rice)

A few days of sustained glorious weather in New York gave me a bad case of spring fever, making me want to spend all my time outside, and not, as is more often the case, in the kitchen. This is when eggs come to the rescue. Not only are they a symbol of springtime, they’re also quick, easy to cook and so versatile, as the latest special package from New York Times Cooking, a celebration of eggs, proves. Take, for example, Eric Kim’s smart gyeran bap (egg rice). At the center of this Korean pantry meal are two brown-butter-fried eggs, basted with sesame oil and soy sauce that condense and caramelize. He suggests plopping the puffy-edged eggs onto hot rice and topping with gim (roasted, seasoned seaweed). But I also like to slide them onto buttered toast, then eat them out of hand outside on the stoop, while I still can.

REAL ESTATE

Clockwise from left: Chris Fox/Curb Appeal Visuals; Open Homes Photography for Sotheby’s International Realty; Home Sweet Home Productions for Bascon Group Real Estate

What you get for $1 million in California: a storybook house in Fullerton, a midcentury ranch in Calistoga or a condo in Los Angeles.

The hunt: They wanted a Hamptons house with investment potential. Which home did they choose? Play our game.

Staying in the Hamptons: Now that vacationers are in the Hamptons year round, businesses are, too. A lack of inventory has made it a tough real estate market. But one interior designer went on a mission to save midcentury homes.

LIVING

Illustration by Nicolas Ortega; Photograph by Getty Images

The inner lives of dogs: Here’s what they really want.

Snoring problem?: This might help.

Beyond the châteaux: New experiences in France’s Loire Valley are grounded in nature, food and art.

Pounding the pavement: Getting back into running is easier than you think.

GAME OF THE WEEKEND

Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks drives past Chris Paul of Phoenix in Game 6 of their playoff series.Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

Dallas Mavericks vs. Phoenix Suns, N.B.A. playoffs: The Suns had the N.B.A.’s best record this season. It seemed as if their veteran point guard, Chris Paul, might finally get a championship. Then they ran into Luka Doncic. The Mavericks’ 23-year-old superstar is so good that it sometimes looks like he’s taking on the other team by himself. The Suns haven’t figured out a way to stop Doncic; they’ve got one more chance. Game 7 is 8 p.m. Eastern on Sunday on TNT.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was wedlock. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

Here’s today’s Wordle. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Before You Go …

Design some abstract gifs.
Check out the video for Sharon Van Etten’s “Mistakes.”

Construct your ideal cat purr.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 15, 2022

May 15, 2022

By The New York Times

Good morning. A massacre at a Buffalo supermarket was the deadliest in the U.S. this year.

The Tops supermarket in Buffalo.Joshua Bessex/Associated Press

Bodies ‘everywhere’

A gunman embracing a white supremacist ideology opened fire yesterday afternoon at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, killing 10 people and wounding three more. The mass shooting was the deadliest in the United States this year and among a spate of racist attacks in recent years.

The suspect, Payton S. Gendron, 18, had driven more than 200 miles to stage the attack, and he livestreamed it as he fired at shoppers and store employees. He was arrested at the store and pleaded not guilty in a brief court appearance.

Around the same time, a manifesto attributed to him appeared online, repeatedly invoking the racist idea that white Americans were at risk of being replaced by people of color. The view is known as “replacement theory” and was once linked to the far-right fringe, but it has become increasingly mainstream.

Among the victims were a security guard and an 86-year-old mother of four who had stopped at the store on her way home from visiting her husband at the nursing home where he lives.

How the shooting unfolded

Around 2:30 p.m., as shoppers filled the Tops supermarket, the suspect arrived wearing body armor, tactical gear and a helmet with a video camera attached. He carried an assault rifle with an anti-Black slur written on the barrel and began firing in the parking lot. Three victims were killed outside, and one was wounded.

Then the suspect went inside the store to continue his attack, briefly exchanging fire with the security guard before killing him. He went on to stalk victims throughout the store; “bodies were everywhere,” one witness said.

Shonnell Harris, a store manager, told The Buffalo News that she heard an estimated 70 shots and ran through the Tops, repeatedly falling down before escaping out back.

The gunman eventually returned to the front of the store. By then, the police had arrived, and he briefly put a gun to his neck before he began removing tactical gear as a form of surrender and the police tackled him.

Residents prayed near the store.Malik Rainey for The New York Times

The victims

Of the 13 people who were shot, 11 were Black and two were white. Four worked at the Tops grocery. Few have been publicly identified.

The security guard who was killed was a former police officer — “a hero in our eyes,” said Joseph A. Gramaglia, the Buffalo police commissioner.

Ruth Whitfield, 86, was a mother of four and “a mother to the motherless,” her son told The News. Her husband had moved into a nursing home years ago and she still visited every day. She had just visited him when she stopped at Tops to get something to eat, WGRZ reported.

The suspect

The attack appeared to be inspired by earlier mass shootings motivated by racial hatred, including a 2019 mosque shooting in New Zealand and a massacre at a Texas Walmart that same year, according to the manifesto.

In chilling detail, the document outlined a plan to kill as many Black people as possible, including the type of gun to use, a timeline, a specific parking spot and where to eat ahead of time.

Gendron wrote that he chose the area of the supermarket because it was home to the largest percentage of Black residents near his home in New York’s largely white Southern Tier. The police had surrounded his home outside Binghamton, N.Y., overnight.

“It was a straight up racially motivated hate crime,” said John Garcia, the local sheriff.

Federal law enforcement officials said they were investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The next court proceeding was set for Thursday.

For More

What we know about how the shooting happened.
“This is our store”: Witnesses described the scene.
Churches in Buffalo planned prayer services today.
At least 17 people were wounded in a shooting in Milwaukee.
Follow our updates.

NEWS

The Virus

The New York Times devoted its front page today to the American death toll from Covid.

This is how the U.S. lost one million people.
Many of the Covid victims’ loved ones are grieving in a nation that wants to move on.

The Ukraine War

NATO is on the brink of its largest expansion in two decades. Russia lashed out in response.
Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans made an unannounced visit to Ukraine.
Germans are divided about whether the authorities should go after wealthy Russians’ villas around an Alpine lake.

Other Big Stories

India banned most wheat exports over concerns that a heat wave would hurt its harvest. It could worsen a worldwide shortfall.
Thousands of protesters in U.S. cities marched for abortion rights.
John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, uses a shorts-and-hoodie image to connect with voters in the Democratic Senate primary.
London’s new subway line is three years late but offers a “wow factor” of vast stations and roomy trains.
“Saturday Night Live” tackled the court case between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

FROM OPINION

Amy Coney Barrett once said justices should not “impose their will on the world.” Now she is doing just that, Maureen Dowd writes.
A long-term Ukraine strategy that requires bipartisan U.S. support might be unwise, Ross Douthat writes.
Dr. Oz’s Senate run is testing the political value of celebrity, Michelle Cottle writes.
Let actors play roles outside their real-life identities, Pamela Paul argues.

The Sunday question: Are high prices here to stay?

Supply-chain issues and consumer demand for goods seem to be easing, says Bloomberg Opinion’s Conor Sen, and interest-rate hikes will help slow inflation. But Harvard’s Jason Furman notes that price increases are spreading to services like restaurant dining and could stay high for a while.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Jane Lynch, center, with fans.Natalie Keyssar for The New York Times

Sunday Routine: The actress Jane Lynch loves strolls in Central Park and spicy salmon rolls.

Hottest ticket: N.Y.U.’s latest honorary grad? Taylor Swift.

Thriving underground: Tattoos are outlawed in South Korea, but they’re in fashion.

A Times classic: You don’t need a recipe.

Advice from Wirecutter: Don’t use too much dish soap.

BOOKS

Rebecca Clarke

By the Book: The next book on Selma Blair’s list is “Stoner,” recommended by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Our editors’ picks: “Trust,” by Hernan Diaz, is an exhilarating novel that explores the unchecked rise of a financier in the early 20th century, and 11 other books.

Times best sellers: Catherine Belton’s “Putin’s People” and Walter Isaacson’s “The Code Breaker” are paperback nonfiction best-sellers. See all our lists here.

The Book Review podcast: John Waters discusses his first novel.

THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE

Catera Northup had liposuction and a Brazilian butt lift.Naila Ruechel for The New York Times

It’s the magazine’s health issue, all about body modifications. Brazilian butt lifts are everywhere. But the recovery process is extremely painful, as documented in this photo essay.

Learn more about phalloplasty — a complex and controversial surgery to make a penis, which is popular with trans men. Can cosmetic surgery be a feminist act? And read one man’s account of using a dieting app. Beyond the body, meet the man who controls computers with his mind.

THE WEEK AHEAD

What to Watch For

Sweden is expected to announce its decision to apply for NATO membership today.
Congress is expected to pass a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine this week.
Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Oregon will hold primary elections on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the House intelligence committee will hold the first public hearing on U.F.O.s in more than half a century.
President Biden will travel to Japan and South Korea at the end of the week.
A neutral expert is set to present new congressional maps for New York this week, after Democrats’ maps were thrown out in court.
Australia will hold elections on Saturday. Polls suggest Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s party is likely to lose power.
The Cannes Film Festival begins this week. “Top Gun: Maverick” will premiere 36 years after the original. Here’s what else is playing.
The year’s first total lunar eclipse will make the moon appear red for much of the U.S. tonight.

What to Cook This Week

Sang An for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks.

Eggs aren’t just for breakfast, or weekends, as Emily Weinstein notes. A few options for dinner: huevos rancheros, plantains with jammy tomatoes and eggs or pasta with mushrooms, fried eggs and herbs.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Andrew Dore

Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:

5 Down: Character seen on a keyboard.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 17, 2022

May 16, 2022

Continue reading the main story

SUPPORTED BY

Good morning. We offer an update on the second phase of the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops in the frontline town of Barinkove.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Putin’s new problems

The first phase of the war in Ukraine was largely a failure for Russia. The second phase is not going very well so far either.

After failing to capture Kyiv and oust Ukraine’s government, Vladimir Putin and his advisers turned to a less ambitious goal. They are trying to capture the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Russian troops do control large parts of Donbas and have made some recent progress. But it has been modest, and Ukraine has also retaken some strategically important territory.

“Russia’s Donbas offensive has certainly not been as dramatic in terms of gains as we thought it might be,” Michael Schwirtz, a Times correspondent who has been covering the war from the front lines in Ukraine, told me.

Today’s newsletter reviews the evidence of Russia’s recent failures and explains why Russian forces could nonetheless make more progress in coming weeks. Before doing so, I want to spend a moment on basic geography, which I find helpful to making sense of the war.

Putin is trying to dominate a crescent of land that stretches from the easternmost part of Ukraine, on the Russian border, to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Much of the eastern section is known as the Donbas region and includes two provinces (or oblasts), Donetsk and Luhansk. If you can remember the information in this one paragraph, you’ll have an easier time following analysis of the war.

By The New York Times

‘Limited at best’

Here’s a partial rundown of Russia’s struggles:

Russian troops have not taken control of any major cities in the Donbas region that they did not already control in February, at the start of the invasion, my colleague Julian Barnes notes. “Russian morale remains bad,” Julian says. “The casualties are bad.”
British officials made a stunning announcement yesterday: Russia appears to have lost about one-third of the troops it has sent to Ukraine. The officials also said Russia’s Donbas push had “lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule.”
One recent battle was so deadly for Russia that it has led to criticism from pro-Russia bloggers.
“The Russian military has not yet achieved Putin’s stated territorial objectives of securing all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and is unlikely to do so,” Katherine Lawlor and Mason Clark of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington wrote on Friday. Yaroslav Trofimov of The Wall Street Journal has made similar points.
My colleague Michael Schwirtz noted that, until two weeks ago, he had not seen an aircraft in the sky for more than a month. But he has since seen several fighter planes and attack helicopters, all evidently Ukrainian. Russia’s inability to control the air is hampering its ability to advance.
Avril Haines, the U.S. director of intelligence, told Congress last week that Russia was “increasingly unlikely” to meet its territorial goals in the coming weeks.

Putin’s edge

In the first phase of the war, Russian troops spread themselves too thinly across Ukraine as they tried to capture much of the country. Russian supply lines often could not keep up with their fighting units, and Ukraine’s military took advantage, surprising much of the world by repelling Russia’s advance.

“The Russians have since changed strategy,” Julian said. “They are moving much slower.”

Russia is effectively trying to win a war of attrition, gaining a small amount of territory each week and ultimately controlling all of the east. Putin could then try to reach a negotiated settlement that allows him to annex parts of eastern Ukraine. Many Ukrainians, as well as their staunchest allies in the West, fear that the U.S. and E.U. might accept such a settlement.

Putin’s biggest advantage remains his edge in resources: Russia has more soldiers and more military equipment than Ukraine. The West has narrowed this advantage by sending weapons to Ukraine, but Russia has destroyed some of that equipment in the fighting. One example: Some analysts believe Ukraine may be running low on Turkish-made drones that have been effective in attacking Russian troops.

That’s why Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, continues to plead with the West for more weapons. President Biden and leaders of both parties in Congress support a $40 billion package that the House has passed and the Senate seems likely to pass soon. Much of Europe has also aligned itself strongly with Ukraine; Sweden and Finland have moved in recent days to join NATO.

Still, Putin’s new go-slow strategy could succeed, especially if the West ultimately tires of helping Ukraine. In the U.S., many Trump-friendly Republicans are already skeptical of the war: Tucker Carlson makes this case on his Fox News show, and 57 House Republicans voted against the $40 billion aid package.

On the other hand, Russia faces its own domestic challenges: Sanctions are damaging its economy, and the industrial sector — which cannot easily import parts — is struggling to make enough precision weapons, Julian said.

Russia is also running low on troops who are available to fight. Putin could increase these numbers by instituting a draft. But doing so would require him to acknowledge that the war in Ukraine is, in fact, a war rather than the modest operation he has portrayed it as — probably because he knows public support is soft.

“As it stands, Russian options are shrinking,” Michael Kofman of CNA, a Washington research group, wrote recently. “The more they drag their feet, the further their ability to sustain the war deteriorates, and the worse their subsequent options.”

For now, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, a top U.S. intelligence official, told Congress, “the Russians aren’t winning, and the Ukrainians aren’t winning.”

Related: Even if Russia continues to struggle, the West’s endgame is not so simple, Ross Douthat of Times Opinion explains.


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THE LATEST NEWS

Buffalo Shooting

A memorial outside the Tops Market in Buffalo on Sunday.Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times

The Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect had a history of violent threats, and received a mental health evaluation last year.
Officials released the full list of victims. Celestine Chaney, 65, had gone to the store with her sister to get strawberries for shortcakes.
Some right-wing politicians have helped promote “replacement theory,” the racist ideology espoused by the gunman.

Other Big Stories

John Fetterman, a leading Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, had a stroke and is recovering. The primary election is tomorrow.

A gunman killed one person and wounded four others at a Southern California church, before congregants overpowered him and tied him up.
Australia’s Covid death rate is one-tenth that of the U.S. High levels of trust, in both the government and fellow citizens, are a reason for that success.
Two elimination games in the N.B.A. playoffs: The Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks, last year’s champions. And the Dallas Mavericks upset the Phoenix Suns.

Opinions

The next generation of vaccines must block not just severe Covid but also infections, to keep the virus from disrupting life, Akiko Iwasaki writes.

To help the environment, rewild your yard, says Margaret Renkl.

Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss gun control and conspiracies.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Sister Monica Clare of the Community of St. John Baptist in New Jersey.Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times

#ConventLife: Nuns are joining TikTok. “We’re not all grim old ladies reading the Bible.”

Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.4. Can you beat it?

A Times classic: The reality behind “Below Deck.”

Advice from Wirecutter: Keep your smartphone data secure.

Metropolitan Diary: Mom’s last wish: Sprinkle my ashes on Fifth Avenue.

Lives Lived: Katsumoto Saotome lived through the American firebombing of Tokyo during World War II, and worked to preserve the memories of other survivors. He died at 90.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Nimarta Narang left Los Angeles for New York City.Kholood Eid for The New York Times

Who needs savings?

Many adults under 35 are throwing financial caution to the wind, Anna P. Kambhampaty reports in The Times. Discouraged about the future — given climate change, Covid, war and more — this group is saving less and pursuing passion projects or risky careers.

There are some historical analogies here. During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war shaped young people’s plans. And during the 2008 financial crisis, saving for a home felt useless for many people. “If you have an apocalyptic vision of the future, why would you save for it?” a financial psychologist said.

Hannah Jones, a standup comic in Denver, put it this way: “I’m not going to deprive myself some of the comforts of life now for a future that feels like it could be ripped away from me at any moment.”


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PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Crispy grains and halloumi are a delicious vegetarian sheet-pan meal.

World Through a Lens

Get an intimate look at Mexico’s Indigenous Seri people in this photo essay.

What to Read

“Chums” depicts Boris Johnson and other future politicians when they were misbehaving Oxford students, plotting their rise to power.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was meditative. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and a clue: Guitar hookup (three letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. The Pentagon’s press secretary praised a Pulitzer-winning Times investigation into U.S. airstrikes, saying a free press should hold the government to account.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about the racist theory fueling mass shootings.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 17, 2022

May 17, 2022

Good morning. The Buffalo killings are part of a pattern: Most extremist violence in the U.S. comes from the political right.

A memorial for the Buffalo shooting victims.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

‘Numbers don’t lie’

Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by political extremists.

Of these 450 killings, right-wing extremists committed about 75 percent. Islamic extremists were responsible for about 20 percent, and left-wing extremists were responsible for 4 percent.

Nearly half of the murders were specifically tied to white supremacists:

Source: Anti-Defamation League

As this data shows, the American political right has a violence problem that has no equivalent on the left. And the 10 victims in Buffalo this past weekend are now part of this toll. “Right-wing extremist violence is our biggest threat,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, has written. “The numbers don’t lie.”

The pattern extends to violence less severe than murder, like the Jan. 6 attack on Congress. It also extends to the language from some Republican politicians — including Donald Trump — and conservative media figures that treats violence as a legitimate form of political expression. A much larger number of Republican officials do not use this language but also do not denounce it or punish politicians who do use it; Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, is a leading example.

