Members phkrause Posted July 21, 2022 Author Members Posted July 21, 2022 July 21, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We look at what the latest Covid surge means for the country. Masked pedestrians in New York in May.Dave Sanders for The New York Times A guide to BA.5 The Covid virus has a Darwinian quality. As variants emerge, they compete with one another to become dominant. The most contagious variants tend to win the competition because they can spread more quickly. It’s survival of the fittest. That is why the virus has become more contagious over time. Today, the most contagious form of Covid yet — the BA.5 subvariant — is spreading around the globe. “It looks as if we are unable to control it,” Dr. Charles Chiu of the University of California, San Francisco, told The Times. In the U.S., cases have surged recently, as has the number of hospitalized patients with Covid (although some of them were admitted for other reasons and happened to test positive for the virus while in the hospital): Chart shows 7-day averages. | Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services At the same time, I know that many readers aren’t sure how much attention to pay to Covid anymore. Most Americans are vaccinated, and the vaccines provide excellent protection against serious illness in a vast majority of cases. In a recent Times poll, fewer than 1 percent of Americans described Covid as the country’s most important problem. “I’m actually pleased to see the pandemic is not top of mind,” Dr. Ashish Jha, President Biden’s Covid coordinator, told me. “It means we’re making progress. The last thing I want as the Covid response coordinator is for us to get back to the point where Covid dominates our lives in scary ways.” Today’s newsletter offers a guide to thinking about BA.5, including what steps the U.S. can take to minimize its toll. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans described Covid as the country’s biggest problem.Gabby Jones for The New York Times Powerful tools … Throughout the pandemic, people have often conflated two different concepts: contagiousness and severity. The first involves how easily the virus spreads. The second involves how sick an average person tends to get once infected. Both matter. A more contagious variant infects more people, increasing the number who get very sick even if the percentage of infected people who get very sick remains the same. A more severe variant, on the other hand, increases the percentage of cases that lead to bad outcomes. But the two concepts are different. If the prospect of getting Covid hasn’t been dominating your life in recent months — because you’re boosted and not in a major risk group — a new variant doesn’t need to cause big changes to your behavior unless it’s more severe. So far, evidence suggests that BA.5 does not cause more severe disease than other Omicron variants, as Chiu and other experts have said. Instead, the percentage of Covid cases leading to bad outcomes is declining. Consider these comparisons: Covid cases have risen faster than hospitalizations (which, again, include many people with mild Covid who are hospitalized for other reasons). Hospitalizations, in turn, have risen faster than the number of Covid patients in the I.C.U. And deaths from Covid have barely risen. Sources: New York Times database; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services One reason is the steady buildup of natural immunity, as more and more people have had the virus. Another factor is the availability of drugs like Evusheld (to help protect immunocompromised people before infection) and Paxlovid (to reduce severity in infected people). “We have the ability to protect ourselves,” Dr. Joseph Kanter, Louisiana’s medical director, said. Paxlovid isn’t perfect. Many people find that it leaves a nasty taste, and rebound cases — in which people get sick again after taking the drug — are fairly common. But those rebound cases tend to be mild. As Jha said: “When you have people getting Paxlovid, they’re not ending up in the hospital. We know that it’s working.” What about long Covid? It remains something of a mystery, and many experts hope that scientific research can eventually clarify what it is and how many people have it. Vaccines do seem to reduce the chances of having long-term symptoms, Jha said, and those symptoms seem to clear up within a few months in an extremely high percentage of cases. Still, if even 2 percent of infections led to long-term problems, that would represent millions of people around the world, which is why more research is important. Until then, long Covid will resemble many other daily risks: Some people will largely ignore it, while others will try to reduce the risk (by wearing a mask indoors, for instance). Both approaches seem reasonable. … not always used The U.S., like many other countries, already has most of the tools it needs to defang BA.5. Unfortunately, many people are not using those tools. Only about half of American adults have received a booster shot. Even fewer have received a second booster. (Anyone 50 and older is now eligible for one, and the Biden administration seems likely to expand eligibility soon.) Jha offers this rule of thumb: If you have not yet gotten a vaccine shot — of any kind — in 2022, consider getting one. Administering a Covid vaccine in Los Angeles in April.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times Many doctors, for their part, remain unaware of the evidence showing that Paxlovid and Evusheld make a difference. This slow adoption is typical for new drugs, but it’s costly in the case of Covid. The hardest decisions are probably for people who are up-to-date on their vaccine shots and ready to take Paxlovid if they get sick, but still at risk because they have an underlying vulnerability, such as old age, cardiac problems or ongoing cancer treatment. In these instances, the BA.5 surge may call for more mask-wearing, skipping some indoor events or postponing travel. Longer term, it’s a reminder that medical research to find more effective vaccines and treatments continues to have the potential to save many lives. The BA.5 surge is unlikely to lead to major new Covid rules, like mask mandates, even in most liberal cities that have previously been the fastest to adopt them. “You can’t just kind of cry wolf all the time,” Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago’s health commissioner, told The Times. Most Americans are understandably tired of such mandates. It’s not even clear how well mandates have worked. But Covid is still killing an alarmingly high number of Americans. The onset of BA.5 can offer a reminder that there is a middle ground between allowing Covid to dominate daily life and pretending that the pandemic is over. “We should not let it disrupt our lives,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top federal infectious disease official, said. “But we cannot deny that it is a reality that we need to deal with.” THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine The E.U. asked member countries to ration natural gas, warning that Russia might further cut supplies. Russia said that it might extend territorial claims over Ukraine to include parts of the south. Ukrainian troops retook a village in the east, a rare success after months of being on the back foot. Politics Voting in New York last year.Amir Hamja for The New York Times A bipartisan Senate group introduced legislation intended to prevent the electoral tactics that Donald Trump tried in 2020. The amount of Republican support in the House for a bill to codify marriage equality surprised both parties, suggesting a narrow path to enactment. Here’s where midterm elections could affect abortion access. Climate Cooling off in Manhattan.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times A heat wave in the U.S. isn’t letting up. About 100 million people are under heat advisories. When it comes to climate action, delay is the new denial for Republican lawmakers. Other Big Stories Ivana Trump’s funeral in Manhattan yesterday.Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press Ivana Trump was buried in a gold-hued coffin. “She had brains, she had beauty, and she had grit,” her son Eric Trump said. After Italy’s governing coalition collapsed, its prime minister, Mario Draghi, resigned for a second time. Buenos Aires banned teachers from using gender-inclusive language. One of these two people will be Britain’s next prime minister: Rishi Sunak, the former top finance official, or Liz Truss, the foreign secretary. Opinions Eight Times Opinion columnists revisit their mistakes: Thomas Friedman on Chinese censorship, Michelle Goldberg on Al Franken, Gail Collins on Mitt Romney, Farhad Manjoo on Facebook, David Brooks on capitalism, Paul Krugman on inflation, Bret Stephens on Trump voters and Zeynep Tufekci on the power of protest. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS New York is spending $25 billion to overhaul its airports.Thomas Prior for The New York Times Travel: Wait, La Guardia is nice now? Batman, Walter White: Is the era of the antihero coming to an end? Lives Lived: William Hart was the lead singer of the Delfonics, pioneering Philadelphia’s soulful sound and creating hits like “La-La (Means I Love You).” He died at 77. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC The last starting QB hits the market: San Francisco gave quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo permission to explore trade options Wednesday. He’s late to the open market, but he’ll have suitors. James Harden stays true to his word: The Sixers star agreed to a two-year, $68.6 million deal Wednesday, which represents a sizable pay cut — for now. Harden has said he wanted to take less money in order to give the Sixers more flexibility to build a championship roster. Small tweaks, big results: Lindsey Adler goes behind the scenes with Aaron Judge, who made slight adjustments to his swing at the most critical juncture of his young career. It’s paying off: He’s a front-runner for the A.L. M.V.P. award. ARTS AND IDEAS A scene from Netflix’s “Persuasion.”Nick Wall/Netflix The difficulty of adapting Austen The best Jane Austen adaptations are true to the novel’s plot and confident in their own worlds. A movie version of “Persuasion” on Netflix is neither, Sarah Lyall writes. The problem isn’t that the film takes liberties, Sarah writes. Many Austen iterations do: “Fire Island” sets “Pride and Prejudice” in a present-day vacation home with a group of gay men looking for love. But the new “Persuasion” diverges from the novel’s careful pace, allowing characters to reveal their feelings early on. And it mixes its 19th-century setting with modern phrases (“If you’re a five in London, you’re a 10 in Bath,” one character says). In an interview, the film’s director, Carrie Cracknell, defended her choices: “One of the big hopes I had for the film was to draw in a new audience to Austen, and to make them feel that they really recognize the people onscreen.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Susan Spungen. Ranch is both sauce and marinade for this pan-seared chicken. What to Watch The film “A Dark, Dark Man” is an exceptionally grim police procedural set in Kazakhstan. What (and Where) to Read Michael Crummey, an award-winning author, helps you explore Newfoundland. Late Night Trevor Noah discussed same-sex marriage. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was benevolent. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Seeps out (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. Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with health experts about medical care in states that ban abortion, today at 4 p.m. Eastern. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about Trump. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 22, 2022 Author Members Posted July 22, 2022 July 22, 2022 By German Lopez Writer, The Morning Good morning. Gas prices have now fallen for more than a month. Falling gas prices could be good news for political and social stability.Jason Henry for The New York Times Some good news After months of gas prices making life more expensive, they have quietly started to go down — providing financial relief for many Americans. The average nationwide price this week was $4.49 a gallon, down from a peak of $5.01 in June. The average price of gas is still about $1.30 higher than it was a year ago, but it has now fallen for more than a month. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration That is welcome news for consumers: Higher gas prices affect not just people filling their cars but also, through higher transportation costs, the price of almost everything else. Falling prices are also potentially good news for political and social stability. Because gas prices are so visible — posted on giant signs across the country — they have an outsize impact on how Americans feel things are going, experts say. The sentiment can extend beyond financial concerns. Consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which caused gas prices to spike in the West as Europe vowed to stop relying on Russian oil and gas. American and European leaders have worried since the war began that rising gas prices could hurt public support for efforts against Russia, because people could come to see the personal cost as too great. So falling gas prices could help sustain public support for Ukraine. Historically, rising gas prices have also hurt incumbent political leaders. Sure enough, approval ratings for President Biden and European leaders have fallen as the prices of gas and other goods have increased. Unchecked, it is the kind of widespread disapproval that can lead to global political instability and extremism. In Italy, for example, the recent collapse of the government could give way to a takeover by a far-right alliance that includes a political party with neo-fascist roots. But gas prices also get at something deeper than partisan politics or any individual policy debate: They help dictate the public mood. As the pandemic has waned, Americans have hoped for a return to normal. But rising gas prices and inflation, along with an increase in violent crime and the war in Ukraine, instead feed into a broader sense of chaos and anomie already fueled by Covid. It is as if Americans have traded some crises for others. “Is this for real?” Caroline McNaney in New Jersey recalled thinking. “I took a job further from home to make more money, and now I feel like I didn’t do anything for myself because gas is so high.” Falling gas prices, then, offer the kind of reprieve people have wanted after a few chaotic years. Gas prices fall more slowly than they