Members phkrause Posted October 26, 2024 Author Members Posted October 26, 2024 October 24, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering bipartisan support for marijuana legalization — plus, accusations of fascism, Israeli bombs in Lebanon and #MeToo in Japan. In Rome, Ga. Nicole Craine for The New York Times High support Twelve years ago, mainstream politicians opposed marijuana legalization. Recreational use was forbidden even in the most liberal states. Today, even conservative states are considering the policy — including North Dakota, South Dakota and Florida, through ballot initiatives this November. And both presidential contenders now favor legalization. Kamala Harris confirmed her support this month. Donald Trump says he will vote for Florida’s initiative. He also backs easing federal restrictions on weed. This is the first time even one major-party candidate has publicly supported legalizing pot. The shift was unusually quick for American politics; it’s very rare for the bipartisan consensus to flip in less than a generation. One reason politicians have changed their minds so quickly is that they are following a shift in voters’ views. In today’s newsletter, I’ll look at how public opinion evolved — and why Harris’s and Trump’s positions could matter even in states that have already legalized marijuana. A quick shift Americans’ views on domestic policy are largely stable. Consider guns: Congress passed the last major federal gun measure, the Brady Act, three decades ago. Since then, views on whether firearm laws should be made more or less strict have barely moved, according to Gallup. This is typical for most domestic policy issues, researchers have found. Marijuana legalization is an exception. In 2000, 31 percent supported it; now 70 percent do. The new consensus formed long before politicians caught up. Most Democrats have supported legalization since the late 2000s. Most Republicans have since 2017, according to Gallup. Why did public opinion change so quickly? One explanation is exhaustion with the war on drugs. Decades of punitive policy did not get great results. The United States is in the middle of its deadliest drug overdose crisis ever (although overdose deaths are now falling). People want reform, and one place to start is a drug that most Americans see as less dangerous than legal substances like alcohol and tobacco. The shift has continued even as legalization has produced its own problems. In states where marijuana is legal, people have reported more addiction and other serious medical issues that are linked to daily marijuana use. (See some of those harms.) Still, public opinion remains in favor of legal pot — and now Democratic and Republican leaders are catching up. Federal impact With many states legalizing marijuana — perhaps a majority, after this year’s election — you may wonder whether it matters that the presidential candidates have come around to legalization. After all, many states addressed the issue before federal officials caught up. But federal law still shapes marijuana policy at the state level. For example, many banks, which are regulated at the federal level, remain wary of holding money from marijuana businesses. In many ways, the law treats those transactions the same way it does bank transactions from a drug cartel or another criminal enterprise. This leaves dispensaries open to robbery because many can’t take credit cards and can’t find a secure place to store all their cash. Federal regulation can also help address some of the problems that have appeared with legalization. Congress will ultimately decide whether federal marijuana laws are loosened or repealed. But the next House and Senate will be able to make such changes with confidence, knowing that they probably won’t face a veto from the White House. Related: A jar of legal weed can cost $60 in New York. One reason? Federal prohibition. THE LATEST NEWS Democratic Campaign Vice President Kamala Harris Erin Schaff/The New York Times When asked in a CNN town hall if she believes Trump is a fascist, as his former chief of staff alleged to The Times, Harris said yes. Harris was also asked about her changes in position on fracking and other issues. She said the country deserved a president “who is not afraid of good ideas and does not stand on pride,” adding, “The important thing is to build consensus to fix problems.” Read more takeaways. A leading historian of fascism thought the label was overused. He’s changing his mind. Eminem and Violent J of Insane Clown Posse are among the celebrities who have recently endorsed Harris. The authorities arrested an Arizona man in connection with shootings at a Democratic Party campaign office. He had dozens of guns and a grenade launcher at his home The head of The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board resigned after the paper’s owner blocked an endorsement of Harris. Republican Campaign The Justice Department warned Elon Musk’s super PAC that his plan to give voters $1 million might violate federal law. It’s illegal to pay people to register to vote. The country singer Jason Aldean said he’d voted early for Trump. Can Harris or Trump bring back manufacturing jobs? We looked at the data. Voting Marjorie Taylor Greene turned a Georgia voter’s simple mistake into a conspiracy theory. Other Trump allies are reviving false claims about voting machines. Georgia’s secretary of state said that a foreign cyberattack had failed to shut down the state’s website to request absentee ballots. International Sirajuddin Haqqani Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Afghanistan’s most wanted militant is trying to remake himself as a statesman. Diplomats are shocked — and intrigued. Read The Times’s interview with him. The Group of 7 nations will use frozen Russian assets to back a $50 billion loan to Ukraine, essentially forcing Russia to financially support Ukraine. Israel bombed the ancient port city of Tyre in Lebanon. It issued a major evacuation order there. Fake X accounts linked to China are attacking Republican members of Congress, accusing them of corruption and promoting their electoral opponents. North Korea’s decision to dispatch troops to help Russia may complicate the Kremlin’s relationship with China. Liberal Party lawmakers in Canada are urging their leader, Justin Trudeau, to step down as prime minister. They worry his unpopularity could hurt them in the next election. Other Big Stories Gina Forbush, of Gig Harbor, Wash. M. Scott Brauer for The New York Times Boeing’s largest union rejected a labor contract and extended a strike. The Biden administration has been trying to rebuild chip manufacturing. But Intel, a cornerstone of its plan, is in trouble. The U.S. government fined Goldman Sachs and Apple nearly $90 million for failing to properly handle fraud and refunds for Apple Card users. A 4-year-old starved to death at home in New York. Read how the city missed the signs. Opinions “Show you’re going to fight for them”: Four economists discuss what the presidential candidates’ policies should be. It’s the inflation, stupid: Adam Seessel writes about why the working class wants Trump back. The Mets’ run this year gave Kathleen O’Brien’s autistic son a hobby he can hold onto when she’s gone. Here are columns by Nicholas Kristof on lead poisoning and Pamela Paul on settler colonialist theory. The Times Sale starts now: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS Shrek, a Przewalski’s horse, in Aurora, Colo. Daniel Brenner for The New York Times Today’s great read: How did two of the world’s rarest horses get lost? Table talk: Can’t hear your friends in a noisy restaurant? Headphones could help. Normies: Lana Del Rey married a swamp tour guide. See other celebrities who have married regular people. 11 stories tall: A new mural in Brazil uses materials from environmental disasters to protest corporate destruction of wildlife. A divided house: For politically opposed couples, the election can’t end soon enough. Social Q’s: “My sister chose my birthday for her scheduled C-section. I’m annoyed!” Haunted: Even skeptical real estate agents say they think twice about the existence of ghosts. Lives Lived: Fernando Valenzuela won his first eight starts as a Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, igniting the “Fernandomania” phenomenon and helping him win the 1981 Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards. He died at 63. SPORTS Julia Hawkins in 2019. Brit Huckabay/National Senior Games Association, via Associated Press Sprinter: Julia Hawkins, who took up running after her 100th birthday and went on to set world records in the 100-meter dash, died at 108. N.B.A.: The Los Angeles Clippers opened a new arena with an overtime loss to Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns. College football: Bond was set for two former Penn State players who are awaiting a hearing on rape charges. N.F.L.: The Kansas City Chiefs acquired the receiver DeAndre Hopkins from the Tennessee Titans. ARTS AND IDEAS Dana Carvey and Maya Rudolph on “Saturday Night Live.” Will Heath/NBC There is no shortage of political impersonations this campaign season. Maya Rudolph has returned to “Saturday Night Live” to play Kamala Harris; Sebastian Stan embodies Donald Trump in the movie “The Apprentice.” But Dana Carvey’s impression of President Biden has stood out. “Carvey doesn’t mimic Biden as much as capture his energy and give something that feels like genuine insight,” Alissa Wilkinson writes. Read about how. More on culture Over two decades on TV, Seth Meyers has crafted a precise but genial comic persona. In a new stand-up special, he reveals his acerbic side. “Black Box Diaries,” a bracing documentary about the #MeToo movement in Japan, will be released in the U.S. and Britain tomorrow. Late night hosts mocked Trump’s comments about Hitler. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Pugliese for The New York Times Make mattar paneer. Use a to-do list app. Stay dry with a good raincoat. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was enjoyment. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —German P.S. A Times reporter has followed Trump through swing states and drive-throughs. Read about his experience. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted October 27, 2024 Author Members Posted October 27, 2024 October 25, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering North Korean troops in Russia — as well as Project 2025, enigmas in space and food on Facebook Marketplace. Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik Kremlin, via Associated Press An axis against democracy The 3,000 North Korean troops boarded ships in the port city of Wonsan earlier this month and made the journey up the coast to Vladivostok, in Russia’s southeastern corner. From there, they moved to three military training sites in Russia’s Far East, according to U.S. officials. Ukrainian officials say that the troops have since traveled west to fight against Ukraine. “If their intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf, that is a very, very serious issue,” Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense secretary, said this week. Countries do not lightly send their own citizens to fight in another country’s war. That North Korea may be doing so on Russia’s behalf is the latest sign of increasing cooperation among four authoritarian countries — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — that seek to weaken the U.S.-led alliance of mostly democratic countries, like South Korea, Japan and many European nations. The emergence of this authoritarian axis has been a theme of The Morning because I think it’s a major development. Today, I’ll explain the latest news. ‘This isn’t NATO’ The four countries have clear ideological similarities. All are autocracies that repress dissent through imprisonment and death. (In an early instance of cooperation, China helped Iran shut down its internet during pro-democracy protests 15 years ago.) To varying degrees, the countries are also hostile to political equality: Few women hold senior government roles. L.G.B.T.Q. citizens and ethnic minorities are repressed. Religious freedom is restricted. But the four do not share a consistent ideology, as the Soviet bloc did during the Cold War or much of NATO does today. Iran, for example, is an Islamist theocracy, while China and Russia oppress their Muslim minorities. “This isn’t NATO,” my colleague Julian Barnes, who covers intelligence, said. “It’s a much more complex dynamic.” At a summit this month. Pool photo by Maxim Shemetov The countries’ common goal is to weaken the U.S. and its allies. Doing so could reduce the appeal of democracy. It could allow China to become dominant in the Pacific Ocean and more influential elsewhere. Russia and Iran could have more influence over their own regions, and North Korea’s government could minimize the risk of collapse. “What these states do share,” the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concluded this month, “is an autocratic antipathy for the liberal aspects of the U.S.-led order, which they believe threatens their very existence.” Today’s two wars This shared goal explains why the world’s two recent major wars — the first in Ukraine and Russia, the second in the Middle East — have led to more cooperation among the autocratic countries. Both wars have created opportunities to weaken the U.S.-led alliance. In Ukraine, even a partial Russian victory would be a setback for democracy. The war has been the largest in Europe in almost 80 years, with an authoritarian country invading a democratic neighbor. If Russia wins, it will suggest, as The Times has written, “that the West, with all its firepower, cannot prevail far from its shores.” That possibility has led to a concerted effort to help Russia. Iran has sent munitions, Shahed drones and ballistic missiles. North Korea has sent artillery shells and now troops. China has sent technology that can be used in weapons and has bought Russian oil to help Vladimir Putin’s economy evade international sanctions. In the Middle East, the cooperation has not been as extensive, but it is still notable. When Hamas (which Iran funds) attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, it used North Korean grenade launchers. After the attack, Chinese and Russian groups filled social media with antisemitic, pro-Hamas posts. In recent weeks, Viktor Bout — a Russian arms dealer who’s close to Putin and whom the U.S. freed in a 2022 prisoner exchange — has tried to sell arms to the Houthis, another Iran-backed group. (The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Russia helped the Houthis attack Western ships in the Red Sea — and disrupt global commerce — this year.) Why do these other countries care about the Middle East? It’s about chaos. A major reason that Hamas attacked on Oct. 7 was to disrupt the progress toward a diplomatic deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, two U.S. allies, that could have increased regional stability. Instead, the war has caused diplomatic tensions within the U.S.-led alliance. The resulting chaos has become another chance for China and Russia to weaken that alliance. Harris vs. Trump Still, there are limits to the autocratic partnership. China is by far its most powerful member and benefits from some kinds of international stability. The Chinese economy relies on an integrated global system. For that reason, the Carnegie Endowment report argued that a crucial way to reduce cooperation among the four autocracies would be for the U.S. and its allies to avoid fully isolating China. The next big question is what happens in the U.S. presidential election. Iran’s leaders have made clear that they are rooting for Kamala Harris because of Donald Trump’s strong anti-Iran stance. China’s and Russia’s leaders have made it clear that they are rooting for Trump. They see him as an agent of chaos who will help their global ambitions. For more The move to send troops gives North Korea leverage to ask Russia for a lot in return, Michael Shear writes. Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin since 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported. THE LATEST NEWS Republican Campaign Meet the new Project 2025: The America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank, is planning for a Trump win. It wants ultrasounds before all abortions, work requirements for Medicaid and federal workers who can be fired at will. Trump said he would fire Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted him over the Jan. 6 riot and classified documents, if he were elected again. His lawyers are also seeking to dismiss the Jan. 6 case, arguing that Smith was illegally appointed. Trump has floated the idea of replacing income taxes with tariffs, as was the case in the late 19th century. Experts said doing so would increase the deficit and cause widespread economic damage. In Detroit, Trump called into JD Vance’s town hall with undecided voters and asked, on speakerphone, “How brilliant is Donald Trump?” Vance eventually replied, “Sir, of course, you’re very brilliant.” At a Trump campaign event, Tucker Carlson made disparaging comments about women and compared Trump to an angry father. “When Dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl, you’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking,’” Carlson said. Democratic Campaign Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. David Walter Banks for The New York Times Harris campaigned in Georgia with Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen and others. Two swing-state Republicans — Fred Upton, a former Michigan congressman, and Shawn Reilly, the mayor of Waukesha, Wis. — endorsed Harris. Harris’s policy pivot to the center and her courting of Republican support have left some progressives feeling alienated. Harris, asked about her policies at a CNN town hall with voters, often answered with generalities or criticisms of Trump. In Georgia, Harris’s Muslim allies have a message for Arab American voters upset by the war in Gaza: Trump would be worse. More on the Election The race has narrowed to a tie, the final New York Times/Siena College national poll finds. Harris had a three-point lead earlier this month. Harris has a financial advantage over Trump. Her campaign raised twice what Trump did in early October and has three times the cash on hand. A man set fire to a curbside mailbox in Arizona, damaging about 20 mail-in ballots. Arizona’s secretary of state said affected voters could get new ballots. Maps on social media show a hurricane hitting the U.S. the week of the election. Our meteorologist says it’s too early to worry. More on Politics Biden signed the first national security memo detailing how the government should use A.I. In Arizona, Biden will apologize for the government’s role in the running of boarding schools where many Native American children faced abuse and nearly 1,000 died. An influential doctor doing a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs said she had not yet published it because of the charged political environment. International Iran wants to avoid war with Israel. Still, it is preparing its troops just in case. An Israeli strike killed three journalists, Lebanese officials said. Sunnis and Shiites are waging a bitter war in Pakistan. Other Big Stories The Los Angeles County district attorney plans to ask a judge to resentence Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in 1989. It could lead to their release from prison. The companies behind the container ship that slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore agreed to pay around $100 million to settle a government lawsuit. Boeing workers rejected a new contract that included big raises but did not restore a pension plan. Opinions Trump has described the dangerous and disturbing actions he plans to take as president. Voters should believe him, The Editorial Board writes. Students today know reading skills won’t help them get jobs in finance or tech. Instructors should assign them books to read anyway, Jonathan Malesic writes. When Harris called Trump a fascist, she implied his voters were fascists, too, Bret Stephens argues. Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on the Senate race in Nebraska. The Times Sale starts now: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS The Orion Nebula, top, seen from Spain in March. Pedro Puente Hoyos/EPA, via Shutterstock Astronomy: The James Webb Space Telescope spotted enigmas. Researchers are trying to figure out what they are. Blue zones: Do people in specific regions around the world really live longer? Travel: It’s getting harder to fly to China. Here’s why. Lives Lived: The singer Jack Jones’s popularity peaked in the 1960s, but he found a new audience in the 1970s and ’80s singing the theme to the hit television show “The Love Boat.” He died at 86. SPORTS In New York City. Todd Heisler/The New York Times W.N.B.A.: New York celebrated the Liberty’s championship with a parade down Broadway. See photos from the party. M.L.B.: The World Series begins tonight. Two superstars, the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, will be competing. College basketball: The South Florida coach Amir Abdur-Rahim died from complications during a medical procedure at 43. ARTS AND IDEAS Davila Dion Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times Facebook Marketplace is the internet’s garage sale, a place to find deals on used furniture and electronics. It’s also a great place to find a hot meal. Home cooks, many of them immigrants, are using the site to sell fufu, okra stew, tamales and empanadas. “When you’re sitting down with a plate of her food, it’s not like food that you got out at a restaurant,” one customer said. “Somebody’s mom made that food or somebody’s grandmother made that food.” More on culture Young viewers say they want more shows and movies that depict platonic relationships — and fewer about romance and sex. Jimmy Fallon was excited about Beyoncé’s appearance with Harris today. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Mark Weinberg for The New York Times Put hot wings in the oven. Visit an overlooked corner of Japan. Chill drinks with a countertop ice maker. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were dolloping and plodding. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted October 27, 2024 Author Members Posted October 27, 2024 October 26, 2024 Good morning. Today, we’ve got an update on the fighting in the Middle East — followed by Melissa Kirsch’s regular Saturday newsletter. —David Leonhardt Overlooking Tehran. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Israel’s response First, we want to update you on the latest from the Middle East. The Israeli military struck Iran overnight, in response to the barrage of missiles that Iran had fired at Israel this month. Israel’s attack seemed limited, and Iranian officials appeared to downplay the impact. The combination made it unclear whether the fighting between the two countries would expand — or whether Iran would choose not to respond. The White House expressed support for Israel, describing the attack as proportionate, and said it should be the end of military exchanges. Israel said it had targeted air defense systems and long-range missile production sites in Iran, as well as sites in Syria and Iraq. Two Iranian soldiers were killed, according to Iran’s military. By midmorning, life in Tehran looked normal, people in the city said. Children were in school, and adults had gone to work. We have much more coverage on our website. Here’s how the attack unfolded. And we recommend this analysis by Patrick Kingsley, our Jerusalem bureau chief. Now over to Melissa Kirsch for our normal Saturday newsletter. María Jesús Contreras Screen time By Melissa Kirsch It’s the season when many festival darlings, the films that critics saw and loved in Cannes, Venice, Telluride and Toronto, finally arrive in theaters, and this year, it feels different. More exciting? More like the old days? I’ve been making a concerted effort to actually go and see movies in the movie theater instead of waiting for them to arrive on streaming platforms, and it’s been paying off gloriously. The movies I’ve seen recently — “Didi,” “Megalopolis,” “Anora,” “Saturday Night” — have felt urgent and exciting: complicated stories with complicated characters, not a superhero franchise among them. I didn’t love all of these movies equally, but I loved seeing them, loved being in the dark drinking up their writers’ and directors’ idiosyncratic visions. And I loved the intention that led to the experience: I made a decision to see a movie, went to an establishment expressly built for that purpose, sat and paid attention for the length of the film and then, only then, returned to nonmovie life. Contrast that experience with the half-attention I so often pay a movie on a streaming platform, watching it in installments over several nights, maybe on an iPad, maybe while I’m brushing my teeth. Each movie I saw in the theater, I talked about afterward, with the friends accompanying me, with colleagues the next day. Some of the movies I’ve streamed — some abandoned before completion — I’ve discussed with no one. As the Times critic A.O. Scott wrote in his wonderful essay “Is It Still Worth Going to the Movies?”: “Just as streaming isolates and aggregates its users, so it dissolves movies into content. They don’t appear on the platforms so much as disappear into them, flickering in a silent space beyond the reach of conversation.” I’m willing to wager that no filmmaker ever made a movie hoping or expecting that it would end up beyond the reach of conversation. Not every movie you watch has to be a means of connecting with other people, but it could be. Walking out of “Anora” the other night, chatting with friends, comparing the film with the director’s previous ones, I realized how rare the experience of seeing a movie with a group had become for me. Once, it was commonplace, a weekly tradition. Every Sunday evening when I was 14 and 15, my friends Justin and Tracy and I would go with one of our moms (we couldn’t yet drive ourselves) to the SoNo Cinema, an art-house theater in South Norwalk, Conn., where we saw films that would never be shown in our suburb’s mainstream theaters. We saw Hugh Grant in Ken Russell’s horror movie “The Lair of the White Worm.” We saw “Babette’s Feast,” the first Danish film to win an Oscar for best foreign language film, and Pedro Almodóvar’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” After, we’d go out to dinner and discuss what we’d just watched. Searching for information about the theater, I found stories about its struggles to stay open over the years, its various fund-raising efforts. “I’m convinced that a lot of the young people we used to draw are raising families now and watching video rental films at home,” the owner told The Times in 1987, the same year we went to SoNo to see the British film “White Mischief,” about the Happy Valley murder case in Kenya. It closed not long after. I’ve over-romanticized those early adventures in theatergoing (I’m not the only one — “the movie house equivalent of ‘The Secret Garden,’” Tracy called it when I asked her recently). But the truth is, my friends and I still discuss the movies we saw at SoNo, how they informed our ideas of what life after high school might be like. And while I’m not going to argue that we’re as impressionable in middle age as we were when we’d been alive for barely more than a decade, my recent trips to the movies have convinced me that whenever the option presents itself, the right move is to see the movie in the theater. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Paramount Pictures Looking for something spooky to watch this weekend? Filmmakers, actors and Times writers ranked the 25 best jump scares in cinema history. “Venom: The Last Dance,” the last of the superhero trilogy, is one of seven movies our critics are talking about this week. “What We Do in the Shadows” returned for its sixth and final season. The show, about a household of vampires on Staten Island, is one of television’s few great laugh-out-loud comedies, Margaret Lyons writes. On German TV, (a fictional) Angela Merkel is solving crimes. Music Phil Lesh, who anchored the Grateful Dead as its bassist and co-wrote some of its best-known songs, died at 84. Instrumentalists who take up contemporary music sometimes have to sing and play at the same time. It requires excellent aural and physical coordination. Jon Caramanica, a Times pop music critic, shared six social media accounts that changed how he discovers music. More Culture Sawa, a new restaurant in Park Slope, serves Levantine classics with a dash of hipster style. Read our review. The African American artist Barbara Chase-Riboud hadn’t had a show in Paris, her adopted city, since 1974. Now she is being celebrated in eight museums. This fall, art exhibitions around the U.S. will showcase artists’ responses to political and social movements. Here’s a guide. THE LATEST NEWS 2024 Election Kamala Harris and Beyoncé Erin Schaff/The New York Times Kamala Harris held a rally in Houston with Beyoncé, focused on abortion rights. “It’s time for America to sing a new song,” Beyoncé told the around 30,000 attendees, Harris’s largest crowd so far. Chinese hackers targeted data from Donald Trump and JD Vance’s phones in an effort to gather intelligence. It’s unclear whether they took or saw any data. A former model accused Trump of groping her in front of Jeffrey Epstein in 1993. Two of her friends corroborated her account; the Trump campaign denied it. Trump, in a three-hour podcast interview with Joe Rogan, floated eliminating income taxes in favor of tariffs and repeated debunked election-fraud claims. Here are more takeaways. Trump again threatened Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted him. Trump called Smith “mentally deranged” and said “he should be thrown out of the country.” The Washington Post’s editorial page won’t endorse a presidential candidate, ending decades of tradition. Jeff Bezos, the paper’s billionaire owner, made the decision. Other Big Stories President Biden formally apologized for the U.S. government’s policy of forcibly putting Native American children in boarding schools between the 1800s and the 1960s. “It’s long overdue,” he said at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, said U.S. and Israeli negotiators would soon return to Qatar to try to revive talks with Hamas, but a quick cease-fire deal seems unlikely. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed Florida’s strict abortion ban, is working to defeat a November ballot measure that would legalize it until about 24 weeks of pregnancy The Times Sale starts now: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. CULTURE CALENDAR By Desiree Ibekwe 🎥 “A Real Pain” (Friday): In this Jesse Eisenberg-directed movie, two cousins — played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin — take a historical tour of Poland to connect with their recently deceased grandmother, who was a Holocaust survivor. The film, The Times’s Marc Tracy writes, is representative of the output of the grandchildren of survivors. “I’m telling the story of the third generation with all of its contradictions,” Eisenberg said, “with its distance, its privileged remove, its grotesque fascination, as well as all the reverence that should be applied.” (A Times critic called it “a knockout.”) RECIPE OF THE WEEK David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. By Melissa Clark Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Galette We’re reaching peak winter squash season, which means now is the time to celebrate dishes that show off its velvety sweetness. Yossy Arefi’s butternut squash and goat cheese galette does just that, showcasing thin wafers of orange-hued squash baked on top of the tangy, herby cheese. If you can time things to serve this while it’s still a little warm, it will be at its flakiest and most tender. But it’s still excellent a few hours later after cooling down. And feel free to use store-bought pie dough if homemade is just one step too many. This lovely tart will be a crowd-pleaser either way. REAL ESTATE Arsy Khodabandelou and Katie Muela with their dogs Hank and Odin. Katherine Marks for The New York Times The Hunt: A young couple with a budget of $800,000 was looking for a dog-friendly two-bedroom on the Upper East Side. Which home did they choose? Play our game. What you get for $380,000: A three-bedroom Gothic house in Cambridge, N.Y.; a renovated three-story home in Cincinnati; or a cottage in Portland, Ore. LIVING An Outerspace warehouse in Carlstadt, N.J. Graham Dickie/The New York Times Pack it up: A founder of a clothing company was frustrated by how warehouses handled his brand’s stock. So he started a new kind of packaging firm for chic labels. Streaming: Our strange new way of witnessing natural disasters. Caregiving: Dementia can change a loved one’s personality. Here are expert-recommended strategies that can help. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER The beauty of a to-do list app If you’re prone to forgetting appointments or missing deadlines, or you often find yourself leaving the grocery store without the one thing you went for, you might benefit from an app that keeps track of your to-dos. Beyond just throwing all of your tasks onto a screen, a good to-do list app also helps you prioritize, while syncing to your calendar and staying flexible as your work changes. Wirecutter’s experts found the three best to-do list apps, each of them thoughtfully designed and convenient to use. So you can jot your to-dos down, and get right back to the doing. — Kaitlin Mahar GAME OF THE WEEK Freddie Freeman celebrating his home run last night. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images New York Yankees vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, World Series: There’s too much history between these two franchises to squeeze into a newsletter, so we’ll just focus on the present. The Dodgers won a Game 1 for the ages last night, thanks to Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning. (See the video.) It was a fitting start to this series, considering the hitting prowess of these two teams — both of whom led their respective leagues in home runs this season. Game 2 is tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were captaincy and incapacity. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa P.S. The most-clicked article in this week’s newsletter was a story about a 14-year-old boy who died by suicide after developing a relationship with an A.I. chatbot. Read it here. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted October 27, 2024 Author Members Posted October 27, 2024 October 27, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Javier Hernández writes about a rare discovery in the classical music world. We’re also covering Michelle Obama, Sudan and abandoned churches. —David Leonhardt Chopin General Photographic Agency/Getty Images A hidden gem By Javier C. Hernández I’m a reporter covering classical music, opera and dance. As The Times’s classical music reporter, I don’t often get “news” from long-dead composers. But I recently learned that an unknown waltz by the eminent composer Chopin, written nearly 200 years ago, had been discovered in the vault of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. It was unearthed in a collection of memorabilia, alongside postcards signed by Picasso and letters from Brahms and Tchaikovsky. We published our exclusive story on the discovery today. And here’s a special treat: The superstar pianist Lang Lang recorded the waltz for The Times. You can watch his performance here. The story of the long-lost waltz starts at the Morgan on a late-spring day, when the curator and composer Robinson McClellan came across an unusual musical manuscript. The piece was moody and melancholic, and a conspicuous name was written across the top: Chopin. McClellan took a photo on his iPhone so he could play the piece back at home on his electric piano. He also sent a photo to Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “My jaw dropped,” Kallberg told me. “I knew I had never seen this before.” In September, the Morgan’s experts invited me to view the manuscript, which they had authenticated by analyzing the paper, ink and musical style. It was much smaller than I had imagined — a pockmarked scrap about the size of an index card. Chopin had famously tiny penmanship, and he packed a lot into this little piece. As an amateur pianist, I grew up adoring Chopin’s music. His waltzes, nocturnes, ballades and mazurkas are a dreamy realm of nostalgia, longing, suffering and bliss. He is still one of music’s most beloved figures. (His heart, pickled in a jar of alcohol, is encased in a church in Warsaw.) After viewing the manuscript, I spent weeks immersed in Chopin’s world. I studied his scores, letters and sketches, and listened to recordings of his waltzes, searching for clues about the unusual piece found at the Morgan. I tracked down the previous owners of the manuscript: a Connecticut family that was not aware of its importance. I delighted in working through the waltz in a practice room near Lincoln Center, wondering if anyone nearby had any idea what I was playing. Newly discovered works are rare in classical music, especially for Chopin, who was less prolific than other composers. We knew that readers would want to hear the waltz, but we needed a pianist who could do it justice. I immediately thought of Lang Lang, one of the biggest stars in classical music, whom I first met in 2016 when I was a China correspondent for The Times in Beijing. I messaged Lang on WeChat, asking if he’d be interested in being part of an “unusual story.” “What kind of unusual story ☺️☺️,” he wrote back. I told him about the newly discovered Chopin and sent him the score, which he played through before a rehearsal in San Francisco. “Wow this is a great piece!” he said in a voice message. “I’m very surprised. It’s very Chopin. It must be Chopin. It sounds very much like Chopin, with a very dramatic darkness turning into a positive thing. It’s beautiful.” While Lang was in New York earlier this month to open Carnegie Hall’s season, I met up with him at Steinway Hall in Manhattan to record the waltz. He adjusted his interpretation after each take, changing the tempo and refining the quiet opening notes. He joked that the piece sounded like the beginning of a Woody Allen movie. Sitting near the piano, I asked him why people should care about this waltz, 175 years after Chopin’s death. “This level of music making — it always touches us the deepest,” he said. “To have a new work by this level of great artist — we’re just so lucky. Just enjoy it.” Take a moment to read our story and listen to Chopin’s waltz yourself. THE LATEST NEWS Harris Campaign In Kalamazoo, Mich. Emily Elconin for The New York Times At a Michigan rally, Michelle Obama made an appeal anchored in abortion rights and aimed at male voters. “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother,” she said, “will become collateral damage to your rage.” Residents in towns like Aliquippa, Pa., have more faith in football than in politics. Can Tim Walz combine the two? As vice president, Kamala Harris has targeted race and gender gaps. She isn’t talking about that part of her record as she tries to appeal to moderate voters. Trump Campaign Donald Trump in Novi, Mich. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Donald Trump — who frequently used anti-Muslim rhetoric during his first campaign — celebrated the endorsement of some Muslim and Arab American leaders during a rally in suburban Detroit. Trump does not use the word “fascist” to describe himself, but he does not shrink from the impression it leaves. He goes out of his way to portray himself as an American strongman, Peter Baker writes. Trump will today hold a rally at Madison Square Garden, a show of force that is a reminder and a warning: He will never be done with New York, Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman write. More on the 2024 Election Three-quarters of American voters say democracy is under threat, while nearly half say that it does not do a good job of representing the people, according to a Times/Siena poll. Georgia has seen a flurry of activity from the Trump and Harris campaigns, a recognition that the state is anyone’s to win. Barricades and bulletproof glass: Luzerne County, Pa., is a hub for election conspiracies. Here’s how it is preparing for the possibility of political violence. Middle East Israel’s attacks on Iran destroyed air-defense systems that protected critical energy sites, leaving them vulnerable to future attacks. Some Israeli lawmakers said that the retaliatory strikes did not go far enough. “We could and should have made Iran pay a much higher price,” said the centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid. Iran faces a dilemma in deciding whether to respond: If it does, it risks escalation at a time when its economy is struggling and its allies are faltering, Steven Erlanger writes. More International News Hundreds of people in Sudan have been killed in bombings and revenge attacks in recent days as fighting surges in the war there. The North Korean troops that are nearing Russia’s front line are seemingly young and likely in the early stages of military conscription, The Wall Street Journal reports. Other Big Stories In Springfield, Ohio. Erin Schaff/The New York Times The death of an 11-year-old boy in a school bus accident in Springfield, Ohio, prompted conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant hate. His family is the latest target. The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the World Series. The Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani left the game with an injury. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Should newspaper editorial boards make political endorsements? Yes. Political endorsements are a part of newspapers’ civic role and help readers understand their own positions. “Our goal is to have a well-informed and engaged audience, not one that marches in lock step,” The Boston Globe’s editorial board writes. No. Readers struggle to understand the difference between news and opinion, making it appear as if reporters are biased. “And does it matter? You know who you’re going to vote for, anyway,” Jim Beckerman writes for The Record. FROM OPINION Eminem’s endorsement of Harris focused on the idea that she will let you say and do what you want, a message tailored to the middle-aged white voters she needs, Jessica Grose argues. When politics is hostile and the news feels grim, Boris Fishman turns to wine. Here’s a column by Ross Douthat on fictional robots and A.I. The Times Sale starts now: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS In Peoria, Ill. Amir Hamja for The New York Times Buying time: Scientists are changing the DNA of living things to fight climate change. For sale: Hundreds of abandoned churches. Great prices. Need work. Routine: How the NBC anchor Tom Llamas spends his Sundays. Vows: They were just what they needed. Lives Lived: Leon Cooper was a Nobel-winning physicist who helped unlock the secret of how some materials can convey electricity without resistance, a phenomenon called superconductivity. He died at 94. BOOK OF THE WEEK By Elisabeth Egan “The Mighty Red,” by Louise Erdrich: Even if you’re unclear on the difference between sugar beets and beetroot, Louise Erdrich’s abundant novel leaves you with new respect for a salad bar’s pinch-hitter. “The Mighty Red” is rooted in the rich soil of the Red River Valley of North Dakota, where fragments of buffalo bone commingle with scallop shells, and a tangled legacy of ownership falls on the shoulders of two high school seniors. Gary Geist is the son of beet farmers whose marriage is more merger than meeting of minds; Kismet Poe is the daughter of strivers — an Ojibwe mother operating by the book and a theatrical father skirting the bounds of the law. The unlikely union of teenagers is way more than the sum of its parts and, in classic Erdrichian fashion, functions as both entertainment and microcosm of the world’s ills. Who else can harness hope in a dozen words? “His heart creaked open,” Erdrich writes. “A beam of light struck his left ventricle.” Read our review here. More on books Twenty years after the publication of her fantasy debut, “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell,” Susanna Clarke is returning to her richly imagined world of magical England. NASA and Ada Limón, the U.S. poet laureate, may not be obvious collaborators, but a Jupiter-bound mission helped them find common ground. THE INTERVIEW John Fetterman Philip Montgomery for The New York Times By Lulu Garcia-Navarro This week’s subject for The Interview is Pennsylvania’s junior senator, John Fetterman. We spoke about his concerns over the intensity of support for Trump in his state, as well as his backing for Israel’s war in Gaza and his place in the Democratic Party. You’ve said that Trump has a special connection with the people of Pennsylvania. One hundred percent. Why? What is it that you see that he appeals to in your state? There’s a difference between not understanding, but also acknowledging that it exists. And anybody spends time driving around, and you can see the intensity. It’s astonishing. I was doing an event in Indiana County. Very, very red. And there was a superstore of Trump stuff, and it was a hundred feet long, and it was dozens of T-shirts and hats and bumper stickers and all kinds of, I mean, it’s like, Where does this all come from? It’s the kind of thing that has taken on its own life. And it’s like something very special exists there. And that doesn’t mean that I admire it. It’s just — it’s real. And now [Elon] Musk is joining him. I mean, to a lot of people, that’s Tony Stark. That’s the world’s richest guy. And he’s obviously, and undeniably, a brilliant guy, and he’s saying, Hey, that’s my guy for president. That’s going to really matter. What do you think it does? I was truly alarmed about that when he [Musk] started showing up. I mean, I’ve been there, not at that rally [in Pennsylvania], but when they were having the A.I. conference in Washington, he showed up at my building at Russell, and senators were like, [Fetterman’s voice gets very high] Ooh, ooh. They were like, I got to have two minutes, you know, please. So if senators are all like ooh! Then can you imagine what voters in Scranton or all across Pennsylvania — you know, in some sense, he’s a bigger star than Trump. Endorsements, they’re really not meaningful often, but this one is, I think. That has me concerned. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Dina Litovsky for The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Search the web with images from your phone. Make picking up your dog’s poop less unpleasant. Personalize a gift. MEAL PLAN Linda Pugliese for The New York Times Emily Weinstein often can’t pass paneer — a firm, fresh Indian cheese — at the grocery store without adding it to her basket. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, she recommends making mattar paneer, peas and paneer in spiced tomato gravy. Emily also suggests lemon-garlic linguine and sheet-pan chile crisp salmon and asparagus. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was bullheaded. Can you put eight historical events — including the Whiskey Rebellion, the creation of the Space Needle and the discoveries of Marie Curie — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted October 28, 2024 Author Members Posted October 28, 2024 October 28, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Margot Sanger-Katz writes about the presidential candidates’ health policy proposals. We’re also covering the Middle East, the South China Sea and the N.F.L.’s Uncrustables obsession. —David Leonhardt In Ortonville, Minn. Erin Schaff/The New York Times THE STAKES On health care By Margot Sanger-Katz I cover health care. After several elections with health care at the forefront, the issue has faded into the background this cycle. But the stakes are still high. The next president could influence how many people have health insurance, how much many pay for it, the prices of prescription drugs and more through regulatory power alone. In the event that either candidate is elected with legislative majorities, the differences could be even larger. The Morning has been writing on how the election will matter for major areas of public policy. Today, I’ll break down the stakes for health care. Insurance For people who use Obamacare, a lot of money is at stake. During the pandemic, Democrats raised the subsidies that help 20 million Americans buy their own insurance. Poor Americans can get covered without paying a cent, and even people making north of $100,000 got help with premiums. But if Congress does nothing, the new subsidies will expire at the end of next year. That would likely leave more than three million uninsured — and would make nearly everyone insured through Obamacare pay more. Donald Trump’s campaign says he opposes an extension, which might cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Kamala Harris wants the subsidies to be permanent, though she probably wouldn’t get her way if Republicans control Congress. At Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Grant Hindsley for The New York Times The candidates are also likely to approach key regulations of Obamacare differently. In his first term, Trump encouraged the sale of lightly regulated insurance plans that cost less — and covered fewer medical problems. He also pulled back on advertising for people to enroll in Obamacare. The Biden administration reversed most of these changes, and Harris would likely keep such moves in place. Trump could also weaken the requirement for insurers to cover all forms of contraception. In his first term, he let employers claim exemption on religious or moral grounds. Drug prices A rare point of agreement between the two candidates is that the United States should pay less for prescription drugs. This is an area where the president could have a lot of influence, even if Congress doesn’t cooperate. The Biden administration signed legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of certain drugs with the companies that make them. Ozempic and Wegovy, the blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs, could be negotiated next year. How aggressively will officials haggle over their price? It depends who’s running Medicare. In Centreville, Ala. Charity Rachelle for The New York Times Harris is a fan of the new law and wants it to apply to more drugs. Trump has been quiet about the specific provision, but he has lamented for years that Americans pay more for drugs than the rest of the world. When he was president, he wasn’t able to get any major legislation passed, but he tried various rules — blessing Canadian drug imports, forcing drug companies to mention most prices on television ads — to achieve similar goals. But Trump’s policies here are difficult to predict. On this topic, he is out of step with congressional Republicans and conservative health care scholars, who mostly oppose the drug negotiation law. How far he goes may depend on whom he appoints to the big government jobs. Medicare and Medicaid On Medicare, the federal insurance program for Americans over 65, both Trump and Harris have vowed not to cut benefits. But when it comes to Medicaid, which covers poor and disabled Americans, there are major differences between the candidates. Trump allowed state Medicaid programs to impose work requirements, limiting coverage to people who could prove they worked a certain number of hours a week. He could let Republican-led states try other experiments. With a congressional majority If allies of either candidate control both houses of Congress, the differences could be huge. Lawmakers could authorize Harris to negotiate for more drugs. She has also proposed to expand Medicare so it covers seniors’ hearing, vision and home-based care. Those changes would be costly but could be accomplished with a bare-majority vote in the Senate. Her other proposals — such as limiting insulin co-payments to $35 for all Americans or capping everyone’s out-of-pocket drug spending to $2,000 a year — would probably require either 60 Senate votes or the end of the filibuster. If Republicans control Congress and the White House, they might cut Medicaid. Trump has not campaigned on reductions. But he has not pledged to protect the program, and he proposed major cuts in every one of his presidential budgets. None passed. Trump has suggested he might be open to another Obamacare repeal attempt. But Republicans in Congress don’t seem interested. Bottom line: Kamala Harris has offered policies that would lower out-of-pocket costs for many Americans and preserve or expand health insurance coverage. Donald Trump has been vaguer, and his agenda is a little harder to predict. But his allies have embraced policies that would probably increase insurance premiums for people who buy their own insurance — and raise the number of Americans who are uninsured. Both candidates would probably take steps to lower the price of prescription drugs. Related: An opaque industry — pharmacy benefit managers — secretly inflates the price of prescription drugs. The Stakes A Morning newsletter series on how Harris and Trump view some of the biggest issues facing the country. Presidential power Taxes Immigration Abortion Climate THE LATEST NEWS Republican Campaigns Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden. Speakers likened Harris to a prostitute, called her “the Antichrist” and mocked her ethnicity. A comedian at the rally called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage.” (Trump’s campaign said the joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump.”) For years, a network of Republican activists and officials have met on video calls to plan to contest a Trump defeat. The Times has obtained the recordings. Republicans are clinging to slim leads in Nebraska and Texas Senate races, according to Times/Siena College polls. These polls show that Senate control may still be in play, Nate Cohn writes. Democratic Campaign Harris now leads Trump by less than one percentage point nationally, according to The Times’s polling average. She is trying to become a candidate small business owners love. That’s tough: They tend to lean Republican or Independent. Harris is targeting Trump’s age and competence. She’s employing the same playbook Trump and his allies used against Biden, The Washington Post reports. Last week, several celebrities — including Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen — appeared on the campaign trail for Harris. Trump supporters feel anger and envy, Shawn McCreesh writes. Middle East Israel’s recent strikes against Iran made clear that it is dictating events in the Middle East, and the U.S. has been relegated to the role of wing man, Mark Landler writes. Iranian leaders emphasized that Tehran had the right to retaliate against Israel for the strikes, but they appeared to take a measured tone. Asia In Vietnam. Linh Pham for The New York Times Chinese officials boarded a Vietnamese fishing boat and beat a man with iron pipes in a part of the South China Sea claimed by both China and Vietnam. Japan’s governing party lost its majority in parliamentary elections. It had a political finance scandal. A tropical storm, Trami, made landfall in Vietnam. It killed at least 80 people in the Philippines. Other Big Stories In Swannanoa, N.C. Loren Elliott for The New York Times In Western North Carolina, Hurricane Helene’s devastation is making it hard for people to get health care. McDonald’s will put its Quarter Pounder beef patties back on the menu after a deadly E. coli outbreak. In some locations, the burger won’t include raw onions on top, the likely source of the outbreak. Opinions Members of The Editorial Board share what is motivating their vote this year. Pharmacists have become more skeptical of people looking for opioids. But when they refuse to fill prescriptions, patients turn to the black market, Elizabeth Chiarello writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss the election. Here are columns by David French on anti-Trump conservatives and Nicholas Kristof on Trump’s age. The Times Sale starts now: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS In Pluckley, England. Andrew Testa for The New York Times Pluckley: Visit England’s most haunted village. “Ketamine queen”: Read about the woman at the center of the investigation into Matthew Perry’s death. Endangered: Can whale moms save their species? Meet one of them. Metropolitan Diary: Deli meat math. Lives Lived: Antonio Franklin, known as DJ Clark Kent, was a respected hip-hop insider who had influential relationships with many leading rappers. He died at 58. SPORTS Jayden Daniels’s 52-yard Hail Mary. NFL N.F.L.: The Washington Commanders defeated the Chicago Bears with Jayden Daniels’s game-winning Hail Mary pass. N.B.A.: Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry sprained his ankle. His team lost, 112-104, to the Los Angeles Clippers. M.L.B.: Shohei Ohtani will play for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 of the World Series tonight after injuring his shoulder in Game 2. ARTS AND IDEAS Gustaf Öhrnell Hjalmars Uncrustables, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches found in supermarket freezers, are popular in the N.F.L. Brock Purdy ate one at his locker before the Super Bowl. Andy Reid once offered them to his players as a reward. At the end of 2023, The Athletic tried to find out just how many of these snacks the league went through that year. The answer: Some 80,000. See a breakdown by team. More on culture New-York Historical Society, after 220 years of existence, is changing its name to the New York Historical. It will open a new wing devoted to American democracy. Holiday music is a big business. Some pop stars are trying to expand the market to include Halloween hits. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times Poach fish fillets in scallion oil. Clean your towels. Here’s how. Keep warm with a space heater. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was flagpole. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted October 29, 2024 Author Members Posted October 29, 2024 October 29, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the country’s working-class majority — as well as election interference, North Korean troops and liberal Catholics. New Haven, Conn. Ty Wright, Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times Dayton versus Yale If you want to understand this year’s election, a book published in 1970 turns out to be surprisingly useful. Both liberal and conservative analysts have recently cited its ideas, and the Harris and Trump campaigns have embraced its arguments in different ways. The book’s title is “The Real Majority,” and it appeared during Richard Nixon’s first term. Its authors were two Democrats hoping to save their party from future defeats: Richard Scammon, who had run the Census Bureau under John F. Kennedy, and Ben Wattenberg, who’d been a speechwriter for Lyndon Johnson. Scammon and Wattenberg believed that their fellow Democrats misunderstood the country’s electorate. The energy of the 1960s had led the party to imagine that the typical voter was young and highly educated. As a hypothetical example, the book described a 24-year-old political science instructor at Yale University. In reality, the authors wrote, the typical voter resembled a 47-year-old woman living in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, who didn’t have a college degree and whose husband worked as a machinist. This Dayton voter wasn’t poor, but she struggled with rising inflation. She worried about crime, student protests and drug use, polls showed. She felt ambivalent about the Vietnam War. She was one of the “plain people,” as Scammon and Wattenberg put it, who had long voted Democratic but was uncomfortable with the party’s leftward shift — toward the views of that 24-year-old Yale instructor. Unless Democrats changed course, the authors wrote, “we may well see Republican presidents in the White House for a generation.” The book was prophetic: Republicans won four of the next five presidential elections, including landslides by Nixon and Ronald Reagan. The new 1960s The book also foreshadowed the political dynamics in 2024, when the cost of living is a major issue, foreign wars rage and the Democratic Party is trying to leave behind a period of liberal foment. When “The Real Majority” appeared, that period was the 1960s. Today, it is the late 2010s and early 2020s, when many Democrats pushed unpopular ideas, such as less border security, less policing, long Covid lockdowns, the end of private health insurance and the decriminalization of hard drugs. All those ideas are more popular on college campuses than in places like Dayton. And the country more closely resembles Dayton; roughly 60 percent of voters do not have a four-year college degree. Ben Wattenberg, left, and Richard Scammon. “There is a natural working-class majority in American politics and those who hope to lead the country ignore it at their peril,” Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, wrote in his recent book, “Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the G.O.P.” Ruffini cited the Dayton-Yale framework. Timothy Shenk, a progressive historian at George Washington University, also used the framework in his new book “Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics.” (You may be interested in Shenk’s recent Times Opinion essay about the most effective ways to combat Trumpism, as well as Ruffini’s list of the 21 communities that will help decide next week’s election, with maps.) Class over age The working-class majority holds a complex set of views. It tends to be deeply dissatisfied with the country’s direction and to want sweeping change. It leans left on economic policies, like Medicare and Social Security, while worrying about government overreach. It leans isolationist on foreign policy. It tends to be wary of trade and immigration and to feel positively about the military and the police. Donald Trump managed to take over the Republican Party in 2016, and then win the presidency, with help from his gut feel for working-class politics (despite his own wealth). He defied Republican orthodoxy by criticizing trade and immigration while promising not to cut Medicare and Social Security. If he wins again this year, it will be partly by appealing to people whom Democrats wrongly imagined as loyal progressives — including Black, Latino, Asian American and younger voters. Social class, as Scammon and Wattenberg suggested, can be an even better predictor of a person’s vote than race or age. Much of Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign is also consistent with their arguments. After adopting fiercely liberal positions four years ago, she has reversed course and changed her positions on immigration, fracking and more. Her ads describe her as “a border state prosecutor.” She emphasizes patriotism and economic populism. Still, it’s a tricky pivot: More Americans describe Harris as “too liberal” (44 percent) than describe Trump as “too conservative” (32 percent), according to a New York Times/Siena College poll last month. I know that many people find that comparison hard to fathom. “The Real Majority” helps make sense of it. For more: On today’s episode of “The Daily,” Michael Barbaro and I explain why immigration has become such a sore spot for working-class voters. And in this short Times video, I break down the campaign advertisements of several Democratic Senate candidates who are running strong races in purple and red states — including Ohio. THE LATEST NEWS Democratic Campaign Kamala Harris in Michigan. Brittany Greeson for The New York Times Harris campaigned across Michigan. In Philadelphia, John Legend and Bruce Springsteen performed at a rally featuring Barack Obama. Harris campaign aides argue that the race is shifting in her favor and that her warnings about Trump and abortion are breaking through. President Biden waited in line and voted early for Harris near his hometown, Wilmington, Del. A reporter asked him whether it was bittersweet. “No, this is just sweet,” he said. Harris has avoided campaigning alongside Biden in the final days of the race. Her campaign believes that his unpopularity would hurt her chances. Michael Bloomberg, who had given less to Democrats this year than in 2018 and 2020, donated about $50 million to support Harris. Republican Campaign Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden. Kenny Holston/The New York Times The Trump campaign denounced a comedian’s offensive jokes about Puerto Rico and minorities at a rally in Madison Square Garden. Republican lawmakers also distanced themselves from the remarks. Trump is using much more profanity now than he did in 2016. What minimal self-restraint he once showed in his public discourse has evaporated, Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman write. If he wins, Trump would likely have more financial conflicts of interest than any previous president. He has ties to foreign governments, real estate deals and a publicly traded social media company. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Trump stopped talking about a federal abortion ban. These charts show how else his language changed. Philadelphia’s district attorney sued Elon Musk’s super PAC over its $1 million giveaways to people who both registered to vote and signed a conservative petition. A growing number of voters say that Trump was “just exercising his right” to contest the 2020 election results, New York Times/Siena College polling finds, and most aren’t worried that he will try to contest this year’s results. More on 2024 Foreign election interference has become more sophisticated with the help of A.I. Read about efforts by China, Iran and Russia. In response to rising migration, both Trump and Harris promise restrictions on political asylum, breaking with decades of U.S. policy. Two ballot drop boxes — one in Oregon, one in Washington State — were set on fire. The police believe the arsons are linked. Three Washington Post journalists stepped down from the paper’s editorial board in protest of Jeff Bezos’ decision not to endorse a presidential candidate. (Bezos wrote a defense of his decision in The Post.) War in Ukraine Ukraine is bracing for North Korean soldiers to attack alongside Russian troops. Thousands of North Korean soldiers are now in Russia’s west. Russian glide bombs, which fly so quietly that they evade detection, are menacing a Ukrainian city thought to be a haven from the war. Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing Western leaders to support a plan that he says could end the war next year. He has received a lukewarm response. Middle East In Sana, Yemen. Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Iran-backed Houthi militia has arrested dozens of Yemenis linked to the U.S. Embassy or international agencies. Hezbollah named a new leader, Naim Qassem, a longtime deputy. The Israeli Parliament passed laws that could threaten the work of UNRWA, the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians. Other Big Stories Steve Bannon, the strategist who helped elect Trump in 2016, was released from prison this morning. “I’m not broken, I’m empowered,” he said. In Austin, Texas, Musk is trying to create a compound where his children — of which there are at least 11 — and their mothers could live. It’s been complicated. A Ph.D. student accidentally found a lost Maya city in a Mexican jungle, including pyramids and amphitheaters, the BBC reports. In Brazil, criminals are increasingly using chemicals instead of chain saws for deforestation. More than a third of the world’s trees are at risk of extinction, scientists say. Opinions Climate disasters have made renting a safer financial choice than homeownership, Benjamin Keys argues. Trump says America is on the decline. The data says otherwise, Steven Pinker writes. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on Trump’s New York rally, and Lydia Polgreen on the BRICS bloc. Readers of The Morning: Don’t miss out on a full year of savings. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. MORNING READS In Burnaby, British Columbia. Alana Paterson for The New York Times Wildlife: Crows can hold grudges, scientists say. Their wrath can be alarming. Ask Vanessa: “What is the perfect length for a winter coat?” A lot of Cheddar: Scammers stole 22 metric tons of rare cheese from a leading London retailer. Lives Lived: Paul Morrissey collaborated with Andy Warhol in the late 1960s and early ’70s to create films that captured New York’s demimonde of drug addicts, drag queens and hipsters. Morrissey died at 86. SPORTS M.L.B.: The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees, 4-2. The Dodgers are one victory away from winning the World Series. N.F.L.: In Pittsburgh, the Steelers beat the New York Giants. N.B.A.: The Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero delivered the first 50-point game of the season. He scored 37 points in the first half alone. ARTS AND IDEAS Dominic Preziosi, editor of Commonweal. Natalie Keyssar for The New York Times Commonweal magazine was founded in 1924 as a sort of Catholic version of the The New Republic, a journal for middle-class, liberal-minded members of the faith. It attracted an illustrious roster of writers, including Dorothy Day, W.H. Auden and John Updike. But a century later, with Mass attendance dwindling and the church’s conservative voices growing louder, Commonweal is wrestling with its place. More on culture Jon Stewart will continue to host “The Daily Show” on Monday nights through next year. After Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, Stewart said: “How dare they desecrate the stage that the Piano Man has consecrated?” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Bryan Gardner for The New York Times Cover salmon in an everything bagel seasoning and serve with a creamy caper sauce. Use this cream on curly hair. Open a bottle of wine with these corkscrews. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was warming. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted October 30, 2024 Author Members Posted October 30, 2024 October 30, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering Trump’s anti-democratic tendencies — as well as Gaza, Botswana and New York pizza. Donald Trump Doug Mills/The New York Times Not a rerun Donald Trump has shown more hostility to American democracy than any other president in the country’s history. He tried to overturn an election result. He celebrates political violence. The list goes on, and it is familiar by now. A central question about a second Trump term is how this hostility might manifest itself. The country’s political system survived his first term, after all, and many Americans understandably wonder how much different a second term would be. It really could be different. Trump is now far better positioned to accomplish his goals, as my colleagues Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan have explained in a series of stories. His aides are vetting job candidates for loyalty, trying to exclude establishment Republicans who might resist his wishes. Both Congress and the judiciary would likely be friendlier to him than they were eight years ago. In today’s newsletter, I want to help you understand the main ways that Trump could undermine democratic traditions. Along the way, I’ll point to Times coverage from the past two years. I will also address some objections that I expect some readers to have. The dangers There are at least six major ways Trump could weaken American democracy: 1. Prosecute critics. Trump has promised to use the Justice Department to punish his political opponents if he is president again, including with “long term prison sentences,” as he wrote online. Presidents have traditionally not inserted themselves into criminal cases. But that has been a choice; a president has the power to issue orders to the Justice Department. In his first term, Trump demanded investigations of at least 10 people, sometimes damaging their lives, as my colleague Michael Schmidt has documented. Trump could order more investigations in a second term, given his staffing plans. (This graphic lays out how Trump could seek to jail his political opponents.) 