It’s important to emphasize that not all extremist violence comes from the right — and that the precise explanation for any one attack can be murky, involving a mixture of ideology, mental illness, gun access and more. In the immediate aftermath of an attack, people are sometimes too quick to claim a direct cause and effect. But it is also incorrect to pretend that right-wing violence and left-wing violence are equivalent problems.

Fears in Washington

If you talk to members of Congress and their aides these days — especially off the record — you will often hear them mention their fears of violence being committed against them.

Some Republican members of Congress have said that they were reluctant to vote for Trump’s impeachment or conviction partly because of the threats against other members who had already denounced him. House Republicans who voted for President Biden’s infrastructure bill also received threats. Democrats say their offices receive a spike in phone calls and online messages threatening violence after they are criticized on conservative social media or cable television shows.

People who oversee elections report similar problems. “One in six election officials have experienced threats because of their job,” the Brennan Center, a research group, reported this year. “Ranging from death threats that name officials’ young children to racist and gendered harassment, these attacks have forced election officials across the country to take steps like hiring personal security, fleeing their homes, and putting their children into counseling.”

There is often overlap between these violent threats and white supremacist beliefs. White supremacy tends to treat people of color as un-American or even less than fully human, views that can make violence seem justifiable. The suspect in the Buffalo massacre evidently posted an online manifesto that discussed replacement theory, a racial conspiracy theory that Tucker Carlson promotes on his Fox News show.

(This Times story examines how replacement theory has entered the Republican mainstream.)

“History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse,” Representative Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who have repeatedly and consistently denounced violence and talk of violence from the right, wrote on Twitter yesterday. “The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism,” Cheney wrote, and called on Republican leaders to “renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.”

A few other Republicans, like Senator Mitt Romney, have taken a similar stance. But many other prominent Republicans have taken a more neutral stance or even embraced talk of violence.

Some have spoken openly about violence as a legitimate political tool — and not just Trump, who has done so frequently.

At the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack, Representative Mo Brooks suggested the crowd should “start taking down names and kicking ass.” Before she was elected to Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene supported the idea of executing Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats. Representative Paul Gosar once posted an animated video altered to depict himself killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and swinging swords at Biden.

Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, once called the Federal Reserve “treasonous” and talked about treating its chairman “pretty ugly.” During Greg Gianforte’s campaign for Montana’s House seat, he went so far as to assault a reporter who asked him a question he didn’t like; Gianforte won and has since become Montana’s governor.

These Republicans have received no meaningful sanction from their party. McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, has been especially solicitous of Brooks and other members who use violent imagery.

This Republican comfort with violence is new. Republican leaders from past decades, like Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Howard Baker and the Bushes, did not evoke violence.

“In a stable democracy,” Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist, told me, “politicians unambiguously reject violence and unambiguously expel from their ranks antidemocratic forces.”

More on Buffalo

The gunman was able to buy an assault-style weapon despite having been held for a mental health evaluation last year.
Most mass shooters bought their guns legally.
Black Americans make up more than half of the victims of hate crimes based on racial bias.
Tops, the grocery store where the shooting happened, was a neighborhood hub.
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 House Republican, circulated campaign ads last year that echoed replacement theory.
President Biden will visit Buffalo today.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

Pro-Russian troops in Mariupol yesterday.Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Ukraine began evacuating its fighters from Mariupol, a sign that Russia had won control of the city.
Russia spent years overhauling its military. The invasion shows how the effort failed.
About 10,000 residents have returned to the town of Bucha, the site of a massacre.
Sweden will apply to join NATO, days after Finland said it would do the same.
McDonald’s is selling its business in Russia. It has been a symbol of Western culture since it arrived three decades ago.

Politics

Kathy Barnette, a Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times

Pennsylvania and North Carolina hold primaries today. Here’s what to watch for.
A Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania lashed out at Donald Trump.
Biden authorized the redeployment of hundreds of ground forces to Somalia.
The Biden administration lifted some sanctions on Cuba, including expanding flights.
Newly redrawn congressional districts for New York would be favorable to Republicans.

Other Big Stories

The F.D.A. and Abbott Laboratories reached an agreement that could reopen a plant to help ease a baby formula shortage.
The shortage has intensified an emotionally charged debate around breastfeeding.
The spread of the Omicron variant shows that Covid reinfections are becoming more frequent.
JetBlue has gone hostile in its takeover bid for Spirit Airlines.
This map shows the wildfire risk for homes across the U.S.

Opinions

Biden should invoke the Defense Production Act to fix the baby formula shortage, says Suraj Patel.

The government’s lending practices have trapped generations of student borrowers. They deserve a bailout, Charlie Eaton, Amber Villalobos and Frederick Wherry write.

Republican voters want a leader who has Donald Trump’s agenda, but not necessarily his personality, Patrick Healy and Adrian J. Rivera write.

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The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Illustration by Patricia Doria

Online intimacy: The “e-pimps” of OnlyFans.

Eyes on you: Your boss may be keeping tabs on you, using questionable science.

Business casual: Leave the hoodie at home. The dining dress code is back.

A Times classic: Brisket for beginners.

Advice from Wirecutter: Say goodbye to lukewarm coffee.

Lives Lived: When the semipro boxer Jürgen Blin faced Muhammad Ali in a ring in Switzerland in 1971, he knew he was fated to lose the fight. He did, as expected, in the seventh round. Blin died at 79.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The cuisine of Mariupol

Olga Koutseridi, a graduate student adviser at the University of Texas at Austin, formed many of her childhood food memories in Mariupol, Ukraine. Now she is documenting the dishes she grew up eating as “an act of resistance,” Julia Moskin writes in The Times.

At the start of the war, Koutseridi began collecting recipes from scattered Ukrainian family members on Telegram, Skype and WhatsApp. She researched archives in Russian, Ukrainian and English, and she contacted other Ukrainian expatriates and food experts around the world. “I had this urge to record,” she said. “It suddenly seemed like it was all going to disappear so fast.”

Alongside Ukrainian classics, Mariupol’s culinary specialties include Greek meat-stuffed breads and lots of eggplant, a legacy of the Ottoman Empire. Among the recipes Koutseridi has transcribed so far: varenyky — dumplings stuffed with sour cherries and cheese — and borsch. “Maybe now is not the time to celebrate Ukrainian food,” Koutseridi said. “But this feels like the only chance we have to preserve it.”

Try three of her recipes.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Victoria Granof.

Chebureki are the southern Ukrainian branch of the empanada family.

What to Listen to

Kendrick Lamar’s first album in five years, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.”

What to Watch

After directing the sci-fi films “Annihilation” and “Ex Machina,” Alex Garland has a new film, “Men.”

Late Night

Seth Meyers skewered Tucker Carlson.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was haircut. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: People make them every morning (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. The word “techopalypse” — about cratering tech stocks — appeared for the first time in The Times recently.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about abortion. “The Ezra Klein Show” features Anne Applebaum.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 19, 2022

May 18, 2022

Good morning. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, isn’t like most politicians in his party.

John Fetterman in Pennsylvania this month.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

‘Unfussy and plain-spoken’

Only 38 percent of American adults have a bachelor’s degree. Yet college graduates have come to dominate the Democratic Party’s leadership and message in recent years.

The shift has helped the party to win over many suburban professionals — and also helps explain its struggles with working-class voters, including some voters of color. On many social issues, today’s Democratic Party is more liberal than most Americans without a bachelor’s degree. The party also tends to nominate candidates who seem more comfortable at, say, Whole Foods than Wal-Mart.

All of which makes John Fetterman such an intriguing politician.

Last night, Fetterman — Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor — comfortably won the state’s Democratic Senate primary, with 59 percent of the vote. Conor Lamb, a more traditional Democratic moderate, finished second.

In the general election this fall, Fetterman will face either Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor endorsed by Donald Trump, or David McCormick, a former business executive. Their primary remains too close to call.

The basic theory of Fetterman’s candidacy is that personality and authenticity matter at least as much as policy positions. On many issues, his stances are quite liberal. He has supported Bernie Sanders and taken progressive positions on Medicare, marijuana, criminal justice reform and L.G.B.T. rights. “If you get your jollies or you get your voters excited by bullying gay and trans kids, you know, it’s time for a new line of work,” Fetterman said at a recent campaign stop.

He is also 6-foot-8, bearded and tattooed, and he doesn’t like to wear suits. “I think he is a visual representation of Pennsylvania,” one voter recently said.

Fetterman is the former mayor of Braddock, a blue-collar town in western Pennsylvania where about 70 percent of residents are Black. He declined to move into the lieutenant governor’s mansion near Harrisburg and spends many nights at his home in Braddock. He talks about having been around guns for most of his life. And he does take some positions that clash with progressive orthodoxy, like his opposition to a fracking ban.

Fetterman “does not sound like any other leading politician in recent memory,” my colleague Katie Glueck wrote from the campaign trail. Holly Otterbein of Politico called him “unfussy and plain-spoken” in contrast to “a party often seen as too elite.” One suburban voter in Pennsylvania — making the same point in a more skeptical way — told The Times, “I think sometimes he might come off as not a polished person.”

To be clear, Fetterman may lose the general election. This year is shaping up as a difficult one for Democrats, and the Republican campaign will no doubt use his progressive positions to claim he is a leftist out of step with Pennsylvania’s voters. Republicans may also point out that Fetterman has a graduate degree from Harvard and that he pulled a gun on a jogger in Braddock during a disputed 2013 encounter.

Still, I find Fetterman to be notable because Democrats have nominated so few candidates like him in recent years. The party is more likely to choose ideologically consistent candidates whose presentation resembles that of a law professor or think-tank employee. Fetterman, like many working-class voters, has a mix of political beliefs. On the campaign trail, he wears shorts and a hoodie.

Describing his appeal to voters, Sarah Longwell, a Republican political strategist, said: “It’s not that he’s progressive that they like or don’t like. They like that he’s authentic.”

Although the specifics are different, he shares some traits with Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, who comes off as “simultaneously progressive, moderate and conservative,” as the political scientist Christina Greer wrote in The Times. Adams won his election despite losing Manhattan, New York’s most highly educated, affluent borough.

Fetterman also has some similarities with Senator Sherrod Brown, a populist Democrat who has managed to win in Ohio and who revels in “his less than glamorous image,” as Andrew J. Tobias of Cleveland.com has written.

For years, most Democrats trying to figure out how to win over swing voters have taken a more technocratic approach than either Adams or Fetterman. Centrist Democrats have often urged the party to move to the center on almost every issue — even though most voters support a progressive economic agenda, such as higher taxes on the rich.

Liberal Democrats have made the opposite mistake, confusing the progressive politics of college campuses and affluent suburbs with the actual politics of the country. Some liberals make the specific mistake of imagining that most Asian, Black and Latino voters are more liberal than they are. As a shorthand, the mistake is sometimes known as the Latinx problem (named for a term that most Latinos do not use).

It remains unclear whether Fetterman represents a solution to the Democrats’ working-class problem. But the problem is real: It is a central reason that Democrats struggle so much outside the country’s large metro areas. And if Democrats hope to solve it, they will probably have a better chance if more of their candidates feel familiar to working-class voters.

Politics isn’t only about policy positions. People also vote based on instinct and comfort.

For more: In Times Opinion, Michael Sokolove asks whether Fetterman is the future of the Democratic Party.

The latest results

In the primaries for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano — a far-right state senator endorsed by Trump — won the Republican nomination, while Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general, won the Democratic race. Mastriano’s victory caused The Cook Political Report to say that the general election was no longer a toss-up and Shapiro was favored to win.
In North Carolina, Madison Cawthorn lost the Republican primary for his House seat. Cawthorn was endorsed by Trump, but had feuded with others in his party after a series of scandals.
Representative Ted Budd, also backed by Trump, won North Carolina’s Republican Senate primary. He will face the Democrat Cheri Beasley.
Brad Little, Idaho’s Republican governor, beat back a primary challenge by Janice McGeachin, the Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

Buses with surrendered Ukrainian troops under Russian escort yesterday.Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who defended the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol are in Russian custody.
Negotiators on both sides say peace talks have collapsed.
On a Russian talk show, a retired colonel stunned his colleagues by saying that the invasion wasn’t going well.

The Virus

Public schools in the U.S. have lost at least 1.2 million students since 2020, with some switching to home-schooling and others dropping out.
The F.D.A. authorized Pfizer’s booster for children 5 to 11.

Hospitalizations are rising in New York City, nearing the threshold to reinstate an indoor mask mandate.
The White House will send Americans eight more at-home tests, through covidtests.gov.

Politics

A memorial outside the Tops supermarket in Buffalo.Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden visited the site in Buffalo where a gunman killed 10 people. “White supremacy is a poison,” he said.
A Pentagon investigation found no wrongdoing in a 2019 airstrike in Syria that killed dozens of people, including women and children.
The Justice Department requested transcripts from the Jan. 6 committee, potentially as evidence in future cases.
In a hearing on U.F.O.s, Pentagon officials revealed video of an unidentified craft flying past a fighter jet.
The Justice Department sued the casino mogul Steve Wynn, saying he lobbied Trump on China’s behalf.

Other Big Stories

The suspect in the Buffalo massacre invited a small group of people to review his plan on the chat app Discord. None of them alerted law enforcement.
The shortage of baby formula has hospitalized two children who can’t absorb nutrients properly.
Gun manufacturing has nearly tripled in the U.S. since 2000, fueled by sales of handguns.
Johnny Depp’s lawyer challenged Amber Heard’s account of abuse, asking her why she had not presented medical records to back up her story.

Opinions

Ibrahim Rayintakath

We want to call heat waves, wildfires and other deadly weather events “extreme,” but climate change has made them increasingly common, David Wallace-Wells writes.

The baby formula shortage is more proof that new mothers, venerated in theory, are unsupported in practice, Elizabeth Spiers says.

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MORNING READS

Life hacks: How to become an early bird.

Hype man: A trash-talking crypto bro caused a $40 billion crash.

Stanley tumbler: The sisterhood of social media’s favorite water bottle.

A Times classic: How to talk to someone who’s sick.

Advice from Wirecutter: Freeze your food — without freezer burn.

Lives Lived: Urvashi Vaid, a lawyer and activist, was a leading figure in the fight for L.G.B.T.Q. equality for more than four decades. She died at 63.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The music supervisor Randall Poster.Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times

A boxed set for birds

Randall Poster had never appreciated the songbirds of the Bronx, where he has lived for most of his life, until the quiet the pandemic brought in 2020. After speaking with an environmentalist friend, Poster — a music supervisor for filmmakers — was inspired. What if he harnessed his industry connections into a fund-raiser for bird conservation?

This week, Poster will release the first volume of “For the Birds,” a star-studded, 242-track collection of original songs and readings based on birdsong. It benefits the National Audubon Society.

“For the Birds” features electronic trance, fiddle tunes and field recordings. Alice Coltrane and Yoko Ono make appearances, and a song from Elvis Costello shares space with a Jonathan Franzen reading.

“Of all the things we need to work harder to protect, birds, like music, speak to everyone,” said Anthony Albrecht, an Australian cellist who has led similar conservation efforts. “They’re such a visible — and audible — indicator of what we stand to lose.”

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Use up seasonal produce by adding tangy rhubarb to sheet-pan chicken.

What to Watch

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays the lead in Netflix’s “The Lincoln Lawyer.” It’s a tricky job when your first language isn’t English.

What to Read

Nell Zink’s “Avalon” is about a girl who has a menacing stepfamily and a great ambition.

Late Night

The hosts celebrated Sweden and Finland’s NATO applications.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was backfill. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Blue hue (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. The Times covered the first same-sex marriages in Massachusetts on the front page 18 years ago today.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about a Ukrainian soldier. On “The Argument,” a debate about inflation.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 19, 2022

May 19, 2022

Today, we give you a glimpse of life in China, the only large country still pursuing a “zero Covid” policy. — David Leonhardt

By Ian Prasad Philbrick

Good morning. Chinese citizens are expressing frustrations with Covid lockdowns.

Covid testing at a residential compound in Shanghai yesterday.Jacqueline Wong/Reuters

‘Failing us’

As much of the world lifted pandemic restrictions this spring, China did the opposite. Its “zero Covid” approach tries to eliminate the virus using extreme constraints. Officials began to lock down Shanghai, China’s largest city, in March after detecting cases of the Omicron variant; the authorities announced only this week that they hoped to fully lift restrictions next month. I called my colleague Vivian Wang, who covers China, to find out how Shanghai residents are coping.

What does a lockdown look like two-plus years into the pandemic?

Shanghai went into a citywide lockdown without officials saying so. They announced that they were going to lock down half of the city for just a few days, and then the other half for a few days after that. But after they locked down the first half, they didn’t let it reopen.

In the strictest areas, you couldn’t leave your apartment. You actually saw officials installing bars or gates around entrances to apartment buildings. Residents were caged in.

Because of the suddenness, people weren’t prepared. There were many reports of people having trouble getting food, medicine and other supplies.

Even now, when people in lower-risk areas are allowed to move more freely, many of them need an official pass to go to work or go outside.

So officials keep a close eye on everyone.

Yes. Chinese cities have neighborhood committees — local officials in charge of mundane tasks like sanitation. During lockdown, they became residents’ primary link to the outside world. They are in charge of facilitating deliveries of food and medicine and enforcing testing and stay-at-home requirements. Some residents who had trouble getting essentials blamed them for being incompetent, lazy or corrupt.

We saw residents protesting. Was the anger in Shanghai more intense than in other parts of China?

People were much more vocal about how the lockdown was hurting them.

Residents banged pots and pans, or sometimes they came out onto the street to confront local officials. People angrily called local officials, recorded those conversations and shared them online. There was a spreadsheet that circulated, a sort of blacklist saying, “These are the competent neighborhood committees; these are the incompetent ones.”

It sounds like residents were banding together to get by.

There have been remarkable examples of community solidarity. When Shanghai first went into lockdown, the only way you could order groceries was if you organized a group buy with your neighbors; a lot of delivery drivers were quarantined and suppliers didn’t have time for smaller orders. You heard people — often women and mothers — talking about getting up at 5 or 6 a.m. to get in a big order because otherwise things would sell out. You saw some residents saying, “Thank goodness we have this volunteer network, because our local officials are failing us.”

Picking up food at a lockdown checkpoint.Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

How did officials respond?

The government has acknowledged that Shanghai was not handled well at the start. Several weeks into the lockdown, officials introduced a system that allowed some movement. It was a response to cases dropping. But it was also a response to the anger, and the growing understanding that officials couldn’t keep 26 million people locked down indefinitely.