rise, so there may be more reductions to come.Brandon Pavan for The New York Times Why gas prices fell Several factors are behind the good news. Oil and gas production has ticked up in the U.S. and elsewhere, increasing supply. Some people are driving less to avoid high prices, decreasing demand. Continued Covid disruptions, particularly in China, have also played a role; lockdowns lead to fewer people traveling, further reducing global demand for oil and gas. The process is playing out slowly — a result of what experts call the “rocket and feather” effect: Gas prices tend to rise quickly, like a rocket, and fall more slowly, like a feather. Gas stations are quicker to increase prices and slower to reduce them to maximize profits. And while rising gas prices drive consumers to comparison-shop more, falling prices ease the need to do so — reducing competitive pressure. What’s next Since gas prices fall more slowly than they rise, they still have room in the coming weeks to drop further — to catch up with reduced oil prices, said Christopher Knittel, an economist at M.I.T. And as strange as it may sound, a weakening economy could help further reduce gas prices. The Federal Reserve has recently increased interest rates, raising the cost of borrowing in an effort to pull down demand and tame inflation. That could lead to more unemployment, but also to a slowdown in price increases after months of record inflation. Beyond a few weeks, the future of gas prices is less certain. “There are still risks out there,” said Rachel Ziemba, an energy expert at the Center for a New American Security. The European Commission proposed rationing natural gas this week.Janos Kummer/Getty Images Among them: More atrocities in Ukraine could further push Europe to stop buying Russian oil and gas. Russia could retaliate against Western sanctions by withholding its shipments, tightening worldwide supply again. Climate change continues to make oil and gas companies cautious about boosting production too much. China’s economy could improve and increase demand, particularly if Covid restrictions ease. But for now, falling gas prices are one bit of good news during a summer marred by headlines about inflation, war, heat waves and rising Covid cases. For more Germany is racing to secure gas supplies before winter and a possible Russian cutoff. Americans have made lifestyle changes, such as car-pooling and biking to work, to avoid high gas prices. Some have also started driving less, which could slow down the economy. The European Central Bank raised interest rates for the first time in more than a decade. THE LATEST NEWS Jan. 6 The Jan. 6 committee showed how Donald Trump refused for hours to take any action to stop the Capitol attack, dismissing pleas from White House officials. Witnesses testified that as the mob stormed the Capitol, members of Mike Pence’s security detail contacted family members to say goodbye. In outtakes from a video address the day after the riot, Trump refused to say that the election was over. Last night’s hearing was the last of the summer, but the committee said it would continue its investigation. The Virus President Biden on Wednesday, a day before testing positive.Doug Mills/The New York Times Biden has Covid. The White House says he’s experiencing mild symptoms. Biden, 79, got his second booster in late March and is taking the antiviral Paxlovid. War in Ukraine Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region yesterday.Gleb Garanich/Reuters Turkey says there’s a deal between Ukraine and Russia to allow the export of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain. Ukraine says recent strikes on Russian targets, using long-range weapons from the West, prove that it can still win. Other Big Stories The House passed a bill protecting the right to contraception. It’s unlikely to pass in the Senate. A man with a pointed weapon attacked Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for New York governor, at a campaign event. Zeldin wasn’t injured. California is set to enact a law that would target illegal gun sellers using the bounty system of Texas’ abortion ban. A former Minneapolis police officer who held down George Floyd’s legs was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Amazon is acquiring One Medical, a chain of primary care clinics. An An, the oldest giant male panda in captivity, died at 35 — 105 in human years. Opinions To understand the fall of Roe, look at the Supreme Court’s embrace of religious doctrine, Linda Greenhouse writes. David Brooks asks: Is life a story or a game? Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Nancy Cardwell and Luis Gallardo practice the tango.Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times It’s never too late: to learn the tango and fall in love. Survival plan: He thought he had built the safest house in Kentucky. Tragedy found him anyway. Big City: Maybe we don’t need 15-minute grocery deliveries after all. Modern Love: A single Muslim woman in her late 20s had never experienced physical intimacy. Advice from Wirecutter: How to delete your tweets — and why you should. Lives Lived: Werner Reich was a frightened 16-year-old prisoner at Auschwitz when a fellow inmate, a magician, taught him a card trick. It changed his life. He died at 94. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Kyler Murray gets his deal: The Arizona Cardinals quarterback had been clear he desired a new contract, and yesterday the team obliged with a five-year, $230.5 million deal ($160 million guaranteed). It’s the second-highest average annual value ($46.1 million) in N.F.L. history. Paul Goldschmidt’s quiet ascension: The Cardinals slugger is the overwhelming favorite for National League M.V.P., though you’d never know it judging by the headlines. His teammates call him a “robot.” Why are the “Three True Outcomes” down? Home runs, walks and strikeouts are all down across baseball. Ken Rosenthal and Eno Sarris dig into the trend that has league executives baffled. ARTS AND IDEAS Daniel Kaluuya, Jordan Peele, Keke Palmer and Brandon Perea at the “Nope” premiere.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A must-see director “Nope,” in theaters today, is one of the summer’s feverishly anticipated movies. That’s because the film’s director, Jordan Peele, has become Hollywood’s best bet for a good time. This is Peele’s third film, after “Us” and the politically pointed “Get Out,” which satirized post-Obama race relations to nightmarish effect. As A.A. Dowd writes at The Ringer, audiences associate Peele’s name with mind-bending thrillers, much as they did with M. Night Shyamalan in the early 2000s. “What really links the two,” Dowd writes, is “an affinity for the place where horror, science fiction, and drama intersect.” The Times review: Does “Nope” live up to the hype, our critic asks? Yup. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Ryan Liebe for The New York Times Salt and pepper tofu is crispy on the outside and pillowy on the inside. What to Read Riku Onda is a fixture of Japanese suspense literature. Her novel “Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight” is a dreamy psychological thriller. What to Watch “The Gray Man,” a big-budget action film starring Ryan Gosling, has “a screenplay that is an assault of amusement.” Late Night Stephen Colbert went live after last night’s Jan. 6 hearing. Take the News Quiz How well did you keep up with the headlines this week? Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was optimal. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Swine (four 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. Scott Blumenthal, an editor who has worked on our weekly news quiz, is leaving The Times to explore a career as a chaplain. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the Great Salt Lake. “The Ezra Klein Show” examines America’s struggle to address its mental health crisis. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 23, 2022 Author Members Posted July 23, 2022 July 23, 2022 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. When it’s more comfortable inside than out, it’s time to play games. Allie Sullberg Game plan A colleague recently drew my attention to a story that ran in The Times a couple of years ago about the late 1960s board game Group Therapy, in which players take turns drawing cards that pose intimate questions and psychological challenges. (A sample: “You have been accused of overintellectualizing your hang-ups. Respond — without falling victim to that criticism.”) The story’s author, Juli Weiner, insists that the game is great fun, that any awkwardness is paradoxically dissipated by the fact that every single thing about the game is awkward, and therefore nothing about it is. There are only hiccups, she argues, “when someone refuses to grant themselves permission to be awkward — the psychological equivalent of being the only person in the sauna clinging to the towel.” This is my kind of good time. As a child, I loved the board game Scruples and “The Book of Questions,” social experiments masquerading as parlor games. As an adult, I find corporate icebreakers mildly thrilling — What’s your favorite cereal? What was your first job? — anything that gives people permission to bypass small talk and talk about themselves. I’m thinking about games because it’s been too hot for picnics, for long walks and bike rides, for the usual summer pastimes. Group Therapy and its ilk may be too emotionally heavy for family game night, but, as many found during the early months of the pandemic, you don’t need much to create hours of diversion. When it’s more comfortable inside than out, when you’ve streamed all there is to stream, try a game of Charades or Celebrity, low-tech entertainment requiring just your wits and a few rules. Perhaps a talky party game like Scattergories or Taboo? Or go old-school: Monopoly. Uno. A deck of playing cards. For solitary pursuits, The Times has a bunch of good games that I swear I’d recommend to you even if I didn’t work here. I’m partial to the crossword (I’m part of the team that tests them before publication), but most people I know are Spelling Bee addicts. The weekly news quiz, written by my colleagues at The Morning, is a nerdy delight. (And the internet sensation Wordle will soon be a board game.) While it seems like, everywhere you turn, normal behavior is being exhaustingly gamified (see: Waze, exercise trackers), there’s still pleasure to be found in inventing games out of thin air as the inspiration arises. As any kid who has ever been dared to make the bed in under three minutes can attest, a challenge makes things interesting. What are your favorite games? Tell me about them. For more How much do you know about graphic memoirs? Play Lit Trivia. Can you bring hummus on a plane? Test your knowledge of the T.S.A.’s carry-on rules. From Wirecutter, “The Best Two-Player Board Games.” These pricey board games double as art, The Wall Street Journal found. Counterpoint: “Board Games Feel Like Existential Punishment.” THE WEEK IN CULTURE Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Jennifer Lopez revealed her marriage to Ben Affleck in an installment of the art of being J. Lo. Times journalists discussed it. Claes Oldenburg revolutionized our idea of public monuments. He died this week at 93. A spate of books, TV shows and films suggests we’ve never looked so delicious — to one another. The Kennedy Center will honor Gladys Knight and George Clooney during its 45th ceremony in December. Michelle Obama will publish a new book, “The Light We Carry.” Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam’s lead singer, said smoke from the wildfires in Europe had damaged his throat. The band canceled its show in Vienna. Thirty years later, Robin Givens’s role in “Boomerang” deserves reconsideration, Salamishah Tillet argues. A new exhibit in Manhattan documents the cultural shift of the early 1960s. The future of summertime classical music at Lincoln Center is hazy. The choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar was awarded the Gish Prize; organizers cited her trailblazing work. Staff members of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” won’t be prosecuted on charges of unlawfully entering the U.S. Capitol. Dana Canedy, the first Black woman to serve as publisher of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint, left her position. HarperCollins workers went on strike for a day. The leading Quidditch organizations renamed the sport quadball, citing a wish to “distance themselves” from J.K. Rowling. THE LATEST NEWS Wheat stored at a farm in Ukraine.Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times Explosions rocked the Ukrainian port city of Odesa less than 24 hours after Russia agreed to a deal that would unblock grain shipments by sea. The U.S. government is struggling to help Americans displaced by floods and other disasters. President Biden has embraced the promotion of lower gas prices to try to win voters’ approval. Republicans are intensifying attacks on gay and transgender rights. The former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee. The Justice Department is investigating Houston’s failure to address rampant garbage dumping and other environmental problems in minority neighborhoods. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. CULTURE CALENDAR By Gilbert Cruz Culture Editor ? “The Last Movie Stars” (streaming on HBO Max): While another documentary about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward might have focused on their acting careers and their half-century marriage, this six-part series, directed by Ethan Hawke, adds a unique spin. During the height of the pandemic, Hawke gathered Hollywood pals (George Clooney, Laura Linney, Sam Rockwell, Zoe Kazan …) on Zoom to read from decades-old transcripts of interviews for a scrapped Newman memoir. The resulting film is a fascinating look at stardom, marriage and artistic legacy. ? “The Daughter of Dr. Moreau” (out now): Many of us have experienced that wonderful moment of discovering an author and wanting to follow along wherever they go. That’s how I felt after reading the eerie novel “Mexican Gothic” by the genre-hopping writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Her imagination “is a thing of wonder,” The Times’s horror columnist, Danielle Trussoni, wrote. That remains true in her new book, a reimagining of the H.G. Wells science-fiction classic. ? “Renaissance” (Friday): Perhaps you’ve heard that Beyoncé has a new album on the way. This is her first solo studio album since the 2016 instant classic “Lemonade.” One track here is titled “Plastic Off the Sofa,” which is a thing my grandmother would never have approved of. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Bryan Gardner for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Heirloom Tomato Tart In the midst of a heat wave, turning on the oven to bake anything — even Vallery Lomas’s gorgeous heirloom tomato tart — might be an absolutely terrifying idea. But not if you have a large-ish toaster oven, which can get the job done without overheating your kitchen. So I made one this week with some store-bought pesto and the first heirloom tomatoes of the season. I took a tip from commenters and salted the tomatoes as they drained. Not only does this season them through and through, it also helps draw out the moisture, resulting in a firmer, easier-to-slice tart. Then I savored it with a crisp salad and a cold beverage — all without ever breaking a sweat. Or, if cooking anything is just out of the question, we’ve got loads of no-cook recipes to get you through these next few fiery days. A selection of New York Times recipes is available to all readers. Please consider a Cooking subscription for full access. REAL ESTATE A Spanish Colonial Revival house in Richmond, Va.Mick Anders What you get for $1.8 million: An 1838 cottage in East Hampton, N.Y.; a bungalow in Miami Shores, Fla.; or a house in Richmond, Va. The hunt: She had a $700,000 budget and wanted to live in Brooklyn. Which home did she choose? Play our game. Have a seat: Conversation pits are back. Working near home: Apartment buildings are offering co-working spaces as amenities. LIVING Maggie Shannon for The New York Times Sunscreen: Answers to all your burning questions. Great values: 20 summer wines under $20. National parks: Five hidden gems. Beach coolers: How to pack for a picnic in the sand. Travel sights: What you see on a long-haul U.S. train route. GAME OF THE WEEKEND Julio Rodríguez.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press Houston Astros vs. Seattle Mariners, M.L.B.: The Mariners haven’t made the playoffs in 20 seasons, the longest drought in baseball. But this season is starting to feel special. Going into this week’s All-Star break, the Mariners had won 14 straight games. Then, in the Home Run Derby, their star rookie, Julio Rodríguez, smashed more than 60 homers in the first two rounds. Will he help break a streak that’s nearly as old as he is? Today at 4 p.m. on FS1. For more: Rodríguez’s constant drive to improve includes perfecting English. The Times looked at the uncanny success of Justin Verlander, the Astros ace who is nearing 40 but still at the top of his game. NOW TIME TO PLAY The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were electing, eliciting, intelligence, neglecting and telegenic. 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 … For a transporting read, try “Miss Aluminum,” Susanna Moore’s memoir of her glamorous and troubled life in Los Angeles in the 1960s and ’70s. Hit the space bar for puppies. Here’s Beabadoobee’s latest, “Sunny Day.” Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 24, 2022 Author Members Posted July 24, 2022 July 24, 2022 By German Lopez Writer, The Morning Good morning. Today, we explain what led to Sri Lanka’s recent protests. Protesters overtaking the prime minister’s office in Colombo, Sri Lanka.Atul Loke for The New York Times Storming the palace Sri Lanka’s recent upheaval offers an extreme example of the world’s recent problems. Covid disrupted the country’s major industries, particularly tourism, and then leaders failed to adapt — setting off a chain of economic calamities, including food and fuel shortages. The crisis prompted protests, culminating in the president’s resignation and the installation of a new president on Wednesday. My colleague Emily Schmall has been reporting on Sri Lanka. I spoke to her about the country’s crisis. What led Sri Lanka to this point? For the past six months or so, economic conditions for everyday Sri Lankans have grown increasingly difficult. Things like fuel and cooking gas became increasingly expensive and hard to find, and inflation soared. New government import bans meant goods from overseas like chocolate and coffee beans disappeared. In Sri Lanka, there’s a sizable middle class. People are not used to scarcity, so they noticed immediately when things started disappearing from shelves. People were upset about that. And the ability to carry on became all but impossible in the last month or so. Eventually, protesters took over the presidential palace. How did that happen? It began with the protesters marching toward the president’s mansion on July 9. Government officials tear-gassed them and fired live rounds around them. This infuriated people. A few commandeered a military truck and used it to break down the gate. Hundreds of people then flooded in and found this place essentially abandoned — the president had fled, and there was nobody stopping them from going inside. Then, they did the same at Temple Trees, the prime minister’s official residence. But the protesters didn’t ransack the place. They started inviting the public to come in, but in an orderly fashion. Activists were forcing people to queue properly. They treated these homes like museums. They were concerned about not damaging any property. After about 24 hours, a gleefulness overtook the place, and some people swam in the president’s pool. They’d done it: They had forced this extremely powerful president — who was accused of war crimes, who was feared — to leave his own home and even the country. But they did it peacefully, without taking up arms. So it was an atmosphere of joy and disbelief, with a bit of absurdity and a bit of comedy thrown in — a very Sri Lankan sort of revolution, relatively low-key and polite. I can’t help but compare this to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. This seemed much more peaceful. Oh, yeah. I couldn’t help thinking of it either. There were several differences. For one, these people were not armed. It was also a bit spontaneous, and there was no clear leader. They did not do it in association with any politician or political party. But the big difference was that these protesters had widespread support. Ordinary Sri Lankans were applauding them and even participating. People who would otherwise never be involved in activism or protests were happily wandering around the properties, enjoying themselves and basking in the success of this movement. In the U.S., we’ve had inflation and supply shortages recently. But this sounds like a whole different level of problems. Yes. So in the U.S., Americans have complained about fuel prices. By contrast, Sri Lanka ran out of fuel. It’s not just that it was expensive; it was impossible to find. A line for fuel in Sri Lanka in May. Atul Loke for The New York Times How did the government react? Until several months in, there was really no government recognition of the crisis. The dynast Gotabaya Rajapaksa was leading the administration at the time, and he had appointed his brothers and his nephew to his cabinet. He didn’t take a lot of counsel from outside his family. There was a lot of denialism among them. They were told repeatedly that the economy was deteriorating. But they were certain tourism would continue to increase after Covid and that would be enough to shore up finances. But that didn’t happen; tourism was starting to come back, but it wasn’t enough. I was surprised that so much of the country was run by this one family. Is that unusual in Sri Lankan history? It was strange even for Sri Lanka. There are a number of families in politics. Rajapaksa was defense secretary when his brother was president from 2005 to 2015. But this administration was an extremely brazen example. The Sri Lankan government increasingly looked like a family business. And it was run that way: a lot of secrecy, not much transparency, not many outsiders. The family tried to benefit from the policies the government was imposing. Does the new government have the people’s trust? Protesters are not happy with Ranil Wickremesinghe, the new president. They feel that his takeover reaffirms the Rajapaksas’ influence because he represents the establishment and because he appointed a friend of the Rajapaksa family as his prime minister. What’s next for Sri Lanka? In the short term, we probably will see continued turmoil. But people are invested in ensuring Sri Lanka doesn’t fall again into this situation where it’s teetering on autocracy, where there’s little transparency and where the will of the people is ignored. So it’s mostly a positive story. More on Emily Schmall: She grew up in DeKalb, Ill., and once had a job detasseling corn. She decided to become a journalist in high school. She began her career at The Miami Herald in 2005 and joined the New Delhi bureau at The Times in 2020. Related: Amid the chaos, Sri Lankans found refuge in cricket. NEWS Health People in line to receive the monkeypox vaccine in San Francisco last week.Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Associated Press The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global emergency, a designation requiring an international response. Here’s how to get tested, vaccinated and treated for monkeypox. The overturning of Roe v. Wade set up wrenching choices for pregnant women who have had cancer diagnosed. Politics The Georgia prosecutor investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election loss has accelerated her case in recent weeks. Trump allies have sought to undermine the women who have testified against him. A man suspected in an attack on Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for New York governor, was arrested on a federal assault charge. Other Big Stories Destruction near the steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine.Pavel Klimov/Reuters “On the verge of madness”: The 80-day siege at a steel plant in Ukraine brought misery and death on both sides. As the gunman in the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school massacre awaits sentencing, a victim’s parents considered whether they supported the death penalty. A wildfire in California destroyed 10 structures and threatened thousands more. FROM OPINION Ron DeSantis is exposing the limits of Donald Trump’s strategy, Ross Douthat writes. Self-censorship is taking root in publishing, Pamela Paul argues. Russ Roberts explains how to make a decision when there’s no “right” one. The Sunday question: Is the Justice Department doing enough to hold Donald Trump accountable for the Jan. 6 riots? While the department has been silent so far about whether officials view Trump as criminally liable, a failure to act could damage the public’s confidence in law enforcement, Quinta Jurecic and Natalie K. Orpett of Lawfare argue. But critics are wrong to rush the work of prosecutors, who have a higher burden of proof than the House committee investigating the attack, Harry Litman writes in The Los Angeles Times. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Jordi Ruiz Cirera for The New York Times Urban landscape: Mexico City’s colorful street stalls. Heat wave: How to sleep better when it’s hot. Sunday routine: A resident of a Jersey Shore tent colony starts her day with a sunrise walk to the beach. Pilates: Is the workout as good as everyone says? Advice from Wirecutter: Before you spring for an expensive outdoor movie screen, consider a simple white bedsheet. A Times classic: Three tips for better conversations. BOOKS “Lore Olympus,” by Rachel Smythe, is a retelling of Greek myth.Rachel Smythe/Webtoon New readers: Web comics are attracting a fresh audience of young women. By the Book: Ruth Ware doesn’t think you need to finish her books if you don’t want to. Our editors’ picks: “Circus of Dreams,” a former editor’s tales of the 1980s London literary scene, and 12 other books. Times best sellers: “The 6:20 Man,” the latest thriller by David Baldacci, debuts as the No. 1 hardcover fiction best seller. See all our lists here. The Book Review podcast: CJ Hauser talks about her new essay collection, “The Crane Wife.” THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE A pro-Trump demonstration outside the Pennsylvania Capitol on Nov. 7, 2020.Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York Times On the cover: How “stop the steal” captured the American right. Recommendation: Deafness can bring a community and an escape. “I consider myself fortunate to have been given this ability to turn off the sound.” Judge John Hodgman: Two friends can’t agree on brunch. Eat: Chocolate cake for the queen of A.S.M.R. eating. Tip: How to say goodbye. Read the full issue. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For Dangerous levels of heat are expected to continue in the South early this week. Tunisians will vote tomorrow on a new constitution that critics say would move the country further toward autocracy. European energy ministers will meet on Tuesday to discuss a planned reduction in gas use. Congressional leaders said they were aiming to vote this week on a bill to bolster American semiconductor manufacturing. The Federal Reserve is expected to significantly raise interest rates at its meeting this week. On Thursday, the government will release data revealing whether the U.S. economy shrank for a second consecutive quarter — typically the marker of a recession. A law banning nearly all abortions in North Dakota is set to go into effect on Thursday. The track and field world championships finish today. Follow our updates. What to Cook This Week Bobbi Lin for The New York Times It’s too hot to cook. Emily Weinstein’s solution: dinnertime salads, including corn salad with tomatoes, basil and cilantro; pasta salad; and tuna salad with hot and sweet peppers. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword: 121 Across: Split, then come together? 