Members phkrause Posted June 27, 2022 Author Members Posted June 27, 2022 June 27, 2022 Continue reading the main story SUPPORTED BY By David Leonhardt Good morning. After abortion, how is the Supreme Court likely to change American society next? The impatient, ambitious five Protesting for abortion rights in Brooklyn last month.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times My colleague Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court, describes the five Republican-appointed justices besides Chief Justice John Roberts as “an impatient, ambitious majority.” They have largely rejected Roberts’s more cautious approach of deciding cases narrowly and shifting the law slowly. The five instead prefer to set American law as they believe it should be set, even when they must overrule longstanding precedent. To do otherwise, they believe, is dishonest. After the court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, one obvious question was: What other legal changes might soon be coming? Initial attention has focused on the possibility that the court may soon restrict L.G.B.T. rights, contraception access or interracial marriage. All those issues involve some of the same logic that led to the abortion decision, as both Justice Clarence Thomas and the three liberal justices pointed out in their writings accompanying the decision. But those are not actually the hot-button issues that the court is likely to consider next. In today’s newsletter, I want to focus on the divisive decisions that are more likely to come soon. One of those rulings could happen today; the court is scheduled to announce some of its final rulings of the term shortly after 10 a.m. Eastern. Kavanaugh’s position The first reason to doubt that the court is on the verge of overturning the constitutional right to same-sex marriage, interracial marriage or contraception access comes straight from Friday’s abortion ruling. In a separate concurrence explaining his vote, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — one of the impatient, ambitious five — explicitly signaled that those other rights were safe. In his 12-page concurrence, Kavanaugh wrote that he wanted to address “how this decision will affect other precedents involving issues such as contraception and marriage.” He then listed four cases dealing with those issues, including the 2015 ruling establishing a right to same-sex marriage. “Overruling Roe does not mean the overruling of those precedents, and does not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents,” Kavanaugh explained. Unless Kavanaugh changes his mind — or Roberts decides to overturn those precedents — there is no majority to do so. For now, only Thomas has said that he favors revisiting the earlier cases. “I don’t think there are five votes for overturning any of those decisions,” Adam Liptak said on a weekend episode of “The Daily.” The second reason to think that other divisive issues will come first is that the court has already announced many of the cases it will hear next year. They tend to involve other topics — namely affirmative action, election laws and business regulation. Affirmative action It’s an issue that seems likely to define the court’s next term in the way that abortion did this term. The court has agreed to hear two cases, one challenging the use of race in admissions at a public university (the University of North Carolina) and one at a private university (Harvard). I have been writing about this subject for the past two decades, and university officials I’ve spoken with are far more worried that the court will outlaw their current admissions approach than they were during the run-up to previous Supreme Court cases. If that happens, the number of Black students at selective colleges seems especially likely to decline. The Harvard campus in March.Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times The core argument for affirmative action is simple: In a society where racism and racial inequities remain defining problems, ignoring race in admissions or hiring decisions is fundamentally unfair. Yet affirmative action — at least as it has typically been practiced in the U.S. — tends to be unpopular. When the policy appears on the ballot in state referendums, it usually loses, even in liberal states like California. (Poll questions, depending on their wording, point in contradictory directions.) One problem may be that traditional affirmative action has put nearly all of its focus on race, with little to no weight on economic class. That approach has probably hurt the policy’s support among many white, Asian and even Latino voters. Its thin popular support, in turn, would make it easier for conservative justices to ban a policy they have long opposed. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts once wrote. Is there any chance the court will stop short of outlawing affirmative action? Sure. Many corporate executives and military leaders support the policy, and they could plausibly sway the justices. But most court watchers consider that outcome improbable. In a 2003 ruling upholding affirmative action, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor — a more moderate Republican appointee — suggested that she thought the policy might no longer be necessary “25 years from now.” If the court scraps the policy in 2023, the current impatient, ambitious majority would be only five years ahead of O’Connor’s timetable. And two more Two other contentious subjects on the court’s docket are election law and business regulation. On both, the court — including Roberts — has recently leaned strongly to the political right. Election laws. The court has already agreed to hear a case about whether Alabama can draw a congressional map that packs many Black voters into a single congressional district, effectively diluting their political power. About 27 percent of Alabama’s residents are Black, and the state has seven House districts. The court may also decide to hear a case that could limit the ability of state courts to review how state legislatures draw districts and otherwise oversee elections. Adam Liptak recently wrote an article that explains why the issue is so important — especially when many Republican legislators have signaled a willingness to overturn election results. Business regulation. Even before President Donald Trump’s three appointees shifted the court to the right, it tended to take a laissez-faire approach, limiting Congress’s ability to regulate corporate behavior. The current court may go even further, especially on climate policy, and rule that federal agencies cannot limit pollution unless Congress has given them specific authority to do so. The court will hear one case involving the Clean Water Act in October and will likely issue a ruling involving the E.P.A. this week. I’ll go into more detail on this subject once that ruling is announced. More on abortion Anti-abortion activists are pushing more states to adopt bans and prohibit traveling for abortions, while opponents have pledged to fight so-called trigger laws in court. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only clinic in Mississippi, was at the center of the case that overturned Roe. It will close in a few days. In Opinion, Pamela Paul writes that America’s most exceptional trait is its lack of mercy. And Ross Douthat argues that abortion opponents have a longer-term battle to win. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM AIRTABLE Do great work, your way See how teams connect their people, data, and workflows to transform the way they work. Learn More THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine The site of a missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, yesterday.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times Russian forces rained missiles on Kyiv for the first time in weeks, shattering the Ukrainian capital’s sense of security. Leaders of G7 nations are close to an agreement to impose price caps on Russian oil, among other new economic penalties, Biden administration officials said today. The war has hampered the fight against climate change as countries focus on finding fossil fuels to make up for lost Russian oil. Primary Elections In New York, the Democratic candidates for governor are focusing on two Supreme Court rulings — on abortion and guns — ahead of Tuesday’s primary. A far-right candidate could win the Republican primary for Illinois governor, thanks to a Trump-loving base — and Democrats’ cash. Other Big Stories In China, police technology uses vast surveillance data to predict crime before it happens, targeting people whose behavior an algorithm deems suspicious. At a meeting of the Proud Boys before Jan. 6, the far-right group’s leaders stressed obeying police lines and keeping away from ordinary protesters. Those instructions were later ignored. Fifty years ago, girls’ soccer became an easy way to comply with the new Title IX law. Now the U.S. is a women’s soccer powerhouse. The Colorado Avalanche won their first Stanley Cup since 2001, ending the Tampa Bay Lightning’s bid for a third consecutive title. Opinions China’s economic expansion is winning over small countries that the U.S. ignores, writes Dorothy Wickham, a journalist from the Solomon Islands. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss last week’s Supreme Court decisions. Your support makes our reporting possible. Help 1,700 journalists continue their mission. Subscribe now with this special offer. MORNING READS Jeneda Benally and her dog, Mr. Happy Face.Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Happy Face: This Chihuahua mix with a mohawk was crowned World’s Ugliest Dog. Supercars: Would you buy an electric Ferrari? Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 8.9. Try to beat it. A Times classic: Where decision fatigue comes from. Advice from Wirecutter: How to apply sunscreen for maximum effect. Lives Lived: Baxter Black was America’s cowboy poet (some dubbed him the “Poet Lariat”), celebrating life on the range in books, speeches and frequent NPR appearances. Black died at 77. ARTS AND IDEAS Cheerios stands out across today’s streaming series, including “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix.Netflix The brands on your screen Advertising has become easier to avoid, thanks to commercial-free streaming services, skippable YouTube ads and more. Companies and marketers are responding with an increase in product placement. When done well, a bit of product placement can seem natural; after all, real kitchens are stocked with branded products. But the repeated appearance of certain items can start to look odd. Why is it that so many TV characters are drinking that one blue-capped water? And why do they keep referring to the same real estate app? Read more about the trend — including examples from your favorite shows. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM AIRTABLE Do great work, your way See how teams connect their people, data, and workflows to transform the way they work. Learn More PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini. This recipe for roasted vegetables is easy to make, but good enough to become a go-to when fresh veggies are around. The Rosé Lifestyle An owner of Wölffer Estate has turned pink wine into a symbol of the Hamptons life that she epitomizes. World Through a Lens A photographer documents the ornamental birdhouses of India, known as chabutras. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was bilingual. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Cheesy dip (5 letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. Megha Rajagopalan and Justin Scheck are joining The Times’s international investigations team. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the abortion ruling. “Sway” features Andrew Ross Sorkin. Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Chris Stanford contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted June 28, 2022 Author Members Posted June 28, 2022 June 28, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. The governor’s race in Oregon shows how Democrats could be in trouble in November. President Biden’s unpopularity is only one of his party’s problems this year.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times Unexpected losses The midterm polls continue to look bad for the Democratic Party. Yes, it’s possible that events — like, say, the overturning of Roe v. Wade — will help the party do better in November than analysts expect. For now, though, 2022 is looking like another wave election in which the president’s party will suffer big losses. In a wave election, major surprises are possible. In 2018, for example, Republicans lost every House seat in Orange County, Calif., which had long been a symbol of suburban conservatism. In 1994, the Democratic speaker of the House, Tom Foley, shockingly lost his own district to a political neophyte. Unless the polls improve for Democrats, they could find themselves suffering similarly unexpected losses in November. By definition, it’s hard to predict these surprises in advance. But even blue states and districts that are normally safe may not be this year. Today, my colleague Reid Epstein offers a portrait of one such campaign: the governor’s race in Oregon. It has its own characteristics, including a third-party candidate, but many of the political themes in Oregon are also present across the country. Biden, crime, gas prices By Reid J. Epstein Almost nobody in Oregon seems to be happy. In Portland, just 8 percent of residents think their city is on the right track, according to a May poll from Oregon Public Broadcasting. East of the Cascade Mountains, nine counties are so fed up with Democratic control of the state that they have voted to leave the state to join Idaho. Only Democrats have served as Oregon’s governor since 1987, but the party, weighed down by soaring gas prices, inflation and President Biden’s unpopularity, is in so much trouble in this year’s midterm elections that even deep-blue Oregon is suddenly competitive. Portland, like many other cities in the U.S., has seen a rise in homelessness and violent crime. Visiting the city’s downtown in recent years has been an exercise in navigating its sprawling homeless encampments — an issue that polling shows is top of mind for the state’s voters. And homicides jumped to at least 90 last year, from 36 in 2019. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat in her final term, is America’s least-popular governor, according to Morning Consult polling. Biden’s approval rating is 15 points under water, despite his having won the state by 16 percentage points. In much of the country, that’s all Republicans need to say to fire up their voters: Joe Biden, crime and gas prices. An independent challenge Amid their political headwinds, Oregon Democrats have doubled down. For governor, the party nominated Tina Kotek, a former state House speaker widely seen as a status quo candidate who would maintain Oregon’s progressive direction. Last year, she sponsored legislation that limited Oregon cities’ ability to remove homeless people’s tents from public spaces. Tina Kotek, the Democratic candidate for Oregon governor.Craig Mitchelldyer/Associated Press In typical lousy Democratic years, Oregon Democrats have overcome dissatisfaction with the party. But things are so bad now that the party has splintered: Betsy Johnson, a veteran Democratic state legislator, quit the legislature and left her party to mount an independent campaign for governor. Johnson, a helicopter pilot whose signature Liz Claiborne eyeglasses are embedded in her campaign logo, has raised far more money than both Kotek and the Republican nominee, Christine Drazan. Johnson has also earned an array of high-profile endorsements from members of both parties. Much of her fund-raising has come from Oregon’s corporate moguls, including more than $1 million from the Nike founder Phil Knight. Portland’s homelessness crisis is animating Johnson’s campaign. One of her TV ads shows her driving around the city’s encampments. “No more tent cities,” she says. When I spoke with her, Johnson didn’t mince words: “You can see the deterioration of the beautiful City of Roses, now the city of roaches,” she said. Democrats say they believe Johnson will take more votes from the Republican base than from their own. But they are spending as if she is a real threat, creating a PAC to attack her as an obstacle to environmental progress and gun control. (Shortly after the Sandy Hook massacre, Johnson told a group of high school students that she owned a machine gun. She told me it was “a Cold War artifact” and said she still had it.) The G.O.P. nominee, Drazan, is anti-abortion and pro-Trump, a change from the moderates Oregon Republicans have nominated for governor in recent years. Her campaign believes she could win the three-way race with just 40 percent of the vote — the same percentage Donald Trump took in 2020. Some Republicans in Washington, D.C., believe Drazan has a better shot of winning than their candidates in traditional battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania do. Kotek and Johnson favor abortion rights — a position they both stressed following Friday’s Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade. Johnson served on the board of the local Planned Parenthood chapter, while Kotek passed legislation in 2017 that expanded state-funded abortion access. No sure thing Kotek is still the favorite to win. Oregon Democrats have significant structural advantages — there are just more of them than anyone else. But it’s not a sure thing, and Democrats are sweating the result for the first time in years. When we spoke last week, Kotek tried to steer the discussion toward issues where she is aligned with Oregon’s progressive voters: environmental protections, gun control and minimum wage increases, all of which Johnson has opposed. Kotek dismissed Johnson as an elected gadfly who accomplished little during her two decades in the Oregon Legislature. But in doing so, she sounded an awful lot like another well-credentialed Democrat who seemed to be in a race the party couldn’t lose. “You could do what Donald Trump did and say, ‘Trust me,’ like Betsy Johnson,” Kotek said. “Or you can vote for the person who actually has a track record of accomplishment to make sure people have what they need. So I think that at the end of day, people are going to go with that.” The next four months will determine whether she’s right. For more Biden insists that he plans to run again in 2024. He and top aides are stung by some Democrats’ skepticism that he should. New York, Colorado and other states are holding primary elections today. Here’s what to watch for. THE LATEST NEWS Abortion Abortion rights supporters marched in Salt Lake City on Friday.Kim Raff for The New York Times Judges in Louisiana and Utah temporarily halted their states’ trigger laws, allowing abortion clinics there to remain open for now. The initial response by Biden and other party leaders to the overturning of Roe struck many Democrats as painfully inadequate. Mitch McConnell told The Times that the fall of Roe was the culmination of his mission to reshape the Supreme Court. Yesli Vega, a Republican House candidate in Virginia, dismissed the need for abortions in cases of rape by falsely suggesting that rape rarely leads to pregnancy. Politics Joseph Kennedy coached at a public high school in Bremerton, Wash., near Seattle.Ruth Fremson/The New York Times The Supreme Court ruled that a Washington high school football coach had a right to lead prayers at the 50-yard line, extending a winning streak for religious groups. The House Jan. 6 panel abruptly scheduled a hearing for today to present “recently obtained evidence,” though it offered no details. Federal agents seized the phone of John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election. War in Ukraine The U.S. and its G7 allies will pledge to spend $5 billion this year to help ensure food security around the globe, a Biden administration official said today. It’s an effort to counter shortages caused by the Russian invasion. The death toll from a Russian missile strike on a crowded mall in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine, rose to 18, the city’s mayor said. The trial for Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star detained in Russia, is to begin on Friday. Other Big Stories The bodies of at least 46 people, believed to be migrants, were found in and around an abandoned tractor-trailer near San Antonio. An Amtrak train carrying more than 200 people collided with a dump truck in Missouri. Three people died. MSNBC has tapped Alex Wagner, a fixture of Washington journalism, to succeed Rachel Maddow, starting in August. Opinions Faced with Russian aggression and American turmoil, Europe needs to look after itself, Emma Ashford argues. Women now count less in America than they did last week, Tressie McMillan Cottom writes. “Two kids was enough for our working family.” “I just made the wrong choice.” Times readers shared abortion stories that defied clear-cut narratives. Your support makes our reporting possible. Help 1,700 journalists continue their mission. Subscribe now with this special offer. MORNING READS Buck Ellison’s “Betsy and Elissa, Ada, Michigan, 2018.”Buck Ellison Photography: Buck Ellison’s images use fiction to reveal truths about the wealthy. The Arconia: The building from “Only Murders in the Building” is real, and it has a wild history. The Ethicist: Should I tell my sister that I know she sabotaged me? A Times classic: How often should a man get a haircut? Advice from Wirecutter: Revamp your backyard, and then have an outdoor movie night. Lives Lived: New York’s mostly white art world largely overlooked Sam Gilliam, a pioneering Black painter who hung his abstract canvases from ceilings, until late in his career. He died at 88. ARTS AND IDEAS What is America’s sound? Classical music is not a form native to the United States — much of the canon predates the country’s existence — but American composers have found ways to make it their own. Often, that comes from fusing classical with America’s great musical innovation, jazz. In The Times, Seth Colter Walls reviews three new albums that merge classical and jazz to present their own vision of American music (each features some variation of “America” in the title). His favorite: “What Is American” by PUBLIQuartet, an experimental string quartet. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini This might be the easiest roast chicken and potato recipe out there. What to Read Sally Denton’s ninth book pits polygamists against drug lords. What to Watch Stream “My Girl” and other movies before they leave Netflix next month. Late Night Filling in for Jimmy Kimmel, Chelsea Handler discussed the Supreme Court. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were conduction, conduit and induction. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Green gemstone (4 letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. David Sanger, who covers the White House and national security, is celebrating 40 years at The Times. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the states’ different approaches to abortion. Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Chris Stanford contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted June 29, 2022 Author Members Posted June 29, 2022 June 29, 2022 By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. Trump and his top aides knew that the Jan. 6 rally was likely to turn violent. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, during the hearing yesterday.Doug Mills/The New York Times ‘Let the people in’ How much did President Donald Trump and his top advisers know ahead of the Jan. 6 attack about the potential for violence? Until the past few weeks, the answer to that question had been unclear. But the Jan. 6 committee hearings have removed much of the doubt: Trump and his aides knew that the rally he held near the White House that day was likely to escalate into an attack on the Capitol. Yesterday, testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson — a former aide to the White House chief of staff — offered the clearest evidence yet that Trump knew violence was possible. He learned early on Jan. 6 that some rally attendees were armed, but wanted security to let them in, Hutchinson said. “They’re not here to hurt me,” she recalled him saying. Hutchinson also said yesterday that: Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff at the time and Hutchinson’s boss, told her on Jan. 2 that “things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.” The White House knew that the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a recent history of political violence, planned to be in Washington on Jan. 6. Hutchinson heard the group discussed before Trump’s rally, when Rudy Giuliani was present, and Giuliani said on Jan. 2 that Jan. 6 would be “a great day.” Tony Ornato, another aide, told Meadows and Trump before the attack that some Trump supporters had come to hear his speech outside the White House armed with knives, bear spray and other weapons. Trump wanted the Secret Service to let armed supporters into his rally. “Take the f-ing mags away,” Hutchinson overheard Trump say, referring to the magnetometers used to screen attendees. “They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in.” Trump wanted to join the protesters at the Capitol after his speech. After learning he was instead being driven back to the White House, Hutchinson testified, Trump cursed at his security detail and tried to wrest the steering wheel from his driver. Trump denied the story yesterday, and Secret Service officials said agents would testify that he did not reach for the wheel. (Here’s a timeline of Hutchinson’s account of Jan. 6, with videos from her testimony.) President Donald Trump speaking to supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.Pete Marovich for The New York Times Most of Hutchinson’s testimony, which was under oath, referred to conversations she witnessed or to events that other Trump aides described to her. “Hutchinson is joining the lineup of explosive witnesses to appear at congressional hearings,” The Times’s Carl Hulse wrote, comparing her to Oliver North, who testified about the Iran-contra scandal, and John Dean, who testified about Watergate. (Our colleague Maggie Haberman profiles Hutchinson here.) The committee will hold more hearings in the coming weeks, and other details will no doubt emerge. But the fundamental story of Jan. 6 is clear: A United States president who lost re-election was aware of — and encouraged — a violent attack on the Capitol intended to prevent the transfer of power to his opponent, the election’s victor. Afterward, most members of that defeated president’s party decided not to hold him accountable for doing so. Instead, with rare exceptions, they largely ignored or even repeated his lies about the election. There is also reason to believe that Trump or other Republicans may attempt to overturn a future election. Altogether, it represents the most serious threat to American democracy in many decades. More on the hearing The committee described phone calls to witnesses, made by Trump allies, that it suggested were meant to intimidate the witnesses. Hutchinson testified that Trump, enraged by a denial from his attorney general that the election was stolen, threw his lunch against a White House wall. (The Times’s Peter Baker catalogs Trump’s rage in the final days of his presidency.) The committee played video of Mike Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, taking the Fifth Amendment after Representative Liz Cheney asked him if he believed in the peaceful transfer of political power. Meadows and Giuliani sought presidential pardons for