What about economic costs? I saw that zero cars were sold in Shanghai last month because dealers were closed.

Factories have been closed. Businesses have been closed. China is still a manufacturing- and construction-dependent economy, so those workers can’t work from home. They’re low-paid at the best of times, and now they’re going without pay.

Has anything changed since the announcement that officials contained the outbreak?

There are still plenty of areas under tight restrictions. Many people still can’t leave their apartment complexes or receive deliveries.

China expelled several U.S. journalists in 2020, including our colleagues, and has been slow to issue visas since. You’ve been in Hong Kong and will head to Beijing soon — how do you report on Shanghai from afar?

There is skepticism of Western journalists. I send a lot of messages that don’t get returned. I talk to people who won’t agree to let me use their names, or who will agree at first but then say they don’t want to after talking with their employer. So we do our best to be transparent about what we can and can’t say about what is going on inside China.

More about Vivian Wang: She grew up outside of Chicago and got her start reporting by writing a family newsletter that she distributed at Thanksgiving dinner as a girl. She joined The Times in 2017 on the Metro desk and began reporting on China in 2020, and speaks Mandarin and Spanish.

THE LATEST NEWS

The Virus

The C.D.C. is advising Americans in high risk areas, primarily in the Northeast, to wear masks indoors.
Hospitalizations in the U.S. have risen more than 25 percent in the past two weeks.
Health officials are considering offering Covid boosters and flu shots at the same time this fall.
A man in rural Japan accidentally received $360,000 in pandemic stimulus. He gambled it all away.

War in Ukraine

A Russian soldier on trial for war crimes.Nicole Tung for The New York Times

In a Kyiv courtroom, a 21-year-old Russian soldier pleaded guilty to killing a citizen on a bicycle.
Saving limbs, and lives: There aren’t enough medical professionals to treat gruesome injuries in Ukraine.
Residents of Kharkiv are emerging from shelters after months of bombardment. This is what they see aboveground.
Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s southern coastlines has prevented the export of millions of tons of grain.

Politics

President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to bolster supplies of baby formula.
The House passed a bill to help the government prosecute domestic terrorism. Senate Republicans are expected to block it.
Justice Department employees are asking the Biden administration to give federal workers time off if they need to travel for an abortion.
Among the winners of this week’s primaries: Republicans who tried to overturn the 2020 election.

Other Big Stories

The S&P 500 had its biggest drop in almost two years. Retailers had an especially bad day: Target’s stock price fell 25 percent.
Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, said she would strengthen the “red flag” law that failed to stop the Buffalo shooter from buying guns.
A woman said a 911 dispatcher hung up on her during the Buffalo shooting.
A former Minneapolis police officer pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.
Teenagers and young adults are buying counterfeit pills tainted with fentanyl over social media, with deadly results.
U.S. Soccer officials reached a labor agreement with the women’s and men’s teams to guarantee equal pay. (Here’s what it actually means.)

Opinions

Amber Heard isn’t a perfect victim. That makes her the perfect object of a #MeToo backlash, says Michelle Goldberg.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is fascist, Timothy Snyder writes.

Apps, smartphones and other minimally regulated digital technologies will threaten women’s privacy if Roe v. Wade falls, Zeynep Tufekci argues.

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MORNING READS

An outdoor cremation in Crestone, Colo.Trent Davis Bailey for The New York Times

The pyre: Embracing an ancient method for handling the dead.

Mental health: Doctors gave her antipsychotics. She decided to live with her voices.

Mariticide: A romance novelist wrote “How to Murder Your Husband.” Did she do it?

Well: Are you doing push-ups wrong?

Advice from Wirecutter: How to wipe a lost smartphone.

Lives Lived: Ray Scott was an insurance salesman when the idea for a bass fishing tour came to him. His Bassmaster Classic tournament helped turn the hobby into a professional sport. He died at 88.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A circus audition in Las Vegas.Roger Kisby for The New York Times

New circus, no animals

In 2017, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus ended its 146-year run. The nostalgic circus faced sagging sales and a growing public distaste for the exotic animal acts — lions, tigers and elephants — once synonymous with its show. The company announced yesterday that it would return in 2023, without animals, Sarah Maslin Nir reports.

The revamped show will focus on narrative and human feats — not unlike Cirque du Soleil. In fact, Ringling has hired Giulio Scatola, a veteran of Cirque du Soleil, as a director for the new production. Scatola said he was influenced by “America’s Got Talent,” where contestants’ stories are as significant as their crafts.

The company’s business model was in need of an update, anyway: Touring cross-country with a crew of 500 people and 100 animals in mile-long trains, as it did for over a century, costs a lot. The circus has since sold off those trains, and performers will drive or fly from city to city and stay in hotels. Logistics are far easier when there’s no longer a need to check in Dumbo.

Go behind the scenes at auditions for the show in Las Vegas.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich.

Swap in tofu or chickpeas for a vegetarian take on this green masala chicken.

What to Watch

The trailer for “Bros,” a rom-com starring Billy Eichner that’s true to 21st-century gay life.

Where to Travel

Romania is “rewilding” wolves and bison, and tourists can track them through the Transylvanian Alps.

Late Night

The hosts discussed this week’s primaries.

Now Time to Play

The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were conflict and infliction. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Go by foot (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. An investigative reporter. A fifth-year at U.N.C. Meet The Times’s summer interns.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about immigration. On “Popcast,” how gossip is transforming hip-hop.

Claire Moses, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 20, 2022

May 20, 2022

This morning, we help explain why the drug problem in the U.S. has gotten so much worse in recent years. — David Leonhardt

Good morning. Drugs made in labs now cause most U.S. overdose deaths.

Elizabeth Cheryl Dillender and her daughter, Kristin. They lost a relative to fentanyl.Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

100,000 deaths

For much of human history, people got their drugs from nature. Marijuana comes from the cannabis plant, cocaine from coca leaves, heroin from poppies and magic mushrooms really do come from mushrooms. Even legal drugs, like alcohol, tobacco and coffee, come from plants. Their highs were often discovered by chance, when someone consumed them in just the right way.

But in today’s overdose crisis, the most damaging drugs do not come from plants. They are synthetic — manufactured in a lab, usually requiring no plants at all.

Last year, fentanyl — a synthetic opioid — caused more overdose deaths than any other drug has in a single year. The second-deadliest drug was meth, which is also produced in labs (the kind you might have seen in “Breaking Bad”).

Together, fentanyl and meth helped make 2021 the worst year for drug overdoses in U.S. history: The full-year death toll topped 100,000 for the first time, the C.D.C. reported last week.

Both drugs have proliferated so quickly because they are synthetic.

Traffickers prefer synthetics because they can make and ship the drugs around the world more quickly and discreetly. Cartels no longer need a large, exposed field with dozens of workers to mass-produce drugs; they can just start a lab in a tucked-away warehouse or apartment building with a handful of chemists. And these technicians can make more powerful drugs, which lets traffickers smuggle smaller amounts for the same high.

Drug users often prefer synthetics, too: The drugs are typically cheaper, even though they are more potent.

So fentanyl and meth have spread seemingly everywhere, pushing overdose deaths to record highs year after year.

Counterfeit oxycodone tablets, which were found to contain fentanyl.Kholood Eid for The New York Times

A synthetic takeover

America’s antidrug efforts have struggled to keep up with the rise in synthetics, letting the overdose crisis worsen.

In some ways, the drugs’ rise is the latest turn in an escalating competition between law enforcement and traffickers. Smugglers hid drugs in cargo in cars, boats and planes, so the authorities deployed drug-sniffing dogs and conducted more thorough stops and searches. Traffickers flew drugs across the border with drones, so law enforcement launched blimps with low-altitude radar to detect them.

But synthetic drugs are a major shift in that battle. Regina LaBelle, the former acting drug czar for President Biden, told me their rise was her office’s “worst nightmare.” The traditional war on drugs largely focused on stopping the flow of drugs grown on farms. It did not work perfectly, but it had a significant effect: One expert estimated that prohibition increased the price of heroin and cocaine by 10 to 20 times, so users were less likely, or able, to buy them.

The impact is likely smaller for synthetic drugs because they are easier to make and smuggle.

With synthetics, the authorities may not even know what to look for. New synthetic drugs regularly pop up — often with impossible-sounding names, like “isotonitazene” — making it hard for officials to keep up with the latest threat.

Many experts now argue that the U.S. needs to fight the addiction crisis by investing in alternative strategies that focus more on expanding treatment and on harm reduction than on reducing the supply of drugs. At the rate that overdose deaths are increasing, the alternatives may be the only option.

For more: Drug users are mixing opioids and stimulants in more dangerous combinations known as “speedballs” and “goofballs.”

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

The body of a Russian soldier in Vilkhivka, Ukraine.Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

The Senate approved $40 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine. President Biden is expected to sign it into law.
The money would bring total U.S. aid to $54 billion. The Upshot puts that number into context.
Biden met with the leaders of Finland and Sweden, pledging “strong support” for the countries’ bids to join NATO.
A Times visual investigation shows how Russian soldiers executed men in Bucha.
Cheap Russian oil has made Hungary’s biggest energy company rich. Some of that money makes its way to American conservatives.

The Virus

Samantha Castaned, 10, receiving a vaccine dose in San Francisco last year.Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times

C.D.C. advisers are recommending Pfizer boosters for children 5 to 11.
The U.S. has surpassed a million Covid deaths, according to The Times’s database.
Thousands of people seeking asylum are at the southern border, waiting for the U.S. to lift a pandemic health rule that kept them out.

Politics

The Oklahoma Legislature approved a bill that bans nearly all abortions and allows lawsuits against providers and anyone who “aids or abets” a termination.
The Jan. 6 committee wants Representative Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican, to answer questions about a Capitol tour he gave before the attack.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill to expand what kind of baby formula Americans can buy with federal benefits.
Biden will meet with the leaders of India, Japan and other Asian countries to reassert his determination to counter China.

Other Big Stories

New York City health officials are investigating a possible case of monkeypox, a rare virus.
The president of Princeton recommended dismissing the tenured professor Joshua Katz. Dr. Katz’s lawyer says it’s a “witch hunt.”
After years of difficulties, Boeing’s space taxi, the Starliner, launched to orbit yesterday.

Opinions

Racism undergirds the policies that treat Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens, Yarimar Bonilla argues.

Dr. Matthew Loftus is pro-life, but he thinks abortion is permissible — even right — to save the mother’s life.

Democrats can win on social issues if they leave room for moderates and conservatives who are appalled by what conservatism has become, says David Brooks.

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MORNING READS

Cross country skiers in the Svalbard Ski Marathon.Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Slush: Snow sports are on thin ice in the warming Arctic.

Growing pains: Puberty is starting earlier. Doctors aren’t sure why.

On the web: The shady world of online spider sales.

Travel: Los Angeles has changed since you last visited. Here’s what to do there.

Modern Love: “I am transmasculine, which is to say I understand my body even less than I understand my mother.”

A Times classic: Do this 20-minute exercise anywhere.

Advice from Wirecutter: Bike storage tips.

Lives Lived: Donald K. Ross was one of the original Nader’s Raiders, the law students Ralph Nader mustered in the 1970s to challenge government and corporate bureaucracy. Ross promoted health care, voting rights, tax reform and other issues. He died at 78.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics.Morry Gash/Associated Press

Four N.B.A. players to know

The N.B.A. playoffs are down to four teams — Boston vs. Miami in the East, and Golden State vs. Dallas in the West. Here’s one interesting player to know from each team:

Marcus Smart, Celtics: The Celtics had one of the best defenses in the N.B.A. this year, thanks in part to Smart. He was named the league’s best defensive player — the first time the award has gone to a guard since the 1990s. Watch for his maniacal energy. And you can’t miss his hair, dyed Celtics green.

Victor Oladipo, Heat: The Heat’s starters are great, but the bench is quite good, too, including Oladipo, who was an all-star only a few years ago before an injury paused his career (and let him spend a season on The Masked Singer).

Klay Thompson, Warriors: Thompson helped take the Warriors to five Finals in a row. But he lost a season to a knee injury, and then an injury to his Achilles’ tendon cost him another. Now he’s back, finally, nailing three-point shots and commuting to games on his boat.

Luka Doncic, Mavericks: Doncic, the Mavericks’ wunderkind, isn’t a one-man team. But he’s not so far from it, either: He leads his team in points, rebounds and assists. In one game during the last round of the playoffs, the opposing Phoenix Suns scored 27 points in the first half; Doncic, on his own, also scored 27.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Are these cookies worth $250? See for yourself.

What to Watch

Season four of “Stranger Things” takes a gorier turn, as the characters enter their teens.

What to Read

10 new books, selected by critics and editors at The Times.

Late Night

Stephen Colbert waxed nostalgic about a George W. Bush slip of the tongue.

Take the News Quiz

How well did you keep up with the headlines?

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was juvenile. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Uno + dos (four letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. “Elon Musk’s Crash Course,” a Times documentary about Tesla’s pursuit of a self-driving car, premieres tonight at 10 p.m.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about long Covid. On “The Ezra Klein Show,” Kate Greasley discusses the ethics of abortion. “Still Processing” is about athletes turned actors.

Natasha Frost, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 21, 2022

May 21, 2022

Continue reading the main story

SUPPORTED BY ACCENTURE

By Melissa Kirsch

Good morning. When socializing is stressful, rule-bound role-playing games can offer some relief.

Allie Sullberg

Lawful good

Growing up in the 1980s, I knew there were kids like those on “Stranger Things,” which returns Friday for its fourth season, who spent their after-school hours playing Dungeons & Dragons. I was not one of them; I played with Barbies. I figured what I was doing with dolls — acting out scenes involving homework, school dances and what happened last weekend at the plastic pool — was a far cry from the secretive world of the D&D table, with its arcane mythos and complicated rules.

It wasn’t until 2000, when an episode of the show “Freaks and Geeks” featured kids playing D&D, that I got a glimpse into how role-playing games worked. In essence, it was not so different from what my friends and I were doing with Barbies: imagining and then inhabiting characters, writing stories collaboratively, escaping reality while developing real-life social skills.

While I retired my Barbies by the time puberty hit, the universe of Dungeons & Dragons is intricate and expansive enough that it has continuing appeal for adults. In fact, it has so fully emerged from nerd-dom that it has become “something of a social flex — the antithesis of the popularity contest that was the 1990s and early 2000s, an antidote to our more basic tendencies,” Amelia Diamond writes in The Times this morning. Vin Diesel plays. So does Tiffany Haddish.

I’ve written about how socializing is weird lately. D&D offers one way to alleviate some of the anxiety. Rules govern interactions, and a dungeon master who acts as both narrator and referee enforces them. In the safety of this container, players explore, improvise, cocreate worlds.

“All of us at times feel a little inadequate in dealing with the modern world,” Gary Gygax, one of the creators of D&D, once said. “It would feel much better if we knew that we were a superhero or a mighty wizard.”

D&D and other role-playing games, improv comedy, murder-mystery parties where each guest is assigned a part in a whodunit, even escape rooms: They’re all creative, rule-bound forms of fun where scenes are created in real time and success requires teamwork and trust.

They’re lo-fi ways to socialize through performance, a relief from social media venues that insist we perform as ourselves for an audience of friends and followers. These activities give us permission to play, to drop our inhibitions and try on new personas. They let us escape into another world for a little while.

Ideas for structured fun that you recommend? Drop me a line.

For more

“If you spend enough time in spaces that demand you be interesting, you eventually become boring,” a new photo-sharing app seems to say.
We joined the playwright (and later the “Tokyo Vice” TV series creator) J.T. Rogers for some D&D in 2017.
From Input: “It’s Normal to Get Into Fortnite as an Adult, Actually.”

A Transformative Show for Leaders of the Future

A MESSAGE FROM ACCENTURE

Businesses today face challenges at a scale most leaders have never experienced — and never anticipated. "Built for Change", a podcast from Accenture hosted by Elise Hu and Josh Klein, explores how the pandemic set off radical changes in business, technology and human behavior — creating opportunities for leaders to evolve and ultimately excel in this environment. Listen to the show that was awarded Best Thought Leadership Podcast of 2021 by Adweek.

LISTEN NOW

WEEKENDS ARE FOR …

? Movies: Five action flicks to stream.

? Audiobooks: Six picks.

? Exhibitions: Sneakers that were among the designer Virgil Abloh’s final projects are going on display in Brooklyn.

? Opera: “The Wreckers,” a rarely staged work, premieres in Britain.

? Art: Six fairs in New York City.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Hollywood hopes Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” sequel will bring older adults back to movie theaters.
Cruise was back in force in Cannes, as was the city’s film festival.
Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Kyle Mooney are leaving “Saturday Night Live” after tonight’s season finale, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Broadway is celebrating the Tony nominations as a sign of success in a challenging season.
In “Conversations With Friends,” a tasteful home is its own object of infatuation.
Four decades later, the influence of “Little Shop of Horrors” endures.
Taylor Swift told N.Y.U. graduates to learn to live with cringe, Vulture reports.
Gucci’s latest collection upended old rules about who can wear what when, Vanessa Friedman writes.
Roger Angell wrote elegantly and thoughtfully about baseball for The New Yorker across half a century. He died at 101. (Here’s a guide to his work.)

THE LATEST NEWS

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A chaotic day for the stock market extended the longest stretch of market turmoil since 2001.

Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, lobbied Arizona officials in 2020 to effectively reverse Joe Biden’s victory there.
Russia cut off gas supplies to Finland in apparent retaliation for its plans to join NATO. Follow our live coverage.
A lack of manufacturers aggravated the baby formula shortage. (Some parents are sharing breast milk, which has risks.)
Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google are positioning themselves to grow even more dominant.
A judge ordered the U.S. to continue expelling asylum seekers at the border.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

By Melissa Clark

Jordan Marsh’s Blueberry Muffins

I’ve always been a strong advocate for eating dessert for breakfast, which is part of why Jordan Marsh’s blueberry muffins have been on my radar for a while. I finally whipped up a batch this past week, using thawed frozen berries as suggested in the recipe notes. And I’m here to report that these purple-speckled beauties are truly deserving of their 11,000-ish five-star ratings. Yes, they are distinctly cupcake-like: fluffy and sugary, and completely delightful with your morning cup of coffee or tea. But if the idea of cake before noon puts you off, serve them as a midafternoon snack or even dessert — the after-dinner kind of dessert, that is.