2. Silence critics in other ways. Trump may also try to use his regulatory powers to shape public discourse. He has suggested that NBC, MSNBC and CBS deserve to lose their broadcast licenses because of their critical coverage of him. He has talked about punishing Amazon because its founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post. These comments echo the silencing campaigns that foreign leaders like Viktor Orban in Hungary and Narendra Modi in India have conducted (as this essay by A.G. Sulzberger, The Times’s publisher, explains). 3. Reward allies and campaign donors. Trump, as The Times has reported, “is sometimes making overt promises about what he will do once he’s in office, a level of explicitness toward individual industries and a handful of billionaires that has rarely been seen in modern presidential politics.” Both the oil and vaping industries — and perhaps Elon Musk — seem likely to benefit. 4. Replace federal employees with loyalists. Late in his first term, Trump issued an executive order that gave him the power to fire and replace tens of thousands of federal workers, including economists, scientists and national security experts. The order would have vastly increased the number of political appointees, which is now about 4,000. President Biden rescinded the order. True, there is an argument that such an order promotes democracy by causing the federal work force to reflect the elected president. But the moves may also strip the government of nonpartisan expertise that connects policy with reality. And combined with Trump’s many anti-democratic promises, the wholesale firing of federal employees could allow him to use the government for his personal whims. 5. Undermine previously enacted policies. Rather than trying to repeal laws he opposes, Trump and his allies have suggested that he may simply “impound” funds — effectively ignoring laws that Congress previously passed. One example: He could try to block money for clean energy. 6. Refuse to transfer power peacefully. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, still do not acknowledge that Biden beat Trump in 2020. Trump even vows to pardon some of the rioters who attacked Congress when it was meeting to certify the result on Jan. 6, 2021. This combination suggests that a transfer of power took place in 2021 only because enough Republicans stood up to Trump. And they may not do so in the future. Policy isn’t democracy I know that Trump supporters may ask why we’re not writing a similar newsletter about the Democratic Party. And it’s true that liberals have violated democratic norms at times — with aggressive executive orders, for example, or attempts to stifle debate during the Covid pandemic. But Trump’s anti-democratic behavior is of a different order of magnitude. Pretending otherwise is false balance. As an example of how different Biden and Trump are, look at Biden’s Justice Department. It has indicted not only prominent Republicans (like Trump) but also prominent Democrats (like Mayor Eric Adams and Senator Robert Menendez), a major Democratic fund-raiser (Sam Bankman-Fried, the now imprisoned crypto executive) and even the president’s son (Hunter Biden). I also know that some Democrats will argue that the list here is too short and should include Trump’s potential policies on abortion, immigration, climate change and more. But it’s worth distinguishing between policy disputes and democracy itself. There is nothing inherently anti-democratic about reducing environmental regulations, allowing states to restrict abortion access or deporting people who entered the country illegally. Democrats can make the case that these policies are wrong — and voters can decide who’s right. Voters can also change their minds if the policies don’t succeed. Attacks on democracy are different. If democracy breaks down, the political system can lose the ability to self-correct. More on Trump A second Trump administration would likely expand presidential power and reduce the independence of federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve. Trump says he will use the military for domestic law enforcement, including to fight crime in Democratic-run cities. His ties to foreign governments and to regulated companies would probably make him the most conflicted president in U.S. history. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but he has many links to it. It could offer a preview of how he would govern. Trump has promoted false conspiracies about plots against him or the American people more than 300 times, a Times analysis revealed. THE LATEST NEWS More on 2024 Kamala Harris Erin Schaff/The New York Times Kamala Harris spoke to a crowd of about 75,000 people outside the White House, the same spot where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021. She called Trump a “petty tyrant” who threatens democracy. Harris also outlined her plans to lower housing, health care and other costs. “On Day 1, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list,” she said. Trump claimed he didn’t know the comedian who called Puerto Rico “garbage” at his Madison Square Garden rally and hadn’t seen his remarks. Trump described the rally as a “lovefest.” Biden, addressing the comedian’s remark, appeared to insult Trump supporters: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable.” A White House official said that Biden was referring to the racist language not to Trump supporters in general. Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania featuring speakers with ties to Puerto Rico. Nearby, Democrats put up billboards highlighting the comedian’s comments. The China-linked hackers who targeted Trump and Vance’s phones also targeted phones belonging to Eric Trump, Jared Kushner and members of Harris’s staff. Barbara Bush, whose father and grandfather were Republican presidents, knocked on doors in support of Harris. Middle East In northern Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Israeli military struck Beit Lahia, a town in northern Gaza, for the third time in just over a week, killing dozens of people including children, Gazan officials said. Israeli airstrikes in eastern Lebanon killed at least 60 people, according to Lebanese officials. October has been the deadliest month of the year for Israel’s military; more than 55 soldiers have been killed in operations in Gaza and Lebanon. More International News A global slump in demand for diamonds has become an issue in Botswana’s national election. Flash floods in eastern Spain have killed at least 51 people, according to officials. Delivery at the doomsday shed: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, which safeguards plant species in case of a global catastrophe, has received a huge shipment of new seeds. Other Big Stories A California judge sentenced the man who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer to life in prison. Airlines in the U.S. must now provide automatic refunds when a flight is significantly delayed — three hours for domestic flights and six hours for international flights. Scientists discovered the second-smallest vertebrate known on Earth: a “toadlet,” smaller than some ant species. Some prosecutors have used laws unrelated to abortion — like ones for child abuse or murder — to charge women accused of trying to end their pregnancies. Read one woman’s story in The Washington Post. Opinions Highly educated women and less educated men will decide this presidential election. A populist message can appeal to both, Celinda Lake and Amanda Iovino argue. Progressives point to civil rights and the New Deal to say they’re on the right side of history. But progressives have been wrong, too, on immigration, policing and more, Oren Cass writes. Here are columns by Bret Stephens on his vote for Harris, and Thomas Friedman on the future of A.I. Readers of The Morning: Don’t miss out on a full year of savings. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. MORNING READS United Film Distribution Company; Pixar/Disney Extra! Extra! When disaster movies want to show that the end is nigh, they flash a newspaper. See some of the best front pages. Ask Well: “What should I eat while taking antibiotics?” Get a slice: See a list of the 25 best pizza places in New York. Real-life Wonka: See inside the factory where Nerds gummies are made. Three tips: Make your commute more enjoyable. Lives Lived: If Teri Garr’s best-known roles — in films like “Tootsie,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”— had a common thread, it was the erratic behavior of the men in her characters’ lives. She died at 79. SPORTS Mookie Betts and Yankees fans. FOX Sports: MLB M.L.B.: The New York Yankees forced a Game 5 in the World Series with an 11-4 rout of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Two Yankees fans were ejected during the game for prying open a Dodgers player’s glove. New signing: After the Chicago White Sox had the worst season in league history, the team is hiring Will Venable, the Texas Rangers’ associate manager. N.F.L.: The Indianapolis Colts benched quarterback Anthony Richardson, whom they selected at No. 4 in the 2023 draft. ARTS AND IDEAS In Mendoza, Argentina. Courtesy of Casa de Uco Vineyards & Wine Resort Planning a vacation for the week between Christmas and New Year can be difficult. Hotel rates are high, and room availability is low. T Magazine has a list of 15 destinations where you can still find a hotel room, including Mendoza, Argentina, for those in search of a great meal, and Marrakesh, Morocco, for those who want to go someplace warm. See the full list here. More on culture A new book, “Nora Ephron at the Movies,” examines her work, including “When Harry Met Sally” and “Heartburn.” “Tonight’s monologue is for Republicans”: Jimmy Kimmel made a 19-minute case against Trump. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Armando Rafael for The New York Times Make ruby chocolate badam burfi bark for Diwali. Purée soup with an immersion blender. Prepare for the end of daylight saving time. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was mortify. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Correction: A picture caption in yesterday’s newsletter misidentified the location of one of the top photos. The photos showed Dayton, Ohio, (left), and New Haven, Conn. (right). They were not both from New Haven. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted October 31, 2024 Author Members Posted October 31, 2024 October 31, 2024 Happy Halloween. Today, we’re covering how the election could change the courts — as well as the candidates’ closing arguments, floods in Spain and a haunted house. —David Leonhardt Inside the Supreme Court. Amir Hamja/The New York Times THE STAKES Holding court By Ian Prasad Philbrick I’m a writer for The Morning newsletter. On Tuesday, Americans will elect the next president and hundreds of Congress members. In doing so, voters will also shape the third branch: the judiciary. Federal judges — whom the president picks and the Senate confirms — have become even more powerful in recent years as a polarized Congress has failed to pass major laws on many issues. As a result, the judiciary has shaped policy on abortion, immigration, guns, voting rights and more. Today’s newsletter explains how the election could change the courts for decades to come. The Supreme Court Donald Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices as president. If he wins next week, he may get more appointments than Kamala Harris would have gotten. History suggests one reason: In recent years, judges have tended to retire in time to let the president they prefer fill their seats. The oldest sitting justices today — Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74 — are Republican appointees. If they stepped down during a second Trump administration, the president could choose younger replacements who would cement conservative control of the court for decades. The Senate is another reason. Republicans seem more likely to control the chamber next year. If they do, they can block Harris from filling a vacancy, much as they did Barack Obama in 2016. “If he were re-elected, he’d probably get to appoint one if not two members to the United States Supreme Court,” Harris said of Trump last week. She did not say how many appointees she may get if she wins. Harris also wants to enact term limits and an ethics code for the court, given the revelation that Thomas and Alito accepted luxury gifts without disclosing them. That’s unlikely if Republicans control the Senate — and maybe even if Democrats do, thanks to the filibuster. Courts, remade What about lower courts? Judges can serve for life. So the more a president appoints, the more he or she can shape the country. The Supreme Court hears only about 80 cases per year, meaning that lower courts are often the final arbiter on many issues. They set precedent on criminal justice, bankruptcy proceedings, corporate disputes and antitrust enforcement, and on whether federal laws and rules are constitutional. In a typical four-year term, a president replaces about one-quarter of the country’s 870 active federal judges, across both federal district and appeals courts. Trump filled 231 vacancies, and President Biden may equal that number before the next Congress takes over. Partly as a result, Republican and Democratic presidents have each appointed about half of the judges on federal courts. The appeals courts lean slightly Republican, while the district courts lean Democratic (if you count senior judges who work less but still hear cases), according to Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution. The next president will likely be able to tip that balance, letting one party’s appointees make up a clear majority of judges. By The New York Times The next president will also alter the courts’ racial, ideological and professional makeup. Under Trump, 76 percent of judicial nominees were men, and 84 percent were white, according to an analysis by my colleagues. Many had ties to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. Biden’s appointees have been 63 percent female and 61 percent nonwhite. He has prioritized nominees who served as public defenders and civil rights lawyers, and his picks have tended to be more liberal than those of past Democratic presidents. A second-term Trump might have the edge over a first-term Harris because a Republican-controlled Senate could block some of her appointees. Perhaps moderate Harris nominees would get through, though: Most of Biden’s appointees received bipartisan support. Another potential area of agreement is a bipartisan measure to incrementally increase the total number of federal district judges to ease rising caseloads. The bill passed the Senate in August but has yet to receive a House vote. Harris hasn’t specified whom she might nominate if given the chance. Trump boasts about his first-term nominees and suggests he’ll name more people like them. What’s next Even as the election will shape the judiciary, the judiciary may also shape the election. As in 2020, Republicans and Democrats have already asked federal judges, including those on the Supreme Court, to resolve disputes about ballots before Election Day. Their rulings could determine the outcome of a close race. Perhaps related, Americans’ faith in the courts has eroded in the Trump era. Unpopular rulings on elections, abortion, presidential immunity, guns and other issues — as well as the criminal cases against Trump, which will likely move forward if he loses — have driven down public trust in the Supreme Court and the justice system, polls suggest. That decline may be hard to reverse no matter which candidate prevails — especially if the courts play a role in deciding the winner. For more The Supreme Court let Virginia remove about 1,600 people suspected of being noncitizens from its voter rolls. The Justice Department had argued that the purge could remove eligible voters. Pennsylvania Democrats sued Erie County, alleging that voters who requested mail ballots hadn’t yet received them or had received the wrong one. The Stakes A Morning newsletter series on how Harris and Trump view some of the biggest issues facing the country. Presidential power Taxes Immigration Abortion Climate Health care THE LATEST NEWS Democratic Campaign Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times Harris visited three battleground states to deliver her closing argument: that she can unite the country. “The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us,” she said in Raleigh, N.C. Harris distanced herself from Biden’s remarks that seemed to call Trump supporters “garbage.” Biden clarified that he had meant a Trump surrogate who made a racist joke. Harris said, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.” Bernie Sanders, campaigning for Harris, has taken a darker tone than she has. He denounced elites and the status quo as “disgraceful” and “disgusting.” Republican Campaign Donald Trump in Wisconsin. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump wore a garbage collector’s vest during a Wisconsin rally, criticizing Biden’s “garbage” comment. Brett Favre, former Green Bay Packers quarterback, campaigned with him. House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that Republicans would try again to repeal the Affordable Care Act if Trump wins. “No Obamacare?” a voter asked. “No Obamacare,” Johnson responded. Trump’s campaign disavowed the remark. In his appeals to Black and Latino voters, Trump is pitting them against immigrants and sometimes against each other. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told supporters that Trump had promised to put him in charge of public health agencies. A notable number of former Trump aides have turned on him and said he should not be president again. Here is a list, with their comments. Voting Michigan officials charged a noncitizen for registering and illegally voting in Ann Arbor. They called it “an extremely isolated and rare event.” Michigan also removed a local election official who said he planned to count ballots by hand, despite rules against it. The official has ties to activists who spread conspiracies about voting machines. The police in Florida arrested an 18-year-old Trump supporter for threatening two Harris supporters with a machete at an early-voting site. More on 2024 Americans pick their president, but their choice will affect the rest of the world. Times foreign correspondents explain the stakes for Europe, China, global trade and more. Republicans have softened their positions on abortion, competitive House races show. Americans are increasingly moving to areas where neighbors share their political views, a Times analysis found. International Ukrainians in Sumy, Ukraine, after arriving from Russian-occupied areas. Mauricio Lima for The New York Times Ukrainians say Russia is imposing brutal repression — including torture, detention and re-education — in regions under Moscow’s control. At least 95 people have died in floods in eastern Spain. Many others are still missing, and rescuers are searching for bodies. Shanghai cracked down on Halloween celebrations, rounding up revelers — including some dressed as Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump — apparently to prevent gatherings turning political. Other Big Stories The U.S. relies on SpaceX to build its military and spy technologies. Elon Musk’s plunge into politics complicates those deals. Consumers are spending and inflation is cooling, a report on the U.S. economy shows. Opinions Massachusetts voters will consider whether to do away with the state’s high school exit exam. Keeping it would make sure students were ready to graduate, Jessica Grose argues. A pro-independence candidate running for governor of Puerto Rico gives Puerto Ricans hope, Yarimar Bonilla writes. Here’s a column by Nicholas Kristof on pro-Palestinian voters against Harris. Enjoy open access to the election hub in The Times app. Explore polls, analysis, reporter videos and all other coverage featured in the election hub, for a limited time. Ready? Download the app. MORNING READS In New York. Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Fake blood is expensive: This haunted house in TriBeCa costs $45 to enter. The owners explained what goes into that ticket price. Trick or treat: You may eat a lot of sugar this week. See how it will impact your body. Social Q’s: “Our fun friend bails on dinner dates but still sends her dull husband.” Lives Lived: John Gierach, a fly fisherman, was as skilled with words as he was with a rod and reel. Gierach wrote hundreds of articles and more than 20 books, including “Even Brook Trout Get the Blues” and “Sex, Death and Fly-Fishing.” He died at 77. SPORTS Mookie Betts connects for the Dodgers. Major League Baseball World Series: The Los Angeles Dodgers are champions after beating the New York Yankees 7-6 in Game 5. N.F.L.: The Carolina Panthers announced that Bryce Young, the No. 1 draft pick in 2023, would remain the starting quarterback for now, despite Andy Dalton’s return to practice. N.B.A.: Bronny James, son of LeBron James, scored his first career points last night in Cleveland, where the 20-year-old grew up. ARTS AND IDEAS Lionsgate “Saw,” the horror movie about a serial-killer-slash-taskmaster, was released 20 years ago this week. The film’s sequels ratcheted up the disgust, and reveled in it, earning them the label “torture porn.” But the original “Saw” was more interested in morality than gore, Annie Aguiar writes. Read her retrospective. More on culture In China, a rock band of farmers has become popular. Late-night hosts joked about Biden’s “garbage” comment. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Mark Weinberg for The New York Times Bake Nigella Lawson’s monster cookies for an easy Halloween treat. Counter the effects of sitting all day. Replace your shower curtains. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was indictment. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections, Strands, and a bonus crossword for Halloween. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —Ian P.S. Curious about how The Times is covering this election? Our journalists answered readers’ questions about fact-checking, biases and more. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 2, 2024 Author Members Posted November 2, 2024 November 1, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering next week’s races for Congress — as well as farmers in Gaza, Russian mercenaries and pigeon racing. Shuran Huang for The New York Times A divided or united capital? Every president of the past 30 years has taken office with his party in control of both the Senate and the House. That combination has allowed presidents to pass major legislation early in their terms — including deficit reduction by Bill Clinton, tax cuts by George W. Bush and Donald Trump, an expansion of health insurance by Barack Obama, and a major climate law by Joe Biden. The next president may end the streak. Even if Kamala Harris wins, a Democratic-controlled Senate looks improbable. If Trump wins, his party has a better chance to enjoy a so-called trifecta — controlling the White House, Senate and House of Representatives — but it isn’t assured. “Control of the House is on a knife’s edge,” Maya Miller, who’s been covering the campaign for The Times, told me. In today’s newsletter, my colleagues and I will preview the race for congressional control. We’ll also explain what a divided government might get done and what each party hopes to accomplish if it does win a trifecta. The Senate Senator Jon Tester Janie Osborne for The New York Times The Senate math is daunting for Democrats. Their caucus now has 51 senators, meaning they can lose only one seat and retain control in a Harris presidency. (The vice president breaks 50-50 Senate ties.) And Democrats are vulnerable in several states. West Virginia is all but lost because Joe Manchin is retiring and other Democrats tend to lose badly there. In Montana, Jon Tester, the Democratic incumbent, trailed by eight points in the most recent Times/Siena College poll. A few other Senate Democrats, like Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, are in tight races. To keep Senate control, Democrats would need to win all those races but West Virginia — or pull off at least one upset elsewhere. Their best hopes are in either Texas, where Colin Allred, a House Democrat, is only a few points behind Ted Cruz in the polls, or Nebraska, where Dan Osborn, an industrial mechanic who’s running as an independent, is trying to unseat Deb Fischer, the Republican incumbent. Osborn’s views on the economy and abortion suggest he will often side with Democrats. (To understand why the Nebraska race is close, I recommend Maya’s recent story — or this feisty Osborn ad.) The House House Speaker Mike Johnson Kenny Holston/The New York Times The party that wins the presidential race is also likely to control the House. But the race is so close that the presidency and the House could go in opposite directions for the first time since 1988. How can Republicans keep their House majority even if Harris wins? Partly by taking districts in deep-blue states like California and New York. Some voters there have been unhappy with these states’ “leftward lurch,” as my colleagues Nicholas Fandos and Catie Edmondson put it. Education, immigration and criminal justice are among the disputed issues. And how can Democrats win the House even if Trump wins? One, Harris may win the popular vote even if she loses the Electoral College, which could help Democratic candidates. Two, incumbent House Republicans must defend 17 seats in districts that Biden won four years ago (such as a suburban district in Orange County, Calif., home to many Vietnamese Americans). Only five House Democrats are running in districts that Trump won. “All five of them are appealing heavily to working-class people and separating themselves from the Democratic Party on tricky issues like immigration and policing,” Maya said. Among those five: a rural Maine district that she recently profiled. Three scenarios for 2025 In a divided government, sweeping legislation is unlikely. Trump probably couldn’t pass the large tax cut he wants, nor could Harris pass abortion protections. Either would need to pursue the least ambitious agenda of any new president in decades. Of course, bills would still pass. Possibilities include a compromise extension of some Trump tax cuts (which are set to expire in December) and a border-security bill modeled after the bipartisan plan from this past summer. If there is a Democratic trifecta, Harris could accomplish a lot on economic policy (because many budget-related provisions are not subject to a filibuster and can pass with 51 votes). Democrats could extend tax cuts for the middle class and the poor while raising taxes on the rich, for instance. They could also pass Harris’s proposed housing subsidies. A big question would be whether the party would vote to scrap the filibuster for other bills, such as on abortion access or statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Under a Republican trifecta, the priorities would likely include large tax cuts; a tough immigration bill; expansions of oil-and-gas production; restrictions on transgender rights and diversity programs; and reductions in aid to Ukraine and other allies. Catie Edmondson, who covers Congress, said that she expected the recent infighting among House Republicans to continue, which would complicate their ability to pass some bills. Trump’s proposed tariffs might be one area of disagreement; China policy (on which many Republicans now seem more hawkish than Trump) could be another. Overall, though, Republicans seem poised to get much more done than at the start of Trump’s first term, when much of the party was still critical of him. As Carl Hulse, The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, writes, “This time, Republicans would be much better prepared to take advantage of their consolidated power.” To go deeper, I recommend Carl’s preview of a potential Republican trifecta. THE LATEST NEWS Democratic Campaign Jennifer Lopez in Nevada. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Harris campaigned in suburban Las Vegas with the singer Jennifer Lopez. Lopez criticized Trump’s recent rally at Madison Square Garden, where a comedian called Puerto Rico “garbage.” Harris criticized Trump for saying that he would protect women as president “whether the women like it or not.” She said it revealed “how he thinks about women and their agency.” Inflation is basically back to normal and the job market is strong. Read why voters are still feeling pessimistic. Many economists say Harris’s plans, when compared with Trump’s, would do more to help working-class Americans. Those voters are skeptical. Republican Campaign Donald Trump in Albuquerque. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump campaigned in New Mexico yesterday and will visit Virginia this weekend, two reliably blue, but close, states. Trump and JD Vance are sowing doubts about election security in Pennsylvania. Trump accused the state of cheating, while Vance reposted false claims that Democrats are impersonating election workers. Howard Lutnick, who leads Trump’s White House transition team, said that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made him a vaccine skeptic. Lutnick echoed the false claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. Vance, in an interview with Joe Rogan, predicted that Trump would win “the normal gay guy vote” because of transgender issues. Elon Musk pledged political neutrality when he bought Twitter. Instead, he’s used the platform to spread pro-Trump misinformation. Many Republicans are predicting a Trump landslide based on skewed polls. If he loses, they could fuel claims of a rigged election. As president, Trump set foreign policy impulsively, often tweeting changes that sent his officials scrambling. A Trump win could revive that approach at a moment of international peril. More on 2024 Algoma, Wis., a town that Biden won by just six votes in 2020, is among the most politically split communities in the nation. Tensions are rising there. Both parties are running ads inviting voters to cross party lines. In one, a Jewish woman admits she “never cared for” Trump, “but at least he’ll keep us safe.” Another urges women to vote differently from their Trump-supporting husbands. An ad for Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, a Republican in a tight race against a populist independent candidate, used stock footage from New England. A Fischer spokesman blamed a vendor. Middle East Israel struck a hospital in northern Gaza, destroying recently delivered medical supplies, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military, which claims Hamas operates within the hospital, said it was unaware of the strike and was reviewing reports. Two top Iranian officials said that Tehran planned to respond to Israel’s recent attacks. After more than a year of war in Gaza, farmers — who once tended eggplants and tomatoes — have lost land and sometimes their lives. More International News In Paiporta, Spain. David Ramos/Getty Images In the Spanish town of Paiporta, residents are reckoning with death and destruction caused by recent floods. “We are alive,” one resident said. “But we have lost everything.” Wagner, the Russian mercenary group, suffered a major defeat in Mali this summer. It showed that its capabilities might be overstated. The party that has governed Botswana since 1966 lost its majority in Parliament for the first time. The nation is facing an economic slump. Last month, Russia made its largest territorial gains in Ukraine in two years. Other Big Stories American communities that suffered the most factory closures in recent decades are now receiving a large share of investment from cutting-edge industries. The Biden administration will invest hundreds of millions to place a semiconductor research facility in upstate New York. The rapper Young Thug pleaded guilty to participating in criminal street gang activity, ending his role in Georgia’s longest ever trial. He was sentenced to time served, plus 15 years probation. Opinions With maps, Doug Sosnik explains the best paths to an Electoral College win for both Harris and Trump. Trump’s unraveling language and cursing isn’t a sign of cognitive decline. It’s a sign he’s bored, John McWhorter argues. Here are columns by Paul Krugman on Trump voters’ future remorse and Michelle Goldberg on Trump and fascism. Enjoy open access to the election hub in The Times app. Explore polls, analysis, reporter videos and all other coverage featured in the election hub, for a limited time. Ready? Download the app. MORNING READS In Mumbai. Poras Chaudhary for The New York Times Layover: How a British Airways pilot spent 24 hours in Mumbai. Mental health: Libraries have become public stages for social problems. The people who work there are burning out. Global affairs: Counting the number of continents is surprisingly difficult. Big babies: The oldest known tadpole fossil is the size of a hot dog. Lives Lived: The artist and designer Isabelle de Borchgrave made life-size paper recreations of period garments including Elizabethan court gowns and the flapper fashions of Coco Chanel. She died at 78. SPORTS Garrett Wilson’s catch. New York Jets N.F.L.: New York Jets receiver Garrett Wilson made what could be the catch of the year in a 21-13 win over the Houston Texans. Read a recap. M.L.B.: The announcer Bob Costas has retired from calling play-by-play after 44 years. N.B.A.: San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama recorded a 5x5 game in a matchup against the Utah Jazz, the second of his young career and just the 23rd in league history. ARTS AND IDEAS Rachel Wizniewski for The New York Times; James Estrin/The New York Times The start of a pigeon racing competition, writes Tracey Tully, can be as tense as it is spectacular, with birds soaring and hooking across the sky. The sport is an old one — its roots that can be traced to ancient Egypt — but it is threatened by dwindling open spaces and fading traditions. Animal rights activists would not be sad to see it go. More on culture The chief executive of PEN America is stepping down. The organization has faced criticism over its response to the war in Gaza. Late night hosts joked about Trump’s campaign appearance inside a garbage truck. “And right at the buzzer, a new Halloween costume has emerged,” Jimmy Fallon said. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Armando Rafael for The New York Times Make a five-star turkey chili for dinner tonight. Relieve pain with a massage chair. Exercise on a treadmill at home. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was thoughtful. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 3, 2024 Author Members Posted November 3, 2024 November 2, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. Daylight saving time ends tomorrow. How will you make use of the extra hour? María Jesús Contreras Taking time The midday sun in my apartment this time of year is like a searchlight, illuminating every windowpane streak and every mote of dust. It’s obnoxious, honestly, like a teacher’s pet showing off: “Look how bright and unsparing I can be,” the sun seems to taunt, “just before I decamp for the next four months.” An extra hour of sleep is no small thing if you can seize it. This is what I’ll remind myself as I make the rounds of the clocks tonight before bed, anticipating that brief moment of confused excitement tomorrow when I wake and check the time: It’s 7, no wait, it’s actually 6! Every first Sunday in November, I contemplate becoming a different, better person, one who gets up one hour earlier to meditate or exercise or meal-prep. I could be the person who spends an hour journaling, or fixing a large, healthy breakfast or taking the dog for a brisk walk in the cold dark. (In this alternate reality, I have a dog.) And every first Sunday in November I do none of these things. I spend the extra hour in bed, trying to go back to sleep, probably fretting a little about how I’m squandering this precious opportunity to begin leading a truly productive life. I know, it’s just one hour. How one spends it or doesn’t is hardly determinative of whether they’re making the most of their time on earth. But the scarcity of daylight this time of year does make every hour feel that much more valuable. As we enter the final two months of the year, thoughts naturally turn to how we’re filling our days. I like the handy suggestion that we change the batteries in our smoke detectors every time we change the clocks. A potentially lifesaving precaution, easy enough. If daylight saving is this built-in, twice-yearly reminder, we could use it to prompt ourselves to perform other life-improving tasks. Maybe it’s the day you make a list of all the things you’d do if you had an extra hour, and commit to doing at least one of them daily between now and March, when we give that hour back. Or you could just sleep in. Luxuriate in the extra hour without any mandate to do something with it. You could even do as a reader of The Morning advised a couple years ago, when I asked for tips for acclimating to the return to standard time: Wait to change your clock until an hour on Sunday that you’d like to experience again. Maybe you’d like to redo coffee and bagels at 10, or maybe an extra hour for an afternoon lie-down at 2feels like just the thing. “A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life,” Charles Darwin said, rather imperiously, but I guess his body of work does speak to some pretty impressive time-management skills. I’ve often used this sort of injunction as a way to urge myself into action. But I’m as inspired by the psychologist Amos Tversky, who said, “You waste years by not being able to waste hours.” Whose wisdom will you heed this weekend? For more How to fall back without missing a beat. Why do we change the clocks, anyway? An opinion writer on the case for and against daylight saving time. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Jesse Eisenberg, left, and Kieran Culkin in “A Real Pain.” Searchlight Pictures “A Real Pain,” which stars its director and writer, Jesse Eisenberg, alongside Kieran Culkin, is a melancholic yet funny exploration of Jewish belonging and loss, Manohla Dargis writes. In “Blitz,” Saoirse Ronan plays a single mother in London during World War II. It is one of the eight movies our critics are talking about this week. The actress Teri Garr, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in “Tootsie,” died this week at 79. See her life in pictures. Timothée Chalamet showed up unannounced at his own look-alike contest in New York City. (He did not compete.) Martha Stewart does not like the new Netflix documentary about her: “I hate those last scenes,” she told Brooks Barnes, our film-industry reporter. “Hate them.” Social media users are filming themselves crying after seeing “We Live in Time,” a new drama starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. Music Two years ago, the singer and songwriter Shawn Mendes canceled his world tour. Now he’s back with a stripped-down album. Thanks to TikTok, younger listeners are discovering artists across genres and eras, including Pavement, Cocteau Twins and Three 6 Mafia. Mariah Carey says the holiday season has officially begun. She spoke to The Times about her 30 years as the queen of Christmas. Art Rather than asking whether we should be doing drugs, a new exhibition in Norwich, England, tries to understand why we always have. Prosecutors in Manhattan obtained an arrest warrant for a Princeton-educated antiquities dealer based in Italy, accusing him of trafficking thousands of illicit artifacts. The Frick Collection will reopen at its Fifth Avenue Gilded Age mansion, which was closed for renovations, next year. More Culture Clockwise from top left, Kenny Giarla/NBAE, via Getty Images; The Hapa Blonde/GC Images; Washington Wizards; Jeff Haynes/NBAE, via Getty Images Kyle Kuzma unleashed a parade of N.B.A. fashion with his outlandish pregame outfits. This year, he plans to wear a bland sweatsuit to every game. Pizza Hut’s Book It! literacy program, which celebrated its 40th anniversary, has reached more than 70 million students. Starbucks will no longer charge extra for milk alternatives, an effort to improve slowing sales, The Washington Post reports. THE LATEST NEWS 2024 Election Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Brookfield, Wis. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times Donald Trump called Liz Cheney a war hawk who should be sent to a combat zone. “Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face,” he said. Kamala Harris called his language disqualifying. In a legal win for Democrats, the Supreme Court will let some Pennsylvania voters cast provisional ballots in person if election workers reject their mail ballots. U.S. employers added just 12,000 jobs last month, far fewer than forecast, as a Boeing labor strike and hurricanes affected businesses. The Trump campaign blamed Harris. The rapper Cardi B campaigned with Harris in Wisconsin. She said she hadn’t planned to vote this year, but that Harris’s entry into the race changed her mind. Harris is trying to recapture working-class voters who have slipped away from Democrats. But they seem likely to favor Trump again. An annual security conference in Atlanta models emergency responses to fictional disasters. This year, election conspiracy theorists and prominent Republicans shut it down. Other Big Stories A federal jury found Brett Hankison, a former Louisville, Ky., detective who shot into Breonna Taylor’s apartment in 2020, guilty of violating her rights. Mayor Eric Adams of New York City is set to stand trial on corruption charges in April. He has pleaded not guilty. Russia is making steadier gains in eastern Ukraine than U.S. officials had anticipated, deepening a sense of pessimism as Ukraine’s military struggles to recruit soldiers. The death toll from flooding in Spain rose to 205. Dozens of people are still missing. Ends soon: Our best rate on unlimited access for Morning readers. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. CULTURE CALENDAR By Andrew LaVallee 🤣 “The 2024 S.N.L. Election Special” (Monday): Perhaps you are jittery and stressed out by the presidential election. But you’re also reading The Morning, which means you’re taking it all in and have accepted there’s no avoiding the headlines. Lean into it, and allow yourself to laugh at an impression or two, during this collection of “Saturday Night Live” political sketches right before Election Day. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Romulo Yanes for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Vivian Lui. By Melissa Clark Buttermilk-Brined Roast Chicken Now that the wild candy rumpus that is Halloween has come and gone, you might be looking to make something on the more healthful side. You can’t go wrong with a simple, crowd-pleasing roast chicken, especially when it’s been brined in buttermilk and salt before roasting. Samin Nosrat’s five-star buttermilk-brined roast chicken is everything you want in a roasted bird — tender meat that’s juicy and evenly cooked, covered by burnished, caramelized skin. You do need to let it marinate in the fridge overnight, so start it today for dinner tomorrow. Then serve it with a healthful green vegetable and a baguette, and let it compensate for all those Halloween treats. REAL ESTATE Jon and Ashley Oliver in Culver City, Calif. Amanda Friedman for The New York Times The Hunt: A doctor and a D.J. wanted a house for their growing family in Los Angeles. Which one did they choose? Play our game. What you get for $750,000: A Craftsman-style house in Evanston, Ill.; a two-bedroom condo in Peterborough, N.H.; or an 1899 Queen Anne Revival in Knoxville, Tenn. LIVING Erinn Springer for The New York Times Face Value: A writer shares the lessons she has learned from growing out her gray hair. Psychic to the stars: He did readings for John Lennon and Princess Grace. At 83, he’s still talking to ghosts. Test strips: The team behind Starface pimple patches want to make recreational drug use safer. Till death: Some couples are marrying in cemeteries. Voting: Is it legal to take a ballot selfie in the U.S.? It depends on your state. Zynfluenced: Small pouches of nicotine made their way from Sweden to the U.S. and created a new type of guy. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER A white tee is a layering workhorse The weather on the East Coast has been fluctuating between summerlike days and bone-chilling evenings, which makes dressing a challenge. The best advice is, of course, to layer. But before you start buying barn coats and chunky cardigans, you need a solid foundation — and there’s no better building block for a transitional autumn outfit than a good white T-shirt. I prefer a fitted tee, something that doesn’t add much bulk under sweaters and that also looks tailored on its own. But Wirecutter’s style experts have several favorites for all sorts of style preferences. Pick something that you’ll be excited to wear over and over again, no matter the season. — Maxine Builder GAME OF THE WEEK Lions quarterback Jared Goff in last week’s game. Carlos Osorio/Associated Press Detroit Lions vs. Green Bay Packers, N.F.L.: The Lions, who reached the N.F.C. championship game last season, are having another stellar year. In their past four games, all victories, the Lions have scored 42, 47, 31 and 52 points. They have an elite pair of running backs, Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, and quarterback Jared Goff has been playing at an M.V.P. level. But, as The Athletic’s J.J. Bailey notes, those wins all came in the cozy confines of indoor stadiums. This week, they head to Lambeau Field, where the forecast shows temperatures in the 50s and a chance of rain. Tomorrow at 4:25 p.m. Eastern on Fox NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was evading. Take a special election edition of the news quiz to see how well you’ve followed the 2024 campaign. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa P.S. The most popular story this week in The Morning was about the recent discovery of a work by the composer Frédéric Chopin. Listen to it here. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 4, 2024 Author Members Posted November 4, 2024 November 3, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the strategic risks that Harris and Trump are taking — as well as “Saturday Night Live,” the New York City Marathon and sleep deprivation. In Pennsylvania. Hannah Beier for The New York Times 20/20 foresight Once an election is over, hindsight can make the winner’s strategy look perfect and the loser’s seem doomed. As my colleague Jonathan Swan said recently on “The Daily”: “The winning campaign, everything they did was genius, and then the losing campaign are just a bunch of idiots. And the truth is that neither is necessarily true.” The truth instead tends to be that presidential campaigns make strategic decisions that come with benefits as well as costs. And those decisions aren’t guaranteed to succeed or fail. In today’s newsletter, I’ll analyze a core strategy that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have each pursued. After Tuesday, I suspect we will come to see both as crucial, albeit in different ways. Harris’s caution On paper, Harris is the underdog. In rich countries around the world, incumbents are doing badly; the ruling parties in Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan have all recently lost power. In the U.S., President Biden has a 40 percent approval rating, and less than 30 percent of adults are satisfied with the country’s direction. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, points out that voters appear eager for change and specifically seem skeptical of progressivism. (I recommend his essay on the subject.) Given this backdrop, Harris has run a strikingly cautious campaign. Game theorists would describe it as a low-variance strategy. She and her aides avoided moves that might have gone very well — and might have gone very poorly. Can you name her campaign’s central theme, for example? Many of her main messages are vague (“when we fight, we win”), Trump-focused (“in it for himself”) or both (“turn the page”). Asked on television how her presidency would differ from Biden’s, Harris said, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” She could have taken a different approach. She could have run on the populist, anti-corporate message that is helping Democratic Senate candidates — or gone in the opposite direction and portrayed herself as a business-friendly centrist. She could have picked an issue, like housing, and signaled that it would be her No. 1 priority, much as health care was for Barack Obama. Instead of offering a bold, thematic message, Harris has announced a series of modest policies. Her low-variance strategy is also evident in her decision not to explain why she reversed her stances on immigration and fracking. Many voters say they want to know more about Harris — who became a candidate only three months ago — and she hasn’t always filled in the blanks. The strategy is evident with the Middle East, too. She didn’t pick as her running mate the popular Jewish governor of Pennsylvania partly because many Israel critics opposed him. Her campaign also didn’t invite any Palestinians to speak at the Democratic convention, which may hurt her in Michigan. When possible, Harris has avoided conflict. All these decisions have benefits, to be clear. Making the Middle East more salient is rarely smart in American politics. Explaining why she changed her mind about the border could have made her look weak. Doing more town halls and interviews to explain her views could have exposed one of Harris’s weaknesses: Although she is an excellent debater, she can struggle in less structured settings. But if Harris loses, her caution will look problematic. Game theory usually dictates that an underdog should pursue a higher-variance strategy and hope a few risks pay off. Harris has instead bet that the U.S. will not follow the global anti-incumbent pattern — and that our election will be a referendum on Trump more than on Biden and her. Trump’s gamble Trump is such an instinctual politician that it can sound strange to analyze his behavior strategically. But his advisers do think strategically, and they have urged him to make some different decisions. Trump has overruled them, as Jonathan Swan has reported. They have told him the economy is his best issue and the one that matters most to Americans. Focusing on it could help Trump appeal to undecided voters, including those who liked the results of his presidency but don’t like his erratic style. Many of these people — Nikki Haley supporters, for example — are college graduates who will vote, one way or the other. Economic arguments often bore Trump, however, and he has instead focused on immigration. “That beats out the economy,” he said at a recent rally. It’s part of a closing message focused on grievance, insults and divisive cultural subjects, including his TV ads on trans issues. This anger can be appealing to Americans who are frustrated with the country’s direction and view the Democratic Party as elite, establishment and too far left. Many younger, male and nonwhite voters fall into this category. But relying on this group comes with a downside: It includes many people who don’t regularly vote. Trump has made a big bet on turnout — and the idea that he will win by accentuating his persona rather than moderating it. THE LATEST NEWS Voting The presidential race looks like a photo finish in swing states, the final set of polls by The New York Times and Siena College found. But despite the deadlock, the figures show some notable shifts, Nate Cohn writes. Trump has improved his standing in Pennsylvania even as late-deciding voters appear to be breaking for Harris. White women could determine the election. Nikole Hannah-Jones explores how they have voted over the years. Republican Campaign Most politicians don’t criticize American cities, but Trump does. This map shows how he describes the U.S. Trump’s falsehoods and wild claims have redefined presidential discourse, Peter Baker writes. In his closing arguments, Trump has made misleading statements about Beyoncé, whales and voting. Trump has promised a new era of power for Christians if he wins. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Trump would seek to remove fluoride from drinking water. Democratic Campaign Kamala Harris, right, and Maya Rudolph. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Harris went on “S.N.L.” She appeared as herself — and Maya Rudolph played her, too. The Times fact-checked Harris’s closing argument. While she has stuck to the truth, she sometimes omitted context or erred when describing policies and statistics. Though Biden left the race, his legacy depends on the outcome, Zolan Kanno-Youngs writes. International In Valencia, Spain. Emma Bubola/The New York Times Spain is reeling from floods that killed at least 211 people. Read about the recovery in Valencia, the worst-hit region. In a town on the Lebanese border, volunteer patrols try to keep Hezbollah fighters out. They don’t want their home dragged into the fighting. Other Big Stories Is it appropriate to describe Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel as “violent”? Internal emails show Harvard University administrators debating the question and removing the word. Storms are battering the Great Plains, and officials reported tornadoes in Oklahoma City. Elon Musk’s own account dominates his social platform, X. He has made the site a mirror of his personal views before the election. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Who are you voting for? Harris. Harris has promised to continue Biden’s work of making housing affordable, reducing childhood poverty and lowering prescription drug costs, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board writes: “America deserves much more than an aspiring autocrat who ignores the law, is running to stay out of prison, and doesn’t care about anyone but himself.” Trump. The Biden-Harris administration has been marked by inflation and war, while Trump’s is remembered for stability and economic growth, The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s editorial board writes: “When we weigh the policy results of Mr. Trump’s four years in office against those of Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden, the contrast becomes difficult to ignore.” FROM OPINION Women have died in a post-Roe America. Your vote matters, India Baird writes. Here are columns by Ezra Klein on how both parties view their enemies and Lydia Polgreen on Democrats’ treatment of Muslim and Arab Americans. Ends soon: Our best rate on unlimited access for Morning readers. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. MORNING READS Ping Zhu Strange and unpredictable: The New York City Marathon is today. Runners described what goes through their heads over 26.2 miles. (See where to cheer and how to track runners.) The Daily Beast: Can two new executives turn the struggling website around? Their team isn’t sure. Tired? Here’s how to know if you’re sleep deprived. Routine: How an Instagram-famous pizzeria owner spends his Sundays. Vows: Their plans changed after a dream about a shoe-store wedding. Lives Lived: As a running back for the Cleveland Browns, Dub Jones once scored six touchdowns in a single game. He died at 99. BOOK OF THE WEEK Ralph Fiennes in “Conclave.” Focus Features By Elisabeth Egan “Conclave,” by Robert Harris: Harris’s short, muscular page-turner whisks us to the Vatican’s inner sanctum, where 118 cardinals gather to vote on a new pope. Ancient resentments abound, as do sacred traditions, inconvenient secrets and ugly mysteries. Beltway politicos appear tame compared to this sharp-elbowed crew. Our tour guide is Jacopo Lomeli, dean of the College of Cardinals, played by Ralph Fiennes in the movie version that opened last week. (Onscreen, he’s Cardinal Lawrence.) For an equally dazzling performance, check out Roy McMillan’s audiobook narration. He even sings in Latin! More on books Want to know what to read in November? Here are 12 books coming this month. Stanley Tucci is working his way through Jon Fosse’s work, with “Septology” up next. He has some surprises on his shelves. THE INTERVIEW The philosopher Peter Singer. Adam Ferguson for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is Peter Singer, who is perhaps the world’s most influential — and controversial — living philosopher. His new book, “Consider the Turkey,” examines the overwhelming amount of animal mistreatment involved in the traditional Thanksgiving meal. We spoke about that, as well as what it really means to do good in the world. It feels hard to deny the unacceptable level of suffering that goes into our Thanksgiving turkey dinners. But millions of people are still going to have them. Do you ever feel as if you’re banging your head against the wall with this stuff? No. I feel like I’m banging my head against something which is pretty hard but not completely unyielding. In some parts of the world, we’ve made progress in the laws and regulations concerning animals. On the whole, yes, things are still bad, but it’s possible to make progress, and we have to keep bringing these facts in front of the public and getting them to think about what they’re eating. The Thanksgiving meal seems like a good place to start. I suspect most people see themselves as, on balance, a net good for the world. But how does someone know? Very few people are doing enough to make the world a better place. They’re probably not. I don’t think that I’m doing enough to make the world a better place. But how would you know? You would look around for other ways of doing more to make the world a better place, and you would say, “There aren’t any.” That’s the extreme position. Where’s the line short of that? The line short of that is to say: “I’m doing a lot more than the current social standard is. I’m trying to raise that standard. I’m setting an example of doing more than the current standard.” If you can say those things, you can be content with what you’re doing. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Buy a good trench coat for fall. Avoid sitting all day. It could shorten your life. Keep water cold with these bottles. Mash potatoes with ease. MEAL PLAN Kerri Brewer for The New York Times Store-bought gnocchi are best appreciated when seared until crisp, Ali Slagle writes in this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter. She suggests saucing them with a mix of honey, mustard and horseradish. Ali also recommends making harissa and white bean chili, and sheet-pan gochujang chicken. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was graphic. Can you put eight historical events in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 5, 2024 Author Members Posted November 5, 2024 November 4, 2024 By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. Today, we have a guide for what to expect on election night, hour by hour. In Philadelphia. Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images A viewer’s guide Today’s newsletter offers a guide to election night, and we’ll start with a point that many people don’t seem to realize: The process of counting votes may happen more quickly this year than it did four years ago. Why? The Covid pandemic is over, and fewer people are voting by mail. And some states have changed their procedures to count votes more quickly. Michigan, for example, now allows officials to start processing mailed ballots before Election Day, while Philadelphia has bought faster counting machines. If the presidential race is extremely close — think Bush vs. Gore — we won’t know the winner by tomorrow night. But the chance that the result will be clear is higher than you may think. The presidency The final New York Times/Siena College polls, released yesterday, showed a virtually tied race. Kamala Harris is clearly favored in states that account for 226 electoral votes, while Donald Trump is favored in states that account for 219. To win, Harris will likely need at least 44 combined electoral votes from the seven battleground states, while he will likely need 51: By The New York Times But surprises remain possible. A highly regarded Iowa poll, for example, shocked many political analysts over the weekend by showing Harris ahead there — a potential sign of her strength with white voters. Alaska is another state where she has a small chance for a big upset. Trump could pull off his own surprises in New Mexico or New Hampshire. You can explore all of the combinations through this map. Congress Republicans are significant favorites to retake Senate control, as Friday’s newsletter described. The likeliest path to a Democratic-led Senate requires at least one upset victory in Montana, Nebraska or Texas. Control of the House is a tossup. It could come down to districts in states that often need days to finish counting ballots, including Arizona, California and New York. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, doesn’t think we will know tomorrow night which party has won. Among the House races we’re watching closely: For an early sense, look to the Second and Seventh Districts in Virginia (where polls close at 7 p.m.). One is a race to succeed Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrat resigning to run for governor. Our colleague Catie Edmondson describes that race as “a good test of how House Republicans are going to do in suburbs that aren’t in love with Trump.” Seventeen Republicans represent districts Joe Biden won in 2020, including Mike Lawler in New York City’s suburbs. If you’re looking for something to listen to today, we recommend this “Daily” episode about Lawler’s race. Five Democrats are running for re-election in districts Trump won in 2020, including Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington State. Here’s a Times profile of Gluesenkamp Perez, who has appealed to working-class voters by combining economic progressivism with moderate stances on college debt, immigration and guns. In Phoenix. Matt York/Associated Press Ballot initiatives Here are six questions about voter referendums: Will abortion rights remain undefeated in the post-Roe era? Ten states will vote on the issue. Six red and purple states — Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Nebraska — are considering measures that would allow abortion until fetal viability. Florida’s version needs 60 percent support to pass. Will marijuana’s winning streak continue despite new evidence of harms? Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota will vote on whether to legalize recreational marijuana, and Nebraska will vote on medical marijuana. (A recent Times investigation explained growing signs of addiction and health problems.) Will affordable housing expand? Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, New Orleans and Rhode Island will vote on funding. Will momentum for school vouchers continue? The educational turmoil of the Covid pandemic, including long school closures, has already led several red states to allow families to use tax dollars for private schools. Kentucky and Nebraska will vote on related measures. Will progressive economic policies continue to fare well? Alaska (where the minimum wage is now $11.73) and Missouri ($12.30) will vote on increases — and also whether to expand paid sick leave. California ($16) will also vote on lifting the minimum wage. Will ranked-choice voting grow — or shrink? Ranked-choice voting allows people to list several candidates in a preferred order, rather than choosing only one. As a result, advocates note, it can help candidates who appeal to the broad American middle, rather than partisan extremes. Critics point out that it can also be complicated. Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, D.C., will vote on whether to establish such a system in at least some elections. Alaska will vote on whether to get rid of its ranked-choice system. We recommend this nationwide election guide from Daniel Nichanian of Bolts magazine. It includes information on referendums about climate, transportation, L.G.B.T.Q. issues and more. For more Doug Mills, a Times photographer, will be with Trump on election night. He has covered every president since Ronald Reagan. See some of his iconic images. Readers asked questions about the election. Times editors answered. THE LATEST NEWS Voting Nearly 75 million people have cast early ballots (that’s around a third of all eligible voters). Overall turnout is expected to be slightly lower than in 2020, but will still be higher than most previous elections. A group of uncommitted voters struggled for months with their decision. See them explain who they’re voting for. The final polls are the closest in modern history. But a decisive win for either candidate is still possible, Nate Cohn writes. More on the Campaigns In Greensboro, North Carolina. Doug Mills/The New York Times At a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump said he shouldn’t have left the White House after the 2020 election. He also joked to supporters that he wouldn’t mind if reporters were shot. At a Michigan rally, Harris vowed to end the war in Gaza, a crucial issue in the state. She also visited a Black church in Detroit, where she invoked the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In ads, Harris’s final message is focused on kitchen-table issues like the economy, while the Trump campaign has framed defeating Harris as a matter of life and death. Both candidates will spend most of their final day in Pennsylvania. Follow the latest news here. Middle East Thousands of children in Gaza City received a second dose of polio vaccine. The vaccination campaign was delayed because of fighting. On Oct. 7, a college student in Israel shared posts on Instagram — and then the police arrested her for incitement. Read about her story. More International News In the Tatacoa Desert, in Colombia. Federico Rios for The New York Times In Colombia, a fossil-collecting rancher found a flightless killer bird from 13 million years ago. It’s a missing link to the region’s evolutionary history. The pro-Western president of Moldova, a former Soviet republic, won re-election against a Moscow-friendly rival. A volcanic eruption in eastern Indonesia triggered several earthquakes and killed at least 10 people, officials said. The language of the Indonesian Cia-Cia tribe has survived for centuries without a written form. To preserve it, the tribe has adopted the Korean alphabet. Other Big Stories Quincy Jones Damon Winter/The New York Times Quincy Jones, a giant of American popular music, died at 91. Starting in the late 1950s, he led bands, composed film scores and later produced the best-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” “A drop in the bucket”: Residents in Louisville expressed hope and concern after a police officer was convicted of using excessive force in the raid that killed Breonna Taylor. Weight-loss drugs and I.V.F. are expensive, and their popularity is raising the cost of health care. Opinions House and Senate races will decide whether Congress enables or restrains the next president, the Editorial Board writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss the political gender divide. Here’s a column by Ross Douthat on why opposing Trump is not an obvious choice. Ends soon: Our best rate on unlimited access for Morning readers. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. MORNING READS Paul Campbell The New York Times What happens to your compost? Meet a man who manages it. Not so luxe: Consumers claim they were duped by a vacation club managed by Hyatt. Some are locked into 40-year, $50,000 contracts that they say offer few rewards. Metropolitan Diary: The Bird Man of Bryant Park. Lives Lived: As a young public-health researcher in South Asia in the late 1960s, Richard Cash showed that a simple cocktail of salt, sugar and clean water could check the impacts of cholera and other diarrhea-inducing diseases. This innovation saved an estimated 50 million lives. Cash died at 83. SPORTS Sheila Chepkirui, right, and Abdi Nageeye. Uli Seit for The New York Times Marathon: Abdi Nageeye and Sheila Chepkirui won the New York City Marathon. Some celebrities also ran. N.F.L.: The Minnesota Vikings ended a losing streak with a 21-13 win over the Indianapolis Colts. N.B.A.: The Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant called the ESPN personality Stephen Smith “a clown” in response to the analyst’s criticism of his leadership abilities. ARTS AND IDEAS In Washington, D.C. Scott Suchman for The New York Times Most new food celebrities get their start on social media, like front-seat food critics and TikTok bakers. Not Kwame Onwuachi, a chef with restaurants in New York City and Washington, D.C. His fame came primarily from working in a restaurant. “His talent in the kitchen and his charisma outside it conspire with a rare ability, seen more often in pop stars than in chefs,” Pete Wells writes, noting that Onwuachi can identify and ride social currents. Read more about his new restaurant. More on culture An editor is trying to refresh Town & Country, a 178-year-old magazine, using social media. James Van Der Beek, the star of “Dawson’s Creek,” said he had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini. Add chicken meatballs to this soup with lemon and feta. Spread the best butter. Take our election news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was portrayal. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David and Ian P.S. Ian wrote about what he heard from Trump supporters at his Madison Square Garden rally last week. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 6, 2024 Author Members Posted November 6, 2024 November 5, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. It’s Election Day, and we’re covering the big races — as well as Israel, Boeing and Peruvian dining. Kenny Holston/The New York Times A turning point Today is the rare day that’s likely to change the trajectory of the United States. If Donald Trump wins, he has promised a far-reaching agenda that includes a rollback of climate regulations, an expansion of oil and gas drilling, the mass deportation of people who entered the country illegally, a reduction in military support for Ukraine, tariffs on all imported goods and a large tax cut. Yet his biggest break with American political history is not about any proposed policy. It is his rejection of democratic traditions that both parties have long supported. Trump refuses to accept election results unless he wins, speaks positively about violence and threatens to use government power to punish his political opponents. He also vows to avoid the pattern of his first term by appointing loyal aides who will carry out his wishes. If Kamala Harris wins, she has promised to uphold democratic traditions and has signaled that she will continue the policy direction of the Biden administration. She will pursue a mix of progressive and moderate policies focused on helping middle-class and lower-income families, including paid leave, expanded home construction, subsidies for health insurance and measures to reduce drug prices. Around the world, she will work closely with U.S. allies. Nonetheless, Harris would represent a break with the past in her own ways. For one thing, she would be the first woman to serve as president, shattering what Hillary Clinton called “that highest, hardest glass ceiling.” A Harris victory would also make Trump a two-time loser in consecutive presidential elections, and his political future would suddenly look doubtful. Four years from now, he would be 82. In recent months, a few New York Times editors have been holding internal writing workshops, offering suggestions about how we can convey ideas and information to readers more clearly. Their presentation includes a slide that lists clichés that we should use less often, and one of them is “turning point.” I agree with the editors. We do overuse that term. Today, however, happens to be a time when it’s apt. For the United States, this election is a true turning point. For more: The Morning has spent months covering the stakes of this election, looking at major issues like the climate, abortion, immigration and health care. Read the series here. Also on the ballot Yesterday’s newsletter mentioned some other notable elections, and we want to add to the list today: Only three Black women have served in the U.S. Senate (including Harris). Two more — Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester in Delaware, both Democrats — could join the list. New Hampshire — a blue state that Republicans often run — may have the only close governor’s race today: Kelly Ayotte, a Republican former senator, faces Joyce Craig, a former Manchester mayor. North Carolina also has a prominent governor’s race, with the Democrat favored. Democrats hope to flip control of state legislative chambers in Arizona, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Republicans hope to do so in Maine, Michigan and Minnesota. In Pennsylvania, each party controls one chamber, and both hope to win complete control. In Arizona, voters will decide whether to keep two state Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the state’s 1864 abortion ban. London Breed, San Francisco’s Democratic mayor, seeks a second term. She faces three challengers who are more conservative and one who’s more liberal. In Puerto Rico, a referendum asks residents whether they prefer statehood, independence or a middle ground. Maine’s state flag is blue and has a coat of arms. Voters will decide whether to replace it with a lighter flag dominated by a pine tree. State of Maine/Secretary of State via AP THE LATEST NEWS Republican Campaign In Grand Rapids, Michigan. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump held his final rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. He repeated his false claim that Democrats cheat and told his supporters that if he loses, “We would only have you to blame.” At the rally, Trump stopped short of calling Nancy Pelosi an epithet. “It starts with a b, but I won’t say it,” he said. Trump’s closing events have featured many empty seats and streams of audience members leaving early. Joe Rogan, the popular podcaster who’s had Trump and JD Vance on his show, endorsed Trump. So did Megyn Kelly, the former Fox host, who called Trump “a protector of women.” The Arab American mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., urged Arab Americans and Muslims to back Trump. Trump has pledged to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild on health” if he wins. Kennedy is a vaccine conspiracy theorist and opposes adding fluoride to drinking water. “I’ll fix it,” Trump says of inflation, illegal immigration and crime. In fact, all three are largely back to normal. Democratic Campaign In Philadelphia. Erin Schaff/The New York Times Harris held her last rally in Philadelphia. Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin performed, and 30,000 people attended. Harris’s campaign held eight simultaneous rallies in the seven swing states, playing the events from each rally at the others. Harris also knocked on doors in a Pennsylvania neighborhood and visited campaign volunteers in Scranton. Tim Walz, campaigning in Michigan, made a pitch to men, whom Trump is also courting. “I want you to think about the women in your life that you love,” Walz said. “Their lives are at stake in this election.” Polling A well-regarded poll showed Harris leading Trump in Iowa, where Republicans have been expecting a clear win. The result surprised the pollster. It could indicate late movement toward Harris, or it could be a fluke. The polls may be close but that does not necessarily mean there will be a close result. Nate Cohn explains four ways the election could unfold. Voting Officials announced the first result of this election — in a small New Hampshire hamlet — 12 minutes after midnight. Trump and Harris tied, with three votes each. U.S. intelligence agencies warned that Russia was attempting to undermine confidence in the election by spreading false videos and phony accusations of voter fraud. Right-wing activists and lawmakers have challenged the eligibility of thousands of voters in Pennsylvania. Here’s a guide to when polls close across the country, and what to follow, region by region. The New York Times Needle will show the latest vote totals and estimates of the outcome. More states are issuing unique “I Voted” stickers. Can you match the sticker with the state? Take a quiz. More on Election Day Businesses near the White House boarded up their windows. Both campaigns say they’re cautiously optimistic about winning Pennsylvania. Republicans stress the optimism, Democrats the caution. A Pennsylvania judge ruled that Elon Musk’s election sweepstakes, which gave some voters a chance to win $1 million, did not violate state law. Getting Botox and bingeing TV: On Election Day, some Americans plan to unwind and unplug. Other Big Stories In Seattle. M. Scott Brauer for The New York Times Boeing’s largest union approved a new contract, ending a weekslong strike. Israeli authorities are investigating a spokesman in Benjamin Netanyahu’s office who is suspected of leaking classified documents to the media. The documents helped support Netanyahu’s reasoning for new conditions for a cease-fire deal. Meta said it would let U.S. agencies and contractors use its A.I. models for military purposes. All U.S. states but two — Alaska and Kentucky — are in drought. Opinions If Trump wins, we can expect an America that is far more exclusive and more resistant to change. We cannot become the country Trump wants us to be, Jamelle Bouie writes. Democrats have sided with Trump’s restrictive approach to trade and immigration. In that way, he has already won, Matthew Schmitz writes. Walter Green shares his recipes and strategies for easing Election Day anxieties. Ends soon: Our best rate on unlimited access for Morning readers. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. MORNING READS In Kwun Tong, Hong Kong. Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times Tiny homes: Hong Kong’s government wants to regulate the city’s smallest apartments. Poor Hong Kongers are worried. Ask Vanessa: “Why are people still buying ripped jeans?” Christmas escape: More Americans view the holidays as the perfect time for a solo trip. Lives Lived: Murray McCory founded the outdoor equipment company JanSport while still in college, selling lightweight backpacks that would revolutionize school life. He died at 80. SPORTS N.F.L.: The Kansas City Chiefs, winners of two straight Super Bowls, are 8-0 to start the season after squeaking by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in overtime. College basketball: Both the men’s and women’s seasons started, but most of the attention is focused on two women’s stars — U.S.C.’s JuJu Watkins and Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers. ARTS AND IDEAS The Peruvian chef Gaston Acurio. Janice Chung for The New York Times Last year, the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, an influential survey of more than 1,000 culinary experts, awarded its No. 1 ranking to Central, a restaurant in Lima, Peru. It was a crowning moment for Peruvians, who pride themselves on their unique national cuisine, which merges Indigenous ingredients — tropical fruits, mountain grains and seafood — with soy sauce and French fries, sashimi and pesto. More on culture Some New York City Marathon participants made sure they looked good while running. See nine memorable looks. The late night hosts addressed election anxiety. “It feels like the whole country is waiting to get the results of a biopsy,” Jimmy Kimmel said. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times Bake a batch of easy brownies while you wait for election results. Listen to 14 essential Quincy Jones songs. Try a single-serve coffee maker. Give a pick-me-up to a loved one going through a divorce. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was phantom. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 6, 2024 Author Members Posted November 6, 2024 November 6, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering Trump’s victory, a Republican Senate and America’s rightward shift. In West Palm Beach, Fla. Doug Mills/The New York Times President Trump, again Donald Trump has completed a stunning political comeback, and the United States has entered an uncertain new era. Trump won a clear victory in the presidential election over Vice President Kamala Harris, likely including in all seven battleground states. After a defiant campaign filled with grim portrayals of the country’s condition, he is on course to become the first Republican to win the national popular vote in 20 years. The New York Times called the race for Trump shortly before 6 a.m. Eastern. The result showed a country that had shifted to the political right, with voters unhappy about President Biden’s performance, especially on the economy and immigration. As of 5:45 a.m. Eastern. | Source: The Associated Press by The New York Times Four years after being impeached for his role in a violent attack on Congress, five months after being convicted of a felony in New York and three months after surviving an assassination attempt, Trump will begin preparing his return to the White House. “We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing,” Trump said at a celebration overnight at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort he owns. “This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country.” He promised to close the border, “help our country heal” and “fix everything.” Another sign of the breadth of Trump’s victory came in the races for the Senate. Republicans regained control by recapturing seats in Ohio, West Virginia and perhaps Montana. Races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remain close. It is unclear which party will control the House. The Republican Party appeared to expand its electorate in meaningful ways, especially among Latino voters. As of 5:45 a.m. Eastern. | Source: The Associated Press By The New York Times Trump ran on an ambitious — and in many ways radical — agenda of across-the-board tariffs, mass deportations, oil drilling, regulatory rollbacks, tax cuts, foreign policy changes and more. He has also signaled that he will violate democratic traditions to accomplish his goals. It remains unclear how far he will go, but he is in a stronger position now than he was eight years ago. His aides have spent months planning for a second term and vetting potential appointees to ensure that his administration is staffed with loyalists rather than the establishment Republicans who often stymied him in his first term. In Congress, few of the Trump-skeptical Republicans from 2017 will remain. All of which leaves Democrats and Trump’s other critics in a weaker position than they were in eight years ago. Starting on Jan. 20, Democrats may control no branch of the federal government. If Democrats hope to slow Trump’s agenda, they will often need to persuade other Republicans to oppose him. Harris’s defeat was a rejection of both Biden’s performance as president and her own brief campaign. She became the nominee after the primaries were over, and many voters said they didn’t know enough about her or worried she was too liberal. But the outcome also fits a pattern in high-income countries: The U.S. has joined Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan as a country where the ruling party has recently lost power. In the U.S., the presidency is on the verge of changing hands for the third time in eight years, the biggest period of White House instability since the 1970s. In the rest of today’s newsletter, we’ll have more on the election results. We encourage you to check back with The Times’s app or home page later today. There is sure to be more news. More on the presidency In West Palm Beach, Fla. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump, claiming victory, stood onstage with his family and promised economic prosperity in America. Even his supporters seemed shocked by his comeback. The mood was somber at Harris’s election watch party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington, D.C. Harris did not address the crowd. Trump’s arc back to power is complete, an extraordinary reversal for a man who never especially changed, Matt Flegenheimer, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write. “America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history,” Lisa Lerer writes. Stocks rose and the dollar improved against major currencies. A Republican Senate Jim Justice and Bernie Moreno. Chris Jackson/Associated Press, Mike Cardew/USA Today Network Democratic Senate candidates received more support than Harris in the battleground states, but some still seemed likely to lose. Republicans flipped at least two formerly Democratic seats: Bernie Moreno beat Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Gov. Jim Justice won a seat in West Virginia that is being vacated by Joe Manchin. In Montana, Tim Sheehy led Senator Jon Tester, the Democratic incumbent, by 10 percentage points with three quarters of the vote counted. Races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all seats Democrats previously held — have not yet been called. Republicans held onto their Senate seats. Deb Fischer survived a challenge from an independent in Nebraska. Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas easily won re-election. For the first time, the Senate will have two Black women, both Democrats, serving simultaneously: Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. Andy Kim, a Democrat, won in New Jersey. He is the first Korean American elected to the Senate. See the latest Senate results. House of Representatives Control of the House remains uncertain. It may come down to races in California, which could take days to call. Tom Barrett flipped a Michigan seat for the Republicans. Democrats flipped two neighboring districts in New York: Josh Riley unseated Marc Molinaro, and John Mannion unseated Brandon Williams. Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat, will become the House’s first openly transgender member. See the latest House results. Ballot measures Supporters of Florida’s abortion measure react to its defeat. Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press Abortion rights fared well in most places, but their post-Roe undefeated streak ended. In Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, measures to protect abortion rights failed. (The Florida measure received 57 percent support but needed 60 percent to win.) Measures succeeded in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and New York. Nebraska approved medical marijuana, while a measure to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida failed. Missouri voted to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Two states voted to keep their tipped minimum wages — which apply to many restaurant workers — the same: Massachusetts rejected an increase, and Arizona rejected a decrease. Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and South Dakota rejected measures to establish ranked choice voting, and Missouri voted to ban the practice. Washington, D.C., approved it. Nebraska and Kentucky voted against allowing public funds to go to students in private or charter schools. California voters passed a measure that would charge some shoplifting and drug possession offenses as felonies instead of misdemeanors. Ohio rejected a measure to replace its legislature’s partisan redistricting system with an independent commission. Governors’ races Josh Stein in Raleigh, North Carolina. Cornell Watson for The New York Times Josh Stein, a Democrat, beat Mark Robinson, a Republican, to become North Carolina’s next governor. Kelly Ayotte, a former Republican senator, won the New Hampshire governor’s race. Mike Braun, a Republican senator, won the Indiana governor’s race. Voting Most votes were cast without any issue. Bomb threats against polling places in several swing states, including Georgia and Michigan, led to minor disruptions. Officials said the threats, some of which appear to have come from Russia, were not credible. Despite a statewide shift to the right in North Carolina, several counties shifted to the left. Many were in areas that qualified for emergency assistance after Hurricane Helene ravaged the state in September. Commentary Nicholas Kristof, Times Opinion: “Democrats often have a knack for coming across as remarkably condescending to working-class voters. We liberals tend to come across too often as finger-wagging elites disdainful of the religious faith that is really important to millions of people.” Ezekiel Kweku, Times Opinion: “‘We’re not going back’ is pithy and sounds powerful, but it kind of backfires if the voters, in fact, do want to go back.” Tyler Austin Harper, Times Opinion: “Biden and his enablers disregarded the public’s belief that he was too old to serve another term. When he finally did step aside — only after a televised disaster that set his floundering campaign on fire — the Democratic Party circumvented democracy by simply crowning his replacement.” Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist: “This is the absolute end of the old Republican Party. New G.O.P. is more durable, more working class, with a brighter future.” S.E. Cupp, CNN: “Maybe telling voters the economy is ‘strong as hell’ when they tell you in every swing state that they couldn’t afford groceries and gas was a fatal strategy.” Ian Bremmer, The Eurasia Group: “Almost every major election in the world this year was a change election. Incumbents lost because voters believed their country was heading in the wrong direction.” THE LATEST NEWS Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Amir Cohen/Reuters Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, after disagreements over the war in Gaza. See a timeline of their clashes. North Korean troops have begun fighting Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of Russia, U.S. officials said. Russia plotted to place incendiary devices on cargo planes in Europe and performed tests this summer that caused fires in Britain and Germany, Western officials said. Flooding in Missouri killed at least four people, including two poll workers. Nvidia, whose chips power A.I. systems and Bitcoin mining, surpassed Apple to become world’s most valuable company, The Washington Post reports. Bernie Marcus, who co-founded Home Depot in 1978, died at 95. Ends soon: Our best rate on unlimited access for Morning readers. From in-depth coverage of Decision 2024 to unlimited news and analysis, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and more, subscribe now for only $1 a week for your first year. THE MORNING RECIPE Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. If you stayed up late watching the results and you need a good breakfast, we have a guide to a perfectly boiled egg. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were diatomic and idiomatic. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 7, 2024 Author Members Posted November 7, 2024 November 7, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering the day after the election — as well as Benjamin Netanyahu, smog in Pakistan and cheese storage. Voting in Las Vegas. Bridget Bennett for The New York Times Trump’s majority For much of the past year, Democrats comforted themselves with recent election results. Yes, the 2024 polls looked tight, but when it really mattered — when people went to the polls to vote — Democrats won again and again. In 2022, they kept Senate control and nearly won the House, defying the usual midterm curse for the president’s party. This pattern led many Democrats to hope that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies were so extreme that they had created an electoral majority in opposition to them. That hope helped explain why President Biden based his initial campaign message around Trump’s threat to democracy and why Kamala Harris called Trump a fascist late in her campaign. It also explained why she and her advisers ran such a cautious campaign, one that didn’t break with Biden in major ways or offer a clear rationale for a Harris presidency. But the Democratic belief in an anti-Trump majority always had a flaw. In midterm and special elections — the elections that gave Democrats confidence — voter turnout is much lower than in a presidential election. People who vote in off-year elections are more politically engaged. They tend to be older, more educated and more affluent, and feel more trust in the country’s institutions. The presidential electorate, like the overall population, includes more people who feel alienated and cynical. They were less persuaded by Harris’s message that Trump was a radical who would upend the country’s establishment. They may appreciate Trump’s radicalism. As of 4 a.m. Eastern. | By The New York Times Polls repeatedly showed that the Democrats’ emphasis on democracy wasn’t persuading swing voters. (In post-election interviews, voters said they worried about paying the rent, not about an endangered country.) Many voters also weren’t deterred by the Republicans’ unpopular stance on abortion, another subject that often fails to move votes in a general election. Most Americans still don’t have a favorable view of Trump, which helps explain why this election was “no landslide,” as my colleague Nate Cohn put it. But there was never an enduring anti-Trump majority among the presidential electorate. After all, he nearly won re-election four years ago, despite the chaos of the Covid pandemic. The Democrats’ electoral success since then — all of it in lower-turnout elections — distracted the party from developing a coherent message aimed at the swing voters of 2024. This year’s election was never going to be easy for Democrats, given the anti-incumbent energy in much of the world. But the party made it harder by putting too optimistic a spin on the election results of the past few years. As Trump prepares to govern again, Democrats are left to figure out how they can appeal, as they once did, to frustrated voters who don’t want to hear promises of stability and paeans to the political establishment. Those frustrated Americans helped make up the electoral majority this week. How Trump won Trump bet that he could make his grievances — a conviction, an assassination attempt — America’s grievances. It paid off. Trump secured support from core Democratic constituencies: He made inroads with Latinos and Black voters, and claimed modest gains in suburbs and cities. “He gets us”: Trump got voters laughing. That goes a long way, Shawn McCreesh writes. Where Trump won Florida: Trump won Miami-Dade County, which has many Latino voters. It is the first time a Republican presidential candidate has done so since 1988. Texas: Support for Trump in the border counties of South Texas helped him win the state by 14 percentage points, based on the latest count. He won by only six points in 2020. Starr County went to a Republican for the first time since 1896. New York: The city has moved right each time Trump has run — by 26 percentage points overall since 2016. The shift was pronounced in parts of the Bronx, Queens and southern Brooklyn. Michigan: In Dearborn, Mich., a majority-Arab American city, frustration with the war in Gaza helped Trump win with 42 percent of the vote. Harris received 36 percent, while Jill Stein of the Green Party received 18 percent. The day after Kamala Harris Erin Schaff/The New York Times “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” Harris said in a speech at Howard University, her alma mater. “Sometimes the fight takes a while.” See her speech. Harris called Trump to concede the race and congratulate him. Biden spoke with both candidates and invited Trump to meet him at the White House. Benjamin Netanyahu, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders congratulated Trump, as did Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and other U.S. business executives. Stocks rose, and both the dollar and Bitcoin strengthened. Expectations of an increase in inflation also rose. House results Control of the House remained too close to call. It may come down to a handful of races in Arizona and California, where officials are still counting votes. Republicans appear to be in a stronger position. A moderate Maine Democrat won a fourth term in a district where Trump has won three elections in a row. See the House results here. Senate results While Republicans will control the Senate, Democrats are still winning competitive Senate races. They won races in Michigan and Wisconsin, and they appear to be ahead in Arizona. The Senate race in Nevada remains uncertain. In Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick, a Republican, leads Senator Bob Casey, the Democrat. See the full results here. More election results Republicans’ election dominance stretched to statehouses: They made gains in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Vermont. A ballot measure to ban prison labor as a form of punishment appears likely to fail in California. Similar measures recently passed in more conservative states, including Alabama and Tennessee. Ten states voted on abortion policy. Here’s how access will change. *Note: In Nevada, a winning measure to protect abortion until viability must pass again in the next general election before it can be added to the state’s Constitution. | By The New York Times Democrats’ response After Trump’s victory in swing states, Democrats have a fractured base and questions about how to move forward. Democratic, Republican and independent voters all blamed Biden and Harris for failing to control the chaotic border. Other Democrats accuse Biden of setting the party on a path to failure. Harris’s loss could haunt his legacy. Trump’s first term turned some Democrats into activists. Now, many of them are struggling to muster the energy to do it again. Some women wondered if the glass ceiling would ever break. The election result affirmed what many Black women believed about America: That it would rather send a felon than a woman of color to the White House. Trump’s next administration Trump has an expansive agenda, including widespread tariffs, a restructuring of the U.S. government and shifting international alliances. Read how he could make his plans happen. Elon Musk spent more than $100 million to help elect Trump. In return, he is hoping to place SpaceX associates in some top government positions. (Tesla stock jumped after Trump’s victory.) The Senate, which had been full of critics in Trump’s first term, is now full of allies ready to advance his agenda. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, is poised to wield power in Trump’s administration. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced later this month in his New York criminal case. He has many ways to avoid punishment. THE LATEST NEWS Olaf Scholz Eric Lee/The New York Times Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, fired his finance minister. The move effectively ended his three-party ruling coalition and destabilized his government. By firing his defense minister, Netanyahu has removed his main internal critic. Hurricane Rafael cut power across Cuba, which has struggled with its faltering energy grid. Smog has choked Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province. Hundreds have been hospitalized and the authorities have told many workers to stay at home. A fire in South California swept across 10,000 acres in a few hours. The blaze burned homes and prompted evacuations. Opinions Democrats lost because they dismissed inflation and immigration and because they have become a party of pontification and pomposity, Bret Stephens argues. Trump’s and Harris’s campaigns pitted men against women. Men won, Maureen Dowd writes. Here’s a column by David Brooks on the Democrats’ failure. MORNING READS Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS) Test your attention: Look at this painting — Edward Hopper’s “Manhattan Bridge Loop” — for 10 minutes, uninterrupted. ‘It’ pants: For fashion enthusiasts, wearing these pants is akin to carrying a flashy designer handbag. Wildlife: To understand how vampire bats get their energy, scientists put them on a treadmill. Lives Lived: Geoff Capes, who won the World’s Strongest Man competition twice, could pull 12-ton trucks uphill, flip cars and tear phone books in half. He died at 75. SPORTS N.F.L.: The Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce defended his brother, Jason, who slammed a heckler’s phone onto the ground last weekend. M.L.B.: The Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts will move back to the infield for next season, the team’s general manager said. ARTS AND IDEAS Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times You may be storing cheese wrong. Times Cooking has compiled a guide on how to keep and serve your cheese, and when to toss it. Here’s an excerpt: Experts across the field agree that cheese paper is ideal for wrapping everything except fresh cheeses like ricotta, feta and mozzarella (which should stay in their original packaging with their brine). And yes, for cheeses cut in pieces that you buy wrapped in plastic, it’s a good idea to rewrap if you’d like them to last longer. More on culture “May we have one million tissues please?” Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo became tearful while speaking with The Times about their movie adaptation of “Wicked.” Late-night hosts processed Trump’s win. “Trump returning to the White House is a huge historic comeback for someone who literally never went away,” Jimmy Fallon said. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times Bake Alfredo pasta with broccoli rabe and lemon. Read a fantasy novel. These are our editor’s picks. Travel with this compact hair dryer. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was jellybean. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter misidentified the location of Trump’s victory speech. It was in West Palm Beach, Fla., not at his resort, Mar-a-Lago. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 8, 2024 Author Members Posted November 8, 2024 November 8, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. We’re covering inflation’s role in Trump’s win — as well as tax cuts, abortion rights and Pompeii. Voting in Kansas. Charlie Riedel/Associated Press The inflation election Why did Donald Trump defeat Kamala Harris? One answer was clear even before Election Day: Voters consistently said the economy was their top issue, driven primarily by concerns about inflation. And they trusted Trump more than Harris to handle it. “It’s the economy, stupid” is an old cliché in American politics, and it often proves true. Still, Trump’s achievement contained a mystery. On paper, the economy seems OK. Inflation is down recently. Wages are up. But anger persists. That’s because higher prices cause a special kind of pain — one that lingers and, historically, leads voters to punish the people in charge. Tuesday was no exception. Today’s newsletter explains why voters still blamed the Biden-Harris administration — and why America’s leaders are far from alone in feeling the public’s fury over inflation this year. Pocketbook pain Source: National Consumer Price Index statistics for each country | By The New York Times Why does inflation anger voters so much? Some economic problems, like high unemployment, affect only a minority of the population. But higher prices affect everyone. Inflation also taps into what psychologists call “loss aversion”: People feel negatively about losses much more than they feel positively about gains. So although wages have kept up with inflation or surpassed it, people still feel more pained by sticker shock at the grocery store than elated by their gains. To make matters worse, consumers can’t do much about inflation. They simply have to cut back their spending on certain things or work more hours to afford them. The sense of loss combined with a feeling of powerlessness leaves people furious. They expect their leaders to fix the problem. Inflation fell to normal levels over the past year, but high prices remain. Eggs still cost nearly triple what they did four years ago. When people imagine an ideal end to inflation, they think of prices returning to normal. That hasn’t happened, and economists don’t expect it will. When the polling firm Morning Consult surveyed U.S. voters about inflation, they were comparing prices with those from 2020. They blamed President Biden and Harris for the increases since then, fairly or not. “Americans were comparing this economy to one without inflation, whether or not that was a realistic option according to economists,” said my colleague Ben Casselman, who covers the U.S. economy. “They weren’t saying, ‘Inflation is tough, but at least I have a job thanks to Biden.’ They were saying, ‘Of course I have a job, but now I have to deal with all this inflation thanks to Biden.’” At the same time, the solutions to inflation can make the problem feel worse in the short term. To stop price increases, central banks raised interest rates. That made loans, credit card payments and mortgages more expensive — another set of higher costs that consumers had to deal with. Global rage The same dynamic is haunting leaders all over the world. Over the past few years, voters have thrown out incumbents, on the left and the right, in Britain, France, the Netherlands, Argentina, Italy and Australia. The top political parties in South Africa, Japan and India also faced disappointing elections. Canada’s and Germany’s incumbents are in danger of losing their jobs next year. Source: Morning Consult | By The New York Times Higher prices are the central reason. In the aftermath of the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prices spiked worldwide. There is some good news for world leaders: Most prices have stabilized as the shocks of the pandemic and Russia’s war have subsided. If that trend continues, voters’ anger will likely ease. There are already some signs of that growing optimism. The Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, cut interest rates yesterday, signaling that inflation will continue falling. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, which measures people’s faith in the economy and their finances, has improved over the past year. The improvement, however, was too little and too late for Harris’s presidential campaign. More on Trump’s win Trump looks set to win the national popular vote, which would make him the first Republican presidential candidate to do so in 20 years. See the voting groups that swung to the right. Trump won votes from Arab Americans and conservative pro-Israel Jews, groups with very different views. House results Republicans are seven seats away from a House majority and appear to be poised to achieve that. Twenty-five races have not been called. Track the results. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a House Democrat who’s criticized her party for condescending to working-class voters, won re-election in a red district. She spoke with The Times about how her party should change. California London Breed, San Francisco’s first Black female mayor, lost to Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who pledged to improve public safety and city services. Both are Democrats. Gov. Gavin Newsom called California’s legislature back for a special session to pass protections for civil liberties, reproductive rights and climate action “in the face of an incoming Trump administration.” The transition Susie Wiles and Donald Trump. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump picked Susie Wiles, who helped to run his campaign, to be his White House chief of staff. She’s the first woman to hold the role. Biden pledged a peaceful and orderly transfer of power, and urged Democrats not to give up. “A defeat does not mean we are defeated,” he said at the White House. “The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up.” For the rest of Biden’s presidency, he will focus on nominating judges, delivering hurricane aid and funding the government, White House officials said. Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump and said Trump acted “like a man” after he survived an assassination attempt. He also praised Trump’s desire to improve ties with Russia. Jerome Powell, the Trump-appointed Federal Reserve chair whom Trump has frequently criticized, said he wouldn’t resign even if Trump asked him to. Powell’s term ends in 2026. Trump has proposed expensive tax cuts. His advisers are grappling with how feasible those are. During the campaign, Trump pledged to pardon people prosecuted for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6. Hours after Trump won, one convicted rioter told a judge that he expected to receive clemency. Other election news Abortion rights were more popular than Harris. In states like Arizona and Nevada, some voters split their tickets, supporting both abortion rights measures and Trump. After the election, a wave of racist text messages summoning Black people to report for slavery appeared on phones across the U.S. The F.B.I. is investigating. In 2016, shocked liberals reacted to Trump’s victory by organizing. This time, there is more resignation. “My feed feels like a funeral,” one woman said. THE LATEST NEWS International Attackers wounded at least 10 Israeli citizens in antisemitic violence tied to a soccer game between a Dutch and Israeli team in Amsterdam, officials said. The Chinese government approved a $1.4 trillion plan to revive the economy. Australia moved to ban children under 16 from social media. In Argentina, the authorities accused three people of crimes in connection with the death of Liam Payne, the former One Direction singer. Prince William spoke publicly for the first time about the emotional impact on him after his wife, Kate, Princess of Wales, and his father, King Charles, received cancer diagnoses. “It’s probably been the hardest year in my life,” William said. DNA from the remains of volcano victims at Pompeii revealed new details about the residents and their relationships. Other Big Stories A rhesus macaque. Kathleen Flynn/Reuters Forty-three monkeys escaped a research center in South Carolina. A search is underway. Firefighters struggled to battle a mountain fire near Los Angeles. More than 10,000 people were evacuated. Federal prosecutors accused the mayor of Jackson, Miss., and two other officials of bribery. They pleaded not guilty. A judge threatened Rudy Giuliani with contempt, which carries possible jail time, for failing to turn over property to pay two former election workers Giuliani defamed. Opinions If Trump’s opponents focus their criticism only on Trump, they will alienate millions of Americans. They should focus on defending the vulnerable, David French writes. Democratic voters who follow every news update are arrogant in assuming everyone else does, too. That blind spot cost them the election, Frank Bruni argues. People who voted for both abortion rights and Trump may support some women’s rights but not full gender equality, Jill Filipovic writes. MORNING READS Thomas Prior for The New York Times A giant puppet: The secret to happiness in Santa Fe, N.M.? The annual burning of a 50-foot effigy. Fields, not freezers: Some in Minnesota love the challenge of hunting turkeys — and the cooking that follows. Ultraprocessed foods: A scientific committee says there’s not enough evidence to avoid them. Some experts disagree. Literary guide: Read your way through Shanghai. Lives Lived: Eikoh Hosoe was an avant-garde photographer who helped pioneer a new kind of art making in postwar Japan. His surreal, often erotically charged images explored life, death and the nuclear age. He died at 91. SPORTS Rachael Gunn at the Paris Olympics Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Olympics: The Australian breaker Rachael “Raygun” Gunn is retiring from competition, citing the “upsetting” backlash to her Olympic performance this summer. N.F.L.: The Baltimore Ravens beat the Cincinnati Bengals in a 35-34 thriller. ARTS AND IDEAS In Berlin. Christoph Soeder/DPA, via Associated Press If you haven’t made plans for Thanksgiving yet, you could consider an unusual option: going abroad. November can be one of the most affordable months for foreign travel. And Thanksgiving week, when domestic flights skyrocket, is a golden window for last-minute international flights. Read more about the deals. More on culture Elwood Edwards, an announcer who voiced the email alert “You’ve got mail!” on AOL, died at 74. Late-night hosts joked about Biden’s speech to the country. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Craig Lee for The New York Times Make a big pot of old-fashioned beef stew, one of our most-reviewed recipes. Wash your clothes by hand — even ones labeled “dry clean only.” Buy a cheap gaming laptop. Shave with a better electric razor. Try a deep fryer. Print photos instantly. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was chateaux. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —German Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 10, 2024 Author Members Posted November 10, 2024 November 9, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. The foods and music and culture that move us most might not be very good, but that doesn’t diminish their power to comfort and delight. María Jesús Contreras Playing favorites Last month, The Times published a list of New York’s 25 best pizza places. Like any good New Yorker, I made sure my favorite pie was on the list, then vowed to find a new favorite. There’s pleasure in having one’s tastes affirmed by the tastemakers. Then there’s the even sweeter satisfaction of liking something no one else has discovered yet — a vanishingly rare experience in the TikTok era, when influencers trumpet their “secret” spots to eager followers and the next thing you know, there’s a line around the block at your neighborhood bakery. What makes a food “the best” of its kind, anyway? I loved reading through The Times’s list, but it’s only of use insofar as it aligns with my own preferences — I’ll never love a pizza topped with honey, or chicken, or (controversially, I know) peppers and onions. Sam Sifton’s theory of pizza cognition resonates: It posits that a person’s primary pizza source, the pizza they grew up eating and loving, is “the pizza that will become that person’s inner optimum, the pizza against which all others are judged.” Sam allows that tastes can change — he grew up on slices but developed an appreciation for pan pizza — but I’d argue that even if you refine your definition of the “best” pizza, your earliest taste imprint is still the one that provides the most comfort, the most familiar kind of pleasure. I may feel confident asserting that the best pizza has a thin crust, a slightly spicy sauce and a delicately balanced ratio of sauce to cheese, but the most comforting pizza I know is from a long-closed pizzeria in my hometown where the crust was pillowy and chewy, the sauce Chef Boyardee-sweet, the cheese oily and slipping off. Comfort foods are nostalgia bombs. They’re taste biases that were inscribed early when there wasn’t a lot of other data to complicate things. They can be awakened with a smell or a bite or even the sight of a neon sign that reads “Angelina’s,” the feel of a cardboard box hot on your legs as you carry dinner — half pepperoni, half meatball — home in the passenger seat. I have always maintained that the most comforting music is whatever you listened to in high school. It’s not necessarily the best music by any objective metric, but it’s what you listened to when you were formulating key parts of your personality, and that music will always make you feel most essentially yourself. I’d like to figure out other theories of familiarity, ways to reliably induce a sense of deep, cozy satisfaction. Maybe it’s all stuff that got to you when you were young and impressionable, the inputs around and on top of which you formulated your more sophisticated opinions. You have your grown-up tastes, built on years of living and experiencing and honing an aesthetic. And then you have the stuff — the chaotic foods you crave, the synth-heavy pop no one else can stand — that, independent of any rational appraisal, feels like home. For more The best pizza in America. Much of the joy we get from our favorite dishes stems from the memories we associate with them. From Times Opinion, the tyranny of “the best.” THE WEEK IN CULTURE Beyoncé earned 11 nominations for “Cowboy Carter.” Kevin Winter/Getty Images Beyoncé and Taylor Swift will face off in the top categories at the 67th annual Grammy Awards. Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan — two of this year’s fresh pop sensations — each received six nominations. “Gladiator II” is coming this month, more than two decades after the original. Its director, Ridley Scott, spoke about continuing to work in his 80s: “I feel alive when I’m doing something at this level.” The “Dune” novels were famously tough to adapt until Denis Villeneuve came along. An HBO prequel about the origins of the Bene Gesserit is trying to follow suit. This holiday season, Netflix and Lifetime ask: What if Christmas movies were sexy? The music producer Quincy Jones died at 91. For decades, he coaxed the sharpest performances from the biggest artists, writes Ben Sisario. Flo, a British R&B trio, is about to release its debut album. It evokes the sounds of Destiny’s Child and TLC. The internet has a new favorite baby pygmy hippo: Edinburgh Zoo’s Haggis. THE LATEST NEWS Donald Trump Donald Trump on election night. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Federal prosecutors said that Iranian agents had plotted to assassinate Trump before the election. During a call with Ukraine’s president, Donald Trump handed the phone to Elon Musk — a sign of Musk’s potential influence in the incoming administration. Trump’s proposed tariffs on foreign products have led U.S. businesses to stock their warehouses and say they expect to raise prices. Trump made huge gains with Hispanic voters along the Rio Grande in Texas who expressed concerns about inflation, energy and border crossings. The chairman of the state’s Democratic Party will resign. Some in Latin America said Trump’s election had already made them reconsider migrating to the U.S. Trump won over a seemingly contradictory coalition: Arab Americans outraged by U.S. support for Israel and right-leaning Jews who consider him Israel’s champion. Viktor Orban of Hungary and other right-wing European leaders see Trump’s win as a sign that the world is embracing their worldview. Democrats Senator Jacky Rosen, a first-term Democrat, narrowly defeated a Republican challenger in Nevada, even as Trump beat Kamala Harris there. Nancy Pelosi said President Biden should have ended his campaign sooner and allowed the party to hold a primary to find a new nominee. Senate Democrats hope to confirm as many Biden judicial nominees as possible before Republicans take control in January. A federal judge this week struck down a Biden administration program that aimed to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens. The Biden administration passed billions of dollars in investments for clean energy and semiconductor factories. Trump could reap the benefits. Bruce Springsteen, Oprah, Beyoncé: Celebrity surrogates for Harris may have backfired by driving perceptions of elitism. California moved to the right: Voters approved harsher penalties for shoplifting and drug possession and rejected a higher minimum wage, expanded rent control and two progressive district attorneys. San Francisco’s new mayor, a Democrat, said he would declare a state of emergency to tackle the city’s fentanyl crisis. Democrats kept their one-seat majority in Pennsylvania’s House, The A.P. projected, despite Harris’s and other Democrats’ losses there. Other Big Stories Attackers in Amsterdam beat Jewish soccer fans in assaults over the past two days. “Hateful, antisemitic rioters and criminals harassed and beat up Israeli visitors who were guests in our city,” Amsterdam’s mayor said. Stocks rose again on Friday, making this the market’s best week in over a year. A fast-spreading fire in Ventura County, Calif., has reduced some neighborhoods to rubble. An early-season snowstorm hit much of Colorado and parts of New Mexico. The National Weather Service said Denver could get more than a foot of snow. “Every night is a struggle for us”: The power has been out for more than a year in the Gaza Strip, turning basic amenities, like kitchen stoves and children’s night lights, into luxuries. CULTURE CALENDAR By Andrew LaVallee 🤠 “Yellowstone” (Sunday): The popular Montana-set drama returns for the remaining part of its fifth season this weekend. Join the debate over whether it’s prestige TV for red states, a soap opera disguised as a western, a Kelly Reilly showcase or all of the above. One thing to know: Until now, it has starred Kevin Costner, but he won’t be back for these episodes. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Chocolate Babka Sometimes the best way to spend the day is deep in an immersive, daylong baking project, especially one involving chocolate. My recipe for chocolate babka may involve 14 steps, but it’s calming, meditative work, and well worth every sugarcoated moment. REAL ESTATE From left, Jay Krishnamoorthy and Vidya Jayaraman with their daughter, Rithika Jayaraman, in Manhattan. Jeenah Moon for The New York Times The Hunt: An Atlanta couple looked for a modest second home in Manhattan to be closer to their daughter. Which did they choose? Play our game. What you get for $490,000: A 1928 brick house in Oshkosh, Wis.; a Craftsman-style bungalow in Salt Lake City; or a duplex apartment in an 1854 mill building in Wake Forest, N.C. LIVING Desiree Rios for The New York Times Paddle pros: The Professional Pickleball Association hopes a world championship this weekend will draw attention to the highest level of the sport. The warming generation: These teenagers are coming of age amid a climate crisis. Travel: Spend 36 hours in San Francisco. Home: Read tips from designers on how to declutter your kitchen and maximize space. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER A hack to keep towels mildew-free Despite your best efforts, bathroom towels can develop that unmistakable mildew smell. Luckily there’s a straightforward solution that’s more cost-effective than tossing out your towels whenever that odor lingers: borax and a hot laundry cycle. Adding just a scoop can boost the power of your detergent and help to break down stubborn stains and odors. — Caroline Mullen GAME OF THE WEEK South Carolina forward Chloe Kitts in a game against Michigan this week. Ian Maule/Associated Press No. 1 South Carolina vs. No. 9 N.C. State, women’s college basketball: South Carolina was perfect last season, compiling a 38-0 record and winning a national title. The team is once again ranked No. 1 to start this year, but it faces an early test: N.C. State, which reached the Final Four last season before falling to — you guessed it — South Carolina. Tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern on ESPN NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were rotunda and turnaround. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa P.S. The most-clicked story in The Morning this week had nothing to do with the election: Readers really wanted to know what pants are most stylish right now. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 11, 2024 Author Members Posted November 11, 2024 November 10, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Veronica Chambers writes about why the Harlem Renaissance still resonates a century later. We’re also covering unions, Nancy Pelosi and influencers. —David Leonhardt An American movement By Veronica Chambers I’m a Brooklyn girl, but I’m low-key obsessed with the Harlem Renaissance. I’ve written a book about the era and taught its literature at universities. I can, and often do, spend whole weekends rereading Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, listening to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, thumbing through books featuring artwork by Aaron Douglas and Augusta Savage. But what brings me back to the Renaissance again and again is the way it changed this country. When the movement started a century ago, the United States was finally creating our own distinctly original culture — songs and dances, paintings and novels. We were looking less to Europe as a model of creativity. And in this moment — the 1920s, in New York City, both uptown and downtown — we become more wholly American. This year, a team of Times journalists marked the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance with a series examining its vibrant history. A 1925 breakfast party for Langston Hughes. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library We began with a little-known dinner party that took place on March 21, 1924, an unprecedented interracial gathering that included such luminaries as W.E.B. Du Bois, Carl Van Doren and Alain Locke, as well as up-and-coming writers like Gwendolyn Bennett and Countee Cullen. Even today, in New York, this kind of gathering is rare. The purpose of the dinner was to marry talent to opportunity, connecting writers with editors and critics, and it was a wild success: In the decade after the dinner, Renaissance writers published more than 40 volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, works that transformed the literary landscape of our nation. You can read about the dinner party (and the friendships, feuds and affairs that it launched) in this piece. Remixing Black dance. Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York Times The Harlem Renaissance is not only a historical story. The 1920s were called the Jazz Age because the music, and the movements that it inspired, gave the decade a distinctly American groove, one that persists to this day. Imani Perry — who recently won the National Book Award for her work, “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation” — is also, as it turns out, a dance enthusiast. For our series, she interviewed three choreographers who are keeping the dance traditions of the Renaissance alive in their work. For days, the studios of The Times were filled with some of the finest dancers in the nation doing the lindy hop, swing and gravity-defying tap routines. You can see the results (and dance along) here, with stunning video and photography. The New York Times Harlem in the 1920s was a powerful space of sexual exploration and freedom. Many argue that the neighborhood was as important to the development of queer life in New York as the West Village was, in part because it offered queer men and women a chance to interact without the racial restrictions of the era. Working with The Times’s graphics team, we created a map of queer Harlem, one that you could open on your phone for a self-guided tour. It features places like Hamilton Lodge, which held drag balls going back to the 19th century; clubs where entertainers like Ma Rainey, Gladys Bentley and Jimmie Daniels performed; and homes where Alain Locke, Ethel Waters, Langston Hughes and so many others lived, loved and made art. Years ago, Ann Douglas, author of “Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s,” a seminal text on the subject of New York in the 1920s, told The Times: “I have the unfashionable posture of loving my country. I don’t mean in the sense of the Pledge of Allegiance, but in that I believe America was founded on complex social, religious and political ideas and feelings, and that it is still the most exciting culture, the one where there is the most hope for the most people.” We invite you to read through these pieces, which represent a remarkable array of American ingenuity and creativity, a celebration of not only our past but all that is yet to come. More from the series During the Harlem Renaissance, some Black people hosted rent parties — celebrations with an undercurrent of desperation in the face of racism and discrimination. Gwendolyn Bennett was a talented young poet and artist who was central to a fledgling cultural movement, but her life was shrouded by tragedy. The women who ran libraries during the Renaissance didn’t just build collections. They built communities of writers and readers. THE LATEST NEWS 2024 Election President Biden promised to support and protect unions. Under Donald Trump, the approach is likely to change. Immigration lawyers are preparing to battle Trump in court again. Trump won’t have Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo in his new administration. In his appointments, he is navigating ideological differences within his party. Europe lacks a strong leader to create a bulwark against Trumpism. The French and German governments are politically struggling at home. Vice President Kamala Harris will leave office in January with no concrete plans about what to do next. Here are six options. “Saturday Night Live” joked about the election. International In Amsterdam. Freek Van Den Bergh/EPA, via Shutterstock Amsterdam banned demonstrations under an emergency order and mobilized additional police officers after what city officials described as antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans. Read about the attacks. The Russian military has assembled 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, to push back Ukrainian troops inside Russia. Other Big Stories After Hurricane Helene. Mike Belleme for The New York Times Among the many things that Hurricane Helene swept away are hundreds of treasured family photographs. A detective is picking them out of the dirt, and helping return them. She was a child Instagram influencer, known for snowboarding. Her fans were adult men. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Was it Harris’s election to lose? No. Harris’s biggest problems were inflation and a global anti-incumbency bias. “Working-class Americans are clearly saying they don’t think the current system works for them, and they’re ready to try almost anything to change it,” The Washington Post’s Heather Long writes. Yes. Instead of focusing on how she would govern, Harris propped herself as nothing more than a centrist alternative to Trump. “You cannot win a hundred-day campaign simply by promising who you are not, whether that be Trump or President Joe Biden,” Connor Foote writes for The Daily Tar Heel. FROM OPINION At the Palm Beach Convention Center. Mark Peterson for The New York Times Photographers at Harris’s watch party at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Trump’s in West Palm Beach, Fla., captured true believers. Unwinnable wars now have liberal support — and they will only get worse if those leaders do not acknowledge the costs, Ruben Andersson and David Keen write. Democrats lost because Biden — who selected Harris as his running mate and tied her to his own immigration failures — set the party up to fail, Josh Barro argues. Democrats are waking up and realizing “woke is broke,” Maureen Dowd writes. Here’s a column by Ross Douthat on how Democrats helped Trump and Nicholas Kristof on working-class pain. MORNING READS Shaboozey Michael Tran/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Country star: Shaboozey received six Grammy nominations, including song of the year. Read about his rise. Sadness: Technology and loneliness are linked, scholars say. Routine: How the choreographer of an Off Broadway drag show spends his Sundays. Health: See eight factors that could raise your heart disease risk. Vows: First they built a relationship. Then they built a real-estate brand. Lives Lived: Bobby Allison was a NASCAR Hall of Fame driver who became one of stock-car racing’s most popular figures. He died at 86. BOOK OF THE WEEK “Into the Uncut Grass” Penguin Random House By Elisabeth Egan “Into the Uncut Grass,” by Trevor Noah: “If imagination is the rocket, then books are the rocket fuel. They supercharge the mind and help it see beyond what it can conceive on its own,” Noah writes in the introduction to this soothing picture book for all ages. Accompanied by Calvin and Hobbes-esque illustrations from Sabina Hahn, we follow a boy and a teddy bear beyond the confines of a gated yard into the wider world. Adventure awaits, as do lessons on connection, compromise and making peace while remaining true to who we are. Noah’s message couldn’t be more timely. THE INTERVIEW Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times By Lulu Garcia-Navarro This week’s subject for The Interview is Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, who was eager to move past the presidential election and dismissive of the idea that the result is a rebuke of the Democratic Party. When you look at what happened on Tuesday, you can see it in two ways. You can see that the country embraced Trump or you can see that they rejected the Democratic Party more broadly and the Biden-Harris administration. How do you see it? Well, I don’t see the Democratic Party more broadly. We lost two seats in the House, and we expect to pick up some more to offset that. Right now, we’re about even. So I don’t think whatever you said, with all due respect, applies to the House Democrats. House races are run very locally. They message specifically for their district. But the brand of the Democratic Party over all seems to have been hurt this election cycle. Well, we lost the presidential election, [but] in many cases, our Democrats in the House ran ahead of the presidential ticket. So, your branding that we all got rejected, we didn’t. We’re still in the fight right now, and it’s going to be a very close call. I don’t see it as an outright rejection of the Democratic Party. Now, I do have a discomfort level with some of the Democrats right now who are saying, “Oh, we abandoned the working class.” No, we didn’t. That’s who we are. We are the kitchen table, working-class party of America. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Meridith Kohut for The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Try a beginner dumbbell workout. Customize your Kindle for cozy reading sessions. Invest in self-care. MEAL PLAN Christopher Testani for The New York Times. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests two simple dishes from Eric Kim: salt-and-vinegar baked fish and chips, featuring frozen French fries; and peanut butter noodles, a bowl that fuses Parmesan and peanut butter for a salty and satisfying sauce for ramen or spaghetti. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were bogeying and obeying. Can you put eight historical events — including the building of the Colosseum, the Blitz, and creation of Sherlock Holmes — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 11, 2024 Author Members Posted November 11, 2024 November 11, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We’re covering this year’s successful Democratic campaigns — as well as climate negotiations, escaped monkeys and Andean ice harvesting. Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat. Holly Andres for The New York Times Democratic winners In a very bad year for their party, some Democrats still figured out how to win tough races. Marcy Kaptur seems to have won a 22nd term in Congress despite representing an Ohio district that has voted for Donald Trump three straight times. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State was re-elected in a House district where Trump thumped Kamala Harris. Jared Golden of Maine is leading in a similarly red district. In Senate races, Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Ruben Gallego (Arizona), Jacky Rosen (Nevada) and Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) prevailed or are leading in states that Trump won. How? These Democrats ran on strikingly similar themes — part progressive, part moderate, part conservative. Above all, they avoided talking down to voters and telling them they were wrong to be frustrated about the economy, immigration and post-pandemic disorder. “The fundamental mistake people make is condescension,” Gluesenkamp Perez told my colleague Annie Karni after the election. In today’s newsletter, I’ll focus on three issues that helped these candidates win. 1. Immigration Many Democrats have been in denial about immigration. Some initially argued that immigration didn’t soar under President Biden. Others claimed Biden’s policies weren’t the cause. Still others dismissed concerns about strained social services and crowded schools as Republican misinformation. (Many Republicans, to be clear, did tell lies about immigrants.) But Biden did spark a huge immigration wave. He encouraged more people to come to the U.S. and loosened entry rules. Sure enough, immigration surged to its highest levels in many decades. Source: Congressional Budget Office | By The New York Times If anyone doubted Biden’s role, more proof came this year when he tightened policy, and immigration plummeted. The Democrats who won tough races recognized that their party had lost credibility on this issue. In one of Kaptur’s ads, she called out “the far left” for “ignoring millions illegally crossing the border.” In a Gallego ad, he said, “Arizonans know — on the border, there is no plan.” Harris’s campaign emphasized border security, too, but she was Biden’s vice president and had spent the 2020 campaign calling for many of the changes he implemented. She never explained why she changed her mind. Biden hasn’t explained his reversal, either. 2. The economy Democrats who won tough races ran to the left on economic issues. They sounded like blue-collar populists, fed up with high prices, slow wage growth, corporate greed and unfair Chinese competition. Harris, by contrast, sounded like an establishment centrist, even citing a Goldman Sachs report during her debate with Trump. Slotkin, the senator-elect in Michigan, spoke of how her mother had been “gouged by the insurance companies.” In one of Golden’s ads, he cracked open a lobster with his hands while promising to lower health care costs. In two difficult upstate New York races, Josh Riley called for tariffs and blasted corporate greed, while Pat Ryan focused on high housing costs, my colleague Nicholas Fandos notes. A screen grab from Jared Golden’s campaign ad. In Ohio, Kaptur said the following: “They’re ruining our country — the billionaires and corporations who send our jobs overseas. Their religion is greed, and their Bible is corporate profits.” Senator Sherrod Brown offered a similar message in Ohio and lost — yet ran 7 percentage points ahead of Harris. This populism was not purely progressive, though. It also tried to address voters’ concerns about the Democratic Party’s fondness for big government. Golden, for example, criticized “Biden’s aggressive spending agenda.” Baldwin bragged about protecting a small Wisconsin cheesemaker against federal regulations. The common strand was opposition to concentrated power, be it from big businesses, foreign governments or Washington. 3. Culture wars Democrats hoped that Republican extremism on abortion would swing millions of votes. That didn’t happen partly because many voters see each party as too extreme in its own ways. Many voters do worry about the Republican Party’s opposition to abortion, its dismissal of climate change and its support for book bans. But the same voters worry that Democrats are hostile to policing, obsessed with race and gender and opposed to oil and gas. The Democrats who won hard races portrayed themselves as occupying the reasonable middle — what Golden called “Maine common sense.” They criticized Republicans as wrong on abortion, but only as a secondary campaign theme. They embraced the police and the military, running ads with people in uniform. On the environment, the candidates tried to claim the center; Kaptur called out corporations that “pollute our Great Lakes,” while Golden boasted that he had opposed electric-vehicle mandates. Gluesenkamp Perez voted against Biden’s cancellation of college debt, a policy that many working-class people find unfair. And now? I spent a lot of time this year tracking the Democratic campaigns in swing states and districts, and I was repeatedly struck by how similar their messages were. They were feisty, populist and patriotic. They distanced themselves from elite cultural liberalism. They largely ignored Trump. At the end of her interview with Gluesenkamp Perez, my colleague Annie asked whether the party could change. “It’s a lot easier to look outward, to blame and demonize other people, instead of looking in the mirror and seeing what we can do,” Gluesenkamp Perez replied. “So who knows?” But if Democrats are looking for a successful playbook, they already have the beginnings of one. Related: Republicans are getting closer to a trifecta — control of the House, Senate and presidency. See the latest House results. THE LATEST NEWS Politics As Trump returns to power, his adversaries are bracing for his revenge. The abortion rights movement won in many states — even some that voted for Trump. Where does it go from here? Palestinians are trying to win Trump’s support through links with his daughter’s extended family. COP29 Baku, Azerbaijan. Sean Gallup/Getty Images World leaders gathering in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, for a global climate summit. Read why a petrostate is hosting this year’s talks. Trump’s win is sapping momentum from the summit as diplomats prepare for his pro-fossil-fuel agenda. International Hasan Imam, a Uyghur refugee. Sabiha Çimen/Magnum, for The New York Times After a daring escape from China, a Uyghur man discovered how far Beijing’s power stretches. Videos of attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam have been spreading. Read what we know about what officials are calling antisemitic attacks — as well as incendiary chants and attacks by some Israelis. Shigeru Ishiba, Japan’s prime minister, won a vote to remain as the country’s leader. Haiti’s ruling council fired its prime minister, adding to the country’s turmoil. Chinese students started biking between cities just for fun. The authorities shut it down. Other Big Stories The Jennings Creek fire in New York. Dakota Santiago for The New York Times Firefighters in New Jersey and New York are trying to contain wildfires. One New York State parks worker died in the effort. He was 18. Twenty-five of 43 monkeys that escaped an enclosure at a South Carolina research center were captured. The rest remain at large, officials said. Opinions To fulfill his mandate, Trump should change Biden’s failed policies (such as immigration) and keep what’s good (such as semiconductors), Oren Cass writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss the Trump era — and how it never really ended. Here are columns by Ezra Klein on the seeds of Democrats’ defeat and David French on how politics is like curling. MORNING READS Baltazar Ushca Roberto Chavez/API/Alamy Lives Lived: For 60 years, Baltazar Ushca trekked up Ecuador’s tallest mountain twice a week to hack ice off a glacier with a pickax. He became known as the last Andean ice merchant. Ushca died at 80. Best view: On and around some of New York City’s best known buildings, beehives are buzzing. Good news: A Colombian influencer made recycling cool. Tolls: A dad took his RV on a toll road in Virginia. It cost him $569, The Washington Post reports. Floor people: Why lying on the ground feels so good. Metropolitan Diary: Meat on the seat. Tetris: The game’s inventor shares his other creations that didn’t work. Keepsake: Do you have a favorite memento from your wedding? The Times wants to see it. SPORTS Coco Gauff, left. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images for WTA Tennis: Saudi Arabia, an authoritarian, conservative kingdom where women’s rights are still in question, held the WTA Finals. Coco Gauff won. N.F.L.: The Lions escaped Houston with a win even though their quarterback, Jared Goff, threw five interceptions. It was a shocking Sunday of games. Men’s college basketball: Florida’s coach, Todd Golden, will stay at work while the school investigates sexual harassment complaints against him. N.B.A.: The Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo angered the Celtics' Jaylen Brown by pretending to offer a handshake. Sike! NBA ARTS AND IDEAS Mariko Reed Leis have a long history. Native Hawaiians used them to honor gods, treat illness and protect surfers. But a new generation of florists is reimagining them. Instead of importing flowers like orchids, local designers are using flowers native to the Hawaiian islands. Some are also making leis from sturdier stuff, such as ribbons and candy. See their work here. More on culture Mattel’s latest dolls for the movie “Wicked” mistakenly listed a porn website on its packaging instead of a similar URL promoting the film. A book by a veterinary psychiatrist has become popular in France. The author put cats, not people, on the couch. Netflix and Lifetime are trying to make holiday movies sexy. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne Bake banana muffins for breakfast with a pinch of cinnamon. Buy a good housewarming gift. Print pro-quality photos at home. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was acquaint. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 12, 2024 Author Members Posted November 12, 2024 November 12, 2024 By German Lopez and Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. We’re covering what Republicans will do with a governing trifecta — plus, Trump’s appointments, Uranus and pandemic drinking. In Washington. Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times A Republican trifecta Republicans moved closer to claiming House control yesterday. They have won 214 of the 218 seats they need for a majority, and 16 races remain uncalled. With the House, Republicans would have full control of the federal government next year. Donald Trump and his allies have carefully planned for this moment. Today’s newsletter is the first in a series called “Trump’s Agenda,” which will look at what Republicans aim to get done. This first installment is akin to a table of contents. Future newsletters will go into more detail in the coming months. The likely changes Donald Trump at the southern border in August. Doug Mills/The New York Times There are four areas in which a Republican Congress is most likely to make policy changes. For three of them, the party seems mostly united, and legislation does not necessarily have to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. (Some budget bills can pass with a simple majority.) For the last — aid to Ukraine — enough Republicans oppose a bill to keep it from becoming law. 1. Tax cuts: The signature legislation Trump signed in his first term was a 2017 law that cut taxes for almost all Americans, but especially the wealthy and corporations. Many of those cuts expire next year, and a Republican Congress is almost certain to extend most of them. The biggest question is whether Congress will cut taxes even more, as Trump has said he favors (on tips, for example). That would make an already expensive tax bill even more costly — and lawmakers who are worried about the federal debt, including some Republicans, might oppose it. 2. Immigration: Nothing animated Trump on the campaign trail like immigration. He has promised mass deportations, which he could start by himself with executive action. But fully executing his plans will require money from Congress — for example, to hire border agents and build more of the wall. Bigger changes to the immigration system would require bipartisan support to overcome a filibuster. Democrats have backed stricter entry rules before, but they might refuse to work with Trump on his signature issue. Some of Trump’s wealthy supporters have also pushed him to allow more legal immigration, but it’s unclear if Congress would agree. 3. Energy and climate: Congressional Republicans will probably reduce clean-energy funding, and Trump can unilaterally permit more oil and gas drilling and cut environmental regulations. Those moves will likely worsen climate change, but Republicans hope they will reduce energy costs. There may also be opportunities for bipartisan legislating. Lawmakers from both parties want to streamline the permitting process, which could help oil, gas and clean energy projects move forward. 4. Ukraine: Trump and many congressional Republicans are skeptical about providing more aid for Ukraine’s defense against Russia. The aid approved earlier this year will probably run out sometime in 2025, at which point Ukraine’s struggles on the battlefield will grow. The maybes Shipping containers in Baltimore. Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock At least three other parts of Trump’s agenda are more uncertain. Either Republicans are more divided on the issue or the change would require 60 Senate votes to overcome a filibuster. (Republicans are likely to have only 52 or 53.) 1. Tariffs: Trump campaigned on large tariffs — effectively sales taxes on foreign goods — to resurrect American manufacturing and to raise revenue. But some Republicans and business leaders are opposed. Tariffs historically mean higher prices, and they could lead other countries to retaliate with their own penalties on American products. Trump could try to impose tariffs unilaterally, but such a move would be vulnerable to legal challenges. 2. The safety net: Republicans have suggested they will balance budgets by cutting some government spending. They might let Obamacare health insurance subsidies expire next year, which would increase the number of uninsured people. Republicans also appear poised to slash Medicaid, food stamps and other programs that help poor and disabled Americans. 3. Voter ID: Republicans want to pass legislation requiring ID to register and vote, but they will need some Democratic support to pass it in the Senate. Republicans falsely claim that Democrats register undocumented immigrants and that elections are rigged. Still, such a law wouldn’t be unusual for a democracy; many other countries require ID. (What about abortion? Republicans seem unlikely to pass nationwide abortion restrictions. Trump has distanced himself from a potential ban, and passing one would require eliminating the filibuster.) Potential opposition Democrats’ best hope for slowing this agenda involves public opinion. Some parts of the Republican agenda, like cuts to the safety net, are unpopular. Public protests could lead to their demise, as happened with efforts to repeal Obamacare in Trump’s first term. Republicans also have their own disagreements, particularly between the old guard and the MAGA wing. The MAGA wing is more favorable to tariffs, immigration restrictions and cutting off aid to Ukraine. The old guard includes business-friendly Republicans who are more committed to free trade, more legal immigration and a foreign policy that stands up to Russia. With few votes to lose and higher stakes, the infighting could get worse, said our colleague Catie Edmondson, who covers Congress. Ultimately, Republicans’ ability to realize their agenda may rest on how well they get along. Related: Most of the undecided House races are in California. The state is very slow to count ballots. THE LATEST NEWS Trump Appointments Marco Rubio Kenny Holston/The New York Times Trump is expected to name Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state. Rubio has taken hard-line positions on China, Iran and Venezuela. He offered Elise Stefanik, the Republican congresswoman from New York, a role as the U.N. ambassador. Lee Zeldin, a former representative from New York, will lead the Environmental Protection Agency. He is expected to gut climate regulations. Michael Waltz, a representative from Florida, will be Trump’s national security adviser. He is a former Green Beret who has taken a tough stance on China. Aides like Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, and advisers like Elon Musk are weighing in as Trump picks his cabinet. More on the Administration Wiles said Trump would move quickly to reinstate orders from his first term that President Biden had revoked, though she did not specify which ones. Trump has made staffing decisions that underscore his promise to deport undocumented immigrants en masse. He is expected to name the immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff. More on Foreign Policy In Iran, some members of a new, more moderate government have hopes of a lasting deal with the U.S. under Trump. The U.S. is the biggest trading partner for the European Union and Britain. Trump’s policies could put their economies at risk. Mexico’s car factories are braced for tariffs. Congress Representative Ruben Gallego and his wife, Sydney. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, beat Kari Lake, a Republican, in the Arizona Senate race. Trump allies are working to block John Thune, an establishment Republican, from becoming the Senate leader. International The police in Amsterdam arrested five more people on assault charges after antisemitic attacks against Israeli soccer fans in the city. A record number of women will enter Japan’s Parliament. One of them beat an incumbent in a seat that three generations of his family had held. Read her story. Other Big Stories Members of the Navy’s Special Boat Teams repeatedly slam into waves. The Navy’s elite speedboat crews show widespread signs of chronic brain trauma. More Americans are choosing not to have children. For their parents, there is a quiet grief in never becoming a grandparent. Americans started drinking more during the pandemic. They haven’t stopped. Opinions Beware, Elon Musk: Presidents have a history of discarding tycoons who helped get them elected, David Nasaw writes. Just as some banks are too big to fail, the government should treat the housing market and agriculture as too essential to fail, Isabella Weber writes. Here are columns by Paul Krugman on the price of mass deportation and Charles Blow on the end of the rainbow coalition. MORNING READS Uranus, captured by NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1986. NASA/JPL Space: Much of our understanding of Uranus comes from a single flyby nearly 40 years ago. But the planet may have been having a freak event just as the space probe passed. Strange rituals: In the theater, you can’t say “Macbeth” or whistle. Travel: To beat the summer crowds, cruise companies are offering more winter options in the Mediterranean. Lives Lived: The soulful, blues-steeped saxophone playing of Lou Donaldson, known as Sweet Poppa Lou, was a bedrock of the jazz scene for three-quarters of a century. He died at 98. SPORTS N.F.L.: The Dolphins outlasted the Rams, 23-15, clearing a path for an unlikely playoff bid. Football: John Robinson, who coached the Rams after overseeing the powerhouse U.S.C. teams of the 1970s, died at 89. Women’s soccer: Lily Yohannes, a 17-year-old midfield star who could have become a Netherlands player, announced she would stick with the U.S. women’s national team. ARTS AND IDEAS Martha Stewart Netflix Was Martha Stewart the original influencer? The new Netflix documentary “Martha” examines the homemaking diva’s illustrious, and complicated, career and personal life. The documentary has gained a lot of traction online — especially the part when Stewart says that a columnist who criticized her “is dead now, thank goodness.” (She isn’t.) More on culture From left, Élis and Vanessa Bond of Mi Kwabo in Paris; and Aji Akokomi of Akoko in London. Delali Ayivi The West African diaspora is making some of the most exciting food in Europe and America. Vogue has its first guest editor. Anna Wintour let Marc Jacobs do her job — for a moment. Alice Mason was New York City’s broker to the elite and a master of the art of hosting. She also harbored a secret that could have excluded her from high society. Is the love song dying? These charts from The Pudding show that how we sing about love is getting more complex. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times Roast chicken thighs in an angry sauce. Avoid eating microplastics with these tips. Use a better mug. Shop early Black Friday sales. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were arthropod and hardtop. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —German and Ian Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 13, 2024 Author Members Posted November 13, 2024 November 13, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Today, we’re covering the politics of abortion — as well as Elon Musk in the government, Russian families and A.I. art. At a Biden campaign stop in April. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The abortion fallacy After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, many Democrats argued that the issue would be the key to winning future elections. It was an alluring idea because it suggested that a central progressive policy goal — protecting abortion rights — doubled as a savvy political strategy. But it hasn’t worked out. Instead, Republicans swept this year’s elections even as Democrats made the subject central to their campaigns and even as abortion-rights ballot initiatives passed in seven states. Today, the Democrats’ belief in the political potency of abortion looks like wishful thinking. How could this have happened, given that the Republican Party’s opposition to abortion really is unpopular? In today’s newsletter, I’ll try to unravel the mystery. Evidence ignored Heading into 2024, abortion’s political sway was genuinely unclear. Most Americans support substantial access to abortion access: In every state that voted on a ballot initiative in 2022 and 2023, the anti-abortion side lost. The uncertainty was whether the issue could also swing the result of general elections by causing voters who had not traditionally supported Democratic candidates to do so. There was some reason to think the answer might be yes: Democrats did surprisingly well in the 2022 midterms, just months after Roe’s demise. But there were also reasons to be skeptical. It was hard to find a single election where abortion seemed decisive. Although it might have helped flip a few House elections, the Democrats who won hadn’t emphasized the issue more than those who had lost. And not a single incumbent Republican governor or senator lost in 2022, despite attempts by Democratic candidates to focus on the issue. March 2023 New York Magazine “It is the only thing we’re really talking about,” Nan Whaley, the Democratic nominee for governor in Ohio, said in her 2022 campaign. “We think it is the issue.” Three weeks later, Whaley lost to Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who had signed abortion restrictions into law, by 25 percentage points. The most reasonable conclusion seemed to be that abortion had played a modest role in the midterms. If anything, it would probably play an even smaller role in 2024. Polls showed that the people who cared most about the issue tended to be highly educated, politically engaged Democrats. That’s a very different group from swing voters in presidential elections. Rather than grappling with this conflicting evidence, however, many Democrats engaged in motivated reasoning. Some were scornful of suggestions that abortion might have limited political impact. “There’s a history of political commentators not understanding the intensity the abortion issue has brought to Dem grassroots,” one party strategist wrote on social media, predicting that it would push “Dem performance to upper end of what’s possible.” This belief shaped the party’s 2024 strategy. Abortion was “by far the most prevalent topic in 2024 Democratic messaging,” Politico reported, “beating out health care, the economy and immigration.” The Harris campaign’s final round of advertisements mentioned abortion more than any other subject, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. The strategy failed. Instead, many voters who support abortion access voted for Donald Trump and other Republicans, including in states with abortion initiatives on the ballot: Details of each ballot initiative varied. Election results are as of 12 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 12. | By The New York Times Alluring and dangerous There seem to be a few reasons that the Republican Party’s unpopular abortion position didn’t hurt it more. First, the Biden administration’s record was out of step with public opinion on other big issues, such as immigration. Second, Trump seemed to moderate his abortion stance, backing away from a national ban and saying he would allow states to decide their own policies. Third, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, her running mate, refused to answer questions about whether they supported any abortion restrictions — and most Americans do. Finally, the demise of Roe has not led to a sharp decline in abortion access, thanks to efforts by advocates to provide pills through the mail. (Even in most states with bans, abortions increased between 2020 and 2023, Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz of The Times reported.) My colleague Amy Schoenfeld Walker recently interviewed women who voted for both Trump and abortion-rights ballot initiatives and heard several of these themes. “I personally think Trump is someone who picks and chooses his battles,” said June Crozier, a Florida resident. “And he is saying everyone will have to deal with this from state to state.” Similarly, Aly Bennett, a St. Louis resident, said that states’ ability to set their own abortion policies led her to think, “OK, you can vote for the Republican candidate while still supporting your views on reproductive health.” All of which helps explain why the 2024 election was not a referendum on abortion. But as the Democrats try to figure out their party’s future, there is also a broader lesson. The idea that your own policy preferences make for smart political tactics is very attractive. (The writer Matthew Yglesias calls it “the pundit’s fallacy.”) If that’s the case, you don’t have to make compromises. You run on principle, you highlight your priorities — and you win. Yet the idea can be self-defeating. If you read public opinion wishfully rather than realistically, you can hurt your own ability to win elections. You can make it easier for your political opponents to enact the policies you abhor. THE LATEST NEWS Trump’s Appointments Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump picked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run a new office he called the Department of Government Efficiency. He wants them to cut, restructure and dismantle parts of the federal government. Trump chose Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary. Hegseth is a veteran and Fox News host with no government experience who has often defended Trump on TV. Kristi Noem, South Dakota’s Republican governor, is the nominee to run the Department of Homeland Security. She sent National Guard troops to police the U.S.-Mexico border last year. Mike Huckabee is the nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, a former Republican governor of Arkansas who twice ran for president, has been a vocal supporter of Israel. John Ratcliffe is expected to lead the C.I.A. He is a former Texas congressman who was director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term. Ratcliffe pursued investigations into Hunter Biden. Trump has selected two Republican House members to join his administration, narrowing what is likely to be a slim majority there. More on the Administration Musk has extraordinary influence in the new government. Everywhere Trump goes — golfing, dinner, interviews — he’s there, too. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to fire F.D.A. employees who limited unproven treatments for autism and dangerous stem-cell therapies. Trump’s win is fueling a market frenzy. Investors are anticipating tax cuts and deregulation. President Biden will host Trump at the White House today. More on Politics Senate Republicans will vote today on a new leader. John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida are in the running. Trump wants the next Senate leader to help him sidestep the confirmation process for judges and members of his administration. Trump’s lawyers moved to dismiss his 34 felony convictions in New York. The judge overseeing the case has delayed sentencing indefinitely. “Women don’t speak with one voice”: For some women, Trump’s election is a setback. Others see it as progress. Women are stockpiling abortion pills before Trump’s term starts, The Washington Post reports. International In Moscow. Yuri Kadobnov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Russian lawmakers voted to ban media, including movies and advertising, that portrays choosing not to have children as attractive. The archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England and Anglicanism worldwide, resigned after a report said he had failed to properly investigate claims of abuse stretching over decades. Israeli troops have returned to northern Gaza over the past year, as Hamas repeatedly regroups there. Fighting has pummeled the area. Climate At last year’s climate summit, countries promised to move away from coal, oil and natural gas. Research shows they are burning more than ever. In a win for the oil industry, a Dutch court overturned a major ruling that had required Shell to reduce carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030. Other Big Stories Jack Teixeira, a 22-year-old Air National Guardsman who shared classified government records online, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Masked men waved Nazi flags outside a theater performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank” in Michigan, CNN reports. A federal judge in Louisiana blocked a state law that requires public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. An appeal is likely. Some children’s melatonin supplements contain more than six times the amount on the label, an F.D.A. study found. Opinions Raw milk is more likely to cause disease, but the risk is small. That’s an example of nuanced public health messaging that can help build trust in officials, Emily Oster writes. Trump believes his victory marks a new era of Republican dominance in U.S. politics. But his coalition is fragile, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira write. Here are columns by Bret Stephens on “Jew hunts” and Thomas Friedman on Trump’s foreign policy. MORNING READS In Wisconsin. Green Lake County Sheriff's Office Mystery: A man went missing for months. Investigators say he faked his death and left his family to meet a woman in Uzbekistan. “Proud hippies”: Two Missouri poll workers, married for 54 years, died in a flash flood on Election Day. Friends remembered the music festivals they hosted on their farm. Skiplagging: A website will help you find cheaper flights by booking a connection you never take. Ask Vanessa: What is the best thing to wear on a first date? The exercise gap: Women have less time to work out than men. Their health pays the price. Ask Well: Most dermatologists agree that a steaming-hot shower can strip oils and moisture from your hair and skin. Theater: Everyone is giving a standing ovation. Do you have to stand? Lives Lived: Frank Auerbach was one of Britain’s pre-eminent postwar painters, known for his unyielding work schedule, revisiting the same models and street scenes again and again. He died at 93. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Warriors spoiled Klay Thompson’s return to the Bay Area in a 120-117 win over the Mavericks. College football: The playoff committee revealed its latest rankings, which put B.Y.U. into the top four seeds. See the bracket here. M.L.B.: The Tampa Bay Rays will need a new stadium next season. Hurricane repairs at Tropicana Field won’t be finished until 2026. ARTS AND IDEAS Amir Hamja for The New York Times Is artificial intelligence a threat to artists? Alexander Reben believes it can be a collaborator, not competition. Reben, an M.I.T.-trained technologist, was the first artist in residence at OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. His works include a marble sculpture of an image generated by a robot, carved by a robot, and a camera that can print silly labels for whatever it’s looking at. He showed The Times some of his A.I.-assisted creations. More on culture Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” won the Booker Prize. She almost didn’t write it. In “Conclave,” a costume designer reimagined how the pope and his cardinals were dressed. Judith Jamison, who died over the weekend, was a goddess of dance — and, in Alvin Ailey’s “Cry,” a “rapturous pillar of strength and sorrow,” our critic writes. The anchor Chris Wallace is leaving CNN. He joined the network just three years ago, after nearly two decades at Fox News. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times Bake new Thanksgiving pies — including flavors like coconut-caramel, cranberry-citrus and sesame-pumpkin. Dye your hair at home without regretting it. Keep towels mildew-free. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was windmilled. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 15, 2024 Author Members Posted November 15, 2024 November 14, 2024 By the staff of The Morning Good morning. Today, we’re covering Trump’s pick for attorney general — as well as a Republican House, climate change and burgundy. Representative Matt Gaetz Kenny Holston/The New York Times Picking Matt Gaetz Donald Trump has criticized the Justice Department for investigating him, vowed to fire career officials who resist his agenda and pledged to use the department to punish his political opponents. Yesterday, he picked a nominee for attorney general who would help him accomplish those goals: Representative Matt Gaetz. Gaetz, a Florida Republican, says Trump’s ties to Russia should never have been investigated. He wants “the Biden crime family” to face justice. And he called nonpartisan D.O.J. officials whom he may soon oversee the “deep state.” He has introduced legislation that would limit sentences for people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and suggested “abolishing every one of the three-letter agencies,” including the F.B.I. Gaetz’s confirmation is not a sure thing. Some Senate Republicans reacted with alarm to his nomination, and the hearings in the Senate could test how far they are willing to go in support of Trump’s agenda. Gaetz was himself the subject of a Justice Department investigation into allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and broke sex-trafficking laws, which concluded last year without charges. He also faced an ongoing House Ethics Committee inquiry. Gaetz has denied wrongdoing in both cases. Gaetz’s chances Republicans will likely have a small majority in the Senate, 53-47. If no Democrats support Gaetz, Republicans can lose only three votes and still confirm him. Several Senate Republicans indicated yesterday that they were unsure about whether they would vote for Gaetz. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, expressed relief that the Senate had the ability to block Gaetz. “I was shocked by the announcement — that shows why the advise and consent process is so important,” she said. “I don’t think he’s a serious candidate,” Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, another moderate, said. Chuck Grassley of Iowa stopped answering reporters’ questions about the nomination and stood silently for 30 seconds. John Cornyn of Texas raised his eyebrows and said, “I’m still trying to absorb all this.” Joni Ernst of Iowa chuckled at the news, and said of Gaetz, “He’s got his work really cut out for him.” Gaetz in 2023. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Still, other Republican senators sounded open to supporting him. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who last year accused Gaetz of showing House colleagues videos of “the girls that he had slept with,” said yesterday that he trusted Trump’s decision making. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a staunch Trump ally, called Gaetz smart and qualified. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee said Gaetz has “been on the receiving end of the D.O.J.’s weaponization” and called the department “in desperate need of reform.” Trump “was elected to turn this place upside down,” Roger Marshall of Kansas said. “Americans don’t trust the Justice Department right now, and Matt has the talent to go in there and really make a difference.” Gaetz has also made enemies. He led the effort to unseat Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last year. (Some of Gaetz’s House colleagues gasped when they learned of his nomination, CNN reported.) Gaetz also celebrated Mitch McConnell’s decision to step down as the Senate Republican leader; McConnell will now have to choose whether to vote to confirm Gaetz. Trump has demanded that Senate Republicans recess the chamber so that he can make appointments without their votes. “This parade of loyalists is Mr. Trump’s first show of force to Senate Republicans, who will be under immense pressure to either confirm his nominee or sidestep that process altogether,” our colleague Katie Rogers writes. Confirming Gaetz could also further narrow Republicans’ majority in the House, making it harder for them to pass legislation. The party has officially clinched House control, but by a slim margin. Gaetz preemptively resigned from Congress yesterday to give Republicans a chance to quickly fill his seat in a special election. Gaetz’s investigations In 2020, toward the end of Trump’s first term, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. opened an investigation into claims that Gaetz was involved several years earlier with a girl who was 17 at the time. Investigators sought to determine whether Gaetz had paid for sex in violation of federal sex-trafficking laws. Prosecutors ultimately concluded that their case wasn’t strong enough and decided not to charge him. Gaetz says he did nothing wrong. Gaetz has also been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee since 2021. In that case, House investigators looked into allegations including sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misusing state identification records and converting campaign funds to personal use. The ethics committee had been planning to release a critical report this week, but Gaetz’s resignation effectively ends the investigation and it’s unclear whether the findings will become public. More on the House Trump now has a Republican Congress to enact his agenda. The party protected vulnerable incumbents and picked off Democrats in competitive districts to retain the House. Republicans ran a dysfunctional House for the last two years. Voters shrugged and re-elected them, Annie Karni writes. More Trump appointments Tulsi Gabbard Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat turned Republican who represented Hawaii in the House, is Trump’s nominee to be the director of national intelligence. Gabbard criticized Barack Obama’s policy on Syria and has met with Bashar al-Assad, its dictator. Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host Trump has picked to lead the Pentagon, has said that women should not serve in combat roles and defended service members accused of war crimes. Trump’s foreign-policy nominees are staunchly pro-Israel. Some of his Arab American supporters, who broke with Democrats over the war in Gaza, are expressing dismay. Commentary “Demanding Senate Republicans back Gaetz as attorney general and Hegseth as defense secretary is the 2024 version of forcing Sean Spicer to say it was the largest inauguration crowd ever,” Ezra Klein of Times Opinion writes. “These aren’t just appointments. They’re loyalty tests.” Marc Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist, called the Gaetz pick “a huge unforced error” and expressed doubt that he would be confirmed. “As someone who wants Trump to succeed, this is not the way to do it.” “Trump did mean what he said,” David French of Times Opinion argues. “He is going to govern with a sense of vengeance, and personal loyalty really is the coin of his realm.” The New York Post’s editorial board praised Trump’s other nominees but criticized the Gaetz choice as “not a good look.” Megyn Kelly, who endorsed Trump, wrote that the president-elect’s first-term experiences with the Justice Department explain why he “might prefer loyalty/trust above all else” in an attorney general. THE LATEST NEWS More on the Trump Administration In the Oval Office. Doug Mills/The New York Times Biden welcomed Trump to the Oval Office, pledging a smooth transition. “Politics is tough, and it’s in many cases not a very nice world,” Trump said. “But it is a nice world today and I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth.” Biden and Trump shook hands on camera before meeting behind closed doors for two hours. “Rough day,” a White House aide texted a Times reporter. Melania Trump declined Jill Biden’s invitation to visit the White House with her husband, a tradition for first ladies. Senate Republicans chose John Thune of South Dakota, an institutionalist, to replace Mitch McConnell as leader. Trump’s allies had preferred Rick Scott of Florida. Trump met with House Republicans and joked about serving a third term, which the Constitution prohibits. “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,’” he said. Jack Smith, the special counsel who charged Trump over Jan. 6 and for taking classified documents, plans to resign before Biden departs. Trump had pledged to fire him. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Trump’s fast-food diet “poison.” A Proud Boys leader who was convicted last year of seditious conspiracy for his role on Jan. 6 asked Trump for a pardon. More on Politics Eric Hovde, the Republican who lost his bid for Senate in Wisconsin, falsely claimed that “inconsistencies” had tainted the vote. The Pennsylvania Senate race will go to a recount. David McCormick, a Republican, narrowly leads Bob Casey, the Democratic incumbent, with more than 80,000 votes still outstanding. Two Democratic governors with national ambitions, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado, formed a group meant to help blue states oppose Trump’s policies. Republicans’ views of the economy’s strength have soared since Trump won, while Democrats’ have dipped. International A Ukrainian soldier. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Ukraine is preparing for potential cease-fire talks with Russia, which Trump has pushed for. Kyiv’s priority is protection against future Russian aggression. In China, a man plowed an S.U.V. into a crowd, killing at least 35 people. Now, officials are clearing bouquets of flowers and working to make it seem as if nothing happened. Notre Dame cathedral is preparing to reopen. New York City New York’s governor will revive the congestion-pricing plan she shelved, but with a lower toll. She hopes to implement the system before Trump, who vowed to kill it, takes office. The New York City Council passed a bill that makes landlords, not renters, pay brokers’ fees on new rentals. (That’s the norm in most other cities.) Other Big Stories Countries have largely failed to curb their greenhouse gas emissions over the past year. The planet is on track for dangerous levels of warming this century, according to a new report. Inflation increased slightly. Analysts said it was a sign that the Fed’s work to cool prices wasn’t over, though it “could have been worse.” Tesla recalled the Cybertruck for the sixth time this year — this time because of a defect that prevents it from accelerating. Opinions Trump’s craziness and bold style could capitalize on China’s vulnerabilities and secure lasting advantages for the U.S. economy, Craig Singleton writes. Here are columns by Pamela Paul on transgender issues and Thomas Edsall on Trump’s voter coalition. MORNING READS Enzo the Shih Tzu. Olivia Caputo Dog mayor: Did a fun contest involving cute dogs turn into a cryptocurrency scheme? Competitive friendship: A London exhibition shows how three great artists, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, circled one another as rivals and role models. Privacy: Constant location sharing makes us miserable, The Washington Post writes. It’s fine to say no. Lives Lived: Theodore Olson was a Supreme Court litigator who built a reputation as a conservative but surprised colleagues and foes alike by taking up liberal causes like gay marriage and amnesty for the children of undocumented immigrants. He died at 84. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Spurs center Victor Wembanyama scored 50 points in a game against the Wizards. He’s the fourth-youngest player in league history to score that. College football: Colorado’s coach, Deion Sanders, said he would intervene if the “wrong” team selected his son, Shedeur Sanders, in the N.F.L. Draft. ARTS AND IDEAS Clockwise from left, Raymond Hall/GC Images; The Frankie Shop; Nordstrom; Ssense; Nordstrom Lots of people want to wear burgundy — on their bodies, nails and feet. Online searches for items like burgundy loafers, kitten heels and leather jackets have spiked in 2024, according to Google metrics. Read more about the trend. More on culture A Facebook page has become popular for sharing photos of what people call “death stairs.” See some of them. Phillip Lim is leaving his namesake brand, The Cut reports. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … David Malosh for The New York Times Crumble fried sage leaves over this fried chicken. Decorate your Christmas tree like a pro. Keep your chips crispy. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was dormitory. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 17, 2024 Author Members Posted November 17, 2024 November 15, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Andrew Duehren explains Donald Trump’s tax plans. We’re also covering Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Infowars and a Māori protest. —David Leonhardt At the White House in 2017. Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency TRUMP’S AGENDA Three paths for taxes By Andrew Duehren I’m a reporter focused on tax policy, based in Washington. Nothing unifies Republicans like cutting taxes. Still, determining which taxes to cut — and how deeply to cut them — can be an ordeal. With Republicans on track for total control of Washington next year, they’ll have to work through several contentious questions before they can pass another tax cut. The most important issue will be the cost of the legislation. Some Republicans worry about cutting taxes too much and blowing up the deficit. Others believe tax cuts juice the economy and are worth the consequences. Plenty of Republicans think Americans should keep more of the money they earn. In today’s newsletter, I’ll walk through three scenarios for how Republicans could approach cutting taxes next year. 1. The status quo In the Oval Office in 2017. Doug Mills/The New York Times In 2017, President Donald Trump signed a major tax cut. To contain its cost, Republicans scheduled many of the provisions to expire after 2025, betting that a future Congress would continue them. That gamble looks as if it will pay off. Republicans generally agree that the law’s biggest provisions — including lower income-tax rates, a larger standard deduction and lower taxes for many businesses — should not end next year. Even doing this much will be expensive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending all of the expiring tax provisions will cost $4.6 trillion over a decade, including additional borrowing costs. The federal government is already expected to borrow roughly $22 trillion over that time frame, bringing the debt to a level many economists find alarming. Republicans have floated some spending cuts, like ending subsidies for clean-energy industries, to offset that cost. But savings from the proposed reductions would still fall short of covering the cost of continuing the 2017 tax law. Plus, many of the potential spending cuts are opposed by some Republicans. One scenario is that Republicans, struggling to agree to broader changes, simply extend the 2017 law and keep the tax code the way it is now. An extension might even expire in just a few years to hold down the price. 2. A few tweaks A Trump rally in California in October. Jordan Gale for The New York Times In his campaign, Trump proposed several new tax cuts. He said that tips and overtime pay shouldn’t be taxed, for instance, and that domestic manufacturers should pay lower taxes. He also proposed reversing one of the few tax increases in the 2017 law, which limited deductions for state and local taxes — a provision that especially affected wealthy people in blue states. Congressional Republicans kept their distance from those ideas. If they embraced them now, it would add to the cost of the legislation. The exact design of these tax cuts will be important. By one definition of “tip,” many Americans could reclassify their earnings to avoid taxes. Alternately, the provision could apply only to lower-income workers who now make much of their money in tips. Trump aides are looking for ways to limit the cost of these moves. One possibility is that Republicans pass limited versions of these ideas — like increasing, but not eliminating, the cap for the state and local deduction. Doing so would still raise the cost of the bill but by a smaller amount than broader interpretations of Trump’s pledges. 3. An overhaul Then there’s the possibility that Trump persuades Republicans in Congress to carry out the entire fiscal agenda he outlined during the campaign — and potentially take things even further. That could mean deeper tax cuts for corporations, as well as the end of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which includes funding for both clean energy and the Internal Revenue Service. Perhaps the most significant change would be a tariff Trump has proposed for all imported goods. Republicans are discussing whether to pass such a tariff into law, though Trump could also likely enact it with executive authority. That tariff could help pay for the tax cuts, but they probably wouldn’t raise enough to fully offset the cost. Passing a tariff into law would make it impossible for a future president to remove them without help from Congress. It would also mark a fundamental change in fiscal policy in the United States. American policymakers have not treated tariffs as a way to generate revenue for the federal government in almost a century. The bottom line A new tax cut is almost assured next year. Any additional economic growth created by lower taxes could help many Americans. But the biggest winners will likely be the rich, who pay more tax and therefore reap the biggest benefits from tax cuts. The losers could be the low-income Americans who face higher costs on everyday goods because of tariffs. Americans may also suffer in the future. They may have to pay higher taxes or collect smaller benefits from programs like Social Security to help fix the nation’s fiscal problems. Today’s newsletter is the second installment in a running series on the Trump agenda. The first included an annotated list of policies he’s likely to change. THE LATEST NEWS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times Trump picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has spread conspiracy theories and falsehoods about vaccines causing autism. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no training in medicine or public health, would oversee the F.D.A., C.D.C., Medicare and Medicaid. He would also oversee the National Institutes of Health, which studies diseases. Kennedy has also been outspoken about the dangers of ultraprocessed foods. He has said that the government has been too aggressive in regulating raw milk, psychedelics, hydroxychloroquine and more. Late-night hosts joked about the pick. Representative Matt Gaetz Lawmakers from both parties want to see the House Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, over allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use. The Republican who leads the committee suggested that he would not release the report. Trump decided to nominate Gaetz while the two men flew from Washington to West Palm Beach this week. Gaetz’s nomination rattled Justice Department and F.B.I. officials, whom Trump has vowed to punish. Steve Bannon, a Trump ally, urged Gaetz to prosecute MSNBC hosts, producers and guests if he’s confirmed. More on Trump’s Appointments Trump picked his defense lawyer to be the Justice Department’s No. 2 official. Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota who ran for president this year, is Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department. Burgum, who is close to fossil fuel executives, will most likely help to open federal lands and waters to drilling. Two Republican senators — Joni Ernst of Iowa and Todd Young of Indiana — sounded skeptical about the nomination of Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host Trump picked to be his defense secretary. Senate Republicans are split on whether to recess the chamber to let Trump appoint officials without their votes, as he has requested. Trump picked Doug Collins, a former Georgia congressman, to be his secretary for veterans affairs. Collins defended Trump during his first impeachment. More on Politics Elon Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. They discussed how to defuse tensions between Iran and the U.S., officials said. A federal judge delayed the trial of a Kansas man accused of attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 because Trump has vowed to pardon the rioters. Democracy Forward, a liberal legal group, is planning a flurry of lawsuits to thwart Trump’s second-term agenda. Conservative influencers online are popular with Gen Z men. Democrats are struggling to compete. International In France. Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A soccer game between France and Israel proceeded under heavy security after recent antisemitic attacks in Amsterdam. Māori lawmakers performed a haka, a traditional group dance, in the New Zealand Parliament. They were protesting a bill that aims to reinterpret a treaty with Indigenous people. Kim Jong-un wants to modernize North Korea’s military with drones. Norway formally apologized for a system called “Norwegianization,” which until the 1960s forcibly suppressed the language and culture of Indigenous people. Other Big Stories Nearly three-quarters of adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. That number has increased steadily over the past three decades. The ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s accused Unilever, its parent company, of trying to stop it from expressing support for Palestinians. The Onion, a satirical publication, won a bid to buy Alex Jones’s Infowars at a bankruptcy auction. If the sale goes through, The Onion plans to turn Infowars into a parody of itself. A Brooklyn man was charged with murdering his father in a luxury Irish hotel. Opinions All cases against Trump should be dismissed. If they’re pursued, it could lay the groundwork for political prosecutions of presidents in the future, Thomas Goldstein writes. Trump’s trajectory follows the early record of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who leveraged his coalition’s grievances for his own benefit, M. Gessen writes. Here are columns by David Brooks on Democrats’ identity politics problem, and Michelle Goldberg on what to expect from Gaetz. MORNING READS Michael Corcoran Cody O'Loughlin for The New York Times Today’s Great Read: He’s a 96-year-old auctioneer in Newport, R.I. Watch how fast he talks. Becoming wild: Chimpanzees trained in Hollywood are trying to learn to live with other apes at a Chicago zoo. Let it out: Do you get weepy often? Take this quiz to see what kind of crier you are. A Morning listen: “The Good Whale,” a new podcast from Serial Productions, tells the true story of a movie-star orca’s odyssey back to the ocean. Episodes 1 and 2 are out now. Modern Love: Even his parents were younger than I was. Lives Lived: Elizabeth Nunez was a Trinidad-born novelist who explored the queasy legacy of colonialism and the immigrant’s search for belonging, but also poked fun at academia and the publishing world. She died at 80. SPORTS N.F.L.: Saquon Barkley and the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Commanders, 26-18. U.S.M.N.T: The American side overcame Jamaica, 1-0, in the first leg of a Nations League soccer quarterfinal. M.L.B.: The Tampa Bay Rays will play home games at George M. Steinbrenner field, spring training home of the New York Yankees, for the entire 2025 season. ARTS AND IDEAS Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. Brett Carlsen/Getty Images for Netflix The most-watched program on Netflix this weekend could be a fight. Millions of people are expected to tune in for a boxing match between Jake Paul, a social media influencer, and Mike Tyson, a former heavyweight champion. Read more about the bizarre matchup. More on culture People magazine picked John Krasinski as its “sexiest man alive.” Christian Marclay’s 24-hour film “The Clock” — comprising thousands of clips that depict the precise time of day you are watching it — is running in New York for the first time in over a decade. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Rachel Vanni for The New York Times Roast squash in the oven until caramelized, and top with cinnamon toasted nuts. Try a deep tissue massager. Check early Black Friday deals. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was itemizing. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. David Leonhardt will be on assignment next week, and other Times journalists will be writing The Morning. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 18, 2024 Author Members Posted November 18, 2024 November 16, 2024 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. Weekends are, ostensibly, for relaxation, but the impulse to make every moment productive can make guilt-free leisure a challenge. María Jesús Contreras Game plans What constitutes a satisfying weekend day? Is it one in which you run all the errands and finish all the tasks that accumulated in the course of the week that was? Or is it a day devoted to recreation, a clearly demarcated zone of you time: sleep in, lingering coffee hour, maybe a family outing, dinner with friends? Does it include some delicate balance of decompression and preparation that you only know when you achieve it? I used the word “satisfying” above, but I originally had “productive.” A productive day implies a day in which you got some things done, a certain degree of industry. Whereas a satisfying day might be one in which you didn’t necessarily do very much at all, but the contents of the day seem totally appropriate given any number of factors: the weather, the mood and mind-set of the participants, the complexion of the days leading up to it, the forecasted events of the days to come. It can be hard sometimes, for those of us who are perpetually running over a mental list of things to do, things undone, to accept a day in which no boxes got checked off to qualify as productive. That list. An eternal scroll where any completed task is immediately replaced by another to be done, a constantly computing ledger that always runs a deficit. I’ve been trying to ignore the master mental to-do list, to see it for what it is: It’s really a secret record of failure, disguised as a high achiever’s rigorous planning tool, kept by someone (me!) who’s not overly invested in my success. An impressive lifelong project, maybe, but what about it is satisfying, what about it is creative or joyful or helping anyone or anything? It gives one an illusion of control, as in the Mary Oliver poem “I Worried”: “I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers / flow in the right direction, will the earth turn / as it was taught, and if not how shall / I correct it?” The handwritten to-do list is a far more useful tool. I like to make a list that includes real chores (take the car for inspection, wash the windows) and things I’d like to do that aren’t necessarily arduous (lower-body workout, make soup) but feel like drudgery when they’re allowed to swirl around in my brain with other unpleasant travails. Just creating a short, achievable to-do list can make an otherwise amorphous weekend day feel structured, can quiet the inner critic. My friend Peter mused recently that it might be interesting to devote a to-do list to only pleasurable activities: have pancakes, sit on the stoop in the sun, get a hot dog, watch a true-crime docuseries, nap. I wondered if putting something on a list automatically makes it a chore. I’ve marveled at how my inner taskmaster and inner brat seem to always be doing battle, such that I can get perverse joy out of canceling plans I’ve been looking forward to for weeks. I imagine I could turn even a list of unalloyed fun into a site of conflict. It’s the control thing, again. What would constitute a satisfying day today? I think just asking the question sets one up for success. We spend a lot of time ruing the things we didn’t get done after the fact, but maybe more intention is what’s in order. How do you want to feel come bedtime? What things do you need to do, what plans do you need to make or break, in order to get there? THE WEEK IN CULTURE Jake Paul, right, easily won Friday’s heavyweight fight against Mike Tyson. Al Bello/Getty Images For Netflix Film and TV Jake Paul, the 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer, defeated 58-year-old Mike Tyson in a controversial bout that was streamed live on Netflix. Tyson said he agreed to the fight after smoking toad venom. Conan O’Brien will host the next Academy Awards, taking over from Jimmy Kimmel. Craig Melvin, the veteran NBC News host, will succeed Hoda Kotb as an anchor on the “Today” show. “All We Imagine as Light” is an extraordinary drama about three women in Mumbai, our film critic writes. Music The country and hip-hop singer Shaboozey, who was just nominated for five Grammys, released a new song, Pitchfork reports. Another country star, Tyler Childers, announced a 2025 tour. After four decades in rock, Kim Deal of Pixies and the Breeders is finally going solo. Food T Magazine released its list of the 25 most influential cookbooks of the last 100 years. A restaurant team is trying to revive an Upper East Side celebrity hangout of the past, Le Veau d’Or. Read a review. More Culture The Metropolitan Museum of Art is opening an exhibit exploring the relationship among Black artists, musicians and intellectuals to ancient Egyptian culture. Our critic calls it an “unusual and audacious.” “Chicken Shop Date” is reviving the art of talk-show flirtation. A new book about Eve Babitz and Joan Didion, two famous and competitive writers who documented the magic of California, is coming out soon. The government wants you to have more potlucks with your neighbors to reduce loneliness. THE LATEST NEWS Trump Administration Matt Gaetz at the Republican convention last summer. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Donald Trump, determined not to make the staffing mistakes that he feels hindered his first term, is picking Cabinet nominees for their loyalty — with little regard to whether the Senate will confirm them. House Speaker Mike Johnson opposes releasing a damaging ethics report about Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general. Senators of both parties have demanded to see it. Trump plans to end temporary legal status for about one million immigrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Ukraine and other dangerous countries. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary, will become the White House press secretary. At 27, she will be the youngest-ever person in the role. Mike Pence said Republican senators should reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, citing Kennedy’s support for abortion rights. Kennedy’s effort to eliminate processed foods, artificial colorings and chemicals could face resistance from Republican lawmakers who support the multibillion-dollar food industry. Other Big Stories Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, spoke with Vladimir Putin. German officials said the call, Putin’s first with a major Western leader in years, focused on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Texas’ Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to execute Robert Roberson. Lawmakers of both parties halted the execution last month, questioning the evidence used to convict Roberson of killing his 2-year-old daughter. Fugitives wanted by Interpol, the international police organization, escaped justice by paying corrupt officials in Moldova to exploit rules meant to protect asylum seekers. Global climate summits used to shun nuclear power. This year, more countries are embracing it, pledging to build nuclear reactors to generate electricity without planet-warming emissions. CULTURE CALENDAR By Desiree Ibekwe 🎥 “Gladiator II” (Friday): The first “Gladiator” movie was pure camp and escapism. More than two decades later, its sequel — starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington — is almost here. My personal excitement is twofold: First, the weather here in Britain is getting predictably pretty bleak, and a Roman sword fight could really lift the mood. Second, it’s an opportunity to see Mescal, who has had the market cornered on complex yet ordinary men, go big. While you wait, I recommend this piece about the movie’s production design (there will be sharks in the Colosseum!). RECIPE OF THE WEEK Christopher Testani for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Chili When was the last time you simmered up a pot of spicy, classic chili? Ali Slagle’s hearty recipe is full of beans, ground meat and chiles, all brightened with a splash of cider vinegar at the end. It does involve some amount of chopping and time to make. But the results are well worth it, and leftovers taste even better the next day (or, freeze any extra for future winter meals). Ali calls for ground beef here, but feel free to substitute turkey, chicken, pork or plant-based ground meat. Then serve bowls of it topped liberally with grated Cheddar, sour cream, hot sauce and chopped onion. It will warm you right up. T MAGAZINE Rinko Kawauchi Click the cover image above to read this weekend’s issue of T, The Times Style Magazine. REAL ESTATE Mallory and David Gonzalez with their son, Rainer, in Boston. Sophie Park for The New York Times The Hunt: A young family wanted a forever home in Boston. Which one did they pick? Play our game. What you get for $2 million in the Cayman Islands: A four-bedroom Balinese-style retreat, a three-bedroom Caribbean-style house near the beach, and a contemporary four-bedroom home in a gated community. Property taxes: See where they are rising most. LIVING Crying: We’re the only species to do it. Why? Travel: People are going all over the world to find sex parties. Caregiving: Older, unmarried couples are navigating the obligations of aging with a partner. Prescription: Ozempic could prevent diabetes. Should it be used for that? ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER The best gifts to buy yourself As we head into the hustle of the holidays, don’t forget to put yourself on your shopping list. Wirecutter’s gift-giving experts have rounded up the best things we’ve found, loved, and then bought for ourselves. These presents — including a set of excellent perfumes, a luxurious moisturizing bar, a box of Swedish candies and a set of soft and flirty pajamas — have all made our lives a little more luxe, beautiful and better. Because what’s the use in being a good gift giver if the recipient isn’t sometimes yourself? — Samantha Schoech GAME OF THE WEEK Jayson Tatum, left, of the Boston Celtics; Donovan Mitchell, right, of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Sarah Stier/Getty Images, Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Boston Celtics, N.B.A.: The Cavs have begun this season 14-0, one of the hottest starts in N.B.A. history. And the Celtics, last year’s champions, aren’t far behind them. These teams have the league’s two best offenses, as well as top-ten defenses, and this matchup has a bit extra flair because it’s part of the league’s in-season tournament, now called the N.B.A. Cup. So long as you don’t find the Technicolor court too distracting, it should be a good watch. Tuesday, 7 p.m. Eastern on TNT NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was palmetto. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted November 18, 2024 Author Members Posted November 18, 2024 November 17, 2024 By German Lopez Good morning. Today, we’re covering the anniversary of a beloved video game — as well as Trump’s appointments, Ukraine and young Gazans on TikTok. A scene from World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment, via Associated Press Slaying dragons for 20 years You might not have played World of Warcraft, but you probably know of it. The game, which turns 20 this year, inspired an Emmy-winning “South Park” episode and a (not-so-great) movie. Its fans include celebrities like Henry Cavill and Mila Kunis. WoW, as the game is known, was social media before social media. As a teenager, I would log on as my undead mage character mostly to hang out with my friends. What we did together was certainly different than how people use today’s social media; I do not typically hunt giant dragons on Facebook or Instagram. But it was a chance to socialize with the people I had met in the game. It was also, as a 16-year-old, the only space I felt safe being openly gay. The game was truly huge. When it was released 20 years ago, so many people tried to play that the servers struggled for weeks to handle the demand. At its peak, WoW had more than 12 million monthly subscribers worldwide, making it one of the biggest games of its time. More than 100 million people have played it at one point or another. Perhaps most impressively, the game is still going. It got a new expansion, called The War Within, this year. Imagine everything that has changed in the world since 2004, when phones were still dumb and the biggest movie of the year was “Shrek 2.” WoW has endured all of that. My colleagues wrote about World of Warcraft’s 20th anniversary in this lovely story that published today. We’ve included excerpts from their reporting below. I recommend reading the whole piece, which has many more interesting stories that we couldn’t fit in the newsletter. A welcoming space for women A World of Warcraft fan in costume in 2014. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press Women have embraced World of Warcraft since its early days. In 2009, a Nielsen survey found that it was the most popular core title among female gamers between the ages of 25 and 54. Many games structured around player-versus-player conflicts stoke negativity in the form of trash talk. World of Warcraft is not immune to bad behavior, but rather than fighting one another, players generally work together to defeat computer-controlled enemies. Groups of like-minded players form guilds to collaborate on dungeons or role-playing. “People opt into that,” said Holly Longdale, the executive producer for World of Warcraft. “You don’t have to partake. That’s what creates these opportunities for safety and comfort.” A case study in virology In 2005, a harmful effect called Corrupted Blood spread throughout the game’s world, angering players but intriguing epidemiologists. Corrupted Blood, which damaged players for several seconds before infecting others nearby, escalated because of a programming error that mistakenly extended the effect. In theory, players should have died before carrying the infection too widely. But it spread as players used portals to travel to other regions and was further amplified by pets and non-playable characters. Years before the real-world Covid pandemic, the World of Warcraft community attempted self-isolation and quarantines. But those efforts were not enough. Blizzard, the company behind the game, had to reset the servers entirely. An Emmy-winning spoof A still from “South Park.” Comedy Central The irreverent animated comedy series “South Park” satirized the game in the 2006 episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft,” in which Cartman and company aim to take down a vindictive and highly ranked player. The episode, which won an Emmy, explored the addictive quality of the game and was a meditation on media fixation before the distractions of smartphones and social media. A place to love and to grieve Joining your World of Warcraft guild regularly after work or school can build relationships that extend far beyond the digital world of Azeroth. A striking example is chronicled in “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” a documentary that was released on Netflix in October. Mats Steen, who had a degenerative muscle disease, spent most of his time inside, and his parents believed he had few friends. But when Steen died at the age of 25, his parents were shocked by the outpouring of support from his World of Warcraft guild. Several of the people he had spent his life with online traveled to his funeral in Norway. THE LATEST NEWS Trump’s Appointments Chris Wright in 2018. Lucas Jackson/Reuters Donald Trump picked Chris Wright, a gas executive and fossil fuel evangelist with no government experience, as energy secretary. Trump has chosen Karoline Leavitt as his White House press secretary. Leavitt, who is 27 and worked on Trump’s campaign, will be the youngest person to assume the role. Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, paid a woman who had accused him of sexual assault as part of a settlement. Hegseth denies any wrongdoing. Matt Gaetz built his brand on trolling congressional colleagues. To become attorney general, he needs their votes. Trump’s critics see his cabinet picks as underqualified and potentially reckless. His voters see them as welcome mavericks. Trump’s early transition moves amount to a generational stress test for the system, Peter Baker writes. More on the Administration “The shackles are off”: Wealthy Trump donors are anticipating a more business-friendly atmosphere — and the firing of Biden-era regulators. Democrats are planning to flex their power in deep-blue states to frustrate the Trump administration’s policies, including by refusing to enforce immigration laws. International In Kyiv, Ukraine. Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters Russia, in an attack that lasted several hours, targeted Ukraine’s battered power grid with missiles and drones. At least five people were killed. Young Gazans are sharing their wartime daily routines on TikTok and Instagram. North Korea is blasting eerie sounds into South Korea. “It is driving us crazy,” said a resident of a South Korean village. Business America’s on-demand economy relies on immigrants to work in factories and warehouses. Some of the companies who staff those jobs exploit migrant workers and U.S. immigration policy, a Times investigation found. New York labor regulators have opened an inquiry into the global dance group Shen Yun and its treatment of child and teenage performers. Around 60 million households watched Netflix’s livestream of the heavyweight boxing match between Jake Paul, who became famous as a YouTuber, and Mike Tyson, The Wall Street Journal reports. Other Big Stories In Luzerne County. Philip Montgomery for The New York Times Luzerne County in Pennsylvania is one of many that shifted right this year. The Times spent two weeks there before and after the election to understand the change. California reported the first known U.S. case of a form of mpox that’s causing an epidemic in Africa. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Can Trump carry out his goals without an experienced cabinet? No. Trump’s cabinet picks show that this term will be as chaotic as his first. “One of the greatest concerns about Trump’s second term was that he would be more competent this time around. But we can already see that there is no learning curve,” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank writes. Yes. You don’t need experience to lead government agencies if you don’t want those agencies to work. “Neither chaos nor dysfunction nor incompetence is an obstacle to Trump’s lawless intentions. If anything, they’re assets,” Times Opinion’s Jamelle Bouie writes. FROM OPINION Democrats win when they’re economically populist and culturally conservative, Adam Jentleson writes. At the high school where Naomi Beinart is a junior, the girls were in despair after Election Day, while the boys were indifferent. The disconnection between genders had never felt starker, she writes. Here are columns by Ross Douthat on the end of the post-Cold War era and Maureen Dowd on Elon Musk’s presence in Trump World. MORNING READS Gavin Newsom in 1992. Steve Castillo/San Francisco Chronicle, via Getty Images Meme: Old photos of Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, are spreading online. Most popular last week: Microplastics are everywhere. Here’s how to avoid eating them. “Party Politics”: Our critic dives deep into a short poem about the anxiety of an empty glass. Vows: At first they hid their love, then a reality show gave them courage. Lives Lived: Thomas Kurtz invented BASIC, a simplified computer programming language that allowed students to operate early computers and eventually propelled generations into the world of personal computing. He died at 96. BOOK OF THE WEEK By Elisabeth Egan “Orbital,” by Samantha Harvey: On Tuesday, Harvey’s fifth novel won the Booker Prize, the prestigious award for fiction written in English. Clocking in at a fleet 207 pages in paperback, this gorgeous book follows a day in the life of six astronauts circling Earth on a space station at 17,500 miles per hour. Only, in this weightless world — where humans have no use for legs and forks are secured to tables with magnets — each day consists of 16 sunrises and sunsets, 16 days and 16 nights. The astronauts observe, experiment, eat, mourn, celebrate and wrestle with their own places in the universe, and Harvey takes readers along for the ride. Her plot is as scarce as oxygen in space but, as our reviewer wrote, “Sometimes, wonder and beauty suffice.” More on books What happens when a son doesn’t love his father’s book recommendations? One dad went to great lengths to find common ground. The first volume of Cher’s two-part memoir comes out this week. Read about her chaotic childhood and tumultuous first marriage. THE INTERVIEW Dr. Ellen Wiebe Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is Dr. Ellen Wiebe, one of Canada’s leading advocates for medical assistance in dying (MAID). This summer, my mother, who had A.L.S. and was living in Toronto, died via MAID. In the time since, I realized I had lingering questions about the practice. I was hoping Wiebe could answer them. In Ontario, one of the steps in the [MAID] process is that you have two independent assessments from a doctor or a nurse practitioner who helps determine whether a patient is eligible. I was at one of those assessments. I’m sitting in a room listening to a conversation between my mom and a doctor who has never met my mom before and is trying to assess her material, physical and psychological situation. Why would this doctor think she can understand the fullness of this situation based on a one-hour call? First of all, the clinician who assessed your mother reviewed her medical history, and it was extensive, I’m sure. Secondly, our job during those assessments is to make sure that the person understands their condition. Remember, some of the A.L.S. patients we assess can’t talk. But your mother was still verbal, right? Yeah. So being able to understand that she understood her condition, that she understood her options — that probably wasn’t very difficult. That is the main thing that we are assessing: Do they understand this decision? MAID applicants have to be of sound mind. My mom was physically suffering but also depressed. Depression, as I understand it, is a mood disorder. How can we say with certainty that someone experiencing a disordered mood or state of mind is making a rational choice? When people are clinically depressed, they tend to believe that they are bad people, that it’s their fault that things are going wrong. That is disordered thinking that might respond to therapy. But if a person like your mother says, I’m losing everything, what’s the point in going on just to get worse — that’s pretty logical. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Illustration by Armando Veve Click the cover image above to read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Make popcorn at home. Pick the best Dutch oven, a kitchen workhorse. Use a better spatula. MEAL PLAN Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests making coconut curry chickpeas with pumpkin and lime, a pantry recipe that calls for canned chickpeas and coconut milk. Emily also highlights a new recipe from Hetty Lui McKinnon: sweet and sour cauliflower, a vegetarian version of the beloved Chinese American restaurant staple. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was autonomy. Can you put eight historical events — including Napoleon’s coronation, the writing of “The Canterbury Tales,” and the debut of lava lamps — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
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