their role in Jan. 6. A lawyer for Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, said she would not testify to the committee. Yesterday’s session played like the Watergate hearings as punched up by the writers’ room of “24,” our TV critic writes. Hutchinson reminds us that being a public servant means stepping up to do hard things, Times Opinion’s Michelle Cottle writes. Bret Stephens asks if the hearings will finally bring down the cult of Trump. The case for prosecuting Trump just got stronger, David French of The Dispatch argues. (Legal experts told The Times that Hutchinson’s testimony raised the likelihood that Trump would face criminal charges.) THE LATEST NEWS Election Night Voting in Queens yesterday.Gabby Jones for The New York Times Kathy Hochul easily won the Democratic nomination for New York governor. Darren Bailey, a far-right Illinois state senator whose campaign Democrats boosted, won the Republican primary to challenge Gov. J.B. Pritzker. In the Republican Senate primary in Colorado, Joe O’Dea, a construction company owner who favors some abortion access, beat a rival who attended Jan. 6. Representative Rodney Davis, an Illinois Republican, lost his primary to Mary Miller, a Trump-backed congresswoman who once spoke approvingly of Hitler. Mike Flood, a G.O.P. state senator, beat the Democratic candidate Patty Pansing Brooks in a Nebraska special House election to replace Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican who was convicted of lying to the F.B.I. Representative Sean Casten, a moderate, defeated Representative Marie Newman, a progressive, in the Democratic primary in a newly drawn House district in Illinois. Here are more results. Abortion A federal court allowed Tennessee to ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, while a Texas judge temporarily blocked a total statewide abortion ban. Wisconsin Democrats sued the state’s Legislature seeking to remove an abortion ban from the 1800s. Xavier Becerra, President Biden’s secretary of health and human services, said the administration would ensure women have access to abortion pills. “Disorienting”: Women who support abortion rights reflected on the shock of the past few days. Illinois is set to become an island of abortion access. Can its clinics meet the demand? War in Ukraine Farmland after Russian bombings in the Donetsk region yesterday.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Turkey dropped its opposition to NATO membership for Sweden and Finland, clearing the way for their entry. At a summit in Madrid today, the alliance will formally invite the two countries to join. Women attacked by Russian soldiers near Kyiv want justice. But Ukrainian officials face daunting challenges in prosecuting the crimes. Biden led his Group of 7 counterparts to agree to cap the price of Russian oil, a move that could prompt the Kremlin to further restrict supply. The Virus An F.D.A. panel recommended that vaccine makers create shots targeting the Omicron variant. Two Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, have become the dominant forms of the virus in the U.S. Other Big Stories Mourners placed memorials near the site where a tractor-trailer was found in Texas.Lisa Krantz for The New York Times An abandoned truck carrying migrants near San Antonio lacked a working cooling system. At least 51 people died. The Supreme Court reinstated a Republican-drawn Louisiana congressional map that a federal judge had said diluted Black voters’ power. Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping Jeffrey Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls. Clinics nationwide will begin offering monkeypox vaccinations to anyone who might have been exposed. A nationwide lifeguard shortage led New York City to cancel its free swim lesson program. A German court sentenced a former Nazi concentration camp guard, now aged 101, to five years in prison for being an accessory to thousands of murders. Mortgage rates in the U.S. are at their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis, cooling housing markets. Doctors detected C.T.E., a brain disease common to football players, in a retired American soccer player for the first time. Serena Williams lost in the first round of Wimbledon to Harmony Tan of France. Opinions Siamak Namazi, an Iranian American imprisoned in Iran, urges Biden to help free him. Israeli politics is starting to mirror America’s scorched-earth politics, says Thomas Friedman. Your support makes our reporting possible. Help 1,700 journalists continue their mission. Subscribe now with this special offer. MORNING READS From left, Marlene Napp, Liliana Bernhardt, Jack Bernhardt, and Lisa Napp at home in Hillsborough, N.C. The family is trying to cut costs.Cornell Watson for The New York Times Cutting corners: How are families adjusting to inflation? Downgraded vacations, less takeout. Lost: USB sticks with data on 460,000 people were misplaced during a night of drinking. Quench: Fruits and veggies are a great way to stay hydrated. Short trips: These getaways are just 100 miles from Seattle, New York or Chicago. Shopping guide: Invest in a tablecloth. Advice from Wirecutter: The best beach umbrella. Lives Lived: Margaret Keane painted images of sad, big-eyed children trapped in dystopian worlds. For years, her husband said he had painted them — false claims that a “paint-off” in court ultimately demolished. Keane died at 94. ARTS AND IDEAS Taika Waititi has a lot on his plate.Dana Scruggs for The New York Times Constantly creating Taika Waititi might be the busiest man in Hollywood. He was behind the camera of the new Marvel movie “Thor: Love and Thunder” as director and co-writer. He was in front of it for the HBO pirate comedy series “Our Flag Means Death,” playing Blackbeard. He’s a voice in the new Pixar film “Lightyear.” He is creating two projects for Netflix based on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Waititi’s secret to managing the workload: not thinking about it. “If I was to step back and look at all of the things I’m doing, I’d probably have a panic attack,” he told The Times’s Dave Itzkoff. “I know there’s too many things. I know I’m doing a lot. I just have to keep pivoting every couple of hours.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times This crowd-pleasing potato cake takes on whatever seasoning or toppings you want. What to Listen to “The Tennis Podcast” started around a dining room table. Ten years later, it’s a major presence in the sport. What to Read Davey Davis’s new novel, “X,” is a queer noir set in a troubling near-future world. Late Night Late night hosts reacted to testimony from the latest Jan 6. hearings. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was tailwind. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: DNA sequences (5 letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. Tariro Mzezewa, a Times national correspondent, is leaving to join The Wall Street Journal. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the explosive Jan 6. hearing. Matthew Cullen, Natasha Frost, Isabella Kwai, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted July 1, 2022 Author Members Posted July 1, 2022 June 30, 2022 Today, we look at another example of American exceptionalism — this one involving the role that the courts play in shaping politics and society. — David Leonhardt By German Lopez Good morning. In other advanced democracies, the courts are more restrained. The Supreme Court’s structure allows for few checks on the justices’ power.Pete Marovich for The New York Times A global outlier By now, most of us are used to U.S. Supreme Court rulings that bring big changes to American life — on abortion, guns, same-sex marriage and more. This morning may bring another sweeping ruling, on climate change. But the Supreme Court’s power is strange in a global context. The highest-level courts in other rich democracies tend to be less dominant. Elsewhere, courts can still overturn laws and restrict the government’s reach, but they often face sharper limits on their decisions. There are two major reasons that the U.S. Supreme Court is unusual, and today’s newsletter will explain them. First, the court’s structure allows for few checks on the justices’ power: They have lifetime tenure, and other branches of government have few ways to overturn a ruling. Second, the dysfunction of the rest of the U.S. government, especially Congress, has created a vacuum that the Supreme Court fills. Unchecked judges Supreme Court justices remain on the bench for life or until they choose to retire. In other countries, there are term or age limits: Judges on Germany’s federal constitutional court, for example, serve for 12 years or until age 68, whichever is sooner. The U.S. model means the current court’s makeup of six conservatives and three liberals is likely to remain in place for years if not decades. And if justices are careful about timing their retirements to benefit their ideological side, it could last even longer. As a result, future elections and public opinion can end up having little influence on the court. In other countries, limited terms and mandatory retirement ages create opportunities for more recently elected lawmakers to remake the highest courts and keep them in check. “There is some accountability,” said Tom Ginsburg of the University of Chicago Law School. “If a court is too out of control, there is pressure to rein it back in.” The U.S. also makes it more difficult to overrule a court’s decisions. A two-thirds vote from both the House and the Senate, or approval from two-thirds of state legislatures, initiates a constitutional amendment. Then three-fourths of the states must ratify the amendment. This has only been successfully done 17 times in the more than 230 years since the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ratified — and never since 1992. In other countries, legislators can more easily overrule the courts. Canada’s Parliament can pass laws that ignore court rulings, although such laws must be reapproved every five years. British courts are so weak that their decisions act more as recommendations than orders, said Kim Lane Scheppele, a legal expert at Princeton University. In the U.S., each part of the lawmaking process is a potential veto point for bills.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times Political dysfunction The U.S. Supreme Court is also empowered by the frequent gridlock across the rest of the federal government. For example, Congress could pass a federal law guaranteeing access to abortion in the first trimester, which most Americans favor. Or Congress could pass laws giving the E.P.A. clearer authority to deal with climate change. Neither has happened. Congress’s struggles demonstrate a broader problem: The U.S. has built so many checks into its political system that it has become what political scientist Francis Fukuyama calls a “vetocracy.” Each part of the lawmaking process, from the House to the Senate to the White House, is a potential veto point for bills. Then there are additional barriers — like the Senate filibuster, which requires 60 of 100 senators to pass most legislation. The many veto points make it difficult for even the party that controls both Congress and the White House, as the Democrats now do and the Republicans did in 2017 and 2018, to get much done. The courts fill the void. Other advanced democracies tend to have simpler parliamentary systems. So when a political party or coalition wins an election, it can quickly pass laws to act on its promises. “When courts wind up doing so much of the work, it is often precisely because the parliament is broken,” Scheppele said. A conservative system Many Republicans argue they are simply playing by the rules set by the Constitution, and that liberals complain because they don’t like the results. (Senator Mitch McConnell made a longer version of this case in a recent interview with The Times.) But the rules do inherently favor McConnell’s side. The liberal vision for America requires passing laws to make major changes — already difficult in the political system. The Supreme Court adds another veto point, further bolstering a small-c conservative process. That is why much of the Democratic agenda now focuses on political and judicial reforms. (Jamelle Bouie, a Times Opinion columnist, goes into more detail here.) Yet the conservative process also makes those political and judicial reforms difficult to enact. So for the foreseeable future, the Supreme Court is likely to play a sweeping role in American life. For more The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Oklahoma authorities could prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on tribal lands, narrowing a 2020 decision about Native American rights. The court also said that states could be held liable for discriminating against employees who were injured in military service. Justice Stephen Breyer will formally retire today and help swear in Ketanji Brown Jackson. THE LATEST NEWS Abortion Abortion rights protesters in Houston.Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters Dozens of Democratic prosecutors in conservative states said they would not bring charges against abortion providers. Banks collect customers’ payment data. Those records could become evidence in abortion prosecutions. Politics Representative Liz Cheney on Capitol Hill this week.