REAL ESTATE

Clockwise from left: Donato Di Natale and Clinton Meyer; Matt Anello/Blu Skye Media; Peter Lyons for Sotheby’s International Realty

What you get for $2.7 million in California: A midcentury-style retreat in Palm Springs, an Edwardian in Palo Alto or a renovated home in Sonoma.

The hunt: They wanted an Upper West Side home for under $800,000. Which did they choose? Play our game.

Low volume: One of the world’s quietest rooms is in midtown Manhattan.

Disappearing treasures: Open houses are often the scene of small-scale thefts.

Lost in translation: The language of house listings can mask all manner of problems.

LIVING

Meaghan Thomas and Thomas McGee at home in Louisville, Ky.Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

Still staycationing: Some travelers are opting for trips closer to home.

Makeup trends: People want a “healthy, horny flush” now.

Culinary adventures: Pairing food and wine.

Pushing boundaries?: Mullets are back, though perhaps without the shock value they once had.

GAME OF THE WEEKEND

The goalie Igor Shesterkin is a major part of the Rangers’ success this season.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Carolina Hurricanes vs. New York Rangers, N.H.L. playoffs: The Rangers are hot. Down 3-1 in the last round, they beat the Penguins three games in a row to win the series. “They have the best goalie in the league this year, Igor Shesterkin,” David Waldstein, a Times reporter who has been covering the playoffs, tells us. “They are really fun to watch and are becoming a big story in New York. Lots of folks are jumping on their bandwagon.” Game 3 is 3:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday on ESPN.

For more:

The Rangers had little postseason success in recent years. Here’s how they rebuilt the team.
Shesterkin is part of a lineage of great Rangers goalies.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was raunchy. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

Here’s today’s Wordle. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Before You Go …

What time is it? Consult the Literature Clock.
Check out photos of Andy Warhol and friends.
Here’s Japanese Breakfast performing “Be Sweet” on “The Tonight Show.”

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 22, 2022

May 22, 2022

Good morning. The Times reveals how Haiti became the poorest country in the Americas.

Adrienne Present harvesting coffee beans in Haiti.Federico Rios for The New York Times

France’s ransom

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, and a new Times investigative series explores why. One stunning detail: France demanded reparations from Haitians it once enslaved. That debt hamstrung Haiti’s economy for decades — and kept it from building even basic social services, like sewage and electricity.

The series is based on more than a year of reporting, troves of centuries-old documents and an analysis of financial records. I spoke to my colleague Catherine Porter, one of the four reporters who led the project, about what they found.

Why tell Haiti’s story now?

I’ve been covering Haiti since the earthquake in 2010, and returned dozens of times. Any journalist that spends time in Haiti continually confronts the same question: Why are things so bad here?

The poverty is beyond compare to anywhere else. Even countries that are impoverished compared to the United States or Canada, or many Western countries — they still have some level of social services. Haiti just doesn’t.

Even if you’re rich, you have to bring in your own water, and you need a generator for electricity. There’s no real transportation system; it’s basically privatized. There’s no real sewage system, so people use outhouses or the outdoors. There’s no real garbage pickup, so trash piles up. There’s little public education — it’s mostly privatized — so poor people don’t get much, if any, formal schooling. The health care is abysmal.

The usual explanation for Haiti’s problems is corruption. But the series suggests something else is also to blame.

Yeah. This other answer lodged into the side of my mouth as I read more history books on Haiti. One by Laurent DuBois mentioned this “independence debt,” but he didn’t go into much detail. That was the first time that I read about it and was like, “What is this?”

So what was it?

After Haiti’s independence in 1804, France came back and demanded reparations for lost property — which turned out to include the enslaved humans. French officials encouraged the Haitian government to take out a loan from the French banks to pay.

It became known as a double debt: Haiti was in debt to former property owners — the colonists — and also to the bankers. Right from the get-go, Haiti was in an economic hole.

It is wild: The colonists asked the former slaves for reparations.

You have to remember that, at the time, no one came to help Haiti.

It was the only Black free country in the Americas, and it was a pariah. The British didn’t want to recognize it because they had Jamaica and Barbados as colonies. The Americans most certainly did not want to recognize it; they still hadn’t ended slavery.

The Citadelle was built to defend Haitians from a return by the French.Federico Rios for The New York Times

What might Haiti look like today without this double debt?

One example is Costa Rica. It also had a strong coffee export industry, like Haiti does. When Haiti was spending up to 40 percent of its revenue on paying back this debt, Costa Rica was building electricity systems. People were putting in sewage treatment and schools. That would be closer to what Haiti could have been.

We haven’t even gotten into the U.S. occupation from 1915 to 1934 and Haiti’s dictator family, both of which further looted the country. It was one crisis after another inflicted on Haitians.

That’s true. A dictator, François Duvalier, came into power in 1957. Before that, the Haitian government had finally cleared most of its international debts. The World Bank had said that Haiti should rebuild. Instead, Duvalier and then his son put the country into increased misery.

As if that wasn’t enough, after Haiti’s president asked for reparations in 2003, France removed him from office, with U.S. help. Have France and the U.S. owned up to the damage?

France has had a slow softening. In 2015, its president, François Hollande, said that France had imposed a “ransom” on Haiti, and that he would pay it back. But very quickly, his aides corrected him, saying that he meant he was going to pay the moral debt back; he wasn’t talking about money.

The Times is translating these stories to Haitian Creole. What’s the goal?

If I’m talking to anyone on the street in Haiti, they’ll speak only Haitian Creole. So I felt that if we’re going to do a story about Haitian history, surely it should be accessed by the people of that country.

The most popular form of media in Haiti is the radio, especially in rural areas where illiteracy is high. My hope is that we can get the Creole version in the hands of some people to read parts of it over the radio, so people in Haiti can hear it and debate it and form their opinions.

This is a Haitian history. It should be made as accessible as possible to Haitians.

More on Catherine Porter: She grew up in Toronto and got her first full-time journalism job at The Vancouver Sun. In 2010, she went to Port-au-Prince for The Toronto Star to report on the earthquake — an assignment that changed her life. She has returned more than 30 times and written a memoir about her experiences there. She joined The Times in 2017, leading our Toronto bureau.

The Haiti series

The Times this weekend published several articles on Haiti’s history, including:

The reparations to enslavers are the root of Haiti’s misery, as the first piece in the series explains.
Haiti tried to set up a national bank. In reality, a French bank controlled it.
Wall Street called for an invasion of Haiti — and the U.S. obliged.
Haiti’s president asked for reparations. Then the U.S. and France removed him from office.
Here are six takeaways, a timeline

NEWS

The Latest

Residents in a courtyard of a damaged apartment building in Mariupol yesterday.Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Russia said it had taken control of Mariupol, which would be its most significant symbolic gain of the invasion. Ukraine has not verified the claim.
The Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the Ukraine invasion.
Midsummer-like heat is scorching states from Texas to New England this weekend. (Scientists expect a hotter summer than usual.)
The center-left Labor Party won Australia’s national elections. Conservatives had controlled the government for the past nine years.
Tiger Woods, still struggling with injuries from a car crash, withdrew from the P.G.A. Championship.

Other Big Stories

Hundreds of Republican legislators in battleground states have embraced Donald Trump’s election lies, taking steps to discredit or overturn the 2020 results.
Georgia Republicans are unexpectedly loyal to both Donald Trump and Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump has denounced.
An education professor who influenced generations of reading teachers is conceding that her methods fell short.
Female veterans are seeking out psychedelic therapies in Mexico to treat the traumas of war and sexual assault.
The actress Natasha Lyonne hosted the season finale of “Saturday Night Live,” which saw four cast members say their last good night.

FROM OPINION

Thomas Friedman left lunch with President Biden realizing that he’s worried he can’t unite America.
We need to accept that a Russian nuclear strike is possible and start preparing options, Senator Mitt Romney writes.
I should have pressed my father more on his views on abortion, Patti Davis writes of Ronald Reagan.
Hollywood seems unwilling to judge smaller infractions less harshly than appalling #MeToo transgressions, Pamela Paul argues.
Covid victims’ final messages make their deaths more vivid, Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer writes.

The Sunday question: Would a domestic terrorism law help reduce violence in the U.S.?

A House-passed bill could focus law enforcement’s attention on violent extremists like the Buffalo gunman, says Carrie Cordero. But a new law could become a pretext for the federal government to violate Americans’ civil liberties, Lucy Steigerwald fears.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

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MORNING READS

Peter Phobia

Hybrid work: Are employees ever really coming back in full force?

Sunday routine: The cosmetics executive Sandra Velasquez takes walks in a cemetery.

In conversation: Baz Luhrmann wants to restore Elvis Presley’s humanity.

Daily aspirin: It might hurt more than it helps.

Waist trainers: Be skeptical of the promise of long-term results.

Advice from Wirecutter: Cool off with a great fan.

A Times classic: The telltale signs of sore throat danger.

BOOKS

Summer reading plans: New books include a book for “White Lotus” fans, a coming-of-age story, Werner Herzog’s debut novel and more. The Times’s Sarah Lyall recommends books that are their own destinations.

By the Book: The novelist Ann Leary is not picky about true-crime books, “as long as there’s a psychopath.”

Times best sellers: Jennifer Weiner’s “That Summer Place” is a hardcover fiction best seller. See all our lists here.

The Book Review podcast: The novelist Brian Morton discusses his new book about his mother.

THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE

Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum, for The New York Times

On the cover: Ukrainians in Kharkiv, 25 miles from Russia, have forged a new wartime culture.

Making a choice: Doctors gave her antipsychotics. She decided to live with her voices.

Recommendation: Forget about perfection. Embrace “mamahuhu.”

E-pimps: Some men figured out how to optimize intimacy on OnlyFans.

Eat: Salmon and rice, perfect culinary harmony.

THE WEEK AHEAD

What to Watch For

Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia hold primary elections on Tuesday, and Texas will hold runoff elections. Here’s what’s at stake.
The Biden administration plans to begin blocking Russia from paying American bondholders this week, increasing the likelihood of a Russian default.
The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, returns after two years.
The French Open tennis tournament begins today. On Saturday, Liverpool and Real Madrid will play in the Champions League soccer final.
The defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is expected to conclude on Friday.

What to Cook This Week

Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Frances Boswell.

Inspired by a lesson from Samin Nosrat, Emily Weinstein suggests black pepper stir-fried tofu and asparagus. Also on the weeknight menu: sheet-pan chicken with rhubarb and red onion and penne with brussels sprouts, chile and pancetta.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Andrew Dore

Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:

90-Across: There was Noah-counting for it

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — German

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 23, 2022

May 23, 2022

Good morning. Biden’s new trade deal is based on two big ideas: moving away from neoliberalism and containing China.

President Biden in Japan.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Biden in Asia

The politics of trade policy have become toxic in the U.S.

For decades, the mainstream of both the Democratic and Republican parties favored expanding trade between the U.S. and other countries. Greater globalization, these politicians promised, would increase economic growth — and with the bounty from that growth, the country could compensate any workers who suffered from increased trade. But it didn’t work out that way.

Instead, trade has contributed to the stagnation of living standards for millions of working-class Americans, by shrinking the number of good-paying, blue-collar jobs here. The incomes of workers without a bachelor’s degree have grown only slowly over the past few decades. Many measures of well-being — even life expectancy — have declined in recent years.

All along, many politicians and experts continued to insist that trade was expanding the economic pie. And they were often right. But struggling workers understandably viewed those claims as either false or irrelevant, and they refused to support further expansions of trade.

After President Barack Obama negotiated a major new trade deal — the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or T.P.P. — members of both parties criticized it, and the Senate declined to ratify it. Donald Trump then won the presidency partly on an antitrade platform, and he formally withdrew the U.S. from the T.P.P.

This morning, President Biden, on his first trip to Asia since taking office, has announced an agreement that he hopes represents the future of trade policy. It’s known as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and includes India, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and a handful of other countries.

Anti-neoliberalism

This framework is much less ambitious than Obama’s T.P.P. But the T.P.P. never became law in the U.S., so it is in some ways a meaningless comparison. Biden’s goal is to manage trade policy in a way that is both less bombastic and isolationist than Trump’s approach but also less dismissive of voters’ concerns than both parties tended to be before Trump’s presidency.

As one Biden adviser told me, the new framework is central to the Biden administration’s “post-neoliberal foreign policy.”

The crucial distinction between Biden’s framework and past trade deals is that this deal does not involve what economists call “market access” — the opening of one country’s markets to other countries’ goods, through reduced tariffs and regulations. The framework instead revolves around increased cooperation on areas like clean energy and internet policy. As a result, the deal does not require Senate ratification.

A tangible example is the global supply chain. As part of the framework, the 13 countries agree to identify supply-chain problems early and solve them. If a Covid outbreak in one country forces a certain kind of factory to close, a backup factory in another country can quickly increase production and minimize shortages around the world.

A factory in China’s Anhui province in March.AFP/Getty Images

The China factor

Officials in much of Asia remain disappointed that the U.S. abandoned the T.P.P. They rightly note that Biden’s framework is much narrower and will do less to help Asian economies increase their exports to the U.S. “You can sense the frustration for developing, trade-reliant countries,” Calvin Cheng, a senior analyst at Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.

Still, the Biden administration persuaded virtually every country that it wanted to join the framework to do so. Officials in these countries recognize that Biden is trying to re-engage with Asian allies, in contrast to Trump’s “America first” approach, and many badly want the U.S. to play an active role in the Pacific. Otherwise, they fear, China may dominate the region.

U.S. officials have the same concern, and the new framework — vague as parts of it may be — offers a structure for economic cooperation that bypasses China. If the U.S. and other major Asian economies can agree to standards on the supply chain, internet policy, energy and more, China will be left to choose between playing by those rules or missing out on new trade opportunities.

Katherine Tai, the top U.S. trade official, who has joined Biden on his trip, told The Associated Press that the U.S. was “very, very focused on our competition with China.” The new framework, she added, is intended to counter China’s growing influence in the Pacific region.

For more

Biden said the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if China invaded.
David Ignatius, The Washington Post: “Biden is traveling this week to Asia to project U.S. diplomatic and economic power in a region that has been rattled by the blunders of America’s two most powerful rivals, Russia and China.
Phelim Kine, Politico: “The Chinese government clearly senses a threat as the administration sharpens its focus on Asia.” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, warned South Korea of “the risk of a new Cold War.”
The framework includes both U.S. allies and “fence sitter” countries that want to maintain close ties with both China and the U.S., Kurt Tong explains in The Hill. These fence sitters have insisted that Taiwan not be part of the deal.

THE LATEST NEWS

A Ukrainian soldier on the front line yesterday.Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

War in Ukraine

Judges in Kyiv convicted a Russian soldier of war crimes and sentenced him to life in prison.
Russia is trying to take a Ukrainian city in the east, after struggling to make advances elsewhere.
The battles on the eastern front have not shifted the war’s momentum.
When a Russian brigade arrived in the city of Bucha in March, it brought a new level of terror.
The Times has started an archive of possible war crimes.

Politics

Mike Pence is laying the groundwork for a 2024 presidential run — and distancing himself from Donald Trump.
Democrats have divergent views on immigration. A runoff in South Texas embodies the divide.
Jared Kushner and Steven Mnuchin traveled to the Middle East weeks before the Trump administration ended. A Times examination questions whether they sought to exploit official relationships for private business interests.

Other Big Stories

A gunman killed a 48-year-old man on a subway train in New York City in an unprovoked attack.
Southern Baptist leaders mishandled sex abuse claims, according to an investigation.
Thunderstorms left at least six people dead in Quebec and Ontario.
Millions of people are homeless and more than 60 people have died after heavy rains in India and Bangladesh.
The maker of Jif peanut butter has recalled several products because of potential salmonella contamination.
The killing of a 25-year-old woman in Texas has rattled the off-road biking community.

Opinions

Justice Samuel Alito insists the Supreme Court won’t overturn the right to contraception. But he has already outlined the means to challenge it, Melissa Murray writes.

We are in an era of constant deception, Maureen Dowd writes.

Bret Stephens and Gail Collins discuss the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial and more.

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MORNING READS

Illustration by Chris Morris

Smell good: Baseball is full of superstitions. That would explain the perfume.

Metropolitan Diary: A first-time visitor from Canada gets a lesson in how to call a cab.

Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.3. See if you can beat it.

A Times classic: You don’t need to drink eight glasses of water a day.

Advice from Wirecutter: Gifts for college grads.

Lives Lived: Bob Neuwirth was a talented singer and songwriter, and he was perhaps best known for the roles he played in the careers of Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin. Neuwirth died at 82.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Sharon Stone at Cannes.Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

A Cannes recap

At the Cannes Film Festival, you can expect glamour, minutes-long standing ovations and passionate boos. The maximalist festival kicked off last week and will run until May 28. Here’s what you need to know.

Why do people care? Cannes has launched the careers of many filmmakers, like Quentin Tarantino for “Pulp Fiction.” Winning a prize can also help an art film secure wider distribution and awards recognition. “Parasite,” which won the top prize at Cannes in 2019, went on to win best picture at the Oscars.

Are any big movies premiering? Define big. For the cinephiles, films by David Cronenberg, Claire Denis and Park Chan-wook are in the running for the top prize. As for potential blockbusters, “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to Tom Cruise’s 1986 hit, and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic are also screening.

Any standouts so far? Our critic Manohla Dargis liked “Scarlet,” which tells the story of a World War I veteran and his daughter and is “filled with lyrical beauty.”

Anything major happen so far? A screaming woman covered in body paint crashed the red carpet, protesting sexual violence in Ukraine. Days prior, at the opening ceremony, President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a virtual address in which he quoted Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”: “The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.”

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Armando Rafael for The New York Times

Brighten up a roasted potato salad with jalapeño-avocado dressing.

What to Watch

Stream these action movies, including a Polish heist flick.

Where to Go

Bike along Vancouver’s sea wall, snacking and spotting bald eagles.

Now Time to Play

The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were bathing and inhabiting. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and a clue: Snapshot (five letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. Times reporters will join Melanie Chisholm — the Spice Girl known as Mel C — for a live discussion about the group, today at 1:15 p.m. Eastern.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about Russia’s military. “Sway” features the C.E.O. of Condé Nast.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 25, 2022

May 24, 2022

Good morning. Gaffe or not, Biden’s latest remark on Taiwan is consistent with his administration’s new policy.

President Biden in Tokyo yesterday.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Less ambiguity

President Biden is a famously imprecise speaker. He sometimes makes statements that convey his emotions more than any specific policy views (like his declaration in March that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”).

Biden seemed to do it again yesterday. In response to a reporter’s question, he said that the U.S. would take stronger military action to defend Taiwan against China than it has taken to help Ukraine fight Russia. If that were to happen, it could risk a broader war with China.

Biden may have been just committing another one of his gaffes. White House aides in the room when he said it — during a news conference in Tokyo, alongside Japan’s prime minister — were surprised, according to my colleague Zolan Kanno-Youngs, who was there. Afterward, the White House put out a statement claiming, implausibly, that Biden was restating U.S. policy.

But there is reason to suspect that Biden’s remarks had some strategic intent, even if he didn’t mean exactly what he said. One sign is that Biden made similarly hawkish comments about Taiwan twice last year. “This is the third time Biden has said this. Good,” Matthew Kroenig of Georgetown University wrote yesterday. “Washington is helping Beijing to not miscalculate.”

Today’s newsletter explains why U.S. policy toward Taiwan has shifted since Biden took office.

One country

Taiwan can sometimes seem like merely one of many tensions between the U.S. and China, along with tariffs, intellectual property, climate change, human rights, Ukraine and more. For China’s leaders, however, Taiwan is singular.

By The New York Times

When Zhou Enlai, China’s premier, met with Henry Kissinger in 1971 to re-establish relations between the two countries, Zhou had only one focus. The U.S. and the United Nations needed to stop recognizing the government in Taipei and treat Beijing as the only legitimate representative of China, Zhou said. Taiwan, after all, was where the losers of China’s civil war had fled, after the Communist Party took over the mainland in 1949.

Kissinger and his boss, President Richard Nixon, agreed to Zhou’s demands, and Nixon’s successors found subtler ways to support Taiwan. The U.S. sold arms to Taiwan’s government and warned Beijing not to invade, without detailing how the U.S. might respond. The policy became known as “strategic ambiguity,” and it has endured. It has largely succeeded, too. Taiwan remains a prosperous democracy.

But some U.S. officials believe that strategic ambiguity is unlikely to work as well in the future as it did in the past. Under Xi Jinping, China has become more aggressive in multiple ways, and Xi has said that reunification with Taiwan “must be fulfilled.” (My colleague Michael Crowley delved into the debate over strategic ambiguity in this article last year.)

The central problem for the U.S. is that it might not be able to stop Xi if he chose to attack. The American public is tired of faraway wars with uncertain connections to national security — an attitude that limits any U.S. president’s options. China’s leaders, on the other hand, would view a conflict in Taiwan as a vital domestic matter and devote vast resources to victory.

For these reasons, the surest way to protect Taiwan is to make China’s leaders believe that even if they could win a war, it would be costly enough to destabilize their regime.

Ukraine’s warning

Biden’s string of comments about Taiwan can serve this goal. He has signaled that an invasion of Taiwan would demand a major U.S. response, while remaining vague about what exactly it would be.

“Biden didn’t say anything about sending U.S. troops into combat over Taiwan, and we shouldn’t assume that’s what he meant,” my colleague Edward Wong, who covers the State Department, said. There are other options — like providing U.S.-made airplanes — that would also qualify as more aggressive than the aid to Ukraine.

As Michael Crowley, who also covers international affairs, says, “The U.S. retains the official policy of ambiguity, but Biden’s comments give it a hawkish lean.”

Russia’s problems in Ukraine make this message more credible. The U.S. and its allies have responded to Putin’s invasion by imposing harsh sanctions on Russia and sending weapons to Ukraine. And Russia’s leaders have learned that a full-scale war can expose military weaknesses that were previously hidden.

“I’m not at all sold on any imminent Chinese attack,” said my colleague Eric Schmitt, who covers security issues from Washington. “I think Russia’s debacle in Ukraine has given Xi pause.”

A pro-Ukraine rally in Taipei, Taiwan, this month.Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

China would have some advantages that Russia does not: For one thing, Taiwan is an island that its allies would have a hard time resupplying. But China would also have distinct challenges: Its rise has depended on its integration into the global economy, and a war in Taiwan would threaten that integration.

Of course, Biden’s tough talk — whether deliberate or careless — does bring risks. Strategic ambiguity worked partly because it kept Taiwan from becoming a high-profile test of Beijing’s strength. Biden’s comments have the potential to make Xi look weak if he chooses to stand down. “The confusion and misstatements are more likely to undermine deterrence than strengthen it,” Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund, wrote yesterday.

At this point, though, the U.S. may need to choose between the risks of looking too aggressive and of looking too weak.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

Ukrainian forces firing a Howitzer.Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Ukraine has deployed the first American heavy artillery in battle. Times journalists toured the hidden sites.
“Never have I been so ashamed of my country”: A Russian diplomat to the U.N. resigned over the invasion.
Russia realized that its military was not strong enough to fight on multiple fronts. So it focused on a small sliver of eastern Ukraine, these maps show.
Starbucks will cease operations in Russia.

The Virus

Outside Pfizer’s headquarters in New York.Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

Pfizer said that three doses of its vaccine produced a strong response in children under 5. (F.D.A. advisers will meet next month to discuss vaccines for young children.)
The pandemic’s true toll: Excess death numbers show which countries have been hit hardest.

Politics

Voters in Georgia, Texas and other states will cast ballots in primaries today. Here’s what to watch for.
David Perdue ended his Trump-inspired campaign for governor of Georgia with racist remarks about Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The House Ethics Committee is investigating three Republicans: Madison Cawthorn, Ronny Jackson and Alex Mooney.
The Supreme Court limited inmates’ ability to challenge their convictions by arguing that their lawyers were ineffective.
The Biden administration is relying on shelters to house migrants and avoid images of chaos at border crossings.

Other Big Stories

A shipment of baby formula to ease a shortage arrived in the U.S. from Europe.
The formula industry has lax regulations that can allow contaminated batches to go undetected.
An inquiry showing that Southern Baptist leaders long mishandled sex abuse claims has pushed the denomination into turmoil.
The police are still looking for the attacker who fatally shot a 48-year-old man on the New York City subway this weekend.
A French bank will investigate its role in Haiti’s history in response to a Times investigation. (Read it here.)
Monkeypox is unlikely to create a pandemic. Here’s what you need to know.

Opinions

Putin’s war follows two decades of failed personal diplomacy by Angela Merkel, George W. Bush and others, this Times Opinion video argues.

Worshiping work starves us of purpose and connection, Carolyn Chen writes.

Deeply reported journalism needs your support.

The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Subscribe now with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Guy Fieri and his red Camaro.Timothy O'Connell for The New York Times

A great profile: Guy Fieri, elder statesman of Flavortown.

A Times classic: Does language shape how we think?

Buyer beware: “Good bones”? “Right on the water”? Consult our real estate translation guide.

Advice from Wirecutter: Keep your bedroom cool for cheap.

Lives Lived: “We decided that pickles are a fun food,” Robert Vlasic said in 1974. Lighthearted marketing helped his company, Vlasic Pickles, become the nation’s leading purveyor of the briny condiment. Vlasic died at 96.

ARTS AND IDEAS

“The Skin of Our Teeth” at Lincoln Center.Richard Termine for The New York Times

Designers and their sets

Live theater has an energy unmatched by digital performances, and this Broadway season is no exception. The Times picked five current productions with designs “that would lose something essential if you tried to put them on camera” and spoke with their designers.

The sets have an extraordinary level of detail that deserve a closer look. In “Plaza Suite,” the designer John Lee Beatty tried to be accurate to the Plaza Hotel, but removed some real-life objects that didn’t match its image: “Like plastic wastebaskets. In fact, I invented an official ‘Plaza Suite’ wastebasket with its own logo.”

For Adam Rigg, who designed the set for “The Skin of Our Teeth,” it’s about making people want to be part of the décor themselves. “This desire to get up and get into this space is, I think, fascinating in a time when all we do is sit and stare at screens,” he said.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Chris Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Frances Boswell.

Ginger-garlic shrimp with coconut milk will make your kitchen smell heavenly.

What to Listen to

Oliver Sim, of the British band the xx, is putting out his first solo album. He spoke with the Times about why he chose to disclose his H.I.V. status in the songs.

What to Do

For cycling enthusiasts: seven great biking cities around the world.

What to Read

“Phil,” a new biography of the confounding golf star Phil Mickelson.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was farmland. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Muscular (five letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

Correction: Monday’s newsletter incorrectly suggested that the Trans-Pacific Partnership required Senate ratification to become law; it instead needed to be approved by both the Senate and House.

P.S. Melina Delkic, who has worked on this newsletter, will join the Express desk as an editor. Congrats, Melina!

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about Taiwan. On “The Ezra Klein Show,” the poet Ada Limón talks about our relationship with the natural world.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 26, 2022

May 25, 2022

Good morning. Gun violence has killed more children and destroyed another community.

Mourners in Uvalde, Texas.Marco Bello/Reuters

Dozens, every day

Nineteen children were murdered in Uvalde, Texas, yesterday. They were elementary school students, attending their last week of classes before summer vacation, when an 18-year-old gunman came through the door and began shooting.

He also killed two adults, including a teacher, and appears to have shot his grandmother in her home before going to the school. At least three kids are in critical condition.

By now, the story of American gun violence is unsurprising. Mass shootings happen frequently. The list from just the past decade includes supermarkets in Buffalo and in Boulder, Colo.; a rail yard in San Jose, Calif.; a birthday party in Colorado Springs; a convenience store in Springfield, Mo.; a synagogue in Pittsburgh; churches in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and in Charleston, S.C.; a Walmart in El Paso; a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis; a music festival in Las Vegas; massage parlors in the Atlanta area; a Waffle House in Nashville; a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.; and a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

Even school shootings happen often enough that we know some of the names: Sandy Hook Elementary School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Oxford High School, Santa Fe High School, Columbine High School. Robb Elementary School in Uvalde has joined this horrific list.

If American gun violence is no longer surprising, it still is shocking. On an average day in the U.S., more than 35 people are murdered with a gun. No other affluent country in the world has a gun homicide rate nearly as high. Consider this chart, by my colleague Ashley Wu:

Chart shows select countries with a G.D.P. per capita of at least $30,000. | Sources: Our World in Data; World Bank

As bad as it is, the chart underplays the toll, for two reasons. It covers 2019, and gun violence has surged since the pandemic, for a complex mix of reasons that German Lopez has explained. The chart also does not include suicides and accidental shootings. Altogether, guns killed about 45,000 Americans last year.

“Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said in a speech last night.

Why is the U.S. such an outlier? The main reasons, studies suggest, are the sheer number of guns in this country and the loose laws about obtaining and using them.

No doubt, this latest tragedy will lead to more debate about whether those laws should meaningfully change. After other recent shootings, the country’s answer was no.

More on the shooting

“I am sick and tired of it,” President Biden said. “We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”
Senate Democrats pushed for a vote on legislation that would strengthen background checks, which the House first passed in 2019.
The Uvalde massacre is the second-deadliest school shooting on record, behind Sandy Hook a decade ago.
Eva Mireles, a fourth-grade teacher, was killed while trying to protect her students, according to a relative.
Anguished families waited late into the night to find out whether their children were among those killed.
The authorities identified the gunman as Salvador Ramos, who had attended a nearby high school. He died at the scene.
“I guess it’s something in society we know will happen again, over and over.” Parents of the Sandy Hook victims grappled with another shooting.
Texas has some of the country’s least-restrictive gun laws: Nearly anyone over 21 can carry a handgun without a license.
“I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough.” Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, made an emotional plea for gun control measures.

Opinions

Our former colleague Nicholas Kristof has explained what policy changes can reduce mass shootings.
Pass and enforce red-flag laws now, David French of The Dispatch writes.

THE LATEST NEWS

Primary Elections

A polling site in Lost Mountain, Ga.Nicole Craine for The New York Times

Brian Kemp defeated David Perdue, a Donald Trump-backed challenger, in the Republican primary for Georgia governor. Kemp will face Stacey Abrams, a rematch from 2018.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, won his primary for re-election. He and Kemp rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Up and down the ballot, Trump-endorsed candidates in Georgia lost.
In Georgia’s Senate race, the Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock will face Herschel Walker, a former football star and a friend of Trump’s.
Ken Paxton, the incumbent and a Trump ally, easily defeated George P. Bush in the runoff for Texas Attorney General.
In South Texas, a Democratic house race between Henry Cuellar, the incumbent, and Jessica Cisneros, a progressive candidate, is too close to call.
Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama will face Katie Britt, a former lobbyist, in a Republican primary runoff for the Senate next month.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary, won the Republican nomination for Arkansas governor.

International

Military vehicles during a parade in Taiwan last year.Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

The U.S. is reshaping Taiwan’s defenses for a possible war, using lessons from Ukraine in how to fend off a larger military.
World leaders accused Russia of holding back food supplies as a form of global blackmail.
In a Ukrainian town flanked on three sides by Russian forces, panic is in the air, The Times’s Carlotta Gall reports.
North Korea launched three ballistic missiles, the country’s 17th rocket test this year.

Other Big Stories

Biden will issue an executive order that includes creating a national registry of officers fired for police misconduct.
The U.S. birthrate rose 1 percent last year, its first increase since 2014.
A man suspected of Sunday’s fatal New York City subway shooting turned himself in.
Republican legislators in Indiana banned transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams at school, overriding the Republican governor’s veto.
A luggage search at a Detroit airport turned up a moth species not seen since 1912.

Opinions

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the rules of the game have changed on Taiwan, Bret Stephens argues.

How can conservatives both idolize Lincoln and want to overturn an election for Trump? Ross Douthat has a theory.

MORNING READS

The 1970s rock group Fanny.Linda Wolf

Rock ‘n’ roll: Before the Go-Go’s, the Bangles, and the Runaways, there was Fanny, a history-making all-female band.

More joy: This workout will improve your mood.

A wedding convo: Inside the branded marriage of Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker.

A Times classic: Breaking gender norms — with toys.

Advice from Wirecutter: Outdoor lighting you’ll love.

Lives Lived: Colin Cantwell produced the original designs for the X-wing starfighter and the Death Star from “Star Wars” and worked on other science-fiction classics. He died at 90.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The dating app Ilios.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

Love in the stars

Right now, mercury is in retrograde. If that sentence means something to you, you may be suited to the constellation of popular apps that use astrology to map meaning onto relationships. Among them: Ilios, a new dating app that matches users based on their supposed astrological compatibility.

At a recent launch event with college students, interest in the app generally fell along gender lines, Madeleine Aggeler reports. Most of the men knew their zodiac signs but felt indifferent. “I think for a week in seventh grade I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s so me.’ And then I was like, ‘Oh wait, no, I don’t care,’” said Luke Anderson, 21, a Pisces.

Women tended to appreciate the concept more. “It’s basically like a weird statistic,” Lexi Brooks, a 23-year-old Aries, said.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Frances Boswell.

Clean out your fridge and use the leftover veggies in this spring soup.

What to Watch

Why is the animated comedy “Bob’s Burgers” so freakishly lovable? This guy.

What to Read

Dan Chaon’s madcap novel “Sleepwalk” follows a road-tripping mercenary.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was changed. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and a clue: Skittish (five letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. Forty-five years ago today, China lifted a Cultural Revolution ban on Shakespeare.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about the school shooting in Uvalde. On “The Argument,” a debate about the right way to protest.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 26, 2022

May 26, 2022

Continue reading the main story

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This morning, we look at three key facts to help you make sense of gun violence and gun politics in the U.S. — David Leonhardt

Good morning. More guns in the U.S. mean more deaths.

Prayers outside Robb Elementary School.Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times

Unique to the U.S.

In every country, people get into arguments, hold racist views or suffer from mental health issues. But in the U.S., it is easier for those people to pick up a gun and shoot someone.

That reality is what allowed an 18-year-old to obtain an assault rifle and kill 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school classroom in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. And it is what makes the U.S. a global outlier when it comes to gun violence, with more gun deaths than any of its peers.

This chart, looking at public shootings in which four or more people were killed, shows how much the U.S. stands out:

Source: Jason R. Silva

In today’s newsletter, I want to walk through three ways to think about America’s gun problem.

The number of guns

Where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. Studies have found this to be true at the state and national level. It is true for homicides, suicides, mass shootings and even police shootings.

It is an intuitive idea: If guns are more available, people will use them more often. If you replaced “guns” in that sentence with another noun, it would be so obvious as to be banal.

Stricter gun laws appear to help. They are associated with fewer gun deaths, in both a domestic and global context, while looser gun laws are linked with more gun deaths.

Ownership rates are for 2017 and homicide rates are for 2018. | Source: Small Arms Survey

But federal laws are lax. Other developed countries typically require at least a license to own a gun, if they allow someone to get a firearm at all. In the U.S., even a background check is not always required to buy a gun — a result of poor enforcement and legal loopholes.

Reducing mass shootings

The U.S. is always going to have more guns, and consequently more deaths, than other rich countries. Given the Second Amendment, mixed public opinion and a closely divided federal government, lawmakers face sharp limits on how far they can go.

But since America’s gun laws are so weak, there is a lot of room to improve — and at least cut some gun deaths.

To reduce mass shootings, experts have several ideas:

More thorough background checks might stop some gunmen, like those in the church shootings in Charleston, S.C., in 2015 and in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017.
“Red flag” laws allow law enforcement officials to confiscate guns from people who display warning signs of violence, like threatening their peers or family members. The laws might have applied to the gunman in the Parkland, Fla., school shooting in 2018.
Assault weapon bans would restrict or prohibit access to the kinds of rifles shooters often use. A ban could at least make mass shootings less deadly by pushing gunmen toward less effective weapons, some experts argue.

But it is hard to say exactly how much impact these measures would have, because little good research exists on the effects of gun policies on mass shootings. One unanswered question is whether a determined gunman would find a way to bypass the laws: If he can’t use an assault rifle, would he resort to a handgun or shotgun? That could make the shooting less deadly, but not stop it altogether.

The bigger problem

Most shootings in America never appear in national headlines. The majority of gun deaths in 2021 were suicides. Nearly half were homicides that occurred outside mass shootings; they are more typical acts of violence on streets and in homes (and most involve handguns). Mass shootings were responsible for less than 2 percent of last year’s gun deaths.