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times Liz Cheney called Donald Trump “a domestic threat that we have never faced before.” The Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel. Missouri enacted a law requiring voters to present a photo ID and prohibiting drop boxes for absentee ballots. An Oregon politician’s quote in Monday’s edition of this newsletter — referring to Portland as the “city of roaches” — has stirred up the governor’s race. War in Ukraine NATO leaders announced a more muscular stance on Russia and moved thousands of troops to the alliance’s eastern flank. Moscow is sending thousands more soldiers to eastern Ukraine to bolster its grinding campaign to control the last sovereign territory in Luhansk Province. Russia and Ukraine exchanged nearly 300 prisoners of war, the largest exchange to date. International Xi Jinping, China’s leader, is in Hong Kong to celebrate 25 years since the end of British rule. He hadn’t left the mainland since the pandemic started. Israel’s government collapsed, which means the country will hold its fifth election since April 2019. Twenty men were convicted in a 2015 Paris terrorist attack that killed 130 people. Other Big Stories A gunman killed a 20-year-old woman who was pushing her 3-month-old in a stroller in Manhattan. The child was unhurt. R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and racketeering. A truck carrying 50 dead or dying migrants passed through a U.S. checkpoint without being inspected. The consulting firm McKinsey helped opioid makers target doctors, drive up sales and market pills twice as potent as OxyContin, documents show. Dr. Anthony Fauci, 81, tested positive again despite having taken Paxlovid, but emphasized that the drug had probably kept him from being hospitalized. Opinions Roe’s fall gives Republican voters an excuse to move on from Trump, Bonnie Kristian argues. Kara Swisher answers listener questions on the final episode of “Sway.” Support the reporting behind The Morning. A subscription to The Times helps bring the facts to light. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Wolf pups enjoying snack time.Andrew Spear for The New York Times DNA: Modern dogs descended from two ancient wolf populations. The Nile: Egypt is destroying houseboats that stood for over a century as sites of art and revelry. A Times classic: Married to a mystery man. Advice from Wirecutter: Clean your air-conditioner. Lives Lived: Hershel Williams, who fought in the battle for Iwo Jima, was the last surviving World War II serviceman who received the Medal of Honor, and its oldest living recipient. He died at 98. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC A programming note: Today, we introduce a new section to this newsletter — a sports section, written by the staff of The Athletic. Freddie Freeman’s tears: He left the champion Atlanta Braves for a $162 million contract with one of baseball’s best teams, his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers. So why did Freeman fire his agent after a trip back to Atlanta? Ken Rosenthal has the official read on an odd situation. A basketball falling star: Emoni Bates was a basketball prodigy by sixth grade, a Sports Illustrated cover at 15. Yesterday, he transferred to Eastern Michigan University. He is only 18. Can he revive a career that has barely begun? The Beard means business: James Harden is passing up a $47.4 million 2022-23 salary so the Sixers can add help. Can Philly now catch the Boston Celtics? The Athletic, a New York Times company, is a subscription publication that delivers in-depth, personalized sports coverage. Learn more about The Athletic. ARTS AND IDEAS Law enforcement outside the Orlando Museum of Art last week.Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press F.B.I. steps into an art case In February, the Orlando Museum of Art opened a show featuring 25 never-before-seen paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat. But a Times article by Brett Sokol cast doubt on their authenticity: One had been painted on a FedEx box with a typeface that hadn’t been used until 1994, six years after Basquiat’s death. Last week, the F.B.I. raided the museum and seized the paintings. And on Tuesday night, the museum’s board removed its director and chief executive, Aaron De Groft, who has publicly insisted the paintings are genuine. According to an F.B.I. affidavit, De Groft threatened an expert who expressed qualms after assessing the artworks. “Shut up,” De Groft allegedly wrote in an email. “Stop being holier than thou.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Ryan Liebe for The New York Times Add a seaside flare to your grilled corn on the cob with Old Bay seasoning. What to Read A Portuguese novelist offers her favorite books to get to know Lisbon — and where in the city to read them. What to Watch Here’s how “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” a short created in one person’s bedroom, became a stop-motion feature film. Late Night The hosts discussed Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 testimony. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was facility. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: First ___ (wedding tradition) (five letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — German P.S. The Senate confirmed former President William Howard Taft to be the Supreme Court’s chief justice 101 years ago today. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about European support for Ukraine. On “First Person,” a gay Republican wonders whether she belongs. “The Argument,” is about the Jan. 6 hearings. Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted July 1, 2022 Author Members Posted July 1, 2022 July 1, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. The Supreme Court seems unconcerned with climate change. A coal-fired power plant in Thompsons, Texas.Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times ‘A blow’ The Supreme Court has made it harder for the country to fight the ravages of climate change. In a 6-to-3 decision yesterday, the court limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to prevent power plants from releasing climate-warming pollution. The court ruled that Congress had not given the agency the authority to issue the broad regulations that many climate experts believe could make a major difference — the kind of regulations that many Biden administration officials would have liked to implement. Today’s newsletter will walk you through what the decision means — and also clarify what it does not mean (because some of the early commentary exaggerated the decision’s meaning). The bottom line is that the ruling is significant, but it does not eliminate the Biden administration’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Amy Westervelt, a climate journalist, summarized the decision by writing: “Not good, but also not as bad as it could have been. It’s pretty narrow.” Romany Webb of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University called the ruling “a blow, but it is nowhere near the worst-case scenario.” The trouble, many scientists say, is that climate change presents such an enormous threat to the world — and the need to reduce the pace of warming is so urgent — that any ruling that makes the task harder is worrisome. Extreme storms, heat waves, droughts and wildfires are already becoming more common. Some species are facing potential extinction. Glaciers are melting, and sea levels are rising. Yet the U.S. has made only modest progress combating climate change through federal policy in recent years. The Trump administration largely denied the problem and reversed Obama administration policies intended to slow global warming. The Biden administration has failed to pass its ambitious climate agenda because of uniform Republican opposition and Democratic infighting. Now the Supreme Court has made the job more difficult, too. What’s still possible The Biden administration had hoped to issue a major rule requiring electric utilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, essentially forcing them to replace coal and gas-fired plants with clean forms of electricity, like wind, solar and nuclear. The justices ruled that when Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, it did not intend to give the E.P.A. such broad authority. The E.P.A. can still regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles.Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times The E.P.A. can still regulate power plants after the ruling, but more narrowly than before: The agency can push power plants to become more efficient, for example. “The way to significantly reduce greenhouse emissions from power plants is to shut down the power plants — and replace them with something cleaner,” my colleague Coral Davenport said. “And that’s off the table.” After yesterday, the E.P.A.’s most significant policy tools appear to involve other industries. The agency can still regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles, the nation’s largest source of such emissions — although the ruling and the potential for future lawsuits may make the agency more cautious than it otherwise would be. On Twitter, Michael Gerrard, an environmental law expert at Columbia University, listed other ways that government agencies could continue to address climate change, including: federal rules applying to newly built power plants; federal rules on leakage from oil and gas production; state and local rules in many areas; and private sector efforts to become more energy efficient, often subsidized by the government. “One battle is lost (unsurprisingly, given this Supreme Court),” Gerrard wrote, “but the war against climate change very much goes on.” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times More on the climate The ruling is the latest sign that the Republican Party is unconcerned about climate change. The six justices in the majority were all Republican appointees; the three dissenters were all Democratic appointees. Adam Liptak, The Times’s Supreme Court correspondent, wrote: “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, only glancingly alluded to the harms caused by climate change. Justice Elena Kagan began her dissent with a long passage detailing the devastation the planet faces, including hurricanes, floods, famines, coastal erosion, mass migration and political crises.” The math just got harder. This decision made it less likely that the U.S. would reach the climate targets that Biden has set. And if the U.S. misses its targets, the world will likely miss its target, as The Times’s Climate Forward newsletter explains. (Sign up here.) Cities and states are trying to fill the gap. Local governments are accelerating their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, in some cases bridging partisan divides. More lawsuits may be coming. Many of the plaintiffs from this climate case have brought a case trying to keep the E.P.A. from moving the nation toward a greater use of electric vehicles. The ruling may matter beyond climate policy. Corporations in other industries will likely use this ruling to argue that some of their own regulations should also be blocked. More on the Court: The court agreed to hear a case that could reshape the 2024 election, potentially giving state legislatures the power to set voting rules that state courts can’t overturn. In a 5-to-4 ruling, the justices said the Biden administration could end a Trump-era immigration program that required asylum seekers to await approval in Mexico. Here are the court’s other major decisions this term. Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman to serve as a justice. The court’s importance has overwhelmed the norms that used to insulate it from politics, Ezra Klein of Times Opinion argues. THE LATEST NEWS Abortion Cason is among the first post-Roe babies in Texas.Erin Schaff/The New York Times In Texas, even anti-abortion adherents say the state is unprepared for a likely surge in post-Roe births among poor women. Biden said he would support bypassing the Senate’s filibuster rules to protect abortion rights, but his party currently lacks the votes to do so. War in Ukraine The W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner is appearing in a Russian courtroom today for the start of a trial on drug charges. Overnight missile strikes on a residential tower and a recreational center in a coastal town killed at least 17 people. The war may have sent gas and food prices higher, but Biden said that the U.S. would support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” “The theater died. Long live the theater.” A drama company in Mariupol is rehearsing a new show. Other Big Stories Donald Trump’s political action committee has paid legal fees for witnesses called in the Jan. 6 investigation, raising concerns that he is influencing their testimony. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, defended a crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong and named the city’s next chief executive. The past six months were Wall Street’s worst start to a year since 1970. Some cities have canceled their Fourth of July fireworks over staffing and supply shortages. Opinions Plan A to protect abortion rights is for Democrats to win enough seats to codify Roe. There doesn’t seem to be a Plan B, says Michelle Goldberg. Laura Adkins is a New York liberal. She wants a gun. It’s reckless for Democrats to boost Trumpist candidates in G.O.P. primaries, David Brooks writes. Support the reporting behind The Morning. A subscription to The Times helps bring the facts to light. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Trilobites: Who’s got two pseudothumbs and loves to eat bamboo? This bear. Vacation stress: How to handle this summer’s air travel mess. Modern Love: For $100, could he stop flirting with men when his mother was around? A Times classic: A home-maintenance checklist. Advice from Wirecutter: Campfire cooking tips. Lives Lived: As the face of the Hells Angels, Sonny Barger turned the motorcycle club into a global phenomenon and an emblem of West Coast rebellion. He died at 83. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC A programming note: This week, we are introducing a new section to this newsletter — a sports section, written by the staff of The Athletic. An N.B.A. superstar wants out: Kevin Durant asked to be traded from the Brooklyn Nets yesterday, a fresh story line to pair with the league’s free agency period kicking off. Where could Durant land? Here are the possible trade destinations. U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. sow chaos: Two Pac-12 mainstays are leaving for the Big Ten. It’s a move that shakes college football’s foundation. Is the sport now down to just two power conferences? Marla Hooch can still rake: It’s been 30 years since she was launching home runs for the Rockford Peaches in “A League of Their Own.” Turns out the actress Megan Cavanagh, now 61, can still hit ’em. The Athletic, a New York Times company, is a subscription publication that delivers in-depth, personalized sports coverage. Learn more about The Athletic. ARTS AND IDEAS Natasha Lyonne, left, and Greta Lee in Season 2 of “Russian Doll.”Netflix Back for seconds Maybe not all shows need second seasons — but many get one anyway. “The philosophy today is that if you can give people more of what they liked, then don’t waste time pondering whether you should,” the TV critic James Poniewozik writes. “Only Murders in the Building,” which told a full story in its first season, returned this week. Other seemingly complete shows have also returned: “Big Little Lies,” “The Flight Attendant,” “Russian Doll.” The second season of “Only Murders” still delivers even if it lacks originality, James writes. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Johnny Miller for The New York Times This baked spinach-artichoke pasta nixes cream cheese for salty Parmesan and heavy cream. What to Watch The documentary “Hallelujah” is illuminating for die-hard and casual fans of Leonard Cohen. What to Read Books coming in July include a biography of Vladimir Putin and a novel by Bolu Babalola. Late Night The hosts discussed the Supreme Court. Take the News Quiz Find out how well you kept up with the headlines this week. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was enviable. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Push (oneself) (five letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. Nice choice of reading material, Mr. President (from the G7 meeting in Germany): Kenny Holston for The New York Times Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about abortion. On the Modern Love podcast, two adoption stories. Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted July 2, 2022 Author Members Posted July 2, 2022 July 2, 2022 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. It’s a holiday weekend. Here are some ideas for how to spend it. Allie Sullberg Taking off The most reliable way I’ve found to discover books I love is by seeking out the recommendations of writers whose work I admire. So when I saw that Patrick Radden Keefe, the author of the riveting “Empire of Pain,” was discussing his favorite writers in The Times Book Review, I broke out my note-taking app to add Emmanuel Carrère’s “The Adversary” to my ever-lengthening list of titles to read. It’s a holiday weekend here in the U.S., and I’ll be spending at least part of it reading, outside if the weather permits, indoors before a fan if it doesn’t. If you’re lucky, you’ve been able to get away, perhaps to somewhere nearby that doesn’t use too much gas, like our reporter who recently spent two days cycling around Shelter Island. Wherever you find yourself, take advantage of the long days. I like to do two-in-ones in summer, days with two distinct chapters before nightfall. These are the days when you can arrive at the beach at noon and still have plenty of light by which to grill when you get home. Here’s your menu. Start with a rum punch or nimbu pani, move on to skirt steak and vegetables. Corn on the cob, obviously. Macaroni, pasta, potato salads. Edna Lewis’s peach cobbler for dessert. Invite the neighbors, if you like. Ask them to bring the coleslaw. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the film adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s “The Forgiven,” about a couple who accidentally kill a stranger while driving to a lavish weekend-long party in Morocco. It opens this weekend. If you’d prefer something less intense, “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” looks charming. The last two episodes of the fourth season of “Stranger Things” just dropped, but if you’re a fan, you’ve probably already watched them. You might not have seen “Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Underground Rock Experience,” an animated musical special from the children’s book author Mo Willems. And there’s Wimbledon, even though Serena won’t be playing. I’ve been seeking podcast recommendations for when I’m doing chores and running errands, so this list of podcasts to make you feel good arrived right on time. “You Are Good,” an exploration of movies through the feelings they provoke, co-hosted by Sarah Marshall of the late “You’re Wrong About” podcast sounds right up my street. I’ll listen to it while I make the cobbler. What new podcast have you loved recently? Tell me about it and we might feature your recommendation in The Morning. Be sure to include your full name and location. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Jonathan Michel (bass), Bendji Allonce (drums) and Axel Tosca (keys) at Cafe Erzulie in Brooklyn.Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times On this week’s “Popcast,”, a conversation about jazz, its historic venues and the new spaces it’s spilling into. Austin Butler, who plays Elvis Presley in a new biopic, isn’t the first to take on the role: The Times ranked the best Elvises on the silver screen. (And here’s a review of the new film.) In this season of “Stranger Things,” Eduardo Franco has carved out a role as the show’s addled but reliably hilarious tension-release valve. It’s all about looking like Barbie this summer, according to Vogue. Christina Ricci, who grew up in the public eye, has found the role she’s been looking for. Marc Jacobs held his fall 2022 fashion show at the New York Public Library, and streamed it over the Jumbotrons in Times Square. The Met Museum’s chief executive will step down next June. Airbnb is permanently banning parties at its properties worldwide. The Walt Disney Company extended the contract of its C.E.O., Bob Chapek, by three years. Germany began returning some of the priceless artifacts known as the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. THE LATEST NEWS The U.S. has supplied Ukraine with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.Tony Overman/The Olympian, via Associated Press President Biden pledged another $800 million in security aid to Ukraine, including ammunition for advanced artillery. Google will delete visits to abortion clinics, fertility clinics and other sensitive places from users’ location history. The U.S. will block oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans but allow new leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska. Some activists on the fringe want to bring homicide charges against women who get abortions A landslide in India has killed at least 18 people. More are feared dead. It’s going to be a hot and humid holiday weekend across much of the U.S. Support the reporting behind The Morning. A subscription to The Times helps bring the facts to light. Subscribe today. CULTURE CALENDAR By Gilbert Cruz Culture Editor ? “Thor: Love and Thunder” (July 8): The most recent Marvel blockbuster, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” was weird and dark. This one, directed by the ascendant Taika Waititi, is funny and colorful. It really does take all kinds. A tip: You might want to rewatch the second Thor film, 2013’s “The Dark World,” to remind yourself why Natalie Portman is even in these movies. ? Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular (July 4): Oh, say, can you see a nearly half-century-old tradition celebrating America’s birthday in over-the-top fashion? Why yes you can! Tune into NBC at 8 p.m. Eastern on Monday, and lower the volume if your dog’s in the room. ? “Girls They Write Songs About” (Out now): The friends we make in our 20s — that formative decade when work and family life have yet to fully tame us — often see us at our most irresponsible moments. The two friends in this Carlene Bauer novel have many of those as they meet cute and hard in late ’90s New York City before undergoing decades of, as the critic Molly Young writes, “enchantment, disenchantment and re-enchantment.” Anyone with long-term friends can relate. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Barbecued Chicken Barbecued chicken may be a Fourth of July cliché, but only because it’s pretty perfect, a crowd-pleaser with its mahogany, sticky-crisp skin and smoky, savory meat. And Sam Sifton’s not-too-sweet version is the recipe I keep coming back to. He smartly calls for thinning the barbecue sauce with water before using it to baste the chicken on the grill. This keeps the sugars in the sauce from burning and the meat from drying out. While he suggests using chicken legs and thighs, I’ve added bone-in, skin-on breasts, and they’ve worked nicely. (Just be careful not to overcook them.) Then, break out your favorite icy beverage, and don’t forget to look up — at fireworks, fireflies or the summer sky turning pinkish at dusk. A selection of New York Times recipes is available to all readers. Please consider a Cooking subscription for full access. REAL ESTATE Gavin Preuss Photography What you get for $1.4 million: An 1873 five-bedroom Victorian in Hudson, N.Y.; a townhouse in Chicago; or a 19th-century home with three bedrooms in Massachusetts. The hunt: After stints in Florida, Arizona and Britain, a longtime renter fell in love with Southern California. Would $800,000 be enough for a single-family home? The Belnord: The story behind the real “Only Murders” building, which has been making headlines for more than a century. LIVING Late nights and early mornings could cause lasting damage.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times Get that shut-eye: The sleep debt collectors are coming. Relationships: Are we still monogamous? And six other questions to ask your partner. Pink wine: How rosé became a lifestyle. Amber Rose, reconsidered: She’s resurrecting her SlutWalk, releasing a rap single and looking to cast off the labels of her past. GAME OF THE WEEKEND Chicago Sky forward Candace Parker last month.M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire, via Getty Images Phoenix Mercury vs. Chicago Sky, W.N.B.A.: This game is a rematch of last year’s W.N.B.A. finals. The Sky won that series, and this year they once again look like one of the league’s best teams. The veteran forward Candace Parker, who grew up near Chicago, recently recorded her third triple-double — the most in W.N.B.A. history. The Mercury’s season, meanwhile, has been defined by the absence of their all-star center Brittney Griner, who has been detained in Russia since February. 1 p.m. Eastern today, on ESPN. For more: The U.S. is loaded with women’s basketball talent. But the W.N.B.A.’s small size — it has just 12 teams — makes it hard to go pro. The latest on Griner: Russia may seek a prisoner exchange for a notorious arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.” NOW TIME TO PLAY The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was quieting. Here is today’s puzzle. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. Here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Before you go … Check out this riveting story about a “communal-living experiment” on Staten Island. Pay a visit to the alpacas of Instagram. Listen to Lil Nas X covering “Jolene.” Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted July 3, 2022 Author Members Posted July 3, 2022 July 3, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. At the end of a momentous Supreme Court term, we go behind the scenes. Climate activists gathered at the Supreme Court on Thursday.Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times An unhappy place A few weeks ago, I asked Adam Liptak — The Times’s Supreme Court correspondent — to preview the major cases that would make up the end of the court’s term. Adam was prophetic, correctly forecasting every big ruling. Today, he returns to the newsletter, answering my questions about the behind-the-scenes atmosphere at the court. David: The last few months have been among the most unusual in the Court’s modern history — a major leak followed by an abortion decision that, as you’ve written, will change American life in major ways. Inside the court, do you think things also feel different? Adam: The Supreme Court’s building has been closed to the public since the beginning of the pandemic. Then, not long after the leak in early May of a draft of the opinion that overruled Roe v. Wade, the courthouse was surrounded by an eight-foot fence. Always cloistered and remote, the court is now impenetrable. The release of the decision in the abortion case highlighted another way in which the court has withdrawn from public scrutiny. For unexplained reasons, the justices have stopped announcing their decisions from the bench, abandoning a tradition that is both ceremonial and illuminating. In the old days, the author of the majority opinion would give a quick and conversational summary of the ruling that could be extremely valuable for a reporter on deadline and, by extension, for members of the public trying to understand a decision. More important yet were oral dissents, reserved for decisions that the justices in the minority believed were profoundly mistaken. In ordinary times, one or more of the three liberal justices who dissented in the abortion case would have raised their voices in protest. These days, the court makes do with posting PDFs of its decisions, robbing the occasion of ceremony, drama and insight. The nine justices in 2021.Erin Schaff/The New York Times So the lawyers who argued the cases and the reporters covering the court find out about decisions the same way everybody else does — by refreshing their browsers. But the justices have returned to the courtroom for arguments, haven’t they? Yes, they have taken a different approach with arguments. After hearing them by telephone for much of the pandemic, the justices returned to the bench in October. Reporters with Supreme Court press credentials were allowed to attend and the public could listen to live-streamed audio on the court’s website. It is not clear why opinions could not be announced in similar fashion. I haven’t been to the courthouse since the last argument of the current term, on April 27, when Chief Justice John Roberts grew emotional in saying farewell to a retiring colleague, Justice Stephen Breyer. But there is every reason to think that the leak, the investigation it prompted, the controversy over Justice Clarence Thomas’s failure to recuse himself from a case that intersected with his wife’s efforts to overturn the election and the justices’ very real security concerns have made the court an unhappy place. In remarks in May, not long after the leak, Justice Thomas reflected on how things had changed at the court since an 11-year stretch without changes in its membership before the arrival of Chief Justice Roberts in 2005. “This is not the court of that era,” Justice Thomas said, adding: “We actually trusted each other. We may have been a dysfunctional family, but we were a family.” A less collegial court seems like it could be especially problematic for the three liberal justices. There are now five Republican-appointed justices who are even more conservative than Roberts. If the court is a less collaborative place, I would imagine it gives the justices in the minority — both the liberals and, in some cases, Roberts — less ability to shape decisions. Yes, though it’s possible to overstate the power of collegiality. Justices cast votes based on the strength of the relevant arguments and the desired outcomes, not on how likable their colleagues are. The justices say there is no vote-trading across cases, and I believe them. On the other hand, there are certainly negotiations within cases. It seems tolerably clear, for instance, that Justices Breyer and Elena Kagan shifted positions in one part of the 2012 case that upheld a key portion of the Affordable Care Act to make certain they would secure Chief Justice Roberts’s vote on another part. Justices may well be prepared to narrow or reshape a draft opinion that seeks to speak for a five-justice majority in exchange for a vote. But once the author has gotten to five, the value of another potential vote plummets. It is that dynamic that must worry the court’s liberals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in on Thursday.U.S. Supreme Court Via Reuters On Thursday, Justice Breyer officially retired and helped swear in his replacement, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. How do the justices typically welcome a new member? When a new justice joins the Supreme Court, tradition requires the second-most junior justice to arrange a little party. In 2006, for instance, when Justice SamuelAlito came on board, that task fell to Justice Breyer, who knew his new colleague to be a Phillies fan. Before dessert was served, Justice Breyer introduced a special guest: the Phillie Phanatic, the team’s mascot. This year, Justice Amy Coney Barrett is the second-most junior justice and will presumably be in charge of the welcoming celebration for Justice Jackson. And now that the court is on a break until October, what do the justices usually do? They often teach courses in exotic places. In 2012, for instance, after voting to uphold the Affordable Care Act, Chief Justice Roberts left for Malta to teach a two-week class on the history of the Supreme Court. “Malta, as you know, is an impregnable island fortress,” he said. “It seemed like a good idea.” More about Adam Liptak: He started his Times career as a copy boy in 1984, fetching coffee for editors and occasionally writing. After law school and a stint at a Wall Street law firm, he returned to the paper in 1992, joining its corporate legal department before moving to the newsroom as a reporter a decade later. He reads a lot and plays a lot of poker. More on the court The Supreme Court’s latest term was its most conservative since 1931, as these graphics by Alicia Parlapiano demonstrate. Dysfunction in Congress has given the court inordinate power, Adam writes. NEWS The Latest Gravediggers at the Lychakiv military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine.Emile Ducke for The New York Times Russia claimed to have seized Lysychansk, a prize city in Ukraine’s east, and blamed Ukraine for explosions that rocked a Russian border town. Here’s the latest. Ukrainian men volunteered to protect their homes. Now, many of these untrained soldiers are dying on the other side of the country. For months, Russia has pummeled Ukrainian civilians — and offered excuses to dodge responsibility. The investigation into Russian war crimes, by Ukrainian and international agencies, may be the largest in history. The rising price of fuel is hitting poorer countries especially hard, with many residents struggling to keep the lights on or cook food. Other Big Stories The school police chief in Uvalde, Texas, resigned from the city council amid continued outrage over officers’ slow response to the school shooting. A cohort of young women — many of them Christian, some of them progressive — are fighting against abortion. Holiday headache: Thousands of flights were delayed as travel reaches prepandemic levels. Tropical Storm Colin is bringing heavy rain to the Carolinas. FROM OPINION Restricting abortion access will hurt rich women, too, says Elizabeth Spiers. The far right and far left both think women don’t count, Pamela Paul argues. Margaret Renkl fears for American democracy. She’s reclaiming the flag anyway. The Sunday question: Is Roe’s fall transforming the midterms? Commentary’s Noah Rothman has doubts, arguing that crime and inflation remain voters’ top concerns. CNN’s Harry Enten thinks the ruling could lift Democrats in state-level races, whose winners will shape whether abortion is legal. Support the reporting behind The Morning. A subscription to The Times helps bring the facts to light. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Hundreds of types of mangoes grow from a single tree.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Mango man: After 82 years, his days are spent taking care of the tree he loves. Other worlds: The powerful new James Webb Space Telescope will search for signs of life in the universe. Frozen: A baby woolly mammoth, preserved in the ground for more than 30,000 years. Culture wars: Solveig Gold is proud to be the wife of a “canceled” Princeton professor. Sunday routine: Anthony Almojera, a paramedic, cooks a family meal at Station 40 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Advice from Wirecutter: The best beach gear. A Times classic: The un-divorced. BOOKS Fiction in the city: Contemporary authors shared their favorite New York City novels. By the Book: Alice Elliott Dark ruins books by reading them in the bathtub. Our editors’ picks: The history of the bicycle, and nine other new books. Times best sellers: Riley Sager’s “The House Across the Lake” settles in this week on our hardcover fiction best-seller list. See all our lists. The Book Review podcast: Gabrielle Zevin discusses her new novel, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” about two friends who design a video game. THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Photo illustration by Justin Metz. On the cover: Moderate Democrats are going extinct. Rituals: How do you prepare for a school shooting? Recommendation: The Instagram account @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s will change how you see basketball. Diagnosis: He could barely walk and had to give up golf. What was wrong? Eat: In Hawaii, mac salad isn’t just a side dish; it’s a condiment unto itself. Read the full issue. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For A law banning nearly all abortions in Mississippi is set to take effect on Thursday. Here’s our tracker of abortion laws across the country. President Biden will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people on Thursday, including Simone Biles, Denzel Washington and John McCain. Much of the country is in for a hot and humid next couple days. Tomorrow Independence Day is celebrated in the U.S., and millions of Americans will be traveling. Expect delays. What to Cook This Week Beatriz Da Costa for The New York Times If you’ve had your fill of burgers and hot dogs, Emily Weinstein recommends Pati Jinich’s Sonoran carne asada tacos. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword: 113 Across: Space heater Take the news quiz to see how well you followed the week’s headlines. Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. Here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — David Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. July 3, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good afternoon. This morning’s newsletter had technical problems that made the Q. and A. hard to read, so we are sending it again. Climate activists gathered at the Supreme Court on Thursday.Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times An unhappy place A few weeks ago, I asked Adam Liptak — The Times’s Supreme Court correspondent — to preview the major cases that would make up the end of the court’s term. Adam was prophetic, correctly forecasting every big ruling. Today, he returns to the newsletter, answering my questions about the behind-the-scenes atmosphere at the court. David: The last few months have been among the most unusual in the Court’s modern history — a major leak followed by an abortion decision that, as you’ve written, will change American life in major ways. Inside the court, do you think things also feel different? Adam: The Supreme Court’s building has been closed to the public since the beginning of the pandemic. Then, not long after the leak in early May of a draft of the opinion that overruled Roe v. Wade, the courthouse was surrounded by an eight-foot fence. Always cloistered and remote, the court is now impenetrable. The release of the decision in the abortion case highlighted another way in which the court has withdrawn from public scrutiny. For unexplained reasons, the justices have stopped announcing their decisions from the bench, abandoning a tradition that is both ceremonial and illuminating. In the old days, the author of the majority opinion would give a quick and conversational summary of the ruling that could be extremely valuable for a reporter on deadline and, by extension, for members of the public trying to understand a decision. More important yet were oral dissents, reserved for decisions that the justices in the minority believed were profoundly mistaken. In ordinary times, one or more of the three liberal justices who dissented in the abortion case would have raised their voices in protest. These days, the court makes do with posting PDFs of its decisions, robbing the occasion of ceremony, drama and insight. The nine justices in 2021.Erin Schaff/The New York Times So the lawyers who argued the cases and the reporters covering the court find out about decisions the same way everybody else does — by refreshing their browsers. But the justices have returned to the courtroom for arguments, haven’t they? Yes, they have taken a different approach with arguments. After hearing them by telephone for much of the pandemic, the justices returned to the bench in October. Reporters with Supreme Court press credentials were allowed to attend and the public could listen to live-streamed audio on the court’s website. It is not clear why opinions could not be announced in similar fashion. I haven’t been to the courthouse since the last argument of the current term, on April 27, when Chief Justice John Roberts grew emotional in saying farewell to a retiring colleague, Justice Stephen Breyer. But there is every reason to think that the leak, the investigation it prompted, the controversy over Justice Clarence Thomas’s failure to recuse himself from a case that intersected with his wife’s efforts to overturn the election and the justices’ very real security concerns have made the court an unhappy place. In remarks in May, not long after the leak, Justice Thomas reflected on how things had changed at the court since an 11-year stretch without changes in its membership before the arrival of Chief Justice Roberts in 2005. “This is not the court of that era,” Justice Thomas said, adding: “We actually trusted each other. We may have been a dysfunctional family, but we were a family.” A less collegial court seems like it could be especially problematic for the three liberal justices. There are now five Republican-appointed justices who are even more conservative than Roberts. If the court is a less collaborative place, I would imagine it gives the justices in the minority — both the liberals and, in some cases, Roberts — less ability to shape decisions. Yes, though it’s possible to overstate the power of collegiality. Justices cast votes based on the strength of the relevant arguments and the desired outcomes, not on how likable their colleagues are. The justices say there is no vote-trading across cases, and I believe them. On the other hand, there are certainly negotiations within cases. It seems tolerably clear, for instance, that Justices Breyer and Elena Kagan shifted positions in one part of the 2012 case that upheld a key portion of the Affordable Care Act to make certain they would secure Chief Justice Roberts’s vote on another part. Justices may well be prepared to narrow or reshape a draft opinion that seeks to speak for a five-justice majority in exchange for a vote. But once the author has gotten to five, the value of another potential vote plummets. It is that dynamic