Stricter gun laws could also reduce the more common gun deaths. It all comes down to the same problem: More guns equal more gun deaths, whether a gang shootout in California, a suicide in Wyoming or a school shooting in Texas.

The latest on the shooting

Details of the attack are still emerging. The gunman got into the school despite an armed security officer, and remained there for more than an hour before a tactical team entered and killed him.
Officials have not released the names of the victims, but some of the children’s families have come forward. They loved to dance, play with Play-Doh and joke with friends. Read about their lives.
The gunman had legally bought two AR-style rifles in the past week, the police said. He also texted an online friend that he was about to “shoot up” a school.
In Uvalde, a small community where families go back generations, almost everyone seemed to know the victims.
Senate Democrats pulled back from a quick vote on House-passed gun control bills, hoping to negotiate a bipartisan compromise that could overcome a filibuster.
Here’s an age-by-age guide to talking with kids about mass shootings.

Opinions and analysis

The U.S. has lost the will to protect its citizens — women, racial minorities and especially children, Roxane Gay argues.
On The Times’s “Sway” podcast, Nicholas Kristof and Frank Smyth discuss why liberals are losing the gun reform fight. Kristof thinks liberals should talk about “gun safety” rather than “gun control.”
Australia, Britain and other countries tightened their gun laws after mass shootings. Amanda Taub explains why the U.S. is different. In those countries, restrictions led to less gun violence, Max Fisher writes.
Changing America’s gun culture — not its gun laws — is the bigger challenge, Graeme Wood argues in The Atlantic.
The Uvalde shooting defies easy policy solutions, Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes.
We need to confront mental instability, social isolation and other cultural problems driving young men to violence, Kaylee McGhee White argues in The Washington Examiner.


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THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

Donald Trump reacted approvingly to chants of “Hang Mike Pence” by the Capitol rioters, witnesses have told the House panel investigating the Jan 6. attack.
The Justice Department is looking into the role of pro-Trump lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary will go to a recount. Mehmet Oz, the Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor, leads David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive.
Oklahoma now has the most restrictive abortion law in the country.

Other Big Stories

Western sanctions are hurting Russia. Its central bank cut interest rates to make it cheaper to borrow money.
College enrollment declined 5 percent since last spring, continuing a trend.
The model Kate Moss said that Johnny Depp did not push her down the stairs when they dated in the 1990s, countering Amber Heard’s testimony.
A novelist who wrote the blog post “How to Murder Your Husband” was convicted in her husband’s killing.

Opinions

Georgia’s primary results suggest that many Republican voters are ready to move on from Trump’s election lies, Gail Collins says.

Turkey is crushing the Kurds. NATO doesn’t seem to care, Cihan Tugal writes.

Abortion benefits men, too, Andréa Becker argues.

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MORNING READS

Two members of the “Old Gays.”Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times

“Grandfluencers”: On TikTok, the over-65 set is thriving.

A Times classic: Marie Kondo and TV’s spiritual consumerism.

Advice from Wirecutter: How to organize your cookbooks.

Lives Lived: Julie Beckett’s daughter, Katie, contracted viral encephalitis in 1978, leaving her dependent on a ventilator. The two became advocates for changes to Medicaid that let families care for disabled children at home. Julie Beckett died at 72.

ARTS AND IDEAS

“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” started in 2003.Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

The end of ‘Ellen’

After 19 years, Ellen DeGeneres’s daytime talk show airs its final episode today.

At its peak, “Ellen” was a ratings success, known for its playful tone, A-list celebrity interviews and cash giveaways. DeGeneres, a groundbreaking comedian, appeared in millions of living rooms daily as an openly gay person, beating the odds after coming out nearly ended her career in the ’90s.

But her legacy became more troubled in recent years. BuzzFeed News revealed that members of the show’s staff had confronted racism, fear and intimidation on set, as well as sexual harassment from producers. Warner Bros. fired three executives, and DeGeneres, whose motto was “be kind,” issued an on-air apology in 2020.

Even before the hit to her reputation — and the show’s declining ratings — DeGeneres had suggested in 2018 that she was weary of daytime TV and was preparing to leave.

“In the heyday of ‘Ellen,’ that show was a career-defining booking,” a Hollywood publicist told BuzzFeed News. Now, the publicist’s up-and-coming celebrity clients prefer spots on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” and “The Drew Barrymore Show.”

For more: Read BuzzFeed News’s Krystie Lee Yandoli on the show’s complicated legacy.


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PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

This spiced fried chicken is a staple in Taiwan’s night markets.

At the Opera

An opera about the gay activist and politician Harvey Milk gets an overhaul.

Up and Comers

Austin Butler is the star of Baz Luhrmann’s flashy new Elvis biopic. Er, who is he?

What to Read

The siblings in “The Latecomer” by Jean Hanff Korelitz hail from a wealthy New York family and hate each other.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was taxonomy. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Big star (five letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. Times subscribers can watch a special performance by the stars of this year’s Tony-nominated musicals today at 4 p.m. Eastern.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about the primaries. “Popcast” is about Kendrick Lamar’s new album.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 27, 2022

May 27, 2022

Continue reading the main story

SUPPORTED BY ACCENTURE

By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick

Today, we mourn for the victims of Uvalde.

21 lost lives

Maite Rodriguez, her mother’s only daughter, dreamed of becoming a marine biologist.

Tess Marie Mata played the same position on her softball team — second base — as her favorite Houston Astros player.

Layla Salazar sang “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” by Guns N’ Roses, with her father on their morning drives to school.

Xavier Lopez made the honor roll on Tuesday, which would turn out to be the last day of his life.

The 19 children killed that day at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, were both typical and extraordinary. To read their life stories — as journalists and family members compile them this week — is devastating. We think that it’s also necessary, as a tribute to the children and an acknowledgment of the toll of this country’s unique gun violence.

Today’s newsletter contains photographs and a brief sketch of each of the 19 children. It includes the same for the two Robb teachers murdered in the attack: Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia. You can read more by clicking on the links below.

From left: Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, Amerie Jo Garza, Tess Marie Mata and Jose Flores.

Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, 10: Alexandria, who went by Lexi, played softball and basketball and wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. Her parents saw her make the honor roll with straight A’s and receive a good-citizen award at her school on the day she was killed.

Amerie Jo Garza, 10: Amerie was “a jokester, always smiling,” her father said. She liked playing with Play-Doh and spending time with friends during recess. “She was very social,” he said. “She talked to everybody.”

Tess Marie Mata, 10: Tess liked TikTok dance videos, Ariana Grande and getting her hair curled, The Washington Post reported. And she loved José Altuve, the diminutive Houston Astros star whose position she emulated. She was saving money for a family trip to Disney World once her older sister, Faith, graduated from college next year.

Jose Flores: “My little Josesito,” his grandfather called him. He was an energetic baseball and video-game enthusiast. In a photo his grandfather keeps in his wallet, Jose has a beaming smile and wore a T-shirt reading, “Tough guys wear pink.”

From left: Miranda Mathis, Maite Rodriguez, Makenna Lee Elrod, Xavier Lopez

Miranda Mathis, 11: Miranda “was very loving and very talkative,” the mother of a close friend told The Austin American-Statesman. Miranda would often ask the mother to do her hair like her friend’s.

Maite Rodriguez, 10: Maite dreamed of attending Texas A&M University to become a marine biologist, a cousin wrote on Facebook: “She was her mom’s best friend.”

Makenna Lee Elrod, 10: Makenna liked to sing and dance, play with fidget toys and practice softball and gymnastics, an aunt told ABC News. She also loved animals, and hiding notes for her family to find. She recently gave her friend Chloe a friendship bracelet.

Xavier Lopez, 10: An exuberant baseball and soccer player, Xavier also chatted on the phone with his girlfriend and made the honor roll. “He was funny, never serious,” his mother, Felicha Martinez, told The Washington Post. “That smile I will never forget. It would always cheer anyone up.”

From left: Eliana “Ellie” Garcia, Layla Salazar, Eliahana Cruz Torres, Alithia Ramirez

Eliana Garcia, 9: The second-eldest of five girls, Ellie helped around the house, reminding her grandparents to take their pills, helping mow the lawn and babysitting her younger sisters, her grandfather told The Los Angeles Times. She loved “Encanto,” dancing for TikTok videos, cheerleading and basketball.

Layla Salazar, 10: Layla also liked dancing to TikTok videos, and she won six races at the school’s field day, her father told The Associated Press. She and her dad would sing every morning on their drive to school.

Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10: Eliahana played softball and particularly looked forward to wearing her green and gray uniform, along with eye black grease. The final game of the season was scheduled for Tuesday, and she was hoping to make the Uvalde All-Star team.

Alithia Ramirez, 10: Alithia loved to draw. She wanted to become an artist, her father told a San Antonio TV station. After a car struck and killed her best friend last year, Alithia sent his parents a drawing of him sketching her portrait in heaven and her sketching his portrait on earth.

From left: Jackie Cazares, Annabelle Rodriguez, Jailah Silguero, Jayce Luevanos

Jackie Cazares and Annabelle Rodriguez were cousins in the same class. Jackie was the social one. “She always had to be the center of attention,” her aunt said. “She was my little diva.” Annabelle was quieter. But the girls were close — so close that Annabelle’s twin sister, who was home-schooled, “was always jealous.”

Jailah Silguero, 10: Jailah was the youngest of four children, the “baby” of the family, her father said. Her mother told Univision that Jailah liked to dance and film videos on TikTok.

Jayce Luevanos, 10: Jayce, Jailah’s cousin, would brew a pot of coffee for his grandparents every morning, his grandfather told USA Today. Friends would come over to his house, a block from the school, to play in the yard. He enjoyed making people laugh, another relative told The Daily Beast.

From Left: Uziyah Garcia, Nevaeh Bravo, Rojelio Torres

Uziyah Garcia, 9: Uziyah enjoyed video games and football. His grandfather told The Los Angeles Times that Uziyah “was the type of kid [who] could get interested in anything in five minutes. Just the perfect kid, as far as I’m concerned.”

Nevaeh Bravo, 10: “She’s flying with the angels now,” a cousin wrote on Twitter.

Rojelio Torres, 10, was “intelligent, hard-working and helpful,” his aunt told a San Antonio television station.

From left: Eva Mireles, Irma Garcia

Eva Mireles, 44: “She loved those children,” a neighbor said. Mireles had worked for the school district for about 17 years. She enjoyed running and hiking. “She was just very adventurous and courageous and vivacious and could light up a room,” a relative told ABC News.

Irma Garcia, 46: Garcia spent 23 years at Robb Elementary, five of them as Mireles’s co-teacher. She liked to sing along to classic rock tunes and help her nephew, a college student, with his homework. Garcia was known as a steadfast optimist. She enjoyed barbecuing with her husband of 24 years, Joe; he died yesterday, of a heart attack.

Today’s news

During the hour the gunman was inside the school, parents pleaded with officers to storm in, witnesses said, and some parents tried to do so themselves.
Officials also said that the gunman had entered the school unimpeded, contradicting reports of a confrontation with an officer.
Senators discussed a bipartisan compromise on new gun laws, but leaders of both parties signaled skepticism. The Times asked Republican senators wether they’d support bills to strengthen background checks. Here are their answers.
The N.R.A.’s convention in Houston starts today. Speakers include Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

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THE LATEST NEWS

War in Ukraine

Russia’s ambitions are narrowing to three cities in the Donbas region. Mounting troop losses mean it could be the last major offensive.
The economic toll on Russia is widespread. Officials fear a return to Soviet-era scarcity.
Western officials are debating how the war may end. Some think Ukraine should give up land; others push for total victory.

Politics

Kevin McCarthy and three other House Republicans signaled they would not cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas.
Senate Republicans blocked a domestic terrorism bill the House passed after the Buffalo shooting.
Across the country, Republican lawmakers are trying to punish corporations for taking climate action.

Other Big Stories

The U.S. will distribute Paxlovid, Pfizer’s Covid pill, at clinics and testing sites.
Golden State beat Dallas, 120-110, to advance to the N.B.A. finals for the first time since 2019.

Ray Liotta, star of “Goodfellas” and “Field of Dreams,” died in his sleep. He was 67.

Opinions

Biden might want to defend Taiwan, but China has the U.S. outmatched, Oriana Skylar Mastro writes.

Southern Baptist Convention leaders betrayed their sacred creeds, David Brooks writes.

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When you subscribe to The New York Times, you’re supporting the work of 1,700 journalists who provide deeply reported journalism that examines the issues and forces shaping the world. Become a subscriber today with this special offer.

MORNING READS

The power of reading: The book business is thriving in Buenos Aires.

Celebrity trial: Inside TikTok’s Amber Heard hate machine.

Modern Love: Racist encounters kept interrupting a young relationship.

Advice from Wirecutter: The best time to buy outdoor gear? Right now.

Lives Lived: The wily, risk-taking Morton Janklow was arguably America’s most powerful independent literary agent. His agency represented Danielle Steel, three presidents and a pope. Janklow died at 91.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Evan Sung for The New York Times

Take comfort in this chili.

What to Read

In her memoir, “Here’s the Deal,” Kellyanne Conway calls her time working for Trump “the wildest adventure” of her life.

What to Listen to

The League of American Orchestras will enlist 30 ensembles to perform works by six living composers, all of them women.

Take the News Quiz

How well did you follow the headlines this week?

Now Time to Play

The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were paranoid and raindrop. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Hackneyed (five letters).

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. Mira Rojanasakul, a visual journalist, is joining The Times’s Climate desk from Bloomberg.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about the baby formula shortage. “Still Processing” is about childhood icons.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 28, 2022

May 28, 2022

By Melissa Kirsch

Good morning. Today we look at this summer’s crop of new books.

Allie Sullberg

Page turners

It’s Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start to summer, and the official start to summer reading. I’m smitten with the promise of a season spent buried in books, with “the possibility of long sunlit days spent unmoored from everyday restraints and immersed in a literary world,” as Jennifer Harlan wrote in The Times last year.

I’m giving myself permission to cast aside the dry novel I’ve been halfheartedly reading for weeks in favor of the far more exciting summer books recommended by my colleagues on the Books desk.

What better to enliven a stretch of stale reading than some juicy Hollywood history? “Everybody Thought We Were Crazy,” a book about Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward’s marriage set against a backdrop of the 1960s L.A. art scene, sounds dreamy (or, as Helen Shaw describes it, “weird, smoggy, heated”). Harvey Fierstein’s memoir promises “boatloads of charm and gossip” — sold.

I’m trying to resuscitate my trailing jade, so Christopher Griffin’s “You Grow, Gurl!: Plant Kween’s Lush Guide to Growing Your Garden” looks right up my street. I’ll check out “Be My Baby,” the reissue of Ronnie Spector’s 1990 memoir. And any book that “covers the Knicks the way Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein covered the Nixon White House in ‘The Final Days,’” as John Swansburg writes of “Blood in the Garden,” seems tough to resist.

I’ve been excited to try my colleague Eric Kim’s cookbook, “Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home.” It’s described as “exuberant and erudite,” so I’m hoping it’ll be as fun to read as to cook from. Keith Thomson’s maritime history “Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune” sounds transporting. I want to read pretty much every thriller in Sarah Lyall’s roundup, especially Dervla McTiernan’s “The Murder Rule”: “part legal thriller, part detective story, part analysis of a small-town reign of terror and part excavation of the secrets and lies of the past.”

A bunch of intriguing literary fiction is coming this summer, too. Joseph Han’s “Nuclear Family,” about a Korean American family living in Hawaii around the time of 2018’s false missile alert, looks promising. Sloane Crosley and Ottessa Moshfegh have new novels coming, and 24 years after “Election,” Tom Perrotta is bringing back his ambitious high-school protagonist in “Tracy Flick Can’t Win.” (She’s an assistant principal now.) Oh, and Mohsin Hamid, Maggie O’Farrell and Jean Hanff Korelitz all have new novels as well. It’s going to be a busy summer.

What are you looking forward to reading? Tell me.

For More

Taking a vacation? Here are the books to pack.
Did the pandemic change summer reading for good? Elisabeth Egan hopes so.
Our critic Molly Young offers recommendations of books old and new in her newsletter, Read Like the Wind.

WEEKENDS ARE FOR …

? Podcasts: Six explore the dark side of the internet.

? TV: Ten “Bob’s Burgers” episodes to watch before seeing the movie.

?‍♀️ Swimming: Make it your summer workout.

? Classical music: Five new albums.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Monica Barbaro in “Top Gun: Maverick”Paramount Pictures

How similar is the new “Top Gun” to the first movie? We answered your questions and got to know the new cast. The stunts were difficult.
The defamation case between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard went to a jury.
These Cannes films have the best Oscar odds. Vanessa Friedman picked the festival’s fashion winners.
Collectors have replaced museums or scholars in who determines art’s skyrocketing value, Jason Farago argues.
In “Goodfellas,” Ray Liotta was the right actor to turn the right part into a classic, Glenn Kenny writes. Liotta died this week at 67.
“Stranger Things” is back. Here’s a refresher.
The Washington Post explained where every “This Is Us” character ended up.

THE LATEST NEWS

The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, right, at a news conference yesterday.Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times

Children in the classrooms with the Texas gunman called 911 repeatedly while the police waited in the hall for more than an hour.
Police in the U.S. responding to mass shootings are trained above all to confront the gunman.
The gunman left multiple hints of his plans in the weeks before the massacre.
Human rights experts accused President Vladimir Putin of Russia of waging a genocidal campaign to wipe out part of the Ukrainian population.
Southern Baptist Convention leaders published a list this week of hundreds of church workers “credibly accused” of sexual abuse.
Millions of Americans are expected to travel this Memorial Day weekend.

Subscribe Today

When you subscribe to The New York Times, you’re supporting the work of 1,700 journalists who provide deeply reported journalism that examines the issues and forces shaping the world. Become a subscriber today with this special offer.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Marcus Nilsson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Brian Preston-Campbell. Prop stylist: PJ Mehaffey.

By Melissa Clark

Momofuku’s Bo Ssam

You don’t have to grill on Memorial Day if you are having a party. Other festive dishes feed a crowd, and some, like David Chang’s bo ssam, can be made almost entirely in advance. That means that, instead of standing in front of your Weber for the whole evening, you can be relaxing and chatting with your friends, holding a delightful beverage. I’ve made bo ssam often since the recipe was published in The New York Times Magazine a decade ago, and it never fails to delight all who dig in. You’ll have to start marinating the pork the night before, and it then needs about six hours in a low oven. But considering the payoff, it’s worth every minute — most of which, happily, are hands off.

A selection of New York Times recipes is available to all readers. Please consider a Cooking subscription for full access.

REAL ESTATE

Clockwise from left: Steve Buchanan Photography; Dynamic Motion LLC; Nauset Media for Sotheby’s International Realty

What you get for $700,000: A Colonial in Chestertown, Md.; a midcentury-modern showplace in West Des Moines, Iowa; or a cottage in East Sandwich, Mass.

The hunt: They wanted outdoor space to support their “plant habit.” Which home did they choose? Play our game.

Rental secrets: How do you find a New York apartment now? Readers explain.

Behind the scenes: The dream home promised by makeover shows is sometimes elusive.

Staying put: The best available home may be the one you’re in.

LIVING

The drag queen Kay Sedia at a Taco Bell Cantina in Chicago.Anjali Pinto for The New York Times

Going mainstream: Drag brunch has come to Taco Bell.

Tick season: Do you know how to stay safe? Take our quiz.

Wedding etiquette: Disinviting guests can be a minefield.

Maintaining: Protein powders can help stave off muscle loss.

SUMMER OF CYCLING

Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy

“Of all the ways to travel, is anything better than a bicycle?,” asks Amy Virshup, our Travel editor, introducing a series about biking:

In the U.S., abandoned railroad tracks have new lives as trails. Bike trails in Vermont helped the economy but have locals concerned about traffic and price increases. And e-bikes make rides around Hawaiian islands a breeze.
Check out seven great biking cities around the world, bike along the sea wall in Vancouver or see southern Europe on two wheels.
New to biking? Here’s an equipment guide.

GAME OF THE WEEKEND

Liverpool vs. Real Madrid, UEFA Champions League final: Real Madrid has won this tournament of Europe’s top soccer clubs 13 times, far more than any other team. “The club considers it something of a birthright,” Tariq Panja, who covers soccer for The Times, told us. The last time Madrid won, in 2018, it beat Liverpool, and Liverpool hasn’t forgotten: The star forward Mohamed Salah tweeted, “We have a score to settle.” 3 p.m. Eastern today on CBS and Paramount+

For more:

The game had been set for St. Petersburg, but soccer officials moved it after Russia invaded Ukraine. It will take place in Paris instead.
The Athletic wrote about Salah’s determination to get even.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was warming. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

Here’s today’s Wordle. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Before You Go …

Florence and the Machine have a new album. Have a listen.
Peruse the V&A Museum’s Beatrix Potter collection.
Here’s a gallery of rotating food.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 29, 2022

May 29, 2022

Good morning. Families and loved ones are leaning on each other to cope with the Texas school shooting.

Relatives of Alexandria Rubio, a victim of the Uvalde shooting, at a memorial in town.Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times

A shattered town

My colleague Jack Healy is in Uvalde, Texas, reporting on the school shooting that killed 19 children and two adults. He has talked to victims’ families about their grief and anger over police handling of the shooting.

I wanted to give you a sense of how people in Uvalde are processing the violence. So I called Jack.

What did you see when you first got to Uvalde?

Stunned grief.

I got here the morning after, and I started driving to the houses of the parents and grandparents of the kids who had perished.

This is a predominantly Latino town. A lot of the kids lived in multigenerational households, with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. These kids lived next door or around the corner from family members, who often took them to school.

The day after, these family members were starting to gather to parse through what had happened — not even to make sense of it, but try to come to grips with the reality that 10-year-old kids had been taken from them.

There is no making sense of it.

Yeah. For many of them, it was like coming to terms with the fact that the last day hadn’t been some sort of horrible dream.

The process of getting the news was traumatic, too. Some families didn’t find out for almost 12 hours. They were getting conflicting information from social media, from people in the community.

There were two girls named Eliana — one spelled Eliahana — who were killed. There’s name confusion between the two for a minute that made them wonder which one was theirs or whether theirs really had been killed. It was chaos.

How was everyday life disrupted?

This shooting came a couple days before what would have been the end of the school year. These kids were on the glide path toward summer vacation. That day, they had an honor roll ceremony, and parents had been there, taking pictures of their kids who were overjoyed to get their certificates.

The shooting abruptly ended the school year. High school graduation ceremonies were postponed.

People were also gearing up for Memorial Day weekend. This is beautiful, hill-and-river country. People were making plans for barbecues or floats down the river or going to a cabin or camping.

Victor M. Cabrales, the grandfather of Eliahana Torres.Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

You’ve probably heard things that will stick with you for years.

Man, yeah.

I talked with the grandpa of one of the girls who was killed, Eliahana Cruz Torres. He was her stepgrandpa. He and his wife, Eliahana’s biological grandma, had raised her since she was four. After she moved in with them, Eliahana frequently slept between grandma and grandpa because she didn’t want to sleep alone. She was squirmy in bed and would ask him to tickle her feet. She would say, “I love you, Grandpa.”

He said he broke down when she first called him Grandpa. It was one of the most touching and important things anyone had ever said to him.

There are 21 families across town telling stories like that now.

Regina Ivy, a Ulvade resident, had tattooed on her arm an outline of Texas with a heart in the location of Uvalde and the shooting date.Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

What are people doing to support each other?

Unfortunately, there is an established playbook for charities when mass shootings happen. The Red Cross is here. Southern Baptist volunteers have been praying on street corners. Starbucks in San Antonio sent workers because so many Starbucks employees here had been affected and had to be with their families.

There have also been smaller acts of kindness: family members bringing bottled water and toilet paper and food to people’s houses. Everyone knows they can’t fix this. But they do what they can. Frequently, that is just being present.

You wrote about the gun debate in Uvalde. In past shootings, survivors and others affected got involved in gun-control activism. Has that happened there?

That is a complicated question here. This is rural, southern Texas. Guns are woven into the politics and culture. Some people in town support the reflexive Republican position of needing more “good guys with guns,” despite the many problems with the police response. A lot of families are fed up and think that it’s unconscionable that an 18-year-old was able to buy two assault rifles. But it’s a quiet conversation.

Even from afar, covering these stories is difficult. Just looking at photos of these kids breaks my heart. How do you approach your reporting on the ground?

We don’t think enough as journalists, collectively, about what we do to these communities.

The school’s neighborhood is packed with television trucks and S.U.V.s and cars rented by journalists. There are blocks outside the school crammed with tents where TV reporters are doing their thing. It looks like a political convention.

Families have been getting constant calls and door knocks. A lot of them do want to share their stories and think it’s important that the world sees who their children were and what made them special. The first couple of times, people appreciate it. But after the 20th person knocks on your door, it can become another wound.

I don’t know what the solution is. There’s a lot of important journalism to do about these issues, about these families and these kids and the failings in response to the shooting. It’s really important to tell these stories.

More on Jack Healy: He got his first full-time journalism job as an intern at The Times before joining full time in 2008. He covered the war in Iraq and now works as a national correspondent based in Phoenix.

Today’s news

Officers who arrived as the shooting went on questioned the commander’s decision to wait before confronting the gunman.
The manufacturer of a gun used in the shooting is known for “Star Wars” and Santa Claus ads, messages that appeal to teenagers.
The National Rifle Association convention pitted gun enthusiasts inside against protesters outside.
The response in Washington: pain and paralysis.
A mother, sister, grandparent and best friend: The Buffalo shooting shows what a massacre takes from a victim’s loved ones.
President Biden will travel to Uvalde today to meet with victims’ families.


A MESSAGE FROM PREHISTORIC PLANET
	NOW STREAMING ON APPLE TV+ Unknown. Unexplained. Unbelievable. Until now. Experience dinosaurs like never before. WATCH NOW

NEWS

The Latest

Yana Skakova and her son Yehor fled eastern Ukraine yesterday.Francisco Seco/Associated Press

Russian troops entered a city that is the last major obstacle to gaining control of the Luhansk province in eastern Ukraine. Follow our updates.
Grass-roots movements are crowdfunding supplies for Russian troops.
Brittney Griner’s supporters are increasing public pressure to try to free her from Russian custody.
The right of women to play competitive sports is colliding with a movement to allow transgender athletes to compete against their chosen gender identities.
Republican primary results have punctured Donald Trump’s air of untouchability.

Other Big Stories

Nearly 20 women accused France’s most trusted anchorman of sexual assault or harassment.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former No. 2 Catholic Church official whose reputation was stained by the cover-up of sex abuse scandals, died. He was 94.
The satire film “Triangle of Sadness” won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Real Madrid won the Champions League final, European soccer’s premier annual match.

FROM OPINION

Republicans proved they can defy Donald Trump’s demands and keep their jobs, Ross Douthat writes.
Democrats need a plan to build a more capable government, Ezra Klein argues.
Book translators deserve credit on the cover, says Pamela Paul.

The Sunday question: Should Ukraine negotiate?

Ukraine cannot win outright and will have to seek peace talks with Russia eventually, Max Hastings writes in The Times of London. The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum thinks a cease-fire that lets Vladimir Putin declare victory will invite future aggression.

Subscribe Today

When you subscribe to The New York Times, you’re supporting the work of 1,700 journalists who provide deeply reported journalism that examines the issues and forces shaping the world. Become a subscriber today with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Pay phones on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan last month.Sara Messinger for The New York Times

Last ones standing: The only remaining pay phones in New York. (And the bygone ones.)

Sunday routine: A Delta Air Lines executive is teaching himself piano.

A Times classic: Against headphones.

Advice from Wirecutter: It’s smart to clean your grill every time you use it. Here’s how.

Sidechat: Another anonymous-posting platform? College students are skeptical.

BOOKS

Rebecca Clarke

By the Book: Elif Batuman reread her partner’s favorite book. It was “like getting to hang out with her younger self.”

Our editors’ picks: “The Forever Prisoner” details the saga of the Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah.

Times best sellers: Two stars of “The Office” write about working together in “The Office BFFs,” a No. 1 hardcover nonfiction best seller. See all our lists here.

The Book Review podcast: Nell McShane Wulfhart discusses her new book, “The Great Stewardess Rebellion.”

THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE

Photo illustration by Jamie Chung for The New York Times. Prop stylists: Megumi Emoto and Andrea Greco. Vaccines: The Brooklyn Hospital and Gramercy Pediatrics.

On the cover: Covid-era misinformation has some parents rejecting ordinary childhood immunizations — with potentially lethal consequences.

Recommendation: Learning to live with ghosts.

Diagnosis: Months after a stroke, the man was wasting away. What was wrong?

Eat: Biscotti so good they can make you cry.

THE WEEK AHEAD

What to Watch For

Senators said they would negotiate over gun legislation this week.
Colombia’s presidential election is today. Gustavo Petro, the leading candidate, could become the country’s first leftist leader.
Opening statements are expected Wednesday in a lawsuit accusing Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting a teenager in the 1970s.
Abbott Nutrition said it planned on Saturday to reopen the baby formula plant at the center of the national shortage.
Hurricane season begins this week, and it’s expected to be busy.
Manhattanhenge, when the sunset aligns with Manhattan’s street grid, is tonight.
The N.B.A. finals begin Thursday. Golden State will play the winner of tonight’s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals between Boston and Miami.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee finals are on Thursday.

What to Cook This Week

Armando Rafael for The New York Times

Cooking offered a mind-clearing task in a tough week, Emily Weinstein writes. For this week, she suggests recipes that can offer a moment of brightness, including Tajín grilled chicken; creamy, lemony pasta; and hot dogs with pico de gallo.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:

51 Across: He played Ferris Bueller’s droning economics teacher

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — German

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

May 30, 2022

May 30, 2022

By the staff of The Morning

Good morning. We’ve got some recommendations for the start of summer.

Pioneer East Meadow in San Francisco.Jason Henry for The New York Times

Getaways and cookouts

This holiday weekend is the unofficial start of summer, and we’re turning today’s newsletter into a summer preview. We’ll cover food, travel, books, sports and movies.

Travel

Many Americans are starting to travel again. “The travel rebound is shaping up to be even stronger than airlines expected,” our colleague Niraj Chokshi reported last week. Even so, traveling this summer won’t be completely normal.

If you’re returning to the U.S. from another country, you will need a negative Covid test to board your plane. Some other countries, including Canada and Britain, have lifted their testing rules.

Be aware that airlines can legally cancel flights and place passengers on less convenient routes, with layovers. Those disruptions have seemed to become more common in the past two years, because of crew illnesses and aircraft shortages. Our columnist has advice on how to avoid them.

One big tip: Don’t assume that old travel patterns will necessarily continue. Public transit schedules may have changed since the start of the pandemic. Renting a car may be more expensive or require longer wait times. Beach houses may be harder to find in some places and easier in others.

And what should you do if you haven’t yet decided what to do? The Times is running a series — A Summer of Cycling Around the Globe — with reports on Vancouver; Vermont; Alaska; Hawaii; a 150-mile journey from Italy to Croatia; and seven cities around the world that are fun to explore on a bike.

Food

Armando Rafael for The New York Times

The summer is barbecue season, and The Times’s Genevieve Ko has some recommendations that are meant to be prepared ahead of time. That way, you don’t need to be working in the kitchen while everyone else is having fun. Other dishes (like these hamburgers) are best grilled while you’re talking to your guests.

The ultimate advance-preparation meal is a picnic, and David Tanis has plenty of advice.

Some of Sam Sifton’s recommended dishes for Memorial Day will also work for the rest of the summer: jalapeño grilled pork chops and brown sugar-cured salmon. Other staples for today include reverse-seared steak, broccoli salad (if you’re looking for some vitamins) and a strawberry galette for dessert.

Sam encourages people to remember that Memorial Day is a holiday with a purpose. “I always make sure to pay my respects to those who died in service to the nation before I get to the brats and beer,” he said. We encourage you to read this profile of Sgt. Nicole Gee and Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, two Marines killed while helping evacuate Kabul last year.

Movies

In the ’80s, Pete Mitchell was a brash upstart striving to stand out in the elite Top Gun program. Now he’s a captain in the Navy, and he’s one of the best fighter pilots.

Times have changed, but Pete’s still got it — as does Tom Cruise, who played the character in the original “Top Gun” and in the sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick,” a classic summer action movie that premiered last week. “On the brink of 60,” the critic A.O. Scott writes, Cruise “still projects the nimble, cocky, perennially boyish charm that conquered the box office in the 1980s.” Here’s The Times’s review, the trailer and a profile of Cruise.

Also this summer: “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Jurassic World Dominion” and “Nope,” a Jordan Peele film, top The Times’s list of the 101 most interesting movies of the season.

Books

Illustration by Millie von Platen

Before you head to the beach, consult our Books desk colleagues’ guide to summer reading. They have 88 books to transport you, including thrillers, historical fiction, romances and cookbooks.

Melissa Kirsch also highlighted literary fiction on the way in the coming months: Mohsin Hamid, Maggie O’Farrell and Jean Hanff Korelitz all have new novels, and 24 years after “Election,” Tom Perrotta is bringing back his ambitious high-school protagonist in “Tracy Flick Can’t Win.” (She’s an assistant principal now.)

Here are summer reading guides from The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and NPR’s “Fresh Air.”

Sports

An early event on the summer sports calendar will be a glamorous N.B.A. Finals matchup between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics. The Warriors have experience on their side: This is the sixth Finals for the star trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. But the Celtics have youth — their top scorer, Jayson Tatum, is a decade younger than Curry — and an excellent defense.

Shortly afterward, the N.H.L. will stage the Stanley Cup Finals. The Tampa Bay Lightning, the two-time defending champions, are one of five teams remaining, along with the Edmonton Oilers, the Colorado Avalanche, and the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes (who meet for a Game 7 tonight). Edmonton hopes to win the first Stanley Cup for a Canadian team since 1993.

The rest of summer will include tennis Grand Slams, featuring the rising Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz; a W.N.B.A. season that will likely be the last for the legendary Sue Bird; and an M.L.B. season that has Yankees and Mets fans dreaming of another Subway Series.

One footnote: 2022 is a World Cup year, but the tournament won’t take place in the summer, for the first time in its history. It begins on Nov. 21 — to avoid the hottest months in Qatar, which is this year’s host.

THE LATEST NEWS

Uvalde Shooting

President Biden and Jill Biden at Robb Elementary School yesterday.Cheriss May for The New York Times

President Biden and the first lady met with victims’ families in Uvalde, Texas. Some of them expressed frustration with Washington’s inaction.
The Justice Department will review law enforcement’s response. Officers allowed the gunman to stay inside the school for more than an hour.
A local Catholic church has become a hub for grief.
Some liberal states are moving to pass stricter gun-control laws.
After recent mass shootings, an old debate is back: Would disseminating graphic images of the results of gun violence jolt the nation’s leadership into action?
This is how the 78 long minutes of the shooting unfolded.

War in Ukraine

The Ukrainian army is mounting a counterattack to reclaim territory around Kherson, a southern port city that was the first to fall in the invasion.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, made a rare journey outside Kyiv, visiting frontline troops in the northeast.
European leaders will discuss more sanctions against Russia, including an oil embargo, in Brussels this week.

Other Big Stories

The Orlando Museum of Art’s director with “Untitled (Industry Insider).”Melanie Metz for The New York Times

The F.B.I. will investigate the authenticity of 25 Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings on display at the Orlando Museum of Art.
Colombia’s presidential race is going to a runoff. A left-wing senator led in the first round of voting on Sunday.
An old ice house in the Bronx became one of New York City’s deadliest construction sites in years. These are the men who lost their lives.
The Times spoke with hundreds of school counselors about how the pandemic has harmed children’s mental health.
The swimmer Lia Thomas’s dominance has intensified a debate about whether to allow transgender female athletes into women’s elite sports.
Six years after financing their son’s lavish wedding, his parents are suing him and their daughter-in-law for not yet having a child.

Opinions

Too many Americans aren’t able to stay home when they’re sick, Aaron Carroll says.

Ukraine’s drones have changed the nature of warfare, Alex Kingsbury argues.

It’s possible for things to get better instead of continually worse: A conversation between Bret Stephens and Gail Collins.