that must worry the court’s liberals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in on Thursday.U.S. Supreme Court Via Reuters On Thursday, Justice Breyer officially retired and helped swear in his replacement, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. How do the justices typically welcome a new member? When a new justice joins the Supreme Court, tradition requires the second-most junior justice to arrange a little party. In 2006, for instance, when Justice SamuelAlito came on board, that task fell to Justice Breyer, who knew his new colleague to be a Phillies fan. Before dessert was served, Justice Breyer introduced a special guest: the Phillie Phanatic, the team’s mascot. This year, Justice Amy Coney Barrett is the second-most junior justice and will presumably be in charge of the welcoming celebration for Justice Jackson. And now that the court is on a break until October, what do the justices usually do? They often teach courses in exotic places. In 2012, for instance, after voting to uphold the Affordable Care Act, Chief Justice Roberts left for Malta to teach a two-week class on the history of the Supreme Court. “Malta, as you know, is an impregnable island fortress,” he said. “It seemed like a good idea.” More about Adam Liptak: He started his Times career as a copy boy in 1984, fetching coffee for editors and occasionally writing. After law school and a stint at a Wall Street law firm, he returned to the paper in 1992, joining its corporate legal department before moving to the newsroom as a reporter a decade later. He reads a lot and plays a lot of poker. More on the court The Supreme Court’s latest term was its most conservative since 1931, as these graphics by Alicia Parlapiano demonstrate. Dysfunction in Congress has given the court inordinate power, Adam writes. NEWS The Latest Gravediggers at the Lychakiv military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine.Emile Ducke for The New York Times Russia claimed to have seized Lysychansk, a prize city in Ukraine’s east, and blamed Ukraine for explosions that rocked a Russian border town. Here’s the latest. Ukrainian men volunteered to protect their homes. Now, many of these untrained soldiers are dying on the other side of the country. For months, Russia has pummeled Ukrainian civilians — and offered excuses to dodge responsibility. The investigation into Russian war crimes, by Ukrainian and international agencies, may be the largest in history. The rising price of fuel is hitting poorer countries especially hard, with many residents struggling to keep the lights on or cook food. Other Big Stories The school police chief in Uvalde, Texas, resigned from the city council amid continued outrage over officers’ slow response to the school shooting. A cohort of young women — many of them Christian, some of them progressive — are fighting against abortion. Holiday headache: Thousands of flights were delayed as travel reaches prepandemic levels. Tropical Storm Colin is bringing heavy rain to the Carolinas. FROM OPINION Restricting abortion access will hurt rich women, too, says Elizabeth Spiers. The far right and far left both think women don’t count, Pamela Paul argues. Margaret Renkl fears for American democracy. She’s reclaiming the flag anyway. The Sunday question: Is Roe’s fall transforming the midterms? Commentary’s Noah Rothman has doubts, arguing that crime and inflation remain voters’ top concerns. CNN’s Harry Enten thinks the ruling could lift Democrats in state-level races, whose winners will shape whether abortion is legal. Support the reporting behind The Morning. A subscription to The Times helps bring the facts to light. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Hundreds of types of mangoes grow from a single tree.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Mango man: After 82 years, his days are spent taking care of the tree he loves. Other worlds: The powerful new James Webb Space Telescope will search for signs of life in the universe. Frozen: A baby woolly mammoth, preserved in the ground for more than 30,000 years. Culture wars: Solveig Gold is proud to be the wife of a “canceled” Princeton professor. Sunday routine: Anthony Almojera, a paramedic, cooks a family meal at Station 40 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Advice from Wirecutter: The best beach gear. A Times classic: The un-divorced. BOOKS Fiction in the city: Contemporary authors shared their favorite New York City novels. By the Book: Alice Elliott Dark ruins books by reading them in the bathtub. Our editors’ picks: The history of the bicycle, and nine other new books. Times best sellers: Riley Sager’s “The House Across the Lake” settles in this week on our hardcover fiction best-seller list. See all our lists. The Book Review podcast: Gabrielle Zevin discusses her new novel, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” about two friends who design a video game. THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Photo illustration by Justin Metz. On the cover: Moderate Democrats are going extinct. Rituals: How do you prepare for a school shooting? Recommendation: The Instagram account @b_a_l_l_h_a_u_s will change how you see basketball. Diagnosis: He could barely walk and had to give up golf. What was wrong? Eat: In Hawaii, mac salad isn’t just a side dish; it’s a condiment unto itself. Read the full issue. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For A law banning nearly all abortions in Mississippi is set to take effect on Thursday. Here’s our tracker of abortion laws across the country. President Biden will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people on Thursday, including Simone Biles, Denzel Washington and John McCain. Much of the country is in for a hot and humid next couple days. Tomorrow Independence Day is celebrated in the U.S., and millions of Americans will be traveling. Expect delays. What to Cook This Week Beatriz Da Costa for The New York Times If you’ve had your fill of burgers and hot dogs, Emily Weinstein recommends Pati Jinich’s Sonoran carne asada tacos. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword: 113 Across: Space heater Take the news quiz to see how well you followed the week’s headlines. Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. Here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — David Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted July 4, 2022 Author Members Posted July 4, 2022 July 4, 2022 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. A chosen family can offer love and support that aren’t defined by biological kinship. Allie Sullberg All in the family Today, as we observe the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S., I’m thinking about the permutations of family, the people we invite to the cookout, the ones we’ll be watching the fireworks with. Perhaps you’ll be with your parents and siblings, your kids, your kids’ kids. Perhaps you’ll gather with close friends, with neighbors, reunite with your pandemic pod. Last week marked the conclusion of Pride Month in the United States. Pride is broadly a celebration of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, but for many members of queer communities, it’s also a celebration of their chosen family. Chosen families are created outside the structures of (and often in place of) the traditional nuclear family. In the case of the Bickersons, a group of about 10 to 20 queer women, most of whom live near Asheville, N.C., this means raucous Thanksgivings, fishing trips and three-day birthday celebrations. It’s also meant working on one another’s homes, helping each other get sober and providing love and support when one of the group is ill. “We didn’t have to censor,” one member of the Bickersons, Lenny Lasater, told The Times. “We were real, we were honest, and we could expect to be met with compassion and understanding.” When a family of origin is absent or unsupportive, a chosen family is essential. And even if your biological family is intact, cultivating close, supportive relationships with neighbors, friends and colleagues can provide welcome kinship, as many of us found during the pandemic. The pandemic pod was a temporary chosen family, born of necessity. People who might otherwise never have fetched groceries for one another or shared strategies for locating toilet paper, let alone discussed issues of life and death, were suddenly one another’s confidantes. Once you’ve known the rewards of that sort of unexpected intimacy, it seems silly that any chosen family should be temporary. While people, at varying speeds and comfort levels, move on from the most pod-intensive stages of the pandemic, is there any reason the love, the interdependence, the podsgivings shouldn’t continue? The beauty of the chosen family is that you opt into it. There’s freedom in that, an opportunity to cocreate a community that suits your values. Take the Old Gays, a group of “grandfluencers” who live in a house together in the California desert and create videos for their 7.6 million TikTok followers. “As you get into old age, moving into a nursing home is what’s expected, and many older people buy into that plan,” said Robert Reeves, a member of the group. “What we’re doing, through the strength of our friendships and our mutual support, is changing the course of the way one lives their life.” Do you have a chosen family? Tell me about it. In the meantime, enjoy the holiday. For more Listen to Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris discuss queer chosen families in pop culture on the “Still Processing” podcast. “We don’t need to be related to relate,” sings Rina Sawayama in “Chosen Family.” THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine Russia, in control of large parts of the Donbas region, can now focus on capturing the last Ukrainian holdout in neighboring Donetsk. Despite warnings from the Pentagon, American veterans are training Ukrainians near the front lines. Fourth of July Last year’s hot dog competition in Coney Island.Brittainy Newman/Associated Press Staffing shortages and a boom in travel demand caused more than 1,400 flight cancellations in the U.S. over the holiday weekend. The Nathan’s hot dog eating competition is back. Here’s what to know. Other Big Stories A shopping mall in Copenhagen after a shooting there yesterday.Olafur Steinar Rye Gestsson/Ritzau Scanpix Foto, via Associated Press A gunman killed three people at a mall in Copenhagen. The police said the motive probably was not terrorism. The Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe v. Wade has launched judicial and political battles that could last years. He filmed Jan. 6 footage for Russian TV: An American’s murky path from businessman to far-right media figure and pro-Russia propagandist. The I.R.S. approved 76 fake charities that shared a mailbox. Reduced vetting at the agency has opened the door to scams. The C.D.C. has linked a Florida-made ice cream to a listeria outbreak that has sickened people in 10 states. Opinions Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss the E.P.A. and Donald Trump. Alexander and Yevgeny Vindman, who fled Ukraine in 1979, argue for letting more refugees into America in a video by Ken Burns. Support the reporting behind The Morning. A subscription to The Times helps bring the facts to light. Subscribe today. MORNING READS A drone at Jones Beach.Johnny Milano for The New York Times Jaws: With drones and trackers, New York beaches are stepping up their shark patrols. New York: A reporter traveled to all five boroughs and asked: What’s the vibe? Ask Well: Are some processed meats worse for you than others? Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.2. See if you can do better. A Times classic: The 10 most influential films of the 2010s. Advice from Wirecutter: What to bring when you go berry picking. Lives Lived: Vladimir Zelenko received national attention in 2020 when the White House embraced his hydroxychloroquine regimen. He died at 48. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC A programming note: This new sports section is written by the staff of The Athletic. Kevin Durant’s next home: The Brooklyn Nets superstar has asked for a trade. The Athletic’s John Hollinger explored possible trade paths to Los Angeles with the Lakers or Clippers, as well as fits in Phoenix and Toronto. Nothing looks easy, on paper. What about a return to Golden State? There are some clear obstacles, we learned yesterday. The clock ticks. “The safest thing would be to not go back.” The N.H.L. had 57 Russian players who participated in league play during the 2021-22 season. Now a significant question hangs over the offseason: If those players return to Russia to see their families, will they make it back? The Athletic’s sports journalism is supported by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access, please subscribe to New York Times All Access or Home Delivery. ARTS AND IDEAS A street-food classic’s moment There’s no such thing as too much fried chicken. The variation currently taking the U.S. by storm: Taiwanese fried chicken, marinated in soy sauce, rice wine and five-spice powder. Chefs are reimagining the street-food staple. They’re tucking Taiwanese fried chicken into sandwiches and steamed buns, serving it atop sliced white bread with pickles and drenching it with sauces in acknowledgment of regional American specialties, Cathy Erway writes in The Times. “It symbolizes Taiwanese cuisine, obviously, but for me, it brings back memories,” said the chef David Kuo, who is based in Los Angeles. “Eating something with bones in front of the TV was the ultimate fun.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook David Malosh for The New York Times Here’s how to make Taiwanese fried chicken, which is typically served in paper bags, without sauce, for easy snacking. What to Watch Try any of the year’s best movies so far. What to Read “The Mermaid of Black Conch” by Monique Roffey is equal parts fairy tale, ghost story and history. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was buoyant. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Annoying (five letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — Melissa P.S. Nestor Ramos, a Pulitzer finalist and former Boston Globe columnist, is The Times’s next Metro editor. Here’s today’s front page. There’s no new episode of “The Daily” today. Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted July 6, 2022 Author Members Posted July 6, 2022 July 5, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. The midterm campaigns for the House and the Senate are shaping up quite differently. A bluer picture The midterm polls continue to look dark for Democrats, as we explained in a newsletter last week. Inflation and Covid disruptions, as well as the normal challenges that a presidents’s party faces in midterms, are weighing on the party. As a result, the Republicans are heavily favored to retake control of the House. But the situation in the Senate looks different, my colleague Blake Hounshell points out. There are 10 potentially competitive Senate races this year, according to the Cook Political Report, and Democrats need to win at least five of them to keep Senate control. Democrats are favored in two of those 10 races (New Hampshire and Colorado) and Cook rates another five (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) as tossups. If Democrats keep the Senate without the House, they still would not be able to pass legislation without Republican support. But Senate control nonetheless matters. It would allow President Biden to appoint judges, Cabinet secretaries and other top officials without any Republican support, because only the Senate needs to confirm nominees. I’m turning over the rest of today’s lead item to Blake, who will preview the campaign for Senate control. Senate Democrats are starting to see the opportunity to retain the Senate after the midterms.Tom Brenner for The New York Times By Blake Hounshell Editor, On Politics When asked to share their candid thoughts about the Democrats’ chances of hanging onto their House majority in the coming election, party strategists often use words that cannot be printed in a family newsletter. But a brighter picture is coming together for Democrats on the Senate side. There, Republicans are assembling what one top strategist laughingly described as an “island of misfit toys” — a motley collection of candidates the Democratic Party hopes to portray as out of the mainstream on policy, personally compromised and too cozy with Donald Trump. These vulnerabilities have led to a rough few weeks for Republican Senate candidates in several of the most competitive races: Arizona: Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who secured Trump’s endorsement and is leading the polls in the Republican primary, has been criticized for saying that “Black people, frankly” are responsible for most of the gun violence in the U.S. Other Republicans have attacked him for past comments supporting “unrestricted immigration.” Georgia: Herschel Walker, the G.O.P. nominee facing Senator Raphael Warnock, acknowledged being the parent of three previously undisclosed children. Walker regularly inveighs against absentee fathers. Pennsylvania: Dr. Mehmet Oz, who lived in New Jersey before announcing his Senate run, risks looking inauthentic. Oz recently misspelled the name of his new hometown on an official document. Nevada: Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general, said at a pancake breakfast last month that “Roe v. Wade was always a joke.” That’s an unpopular stance in socially liberal Nevada, where 63 percent of adults say abortion should be mostly legal. Wisconsin: Senator Ron Johnson made a cameo in the Jan. 6 hearings when it emerged that, on the day of the attack, he wanted to hand-deliver a fraudulent list of electors to former Vice President Mike Pence. Republicans counter with some politically potent arguments of their own, blaming Democrats for rising prices and saying that they have veered too far left for mainstream voters. In Pennsylvania, for instance, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee, supports universal health care, federal marijuana legalization and criminal justice reform. Republicans have been combing through his record and his past comments to depict him as similar to Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic socialist. Candidate vs. candidate One factor working in the Democrats’ favor is the fact that only a third of the Senate is up for re-election, and many races are in states that favor Democrats. Another is the fact that Senate races can be more distinct than House races, influenced less by national trends and more by candidates’ personalities. The ad budgets in Senate races can reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars, giving candidates a chance to define themselves and their opponents. Democrats are leaning heavily on personality-driven campaigns, promoting Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona as a moderate, friendly former astronaut and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada as a fighter for abortion rights, retail workers and families. “Senate campaigns are candidate-versus-candidate battles,” said David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm. “And while Democratic incumbents and candidates have developed their own brands, Republicans have put forward deeply, deeply flawed candidates.” Bergstein isn’t objective, but that analysis has some truth to it. There are about four months until Election Day, an eternity in modern American politics. As we’ve seen from the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling and from the explosive allegations that emerged in the latest testimony against Trump, the political environment can shift quickly. If the election were held today, polls suggests that Democrats would be narrowly favored to retain Senate control. Republican elites are also terrified that voters might nominate Eric Greitens, the scandal-ridden former governor, for Missouri’s open Senate seat, jeopardizing a seat that would otherwise be safe. But the election, of course, is not being held today, and polls are fallible, as we saw in 2020. So there’s still a great deal of uncertainty about the outcome. Biden’s approval rating remains low, and inflation is the top issue on voters’ minds — not the foibles of individual candidates. For now, Democrats are pretty pleased with themselves for making lemonade out of a decidedly sour political environment. More politics Conservative talk radio hosts promote false claims about election fraud, stoking mistrust about the results of the midterms. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico has a cozy relationship with Mexico’s president. Some American officials fear it’s gone too far. Trump has long been able to keep his intentions under wraps, but recent testimony revealed a man willing to do almost anything to hang onto power. This has been an excerpt from On Politics, an in-depth, five-day-a-week newsletter that’s available exclusively to Times subscribers. Try it out for four weeks. Illinois Shooting After a mass shooting in Highland Park, Ill., yesterday.Mary Mathis for The New York Times A gunman killed six people from a rooftop at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb. A 22-year-old man is in custody. Here’s what we know. The attack was not the only shooting over a violent holiday weekend. Why does the U.S. have so many mass shootings? Mostly because people have so many guns, as a recent edition of this newsletter explained. Abortion Many moderate women have been drifting away from Democrats. The party hopes that the fight for abortion rights will drive them back. As the U.S. grapples with the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade, a question lurks: Why are the risks of pregnancy rarely discussed? Here’s the latest on which abortion laws are in effect and which are blocked. Other Big Stories “I’m terrified I might be here forever”: The W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner wrote to Biden to ask for help in being freed from prison in Russia. The U.S. said the bullet that killed the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was too damaged to trace definitively but probably came from Israeli military lines. Updated Covid vaccines are coming. The shots won’t be available until the fall. Opinions Christian nationalists gutted abortion rights. American democracy is next, says Katherine Stewart. Americans live in fear of gun violence, and fear is a breeding ground for autocracy, Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan’s daughter, writes. MORNING READS Renovating the tower housing Big Ben took five years.Mary Turner for The New York Times Bong bong bong: Big Ben will soon sound again. The Tour Divide: A 2,700-mile cycling race is now even more extreme. Tennis: When will the Williams sisters and Roger Federer quit? Maybe never. A Times classic: The perils of a dirty sponge. Advice from Wirecutter: Try these cheap sunglasses. Lives Lived: Clifford L. Alexander Jr., who in the 1960s and ’70s helped bring the civil rights movement into the federal government, became the first Black secretary of the Army under Jimmy Carter. Alexander died at 88. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC A programming note: This new sports section is written by the staff of The Athletic. New York baseball dominance: For many teams, July 5 will mean 81 games played, the official halfway point of the M.L.B. regular season. None can top the New York Yankees, a team on pace to surpass some of their greatest seasons ever. Here is how all 30 M.L.B. teams stack up at the midway point. The Yankees have local company. Ronaldo’s next home? That question dominated weekend conversations as the soccer superstar signaled an exit from Manchester United. Could Chelsea be Ronaldo’s next team? Christian Eriksen’s new home: Meanwhile, Manchester United added a player known more for a Euro 2020 scare than his considerable talents. For access to all Athletic articles, subscribe to New York Times All Access or Home Delivery. ARTS AND IDEAS Beer and body slams Craft beer and wrestling are starting to become a tag team, as crowds around the U.S. sip hazy ales and cheer on the action inside the ring. “Spandex-clad wrestlers with stage names like Manbun Jesus, Rex Lawless and Casanova Valentine performed body slams and leaped off ropes, egging on spectators and occasionally inflicting performative injury with arm twists and traffic barrels,” Joshua M. Bernstein writes in The Times about a recent event in Brooklyn. “It’s like going to the movies, but it’s a real-life performance and you get to drink,” one wrestler said. “What’s better than that?” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Soba, Japanese buckwheat noodles, taste great when served cold. World Through a Lens A sand storm approaching the Step Pyramid of Djoser.Tanveer Badal A photographer found a new perspective on Egypt’s ancient pyramids. What to Read In Katherine J. Chen’s new novel, Joan of Arc wows crowds with feats of strength and breaks bones with her bare hands. Gaming Nina Freeman infuses her work with a poetic sensibility. Her next game, “Nonno’s Legend,” comes out next month. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was although. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Take it easy (five letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. The bikini debuted 76 years ago today. Twenty years later, The Times urged women to take the plunge. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about a new gun law. On “The Ezra Klein Show,” Larry Kramer discusses the Supreme Court. Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Quote phkrause Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement. - ChL 60
Members phkrause Posted July 6, 2022 Author Members Posted July 6, 2022 July 6, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We look at three scenarios for the war in Ukraine. A resident of Sloviansk, Ukraine, amid a destroyed bazaar.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times Victory, stalemate, defeat Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, recently outlined three plausible scenarios in Ukraine. In the first, Russia’s continuing progress in eastern Ukraine would break Ukrainians’ will to fight and allow the Russian military to take over even more of the country. This outcome is Vladimir Putin’s new goal after being defeated in his initial attempt to oust Ukraine’s government. In the second scenario — the most likely one, Haines said (during a public appearance in Washington last week) — Russia would dominate the east but would not be able to go much farther. The two countries would fall into a stalemate that Haines described as “a grinding struggle.” In the third scenario, Ukraine would halt Russia’s advance in the east and also succeed in launching counterattacks. Ukraine has already regained some territory, especially in the southern part of the country, and some military experts expect a broader offensive soon. Today’s newsletter provides an update on the war by examining a few questions that will help determine which of these three scenarios becomes most likely. Temporary or permanent Has the tide definitively turned or are Ukrainian forces about to have more success? The most recent phase of the war has gone well for Russia. The eastern part of Ukraine, known as the Donbas region, has two provinces — Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia now controls virtually all of Luhansk and about 60 percent of Donetsk, according to Thomas Bullock, an analyst for Janes, a company specializing in intelligence issues. Russian advance as of July 3. | Source: Institute for the Study of War | By Josh Holder
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