Subscribe Today

When you subscribe to The New York Times, you’re supporting the work of 1,700 journalists who provide deeply reported journalism that examines the issues and forces shaping the world. Become a subscriber today with this special offer.

MORNING READS

Farmers harvesting opium in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province.Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Poppy fields: In Afghanistan, green energy is a boon to the drug trade.

Fleet week: It’s no longer just a night out for the boys.

Metropolitan Diary: A museum trip with dad that she never forgot.

Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.3. Can you do better?

A Times classic: How to light a room.

Advice from Wirecutter: Tips to help you waste less food.

Lives Lived: Ronnie Hawkins brought turbocharged rockabilly music to roadhouses from Arkansas to Canada. But his greatest claim to fame might be his backup musicians, who went on to form the Band. Hawkins died at 87.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Victoria Granof.

This lemony cake uses the zest, juice and flesh of lemons.

What to Watch

“Stranger Things” has gone from “lovingly echoing 1980s touchstones to industriously copying itself,” the critic Mike Hale writes about Season 4.

What to Listen to

Hear new tracks by Wynonna & Waxahatchee, Superorganism, Rico Nasty and others.

Now Time to Play

The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were belatedly and debatably. Here is today’s puzzle.

Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Personal growth? (five letters).

If you’re in the mood to play more, find our games here.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

P.S. Unknown soldiers from World War II and the Korean War were buried at Arlington National Cemetery 64 years ago today.

Here’s today’s front page.

There’s no new “Daily” today. “Sway,” is about the new “Top Gun” movie.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

June 1, 2022

May 31, 2022

Good morning. Masks work. So why haven’t Covid mask mandates made much difference?

Aristotle, inverted

Covid cases and hospitalizations are rising again in the U.S., and deaths are starting to rise, too. In response, many people are understandably asking what the country can do to minimize the virus’s toll in the weeks ahead.

Chart shows 7-day daily average. Data as of May 29. | Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

So far, a lot of discussion has focused on mask mandates. Schools in Philadelphia; Providence, R.I.; Berkeley, Calif.; and Brookline, Mass., have reimposed theirs, as have several colleges. Elsewhere, some people are frustrated that officials, like New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, have not done so.

Critics have accused these leaders of a lack of political courage, saying that they are yielding to Covid fatigue rather than imposing necessary public health measures. But I think that the criticism misreads both the history of public health and the recent scientific evidence about mask mandates.

The evidence suggests that broad mask mandates have not done much to reduce Covid caseloads over the past two years. Today, mask rules may do even less than in the past, given the contagiousness of current versions of the virus. And successful public health campaigns rarely involve a divisive fight over a measure unlikely to make a big difference.

The evidence

From the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a paradox involving masks. As Dr. Shira Doron, an epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, puts it, “It is simultaneously true that masks work and mask mandates do not work.”

To start with the first half of the paradox: Masks reduce the spread of the Covid virus by preventing virus particles from traveling from one person’s nose or mouth into the air and infecting another person. Laboratory studies have repeatedly demonstrated the effect.

Given this, you would think that communities where mask-wearing has been more common would have had many fewer Covid infections. But that hasn’t been the case.

In U.S. cities where mask use has been more common, Covid has spread at a similar rate as in mask-resistant cities. Mask mandates in schools also seem to have done little to reduce the spread. Hong Kong, despite almost universal mask-wearing, recently endured one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks.

Advocates of mandates sometimes argue that they do have a big effect even if it is not evident in populationwide data, because of how many other factors are at play. But this argument seems unpersuasive.

After all, the effect of vaccines on severe illness is blazingly obvious in the geographic data: Places with higher vaccination rates have suffered many fewer Covid deaths. The patterns are clear even though the world is a messy place, with many factors other than vaccines influencing Covid death rates.

Yet when you look at the data on mask-wearing — both before vaccines were available and after, as well as both in the U.S. and abroad — you struggle to see any patterns.

Almost 30 percent

The idea that masks work better than mask mandates seems to defy logic. It inverts a notion connected to Aristotle’s writings: that the whole should be greater than the sum of the parts, not less.

The main explanation seems to be that the exceptions often end up mattering more than the rule. The Covid virus is so contagious that it can spread during brief times when people take off their masks, even when a mandate is in place.

Airplane passengers remove their masks to have a drink. Restaurant patrons go maskless as soon as they walk in the door. Schoolchildren let their masks slide down their faces. So do adults: Research by the University of Minnesota suggests that between 25 percent and 30 percent of Americans consistently wear their masks below their nose.

Maskless travelers on a plane last week.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

“Even though masks work, getting millions of people to wear them, and wear them consistently and properly, is a far greater challenge,” Steven Salzberg, a biostatistician at Johns Hopkins University, has written. Part of the problem, Salzberg explains, is that the most effective masks also tend to be less comfortable. They cover a larger part of a person’s face, fit more snugly and restrict the flow of more air particles.

During an acute crisis — such as the early months of Covid, when masks were one of the few available forms of protection — strict guidelines can nonetheless make sense. Public health officials can urge people to wear tightfitting, high-quality masks and almost never take them off in public. If the mandate has even a modest benefit, it can be worth it.

But this approach is not sustainable for years on end. Masks hinder communication, fog glasses and can be uncomfortable. There is a reason that children and airline passengers have broken out in applause when told they can take off their masks.

In the current stage of the pandemic, there are less divisive measures that are more effective than mask mandates. Booster shots are widely available. A drug that can further protect the immunocompromised, known as Evusheld, is increasingly available. So are post-infection treatments, like Paxlovid, that make Covid less severe.

(For young children, who are not yet eligible for the vaccine, Covid is overwhelmingly mild, similar in severity to the flu.)

Continuing to expand access to these treatments can do more to reduce Covid hospitalizations and deaths than any mask rule probably would. “People have the wherewithal to protect themselves,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco, told me. Absent a much larger surge in Covid hospitalizations, he added, the case for mandates is weaker than it used to be.

Dr. Aaron Carroll, the chief health officer of Indiana University, recently wrote for The Times’s Opinion section: “Instead of continuing to bicker about things that have become hopelessly politicized like mask mandates, those in public health could focus on efforts that might make much more of a difference.”

The available data also suggests that more than half of Americans have had Covid in the past six months, making many of them unlikely to contract it again now. As Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University, told Vox: “Many of the people who are not wearing masks have already had Covid, so they’re like, ‘I’ve been vaccinated, I already had it — how much longer do you want me to do this for?’ And it’s kind of hard to say, ‘No, you absolutely must wear it.’”

One-way masking

The country is probably never going to come to a consensus on masks. They have become yet another source of political polarization. Democrats are more likely to wear masks than Republicans, and Democrats who identify as “very liberal” are more likely to support mandates.

Fortunately, the scientific evidence points to a reasonable compromise. Because masks work and mandates often don’t, people can make their own decisions. Anybody who wants to wear a snug, high-quality mask can do so and will be less likely to contract Covid.

If anything, that approach — one-way masking — is consistent with what hospitals have long done, as Doron, the Tufts epidemiologist, points out. Patients, including those sick with infectious diseases, typically have not worn masks, but doctors and nurses have. “One-way masking is how we have always used them,” she wrote.

The same system can work for Covid outside of hospitals. Wachter, for example, believes that the time for mandates has passed but still wears one at the supermarket, in classrooms, on airplanes and elsewhere. Different people can reasonably make different choices.

THE LATEST NEWS

Uvalde Shooting

Rearranging a memorial for 10-year-old Jose Flores.Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times

Jose Flores and Andrea Herrera, siblings in the fourth grade, went to school together last Tuesday. She came home. He didn’t.
Senator Chuck Schumer’s decision to try for a bipartisan compromise on new gun laws is a test of the Senate — and of democracy itself.
Canada is planning to ban handgun sales and the possession of assault weapons.

War in Ukraine

The European Union will ban most Russian oil imports by the end of the year.
A Russian warplane crashed into a house in Ukraine. Death was parceled out randomly.
Shrapnel killed a 32-year-old French journalist in eastern Ukraine.

Other Big Stories

A man pretending to be a woman in a wheelchair threw cake at the Mona Lisa. The painting wasn’t harmed.
Redrawn congressional districts have pitted two stalwart Manhattan Democrats, Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, against each other.
As workers return to the office, some New York City companies are opening locations where many employees live: Brooklyn.

Opinions

“No matter what the law in Virginia says, I will not prosecute a woman for having an abortion,” Steve Descano, a prosecutor, writes.

Russia is to blame for the war in Ukraine. But the U.S. has escalated it, Christopher Caldwell writes.

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MORNING READS

The Cuban boxer Osvel Caballero, right, and Jhosman Reyes of Mexico.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Professional boxing: Cuba steps from amateur glory into the prize fighting chase.

Start-up culture: The end of the “girlboss”?

Trilobites: Dinosaurs started out hot. Then some of them turned cold.

A Times classic: Stop being so hard on yourself.

Advice from Wirecutter: The best — and quietest — air-conditioner.

Lives Lived: Kenny Moore, a two-time Olympic marathon runner, used his understanding of athletes to become a pre-eminent track writer at Sports Illustrated for nearly 25 years. He died at 78.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The United We Eat staff in Missoula, Mont.Janie Osborne for The New York Times

A kitchen run by refugees

A weekly program where immigrants cook takeout meals, called United We Eat @Home, has turned Ghalia Ahmad Fayez AlMasri into a local celebrity in Missoula, Mont. “When I cook, my meal goes very, very fast — 15 minutes this time,” AlMasri, who fled Syria in 2017, told The Times.

The program has helped refugees apply for farmers’ market permits and find restaurant jobs. And it has diversified the city’s dining scene: Without it, there would be no place for Missoulians to order Congolese, Pakistani or Guinean food. Here’s more about the program, as well as mouthwatering photos.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Baba ghanouj, grilled eggplant purée, has a smoky flavor.

What to Read

David Sedaris, the chronicler of dysfunctional families and oddball enthusiasms, has a new essay collection, “Happy-Go-Lucky.”

Concerts

Abba is back onstage in London. (Well, sort of.) The Times critic called it “triumphantly fun.”

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was entombed. Here is today’s puzzle.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Chutzpah (five letters).

And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. The word “unputdownability” — praise for a book — appeared for the first time in The Times recently.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about the police response in Uvalde, Texas. “The Ezra Klein Show” provides a conservative take on Roe v. Wade.

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

June 1, 2022

June 1, 2022

Continue reading the main story

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By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick

Good morning. In Ukraine, Russia is both struggling and making progress.

Two telling numbers

Before invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian forces already controlled about 30 percent of the eastern Ukrainian region known as Donbas. Russia had taken the territory — with help from local separatist forces — as part of a sporadic, often low-grade war with Ukraine that began in 2014.

Today, Russia controls closer to 75 percent of Donbas. Some of the most recent Russian gains have come around Sievierodonetsk.

As of May 29. | Sources: Institute for the Study of War; Rochan Consulting

Together, those two statistics — 30 percent and 75 percent — offer a useful summary of the war.

Yes, the war has gone much worse for Russia than almost anybody expected: Rather than overrunning Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in mere days, the Russian military had to backtrack and narrow its goals to Donbas, a long-disputed border region. But Russia is nonetheless making progress there. It may yet accomplish the more limited goal of dominating Donbas. And Vladimir Putin is betting that he will prove more patient than Ukraine’s Western allies.

Today’s Times has several notable pieces of Ukraine coverage. Helene Cooper looks at the military mistakes that Russia is repeating, and Carlotta Gall profiles the Ukrainians choosing to stay in their homes in Donbas. Three photographers — Lynsey Addario, Finbarr O’Reilly and Ivor Prickett — have published images and stories from the front lines.

In the Opinion section, President Biden has published an essay explaining that his administration will continue to send weapons to Ukraine but not troops. In the essay, he announces that the U.S. will send longer-range missiles to Ukraine than it previously has.

Alongside those pieces, we’re using today’s newsletter to give you an overview of the war.

A Russian pincer

The big question over the next several weeks — according to our colleague Julian Barnes, who covers U.S. intelligence agencies — will be whether Russia can encircle Ukraine’s forces in Donbas. If Russia can, the Ukrainian troops could be cut off from the rest of the country and suffer heavy losses. Russia might then be in position to take control of nearly all of Donbas.

“Intelligence officials have repeatedly said, both publicly and privately, that this next phase is going to be very important in setting the tenor for the war in the months to come,” Julian said. “It will determine whether we stay in something approximating a stalemate or if one side gets the upper hand.”

In the war’s early weeks, Russia tried to move quickly and capture large sections of territory. Its military proved incapable of doing so, rebuffed by Ukrainian troops, with help from weapons provided by the U.S., E.U. and other allies. In the war’s current phase, Russia has emphasized a strategy from other recent wars, in Syria and Chechnya: using missiles and other heavy artillery to bombard cities and towns and eventually take them over.

As Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, says: “The war has clearly gone on much longer than anyone anticipated, including the Russians. And the Russians after those initial failures have adapted and have gone back to the traditional method of fighting wars.”

Clearing debris in an apartment in Slovyansk, Ukraine, after a Russian strike.Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

The bombardment appears to be causing substantial Ukrainian casualties. On a typical recent day, between 50 and 100 Ukrainian troops were killed, President Volodymyr Zelensky recently estimated. Russia has also managed to capture some economically significant areas, including ports and wheat fields.

Putin has adopted a strategy that Russia has used for much of its history, combining its vast resources with a high tolerance of casualties to make slow wartime gains. In this war, Putin believes that Ukraine’s Western allies become weary of the fight long before he feels much pressure to do so. “He’s betting on the West to get tired and to get distracted,” Anton said.

Still, Putin faces many of the same problems that undermined Russia’s initial invasion, as Helene Cooper’s story explains. Its military has proved to be an inefficient, top-down organization in which field commanders often must wait for high-level orders. Much of Russia’s equipment is out of date, and many of its troops are not well trained. They also did not expect to be part of a full-scale war, and the deaths of thousands of their fellow soldiers have further weakened morale.

“The Russians are attempting to subdue a massive country with a well-organized military that is fighting on its home turf,” Helene said. “That is a very tall order for an army where you have soldiers on the ground with no clue why they are even in Ukraine.”

Barriers to peace

Ultimately, many analysts believe that Russia’s military problems will make it very difficult for Putin to control large parts of Ukraine for months or years. Yet Donbas is where he is most likely to find some success.

“The overall military balance in this war still trends in Ukraine’s favor, given manpower availability and access to extensive Western military support,” Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at CNA, a research group, recently wrote. “That will show itself more over time. But the local balance in the Donbas during this phase is a different story.”

The most likely medium-term scenario is that Russia will control a large amount of Donbas and that Putin will patiently and brutally try to expand Russia’s holdings. He — as well as Ukraine and its allies — would then need to decide whether any truce is possible.

“I will not pressure the Ukrainian government — in private or public — to make any territorial concessions,” Biden wrote in his Times essay.

More on Ukraine

The U.S. has resisted calls to seize Russian assets and give them to Ukraine.
“We are about to lose a lot more lives and limbs”: Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers are now amputees.
Europe is staring down a food crisis “because of this brutal unjustified war against Ukraine,” a top E.U. official said.


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Politics

The Supreme Court blocked a Texas law that would stop social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express.
Michael Sussman, a Democratic-linked lawyer, was found not guilty of lying to the F.B.I.
The K-pop group BTS met with Biden to discuss hate crimes against Asians.
Who’s running to represent Alaska in the House of Representatives? Four dozen candidates, including Sarah Palin and Santa Claus (his legal name).

The Virus

Deaths from Omicron were even more skewed toward older Americans than in the previous wave — and were heavily concentrated among unboosted people.
Shanghai has mostly eased its two-month lockdown.

Other Big Stories

The funeral for Amerie Jo Garza, 10.Mark Abramson for The New York Times

Funerals began yesterday for the 19 children and two teachers killed in Uvalde, Texas.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a deal to remove tariffs on nearly all bilateral trade.
Russian mercenaries helped carry out a massacre in Mali, executing hundreds of civilians, witnesses said.
Wildfires have burned more than 600,000 acres across New Mexico.
Michelle Wie West, a onetime prodigy, will step away from professional golf.

Opinions

China is winning the battle for economic influence in Asia, Susannah Patton writes.

Public service ads have reduced littering, drunken driving and teen smoking. They could do the same for gun sales, Pamela Paul argues.

Ross Douthat suggests age-based barriers to buying a gun, like psychological screenings for younger would-be customers.

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MORNING READS

Catch a ride: Life aboard the Q23, one of New York’s slowest buses.

Space rocks: A new tool helps spot killer asteroids.

Megalodon vs. great white shark: Why the scourge of the ocean disappeared.

A Times classic: A generous home in just 660 square feet.

Advice from Wirecutter: How to fight seasonal allergies.

Lives Lived: Walter Abish, a Vienna-born American writer, traced the interplay of modern Germany and its Nazi past in provocative, linguistically playful experimental fiction. He died at 90.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Working on a dance routine for the Savannah Bananas.Shawn Brackbill for The New York Times

The most watchable team in baseball

The Savannah Bananas, a collegiate summer-league baseball team in Georgia, have sold out every home game since 2016. They also have more TikTok followers than the Yankees and Mets combined. The dancing umpires might have something to do with that.

Bananas games are a bit like a circus, Margaret Fuhrer writes in The Times. Players will sometimes wear stilts. The first-base coach is a charismatic hip-hop dancer who has never played baseball. A cast of 120 entertainers — including a pep band and a “dad bod cheerleading squad” — adds to the spectacle.

“We want people who used to say, ‘I don’t like baseball,’ to say, ‘I have to see the Bananas,’” said Jesse Cole, the team’s owner, who also serves as the on-field host sporting a yellow tuxedo.


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What to Cook

Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

All you need for this dish is a box of spaghetti, four eggs, olive oil and garlic. (Parmesan is optional.)

What to Watch

“Pistol,” about the Sex Pistols, and “Angelyne,” about a sex icon, revisit rock ’n’ roll swindles.

Art

Trash is his muse: Meet the resident artist of New York City’s sanitation department.

Now Time to Play

The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was jocular. Here is today’s puzzle.

Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and a clue: Sodas in red cans (five letters).

And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed a treaty to end chemical weapons production 32 years ago today.

Here’s today’s front page.

“The Daily” is about the lives touched by the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. On “The Argument,” a debate about gun control.

Natasha Frost, Claire Moses, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.