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. — German Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 25, 2022 Author Members Posted July 25, 2022 July 25, 2022 By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. The political fight over abortion will increasingly be a battle over the mailing of pills into Republican-run states. Misoprostol, used to terminate early pregnancies.George Frey/Reuters By land, sea or air With Roe v. Wade overturned, many of the most intense battles over abortion access will involve the mailing of pills into Republican-run states. Some pregnant women in these states will travel to states where abortion remains legal. But travel can be expensive and time-consuming, making it especially difficult for lower-income workers. That’s why both sides of the abortion issue are now gearing up for an extended fight over what’s known as medication abortion — and specifically over whether women who live in red states will be able to order abortion pills through the mail, even if it’s illegal. Abortion rights advocates are hoping to protect mail services from legal challenges and trying to spread the word that medication abortion is both safe and effective. Abortion opponents are thinking about how to prevent the mail from becoming a loophole that undermines their newly created bans. Today’s newsletter looks at three different realms where this issue is likely to play out. 1. Aid Access In 2018, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician, founded a group called Aid Access to help women in countries where abortion is illegal order pills through the mail. With many American states now outlawing abortion, Aid Access has a new relevance in the U.S.: After Texas enacted a strict abortion law last year, for example, Aid Access experienced a surge of requests from Texas. To receive pills, women contact a European doctor through Aid Access’s website. Then, a doctor will often fill the prescription using a pharmacy in India, which will send the pills by mail. They typically arrive in one to three weeks and can be taken safely up to the 12th week of pregnancy. Ordering the pills through Aid Access costs about $110, with discounts available to poorer women. Gomperts told us that she believes Aid Access was not in legal jeopardy because it follows the laws in Austria, where it is based. “I practice according to the law and to all the medical ethical guidelines,” she said. Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of Aid Access.Remko De Waal/EPA, via Shutterstock Both pro-choice and pro-life advocates agree that cracking down on the mailing of abortion pills is difficult. “This is a tough problem,” James Bopp, the top lawyer for the National Right to Life Committee, said. Elisabeth Smith of the Center for Reproductive Rights said, “Even the federal government does not have enforcement power against an entity that is wholly outside of the U.S.” But Smith added that the situation might be different for women who take the pills: They could be in legal jeopardy in some states. Texas, for example, requires a woman seeking an abortion to visit a clinic twice — partly to restrict the use of pills. A woman who took abortion pills in Texas would be violating that law, and Smith and some other experts believe that prosecutors might bring such a case, especially in the rare instances when women had complications that required a doctor’s care. One question is how law enforcement officials will try to stop the delivery of pills in a majority of cases. Pharmacies, of course, do not label their packages as containing abortion pills. (For the back story to Aid Access: Gomperts has been trying to make abortion accessible for more than two decades, and Emily Bazelon profiled her in The Times Magazine in 2014.) 2. Overseas pharmacies Some overseas pharmacies also ship abortion pills even without a prescription from a doctor. They typically sell generic versions of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol that have been produced in India. Plan C, a group that helps women looking to obtain pills by mail, has published lists of pharmacies whose pills the group considers reliable. “We had them analyzed in the lab and they were the real thing,” Elisa Wells, Plan C’s co-founder, told us. The pills typically cost $200 to $500. Taking a medication without help from a nurse or a doctor is obviously not an ideal situation, but some women may decide that they have no other option. Plan C also publishes medical and legal information about the pills, and a group called M+A operates a telephone hotline for questions about self-managed abortions or miscarriages. As with pills obtained through Aid Access, women in some states may face legal risks from using an overseas pharmacy. Three states — Oklahoma, Nevada and South Carolina — have laws against self-managed abortion, Wells noted. 3. Mail forwarding A third option involves getting a mailbox in a state where abortion is legal and working online with a medical provider in that state. The provider can send the pills to the mailbox, and the company that operates the mailbox can then forward them to a woman’s home in a state where abortion is banned. This process involves multiple steps. Still, Wells said, it is among the cheapest, most convenient option for many women. It also involves some of the same legal vulnerabilities as the other options here. Bopp, the anti-abortion advocate, said that he hoped the federal government would ultimately find ways to crack down on the mailing of abortion pills from one state to another. But it will not happen so long as President Biden is in office, he added. (This Times Opinion video explains how a Texas woman used the mailbox approach. It meant that she did not have to take time off work, and she could induce the abortion in the privacy of her home.) The bottom line More than half of legal abortions in the U.S. are already conducted using pills, up from virtually none in 2000. The share is almost certain to keep rising, and a substantial number of illegal pill-based abortions also seem likely in Republican-run states. Increasingly, the future of abortion — and the political struggle over it — will revolve around medication abortion. Related stories: Kansas will vote on abortion next week. And in some states where abortion remains legal, wait times have recently grown, because of women traveling from states where it is now illegal. THE LATEST NEWS Climate Cooling off in the Bronx yesterday.Gabby Jones for The New York Times A prolonged heat wave in the Northeast: Yesterday was the fifth straight day of triple-digit temperatures in Newark. The heat is expected to ease in the Northeast but intensify in the Pacific Northwest this week. Much of the South will continue to swelter, as this tracker shows. Here’s how to keep your pets safe. Politics Beto O’Rourke in Texas in June.Montinique Monroe for The New York Times Polls show a tightening in the Texas governor’s race between Greg Abbott, the incumbent, and Beto O’Rourke, his Democratic challenger. Conservative activists who deny the 2020 vote are recruiting sheriffs to their cause, unnerving election officials. As the Jan. 6 committee’s evidence piled up, many conservative media personalities continued to push a more sanitized narrative. Other Big Stories Peatlands in Équateur Province, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times “Our priority is not to save the planet”: Congo is auctioning off peatlands and rainforests to oil companies. Myanmar’s military put to death four pro-democracy activists, the country’s first executions in more than 30 years. China launched a 23-ton space rocket. Nobody knows where its debris will fall. “Parentese”: Adults around the world speak to babies in similar ways. Jonas Vingegaard, a 25-year-old Danish rider, won his first Tour de France, three years after turning pro. Opinions Too many New Yorkers can’t swim. It’s time to change that, Mara Gay writes. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss heat and politics. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Valerie Woo and her detector dog, Phillip.Shuran Huang for The New York Times Beagle brigade: Floppy-eared agents sniff out diseases and pests. New York City: He runs a real estate empire. Did he steal it? Travel Quiz: A sewing machine, handcuffs, hummus. Do you know what you can take on a plane? Metropolitan Diary: She tasted independence at the 1964 World’s Fair. A Times classic: Easy ways to cut down on junk mail. Lives Lived: Bob Rafelson was an iconoclastic director who was a central figure of the New Hollywood movement. He died at 89. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Shohei Ohtani on the trade block? The price will be high, Ken Rosenthal writes, but not impossible to meet. The Aug. 2 trade deadline should be most dramatic, with stars like Ohtani, Juan Soto and even Mike Trout in discussions to move. NASCAR drama: Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch finished first and second in yesterday’s race — until their cars failed inspection afterward. Hamlin is the first Cup Series driver to be stripped of a win in the modern era. Ortiz goes into Hall: Red Sox legend David Ortiz was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday, the most notable member of a seven-man class. Steve Buckley argues he’s already something more: the face of the storied franchise. ARTS AND IDEAS Chicago: Hot dog town A proper Chicago dog is an all-beef frankfurter in a poppy seed bun with yellow mustard, sweet pickle relish, chopped white onion, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, pickled sport peppers and celery salt. “A source of civic pride, the Chicago-style hot dog is a nexus for many people’s relationship to a city they so adore,” Eric Kim writes. What is it that makes these dogs stand out? The number of toppings plays a role. But the biggest difference may be the lack of an ingredient: ketchup. “We don’t turn anyone away that wants ketchup on their hot dog,” Jeff Greenfield, the owner of Redhot Ranch, told The Times. “But usually we try to limit it to children 12 years and under.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Dane Tashima for The New York Times Don’t skip the celery salt on your Chicago dogs, its herbal lightness makes them shine. Profiles The Grammy nominated singer Maggie Rogers went to Divinity School. “I wanted to build a framework for myself, for how to keep art sacred,” she said. What to Read Here are six new paperbacks that Times editors recommend. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were nighttime and theming. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: French school (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. Clyde McGrady is joining The Times from The Washington Post, where he wrote about race, culture and politics. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about crypto. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 26, 2022 Author Members Posted July 26, 2022 July 26, 2022 By German Lopez Good morning. The debate over inflation often treats it as a uniquely American problem. It’s not. A food market in Warsaw.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times Worldwide problems Inflation has dominated the news about America’s economy in recent months as prices for food, gas and other goods have increased faster than they have in four decades. But inflation is a global phenomenon right now — and the U.S. has actually fared better than other countries in recent months. In June, consumer prices in the U.S. increased 9.1 percent over the previous year; they increased 9.6 percent across the E.U. in the same time period. Chart showing annual change in Consumer Price Index each month up to June 2022. | Source: O.E.C.D. Much of the public discussion about inflation in the U.S. has focused on domestic problems, particularly President Biden’s policies. Critics argue that the American Rescue Plan, the pandemic relief bill that Biden signed into law 16 months ago, has supercharged consumer demand by sending $1.9 trillion to Americans, state governments and other programs. As higher demand has chased limited supplies of goods, prices have soared. The law has certainly played a role in increased inflation, economists say. But the global trends suggest that focusing solely on the U.S.’s role misses a big part of the story — how external forces have driven up prices, too. In today’s newsletter, I want to look at the main causes of inflation and why they might be difficult to fix. Common causes The big factors that drove up inflation in the U.S. also affected the rest of the world: the disruption of supply chains by both the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and soaring consumer demand for goods. But increasing inflation has played out differently in different countries, said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University. The U.S.’s earlier, bigger price spike had different causes than Europe’s more recent increase. (Countries differ in how they calculate price changes, but economists still find comparisons of the available data useful.) In the U.S., demand has played a bigger role in inflation than it has elsewhere. That is likely a result of not just the American Rescue Plan but also economic relief measures enacted by Donald Trump. Altogether, the U.S. spent more to prevent economic catastrophe during the pandemic than most of the world did. That led to a stronger recovery, but also to greater inflation. In Europe, supply has played a bigger role. The five-month-old war in Ukraine was a more direct shock to Europe than it was to the rest of the world, because it pushed the continent to try to end its reliance on Russian oil and gas. That prompted Europe’s recent jump in inflation. “The U.S. is trying to cool down an overheating economy,” my colleague Eshe Nelson, who covers economics from London, told me. “That is just not the situation in Europe.” What to do Some of the causes of inflation are in policymakers’ control. Governments can reduce their own spending to reduce demand. Central banks can raise interest rates to increase the cost of borrowing money and, as a result, push down demand — as they have started to do in the U.S. and Europe. In the longer term, investments into, say, clean energy and housing can limit the impact of future supply crunches. But other causes are outside policymakers’ control. The European Central Bank, which sets policy for 19 of 27 E.U. countries, has acknowledged it can only do so much to fight inflation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The war is obviously something no central bank can do anything about,” Eshe said. The same is largely true for the trajectory of the pandemic, which now mainly depends on the evolution of new variants. All of that puts policymakers in a bind: They can address part of the inflation problem, but not all of it. That will limit how much policy can bring down price increases in the coming months. Related The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting today and is expected to announce another big interest-rate increase. Is the U.S. in a recession? It’s hard to say. Prices are soaring in Ukraine, adding economic havoc to the war’s human toll. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Two aides to Mike Pence testified in the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation. The inquiry could lead to criminal charges against Trump. U.S. officials are concerned about China’s statements on Taiwan. They fear that Beijing might try to move against the island. Most candidates linked to QAnon have lost their primaries, but their ideas are reaching the Republican mainstream. About 300,000 monkeypox vaccine doses sat abroad as the outbreak spread in New York. The federal government waited weeks to ship them to the U.S. Other Big Stories Pope Francis meeting with Indigenous leaders in Maskwacis, Alberta, yesterday.Ian Willms for The New York Times In Canada, the pope apologized for the church-run residential schools where Indigenous children were long abused. Firefighters made progress slowing a wildfire near Yosemite National Park. Kyiv’s nightlife is coming back as young people crave contact, but revelers reckon with guilt — and a curfew. A Manhattan judge exonerated a forgotten sixth defendant in the case of the Central Park Five, who were wrongly convicted in a 1989 rape. A Brooklyn bishop and his wife were robbed of more than $1 million in jewelry during a live-streamed sermon. Joni Mitchell played her first full set in about two decades in a surprise performance at the Newport Folk Festival. Opinions Jack Powers spent two decades in solitary confinement. A documentary by Pete Quandt follows him on his first day of freedom. When medicine — like painkillers or abortion care — is criminalized, patients suffer, Maia Szalavitz writes. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS David Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s son.Elias Williams for The New York Times Jackie Robinson: New York’s new museum is about more than baseball. Unusually fast: Five runners set personal records in a single heat. Was it too good to be true? The conversation pit: Sit down, let’s talk. Dino debate: Was T. rex one species, or three? Advice from Wirecutter: Incognito mode isn’t as incognito as you think. Lives Lived: Paul Sorvino played calm but dangerous men, most notably in “Goodfellas.” He was also a trained tenor, singing on Broadway and in the New York City Opera. Sorvino died at 83. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Kyler Murray’s homework: A clause in the quarterback’s new contract with the Cardinals caused a stir yesterday — he must complete “independent study” in his free time, or the contract could default. Durant to Boston? The Celtics have offered Jaylen Brown in a possible Kevin Durant swap, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reports. It would be a seismic move in the Eastern Conference. The Celtics aren’t the only ones trying to pry Durant out of Brooklyn, though. The magic of a random day: Christopher Kamrani and Jayson Jenks picked a date at random — July 25, 2001 — and decided to report on it. They found amazing stories in what otherwise seemed like a normal day. ARTS AND IDEAS Will Malitek at Film Noir in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.Isaiah Winters for The New York Times New York’s last movie clerk If you’re looking for an obscure film, Will Malitek can help. He is the last movie rental clerk in New York. His shop, Film Noir Cinema, started in 2005 as a walk-in closet of DVDs and has grown into a spacious den of films and memorabilia attached to a 54-seat cinema. Screenings at Film Noir are shrouded in mystery, sometimes offering only a brief description of the night’s theme. Malitek’s taste guides the selections, and don’t expect Hollywood blockbusters. “I am trying to keep it as old school as possible,” he told The Times, “so when people are here they feel like they’re in a different world.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Tara Donne for The New York Times Bake pizza dough directly on the grates of a grill until it’s bubbly and crisp. Theater With age-blind casting at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, two actors who have been married for 38 years play Romeo and Juliet. What to Read The bulk of the poet Robert Lowell’s “Memoirs” has never been published. Late Night Seth Meyers mocked Trump’s speeches. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were machine and mechanic. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Scrabble play (four 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. On this day in 1987, French explorers recovered the first objects from the wreck of the Titanic: dishes. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about gay marriage. On “The Ezra Klein Show,” a discussion of democracy as a theory of communications. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 27, 2022 Author Members Posted July 27, 2022 July 27, 2022 Continue reading the main story SUPPORTED BY By David Leonhardt Good morning. Digital media is changing language — sometimes rapidly. We explore the example of American Sign Language. The newer sign for “privilege.”Mohamed Sadek and Ege Soyuer for The New York Times Strangers on a train On a train ride from New York to Connecticut last fall, my colleague Amanda Morris and her mother were having a conversation in American Sign Language. A man sitting near them saw them signing to each other and decided to join their conversation. Like Amanda, he was a child of deaf adults who grew up using ASL at home and speaking English elsewhere. And he noticed a trait of Amanda’s: She signed like somebody who was much older than she was. He began gently teasing her about it, saying she was using signs that had fallen out of fashion. He had gone through a similar experience, he said, when he went through training to become an interpreter. During that training, he learned that some of his signs — ones he had learned from his parents — were out of date. The experience inspired Amanda, who is hard of hearing, to take an ASL class, and she noticed the same pattern. “I saw a lot of differences between how my young Deaf teacher signed and how my parents sign,” she told me. In those differences, Amanda recognized that there was a story to tell, and The Times has just published it. The article documents the changes sweeping across ASL. Many are the result of the spread of smartphones and video, which have led to a flowering of ASL conversations, many of them remote. “In the past, ASL was changing in a more face-to-face way,” Amanda said. “Now a word can spread like wildfire on TikTok, and it never could have happened before.” Changing signs for “phone.”Mohamed Sadek and Ege Soyuer for The New York Times From cross to boot An old sign for computer, to take one example, involved large circular motions to evoke the magnetic tapes that once stored data; a new sign combines the letter C with a small circular motion that’s a throwback to the old sign. As is often the case, the new sign is more compact — and thus fully visible on a phone’s tight video shot. Other changes are attempts to make ASL more inclusive and accurate. An old sign for Italy included a cross, but many Italians are now secular; a new sign traces the squiggly outline of Italy’s shape, the famous boot. An old sign for bisexual seemed to imply polygamy; a new sign is simply the letters B and I. An old sign for diversity included a zigzag that suggested inequality; a new sign conjures colors, differences and a large group of people. Change is obviously a part of every language. Merriam-Webster has added hundreds of new entries to its English dictionary in recent years, including super-spreader, horchata, woke and dad bod. But ASL does have a couple of qualities that can cause change to happen rapidly. Most ASL users, unlike Amanda, did not learn the language from their parents. (More than 90 percent of deaf people have hearing parents.) People instead tend to learn the language through classes and their peers. School curriculums and slang can both change more quickly than language habits handed down from one generation to the next. The number of ASL speakers is also relatively small, Amanda notes — with 500,000 being a common estimate. This smallness can contribute to faster change. As in other languages, though, the changes are often matters of debate. MJ Bienvenu, a retired Deaf studies professor in Austin, Texas, said that she found many of the new signs nonsensical. “I feel like many people don’t realize that they bastardize ASL, and it harms more than it helps,” Bienvenu told Amanda. As for Amanda’s mother, she is taking the changes on a case-by-case basis. When Amanda told her yesterday that the article inspired by their train ride was about to be published, her mother said that she planned to switch to some of the new signs, but not all of them. Read the article — and learn about the changes to the signs for dog, phone, parents and privilege. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM Cisco The Future of Work Made Secure Discover how Cisco technologies can enable you to have a secure, strong network no matter where you’re located. The future of work is now. Learn More THE LATEST NEWS Politics Donald Trump and Mike Pence were less than a mile apart yesterday.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times; Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock Donald Trump and Mike Pence, potential rivals in the 2024 presidential race, gave competing speeches to conservative audiences in Washington. Emails between Trump aides and advisers offer a look into the haphazard plan to reverse the 2020 election using fake electors. The Justice Department has directly asked witnesses in its Jan. 6 investigation about Trump’s efforts to reverse the election. The Economy In a bipartisan vote, the Senate advanced a bill to bolster high-tech research and manufacturing to compete with China. (This newsletter recently explained the larger issues.) “The world may soon be teetering on the edge of a global recession,” the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund said. President Biden insists that the U.S. economy is not in a recession and will not enter one. Inflation has pushed some ice cream truck owners to the brink. (In other ice cream news: The Choco Taco is being discontinued.) War in Ukraine The International Space Station.NASA, via Associated Press Russia says it will leave the International Space Station, a symbol of post-Cold War cooperation with the U.S., after 2024. E.U. nations reached a deal to reduce their natural gas consumption, a move meant to weaken Moscow’s influence over the energy market. Brittney Griner, the W.N.B.A. star detained in Russia, requested leniency. Climate Flooding in Florissant, Mo., yesterday.Michael B. Thomas for The New York Times A record nine inches of rain fell in St. Louis in 24 hours, submerging neighborhoods. (Climate change has made storms like this more intense.) In San Antonio, the temperature has topped triple digits almost every day this month. It’s especially punishing in poor areas where shade is scarce. Experts say that to protect the trees in Yosemite National Park, it’s time to cut and burn some. A lawsuit is in the way. Other Big Stories Tunisia approved a Constitution that effectively ends its fledgling democracy, which grew out of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. The pharmaceutical company Teva reached a tentative $4.25 billion settlement over its role in the opioid epidemic. The future of One America News is in doubt. Major carriers have dropped the cable network and lawsuits threaten to drain its finances. U.S. authors dominated this year’s Booker Prize nominations. Buzz Aldrin’s jacket from his 1969 trip to the moon and other memorabilia sold for more than $8 million at auction. Opinions In Alabama, court fees and fines trap poor residents in a cycle of debt, Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein writes. Ross Douthat asks: Who owns the Mountain West? Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Jim Bintliff shovels mud from the Delaware River.Hannah Beier for The New York Times Secret sauce: Baseball relies on his mud. Your money: The case of the $5,000 Bruce Springsteen tickets. A Times classic: Dogs have a unique ability to love us. Lives Lived: David Trimble, a onetime leader in the fight to keep Northern Ireland aligned with Britain, won a Nobel Peace Prize for helping end the sectarian war known as the Troubles. Trimble died at 77. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Jonathan Toews wants out: The Blackhawks star isn’t interested in a rebuild, he tells Mark Lazerus. A trade or outright release could be possible for the three-time Stanley Cup champion, who’s still just 34. Josh Allen for M.V.P.? The Bills’ young superstar is the odds-on favorite to win the N.F.L.’s top honor this year — and his team is favored to win the Super Bowl. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM Cisco The Future of Work Made Secure Discover how Cisco technologies can enable you to have a secure, strong network no matter where you’re located. The future of work is now. Learn More ARTS AND IDEAS Valentino’s Haute Couture show in Rome this month.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times The summer of Barbie The color of the season is pink. The inspiration: Barbie. It started with the high-fashion world. During Paris Fashion Week, Valentino debuted a pink collection, and in Rome this month, Anne Hathaway attended his show in a hot-pink sequined dress. Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Kim Kardashian and other celebrities have also been spotted in pink. The trend, dubbed “Barbiecore,” is also popular among Millennials and Gen Z. As the website Who What Wear put it: “Yes, the dolls you played with as a child are leading the sartorial charge right now. Talk about a true nostalgic revival.” Then there’s the live-action Barbie movie that comes out next year, starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. Photos of the actors rollerblading in extremely bright outfits have been hard to miss on social media. For more: Vogue has Barbie’s looks through the years. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Zachary Zavislak for The New York Times Pile toppings onto potato skins and broil them until they look like something you’d order at an Irish bar. Art Glyn Philpot was a respected portrait painter in Britain in the early 20th century. His portraits of Black subjects have been given new names for a new show. Travel A countryside full of stone walls and twisted olive trees: This is Salento, Italy. Late Night Trevor Noah is a fan of the pope. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were naturally and unnaturally. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Fighting spirit (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. Looking to avoid the travel disruptions that have become common? Times experts will answer questions and offer tips in a future newsletter. Submit them here. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about Deshaun Watson. On “The Argument,” Times columnists debate whether Democratic leadership has an age problem. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 28, 2022 Author Members Posted July 28, 2022 July 28, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Joe Manchin’s climate announcement has the potential to be a very big deal. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.Pete Marovich for The New York Times A deal, for now Many parts of federal policy shift back and forth over time. Taxes rise and fall, as do spending on anti-poverty programs and the military. If a package of policies doesn’t pass one year, it might pass in a future year, and the long-term trajectory of the United States probably won’t be affected much. Climate policy is different. The world has already warmed to dangerous levels. Heat waves, wildfires, droughts and severe storms have become more common. The Arctic is melting, and seas are rising. If countries do not act quickly to slow their emissions of greenhouse gases — and, by extension, slow global warming — the damage could be catastrophic, scientists have warned. The U.S. has a uniquely important role in fighting climate change. It has produced far more greenhouse gases over the course of history than any other nation and remains a leading emitter today. In recent years, the U.S. has done considerably less to reduce emissions than Europe. The U.S. also remains the world’s most powerful country, with the ability to influence climate policy in China, India and elsewhere. Until yesterday, the Democratic Party seemed as if it were on the verge of squandering a major opportunity to combat climate change. Democrats control both Congress and the presidency, and yet they had been unable to agree on a package of climate policies to accelerate the use of clean energy and reduce emissions. Senator Joe Manchin had been blocking any deal, and the Senate is so closely divided that the Democrats cannot afford to lose a single vote. Yesterday, however, Manchin appeared to change his mind. He announced that he had agreed to include hundreds of billions of dollars for climate and energy programs in a bill that would also reduce prescription drug prices, raise taxes on the affluent and shrink the federal deficit. If Manchin and other Democrats remain united, it would be a very big deal. “This has the opportunity to be an enormous breakthrough for climate progress,” Sam Ricketts, co-founder of Evergreen Action, an environmental group, told The Times. It’s especially significant because congressional Republicans have almost uniformly opposed policies to slow climate change (a contrast with conservatives in many other countries). And it remains unclear whether Democrats will again control both Congress and the White House anytime soon. If Congress fails to pass a climate bill this summer, it may not do so for years — while the ravages of climate change worsen. After all the recent bickering among Democrats, I know that many people remain skeptical that they actually have a deal until Congress has passed a bill. That skepticism makes sense. Last night’s announced deal between Manchin and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, is different from a complete bill that can pass in both the Senate and the House. But I would say this: If this tentative agreement leads to legislation, it will probably have more lasting importance than anything else President Biden signs in his first two years in office. More details Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat who has also opposed some of her party’s legislative agenda, has not yet announced her position on the deal between Manchin and Schumer. A spokeswoman for Sinema said that she needed to review the legislation. The package will include tax credits to speed up the development of wind, solar, hydrogen and nuclear power; a tax credit to reduce the price of new electric vehicles; and money to address the disproportionate burden of pollution on low-income communities and communities of color. Senate Democrats estimate that, by the end of the decade, the legislation will allow the U.S. to cut emissions 40 percent below 2005 levels. As my colleagues Emily Cochrane, Jim Tankersley and Lisa Friedman write: “The plan would raise most of its new tax revenue, an estimated $313 billion, by imposing a minimum tax on the so-called book income of large corporations, like Amazon and FedEx, that currently use tax credits and other maneuvers to reduce their tax rates below the 21 percent corporate income tax rate in the United States.” Separately, the Senate yesterday passed an expansive, bipartisan bill to bolster U.S. manufacturing — especially of semiconductors — and to counter China’s geopolitical rise. The bill is expected to pass the House soon. Climate disasters can bury small island nations in debt. So the leader of Barbados went to the I.M.F. with a proposal to save her country. THE LATEST NEWS The Economy Source: Federal Reserve | By Karl Russell The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points, its fourth increase of the year — but it also said the economy was softening, suggesting that the campaign to cool demand was working. Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, said he did not believe that the U.S. was in a recession, pointing to the strong labor market. Here’s why rate rises slow inflation, and here’s the likely impact on credit cards, student loans and more. Abortion An effort in Indiana to pass an abortion ban with exceptions has exposed rifts among Republicans on how to legislate in a post-Roe world. A doctor who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old has found herself at the center of a clash in the medical community. Other Big Stories Brittney Griner arriving at a hearing in Russia yesterday.Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters The U.S. offered to exchange an imprisoned Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, for the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine. LIV Golf, a professional circuit funded by Saudi Arabia, has found a powerful ally in Donald Trump. Fox News devoted little airtime to a speech by Trump on Tuesday. It did go live with an address by Mike Pence that same day. The U.S. will distribute 800,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine. In rural America, Covid has hit Black and Hispanic people hardest. A study has found that vitamin D pills do not prevent bone fractures in most people. Opinions Liz Mair writes about Republican governors who are focused on good governance rather than culture wars. On Norman Lear’s 100th birthday, he reflects on Archie Bunker and Trump. Nancy Pelosi’s planned trip to Taiwan could incite a war, Bonnie Glaser and Zack Cooper write. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS A women’s Tour de France is back after 33 years.Monique Jacques for The New York Times Tour de France Femmes: For women’s cycling, it’s a steep climb to equality. Wedding party: A rabbi, a minister and an imam walked into Lincoln Center. Go for a float: A beginner’s guide to paddleboarding. Tech fix: Turn off these default settings. Advice from Wirecutter: Brighten your summer with a tie-dye kit. Lives Lived: Tony Dow found fame at a young age as Wally Cleaver on the 1950s sitcom “Leave It to Beaver.” He first resented the way the role had typecast him, but said that changed with age: “At 40, I realized how great the show was.” He died at 77. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC A sweep and a trade: The Mets finished off a two-game sweep of the Yankees yesterday, but just minutes after the final out, the Bronx Bombers traded for Andrew Benintendi, one of the top bats on the market. DK Metcalf “holds in”: The Seahawks wide receiver attended practice Wednesday, but refused to participate while the team worked on a new contract for him. Mike Trout’s rare condition: The Angels’ superstar outfielder is dealing with a rare back condition, a team trainer said. There is no timetable for his return to the lineup, though Trout said he planned to play again this season. ARTS AND IDEAS A giant boot that dangled over West 45th Street in the 1980s.Ann Slavit Have you seen this boot? The producers of the Broadway revival of “Into the Woods” are looking for a special prop: a huge, inflatable boot that hung over the theater’s facade in the 1980s. The boot returned for the show’s 2002 revival, but was stashed away when the weather got bad. Now, nobody knows where it is, James Barron writes. “It was literally the beacon that called us all to the theater,” the producer Jordan Roth said. “I think why it captured our imagination was the way it really physicalized this impossible balance of the show between whimsy and weight.” Some suspect it was cut into pieces. Others say producers just haven’t looked in the right spot. “It’s in storage,” said Michael David, the executive producer for the original run. “I just don’t know where in storage.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Bobbi Lin for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Eugene Jho. Prop Stylist: Christina Lane. High-summer produce comes together in this corn salad with tomatoes, basil and cilantro. What to Read Hilary A. Hallett’s biography “Inventing the It Girl” thoughtfully restores the early Hollywood pioneer Elinor Glyn to the pantheon of history. Back Story An aneurysm in 2015 robbed Joni Mitchell of her voice. That made her recent return to the stage all the more remarkable. Late Night Stephen Colbert talked about a “potential” investigation into Trump. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was adjourn. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Unwanted emails (four 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. Vanessa Friedman, The Times’s chief fashion critic, hosts a conversation about how the fashion world can reduce consumption today at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about inflation. On The Modern Love podcast, how to find the one. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 29, 2022 Author Members Posted July 29, 2022 July 29, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. The big question is not whether the U.S. is in a recession. It’s whether the economy will soon worsen. The Villanueva family at a market in Alamo, Texas.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times A vicious cycle? The latest G.D.P. numbers — suggesting that the economy shrank in each of the past two quarters — have intensified a debate about whether the U.S. economy has fallen into a recession. Today’s newsletter will briefly explain that debate. But I also want to explain why some of this discussion is semantic and without much relevance to most Americans. The more important question is simpler: Are the economy’s problems likely to get worse in coming months or will the situation stabilize and possibly even improve? That question has tangible effects for people’s lives. It may influence your decisions about whether to buy a house or car, whether to look for a new job and whether to become more cautious in your spending. There is no clear answer, but there is some useful information. It helps to start with a basic framework: The country’s economic policymakers want the economy to weaken, just not too much. The main economic problem in recent months has been an overheated economy, with more demand for goods than supply of them, leading to the highest levels of inflation since the early 1980s. To bring down inflation, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates, which leads families to spend less money and, in turn, causes prices to stop rising so rapidly. “We have high inflation and historically high inflation,” Cecilia Rouse, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told me and other journalists yesterday. “In order to bring down inflation, we understand the economy needs to cool.” But it is very hard for the Fed officials to get the balance right. They are trying to cause a large enough decline in spending to reduce inflation but not such a large decline that companies cut jobs, unemployment rises and the economy falls into a vicious cycle. When people talk about whether the economy is entering a recession, the tangible underlying question is whether that sort of vicious cycle is beginning. So far, it does not appear to have done so. Yet the risks over the rest of 2022 are substantial. Deep, broad, sustained There is no single definition of a recession. One informal definition is two consecutive quarters of shrinking gross domestic product (a measure of the economy’s output). With yesterday’s G.D.P. report, the economy met that standard. Most economists, however, don’t like the two-quarters definition. They consider it too narrow because it is based on a single economic indicator. Any one indicator, even G.D.P., can sometimes be misleading. Right now, G.D.P. may be overstating the economy’s problems for a couple of technical, temporary reasons involving global trade and corporate inventories, Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said. Another broad measure of the economy, known as gross domestic income, has not been declining in recent months, and it tends to be less volatile than the initial estimates of G.D.P. (Yesterday’s number was an initial estimate, and the government will revise it — maybe even to a positive number — as more information comes in.) The volatility of the initial G.D.P. numbers is why economists generally prefer a different definition of recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonprofit, appoints a small standing committee of academic economists who make pronouncements that many other experts treat as official. The N.B.E.R. defines a recession as a significant, persistent and broad decline in economic activity, and the committee members tend to wait months, until enough data is available, to declare a recession to have started. (My colleague Ben Casselman wrote a good explainer of recession definitions this week.) One big reason to doubt that the economy has already entered a recession is the strength of almost every indicator other than G.D.P. Consumer and business spending, for example, are both still rising, as is employment. “It is difficult to see how we suffered a recession during the first half of this year when the economy created so many jobs, unfilled positions were at a record high and layoffs near record lows,” Zandi said. As you can see in this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu, the last few months of the job market bear little resemblance to the run-up of other recent recessions: Chart shows three-month averages. Data is seasonally adjusted and excludes some jobs. Early 2020 data exceeds chart bounds. | Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics The Anxious Index There is one caveat: Professional economists are almost always late in recognizing the start of a recession. Why? They are making judgments based on delayed data, and, like other human beings, they are susceptible to irrational optimism. Historically, when economic forecasters have said that the odds of a near-term recession are at least 30 percent, it means that a recession is actually more likely than not. I’ve referred to that number in the past as the Anxious Index. What is it now? About 44 percent, according to the most recent Wall Street Journal survey of forecasters. The Anxious Index is flashing red. “Are we in a recession? We don’t think so yet. Are we going to be in one? It’s a high risk,” Joel Prakken, the chief U.S. economist for S&P Global Market Intelligence, told Ben Casselman. The Fed’s interest-rate increases — combined with the high energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the continuing Covid disruptions around the world — have created a significant chance of a vicious cycle of spending cuts and jobs cuts. The Fed, of course, is still hoping to avoid that outcome and achieve a so-called soft landing of lower inflation and continued economic growth. But, as Michael Feroli, an economist at J.P. Morgan, told my colleague Jeanna Smialek, “The degree of difficulty has probably increased.” It’s a strange moment for the economy. On the one hand, the G.D.P. numbers seem to have exaggerated the economy’s weaknesses over the past six months. On the other hand, there are legitimate reasons to worry about the economy over the next six months. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times Behind the scenes of the climate deal: Over 10 days, a small group of Democrats met secretly with Senator Joe Manchin. A loophole allows hedge fund managers to pay lower tax rates than entry-level employees. The Democrats’ new bill narrows it. As the Justice Department investigates the 2020 election, officials know that any misstep could sway the 2024 race. As Congress took 13 months debating subsidies for chip factories, China advanced its effort to manufacture semiconductors that rival Taiwan’s. Other Big Stories Pope Francis blessing the water in Lac Ste. Anne in Alberta, Canada, this week.Ian Willms for The New York Times Pope Francis, 85, needs help standing and walking. He has highlighted his frailty to demand dignity for the aged. The Biden administration plans to administer Covid boosters that target Omicron in September. Flooding killed at least eight people in Kentucky. “There are a lot of people out there still in danger,” the governor said. Monkeypox has stirred memories of the AIDS crisis among gay and bisexual men in New York. Employees at a Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts voted to unionize, a first among the company’s more than 500 stores. JetBlue reached a deal to buy Spirit. It would create the fifth-largest U.S. airline. Opinions A cease-fire would allow Vladimir Putin to recharge before attacking again, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, argues. Space has been a place of peaceful cooperation, but commercialization may end that, Jessica Green writes. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Puppies at the Dakin Humane Society in Massachusetts.Danielle Cookish/Dakin Humane Society Dog rescue: Thousands of mistreated beagles need homes. These people are stepping up. A Covid story: His secret changed his friend’s life. Underwater: There are holes on the ocean floor. Scientists don’t know why. Ask Well: Night sweats, explained. Modern Love: A polygraph test that saved a marriage. A Times classic: How to start knitting and love it. Lives Lived: Phyo Zeya Thaw was a hip-hop star whose pro-democracy activism took him into Myanmar’s Parliament. After the coup last year, he joined the resistance. He died at 41, executed by the military junta. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC All rise: Aaron Judge’s league-leading 39th home run gave the Yankees a walk-off win last night in the Bronx. What Judge is doing in light of his murky contractual future is incredible — he’s currently the favorite to win A.L. M.V.P. DK Metcalf gets paid: One of the N.F.L.’s best young wide receivers agreed to a huge extension for just three seasons, meaning he’ll re-enter free agency while still in his prime. It’s seen as a win for both the player and franchise. Kyler Murray’s homework nixed: The Cardinals removed a controversial clause — which had sparked outrage from fans and pundits alike — from their star quarterback’s new contract. ARTS AND IDEAS Beyoncé at the Oscars this year.Mason Poole/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images A new Beyoncé album “Renaissance,” Beyoncé’s seventh solo album, is here. Unlike the lead-up to her past few releases, this one has been oddly conventional: She announced the album ahead of time and dropped “Break My Soul,” a single inspired by 1990s dance music. She even joined TikTok. Beyoncé’s previous unorthodox ways, including surprise visual albums and exclusivity deals with streaming services, have distanced her a bit from the mainstream commercial market. Her last No. 1 single was “Single Ladies” in 2008, despite her continued prestige. “She’s still the leader of the culture,” Danyel Smith, a music journalist, told The Times. “There are people that exist in this world to shift the culture, to shift the vibe.” For more: The album is the first of three projects that she created during the pandemic. And Times critics and reporters debate which Beyoncé album is definitive. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook George Etheredge for The New York Times There’s an art to avocado toast. Heh-Heh. Huh-Huh. After a long hiatus, the animator Mike Judge has brought back “Beavis and Butt-Head.” What to Watch In the comedy thriller “Vengeance,” B.J. Novak plays an aspiring podcaster chasing a true-crime story in West Texas. Late Night Stephen Colbert can’t believe “Manchin is fighting climate change.” Take the News Quiz How well did you keep up with the headlines this week? Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was avalanche. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and a clue: You are here (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. Gilbert Cruz, whose culture recommendations appear in The Morning on Saturdays, will be The Times’s next Books editor. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about conservative Latinas. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 30, 2022 Author Members Posted July 30, 2022 July 30, 2022 Continue reading the main story SUPPORTED BY By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. Try out a new podcast or two, courtesy of Morning readers. Allie Sullberg Listen closely What makes a good podcast? I’ve been mulling this question over the past few weeks since I asked readers of The Morning to recommend their favorites. For me, a good podcast is one that makes any drive too short, that renders a middle-seat flight bearable. A good podcast dims the drudgery of folding laundry or preparing dinner, and turns waiting in line at the post office into something fun. I’ll listen to any type of podcast as long as it’s diverting — an interview, a historical recapitulation, a true-crime saga, two pals gabbing. I have a friend who won’t listen to any podcasts that don’t teach her something, another who can’t stand the “normal people who find themselves hilarious, shooting the breeze” style. Readers sent in hundreds of suggestions, many that I hadn’t heard of. Like “Back from Broken,” a podcast about addiction and recovery from Colorado Public Radio, which kept Wynn Jones of Mancos, Colo., company on a cross-country road trip. And “That’s What They Say,” about language, which Steven Hunter of Chicago billed as “possibly the nerdiest podcast out there.” Here are a bunch more to check out: “Looking for Esther.” A Scottish woman searches for her birth mother. “As narrator, she radiates hope, honesty and vulnerability in a way that really touched me,” César González from San Juan, P.R., wrote. “Basic!” The history of basic cable — hosted by Doug Herzog, a former network executive, and Jen Chaney, a TV critic at New York magazine — comes recommended by Amy Black from San Francisco. It features interviews with Cindy Crawford, Jemele Hill, Tim Gunn and others. “Everything Is Alive.” Interviews with inanimate objects. “The perspectives and stories you get from these objects (voice actors portraying a bar of soap, a lamp post, a subway seat, etc.) are hilarious, thought-provoking and wholesome,” Dana Nelson in Eugene, Ore., wrote. “Perfect for a spring-cleaning weekend — episodes are about 20 minutes long, and so uplifting.” “I Was Never There.” “A combination true-crime story, cultural history of a West Virginia commune in the 1970s and ’80s and a compelling mother-daughter story,” Pamela Gray in Santa Barbara, Calif., wrote. “It’s a Clue.” Two sisters chat about Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown and other sleuths from their favorite childhood mysteries. “It just makes me smile,” Jeanette Guinn in Columbia, S.C., wrote. “In the midst of Covid, remembering a simpler time was a balm.” “Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen.” The search for a movie-industry scammer. “I couldn’t stop listening,” Naga Nataka from Pahoa, Hawaii, wrote. “The pacing, the way people are woven in, the central mystery that drives the narrative. A couple of times, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, is this all some kind of mockumentary metanarrative gotcha?’ It was that weird.” “Fly on the Wall.” David Spade and Dana Carvey interview former cast members, hosts, writers and others from “Saturday Night Live.” “It’s hilarious and also really fun to hear the stories of working on SNL,” Karen Gibson in Los Angeles wrote. “So many great impersonations and jokes woven in — I am laughing out loud quite a bit while listening.” “My Unsung Hero.” Michael Vujovich from Washington, Ill., said it makes him feel good about himself and the world around him. “I always end up smiling, crying or both, but in all the best ways.” If that doesn’t tempt you, check out the show’s official description: “Each episode reveals what the news ignores: everyday acts of kindness and courage that transformed someone’s life.” Sold. I noticed a theme running through these recommendations: podcasts that offer a break, that make people smile or feel relief. I’d love to hear about the music that does just that for you. What song just makes you feel better lately? Tell me about it. Include your name and location, and we may feature your submission in an upcoming installment of The Morning. For more Read a profile of Sam Sanders, who has a new podcast at Vulture. Meet the hosts of the left-leaning podcast “5-4” about the Supreme Court. Check out The Times’s podcast slate. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM Apple TV+ 'Surface' | Apple TV+ Watch "Surface," from the executive producers of "Big Little Lies," on Apple TV+. Stream Now THE WEEK IN CULTURE The pop star’s seventh solo album is the first of three new projects born during the pandemic.Kevin Mazur/WireImage Beyoncé’s new album, “Renaissance,” embodies decades of dance music. Here’s a guide. Will Smith apologized to Chris Rock for slapping him at the Oscars. The “Wagatha Christie” trial, which began as a quarrel between the spouses of two British soccer stars, ended with a judge dismissing the case. “Jeopardy!” will stick with Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik as its hosts. “To Kill a Mockingbird” closed on Broadway. Its writer, Aaron Sorkin, and director, Bartlett Sher, blamed the original lead producer, Scott Rudin. Art in a time of war: While it won’t stop suffering, culture still has power. A visit to Ukraine by the critic Jason Farago reaffirmed that. Disability representation onscreen is increasing but still falls short, according to a study. Paul Sorvino almost didn’t take his most prominent role as the gangster Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas.” Sorvino died this week at 83. TBS canceled Samantha Bee’s late-night show, “Full Frontal,” Variety reported. After almost 9,000 episodes, the Australian soap opera “Neighbours” is ending. A community of “X-Men” fans, notably young queer people of color, is growing through podcasts and on social media. Slate asks: Why are Netflix’s most expensive movies getting worse? THE LATEST NEWS A flooded home in Kentucky yesterday.Austin Anthony for The New York Times Creeks and rivers in eastern Kentucky were still swelling in widespread flooding yesterday as rain continued to fall. At least 25 people have died. Russia and Ukraine accused each other of blowing up a prison that held Ukrainian fighters. Europe is rushing to replace Russian natural gas as a major energy source before winter sets in. The Democrats’ climate deal has the potential to transform the automotive and energy industries. Fox News has begun to routinely ignore Donald Trump. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. CULTURE CALENDAR By Gilbert Cruz Culture Editor ? “Bullet Train” (Friday): I always enjoy Brad Pitt in goofball mode, as he appears to be in this colorful movie about a group of assassins (including Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Joey King) aboard a Japanese high-speed train. This one is directed by the stuntman-turned-director David Leitch, whose work on “John Wick” and “Atomic Blonde” shows off his facility with down and dirty hand-to-hand action. Also, Bad Bunny shows up. Benito! ? “Reservation Dogs” (Wednesday): This wonderful FX comedy, whose second season premieres this month, follows four Indigenous teenagers on an Oklahoma reservation. Cocreated by Sterlin Harjo and the near-ubiquitous Taika Waititi (“Thor: Love and Thunder,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Our Flag Means Death”), it was on our chief TV critic’s best of 2021 list. He knows of which he speaks. ? “Renaissance” (out now): Last week, I mentioned the new Beyoncé album. And I’m doing it again! It will be one of the biggest topics of conversation this weekend, next week, this month. And given that it’s full of “generally upbeat songs” that reference “disco, funk, house, techno, bounce and more,” as our pop music reporters write, it might own the rest of the summer. Continue reading the main story A MESSAGE FROM Apple TV+ 'Surface' | Apple TV+ Watch "Surface," from the executive producers of "Big Little Lies," on Apple TV+. Stream Now RECIPE OF THE WEEK Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. By Melissa Clark Chocolate Chip Cookies Is there ever a bad time to bake a batch of Jacques Torres’s classic chocolate chip cookies? Even in the height of summer, they’re the ideal chewy cookie, with bittersweet chocolate chunks making melt-y puddles in the brown sugar dough and a sprinkling of crunchy sea salt on top. Mr. Torres likes to make the dough a day ahead so the flavors can meld. But I’ve baked them immediately after mixing, and they are nearly as good — still the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. I like to keep balls of the dough in my freezer, perfect for popping in the oven (or toaster oven) whenever a craving hits. If you don’t have both cake flour and bread flour on hand, you can just use all-purpose; they’ll end up slightly less chewy but just as deeply chocolate-y. A selection of New York Times recipes is available to all readers. Please consider a Cooking subscription for full access. REAL ESTATE Top two, Crystal Glass Photo; bottom two, Stephan Sitzai What you get for $425,000: A farmhouse in Riegelwood, N.C.; an 1812 rowhouse in Philadelphia; or a bungalow in Manchester, Vt. The hunt: She wanted to spend her golden years in California. Which home did she choose? Play our game. A form of self-care: Women are finding empowerment in real estate investing. Full time at the beach: A New Yorker was drawn to the unusual architecture of a Fire Island home. LIVING Downtown Prague.Lenka Grabicova for The New York Times What’s new in Prague: The city is coming out of the pandemic with a youthful vibrancy. Bring a knife: How to cook in a vacation rental. Navigating young adulthood: How to deal with a quarter-life crisis. ‘Medical gaslighting’: Advocate for yourself when you’re feeling ignored at the doctor’s office. Make room: Airport lounges are for everybody now. GAME OF THE WEEKEND England’s Alessia Russo.Naomi Baker/Getty Images England vs. Germany, Euro 2022 women’s final: England’s tradition of international soccer misery includes the women’s team, which has made the semifinals of its past three major tournaments — two World Cups and the last Euro Cup — but has never won. In this year’s semifinal, though, not only did England win but also had fun doing so. (Exhibit A: this back-heel goal by Alessia Russo.) Germany, England’s opponent in the final, has won the tournament eight times. Sunday at noon, ESPN. NOW TIME TO PLAY The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was pageboy. 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 … Can’t get enough of Wordle? Here are more than a hundred similar games. Visit the Museum of Endangered Sounds. Here’s a Tiny Desk Concert from Big Thief. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted July 31, 2022 Author Members Posted July 31, 2022 July 31, 2022 By Claire Moses Good morning. Today, we explain the increasing politicization of the book-banning debate. Books at a New Jersey high school library that were targeted for bans.Bryan Anselm for The New York Times A growing trend Book-banning attempts have grown in the U.S. over the past few years from relatively isolated battles to a broader effort aimed at works about sexual and racial identity. Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth Harris cover the publishing industry. I spoke to them about what’s behind this trend. Claire: How did book-banning efforts become so widespread? Alexandra: We’ve seen this going from a school or community issue to a really polarizing political issue. Before, parents might hear about a book because their child brought a copy home; now, complaints on social media about inappropriate material go viral, and that leads to more complaints in schools and libraries across the country. Elected officials are also turning book banning into another wedge issue in the culture wars. Last fall, a Republican representative in Texas put together a list of 850 books that he argued were inappropriate material in schools and included books about sexuality, racism and American history. In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin campaigned on the issue by arguing that parents, not schools, should control what their children read. Democrats have also seized on the issue through congressional hearings about rising book bans. And, sometimes, the disputes have spilled into something more menacing. The Proud Boys, the far-right group with a history of street fighting, showed up at a drag-queen-hosted story hour for families in a library in San Lorenzo, Calif. Why do parents and conservatives want these bans? Alexandra: For some parents, it’s about preventing kids from reading certain things. Others want to introduce certain topics — like L.G.B.T. rights or race — to their children themselves. A lot of the people I’ve spoken to say they don’t consider the bans they want to be racist or bigoted. They say the books contain specific content that they feel isn’t appropriate for children, and they’ll sometimes point to explicit passages. But librarians we speak to say that the most challenged books around the country are basically all about Black or brown or L.G.B.T. characters. In Texas, residents sued a library after a library official took books off the shelves based on a list from an elected official. They weren’t all children’s books; the list included Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me” and “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi. It’s hard to disentangle the banning surge from other conservative efforts to use the government to limit expression, including what critics call Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Those are all movements that have overlapped and spurred book-banning debates. Elizabeth: Book banning is part of a wider political context right now, of extreme polarization, of heightened political tensions and the amplification of certain messages by the kinds of media — social or otherwise — that people consume. Has any banning effort stood out to you? Elizabeth: In Virginia Beach, a local politician sued Barnes & Noble over two books, “Gender Queer,” a memoir by Maia Kobabe, and “A Court of Mist and Fury,” a fantasy novel. This lawmaker wants Barnes & Noble to stop selling these titles to minors. The suit probably won’t succeed. But it’s an escalation: The issue went from people thinking their children shouldn’t read certain books to trying to stop other people’s children from reading certain books. I understand why some of the fights over school reading are so intense: By definition, teachers are making choices about which books children are — and are not — going to read, and parents may not always agree. The efforts to take books from libraries feels different, yes? Elizabeth: When people are trying to push a book out of the library, they’re making a decision for everyone, that nobody has access to a particular book. But librarians are trained to present a range of viewpoints. For them, it’s a matter of professional ethics to make sure that the point of view of one person or one group isn’t dictating what everyone reads. Elizabeth: Book banning can also be damaging to kids who identify with story lines in books that are banned in their communities. The question for the child becomes, “What’s wrong with me?” How are librarians responding? Alexandra: It’s heartbreaking for them. Librarians say they got into this field because of a love of reading and talking to people about books. Some have left their jobs; some have been fired for refusing to remove books. Others quit after being subject to a barrage of insults on social media. A librarian in Texas quit after 18 years because she was harassed online. She moved out of state and took a job in tech. What’s next? Elizabeth: The movement is not going away as long as the midterms are ahead of us. And the school year will start just as election season is really heating up, so both could add fuel to this fire. Alexandra Alter joined the Times in 2014 and Elizabeth Harris in 2005. Elizabeth’s first byline for The Times was on a first-person piece about camping in Central Park. Alexandra’s first byline ever was in 2002 for The Nepali Times, about traditional clay pottery in a village near Kathmandu. For more Librarians are at the center of the culture war. How “Gender Queer” became the most banned book in the U.S. NEWS Politics President Biden.Tom Brenner for The New York Times After a string of political victories, President Biden’s challenge is to ensure that they resonate with voters in the midterm elections. Biden tested positive for Covid again yesterday in a “rebound” case attributed to the post-infection treatment Paxlovid, but his symptoms had not come back. Infighting threatens Republicans’ chances in the midterms in Michigan. International Russia is trying to annex the Ukrainian territory it occupies. If successful, it would be Europe’s biggest territorial expansion by force since World War II. Debris from an uncontrolled Chinese rocket re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean yesterday. Prince Charles’s charity accepted more than $1 million from the family of Osama bin Laden. Other Big Stories Crews swarmed into Eastern Kentucky to rescue hundreds of people trapped by floodwaters in the latest disaster to hit the state. More school employees are carrying guns to defend against school shootings. A winning ticket was sold in Illinois for a Mega Millions jackpot of more than $1 billion. FROM OPINION Some lessons will come not from the classroom but at after-school jobs, Pamela Paul writes. Algorithms rule everything around us. We need to fight them, Ross Douthat argues. Americans are still living under Nixon’s toxic vision of law and order, Kevin Boyle argues. The Sunday question: Should the U.S. agree to a prisoner swap with Russia? Exchanging the notorious Russian weapons dealer Viktor Bout for the pro basketball star Brittney Griner would be an act of compassion, Douglas Farah argues in Politico. But swapping Bout for Griner and Paul Whelan, another American held in Russia, would encourage U.S. adversaries to kidnap other Americans abroad, Rob “Zach” Zachariasiewicz writes in USA Today. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Review: On her new album, Beyoncé sounds like she’s experiencing unmitigated ecstasy, Wesley Morris writes. Right below our feet: Unearthing the secret superpowers of fungi. Sunday routine: A sushi chef hits the sauna, sometimes more than once. Advice from Wirecutter: Avoid summer slips with these water shoes. A Times classic: The power of the “little comment” in mother-daughter relationships. BOOKS The power of negative thinking: These books give you permission to be a grump. By the Book: Whenever Mohsin Hamid has fallen in love, “an exchange of books was always involved.” Our editors’ picks: “Winter Work,” a thriller by Dan Fesperman set in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and eight other books. The Book Review podcast: Fesperman discusses his new book. Times best sellers: “Bake,” by the celebrity chef Paul Hollywood, is an advice best seller. See all our lists here. THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Erika Larsen/Redux, for The New York Times On the cover: Barbados’s fight for climate justice. Miscarriage of justice: Honolulu incarcerated the wrong man for more than two years. Recommendation: Care about nonplayer characters in video games. Eat: A bright and summery citrus-chile fish. Read the full issue. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For Democrats in the Senate are seeking to push through their major climate and tax bill this week. Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington will hold primary elections on Tuesday. Tennessee will hold primaries on Thursday. In Kansas, a ballot question will determine whether the state will remove protections of abortion rights from its constitution. The Major League Baseball trade deadline is on Tuesday. Two of the biggest deals in baseball history are on the table. The Biden administration expects Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states to agree to increase their output in a meeting on Wednesday. On Friday, the Labor Department will release employment data. What to Cook This Week Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Tomato time! Or “full tomato mode,” as Emily Weinstein is saying these days. For dinner, she suggests cold noodles with tomatoes or Parmesan chicken breast with tomato and herb salad. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword: 35 Across: Its presence on Mars offers a clue to life 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. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 2, 2022 Author Members Posted August 2, 2022 August 1, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. A large new study offers clues about how lower-income children can rise up the economic ladder. Mari Bowie, a criminal-defense lawyer, is the first person in her family with a postgraduate degree.Marissa Leshnov for The New York Times ‘Friending bias’ Social scientists have made it a priority in recent years to understand upward mobility. They have used tax records and other data to study which factors increase the chances that children who grow up in poverty will be able to escape it as adults. Education, spanning pre-K through college, seems to play a big role, the research suggests. Money itself is also important: Longer, deeper bouts of poverty can affect children for decades. Other factors — like avoiding eviction, having access to good medical care and growing up in a household with two parents — may also make upward mobility more likely. Now there is another intriguing factor to add to the list, thanks to a study being published this morning in the academic journal Nature: friendships with people who are not poor. “Growing up in a community connected across class lines improves kids’ outcome and gives them a better shot at rising out of poverty,” Raj Chetty, an economist at Harvard and one of the study’s four principal authors, told The Times. The study tries to quantify the effect in several ways. One of the sharpest, I think, compares two otherwise similar children in lower-income households — one who grows up in a community where social contacts mostly come from the lower half of the socioeconomic distribution, and another who grows up in a community where social contacts mostly come from the upper half. The average difference between the two, in terms of their expected adult outcomes, is significant, the authors report. It’s the same as the gap between a child who grows up in a family that makes $27,000 a year and one who grows up in a family that makes $47,000. The study is based on a dizzying amount of data, including the Facebook friendships of 72 million people. (You can explore the findings through these charts and maps from The Upshot.) Robert Putnam — a political scientist who has long studied social interactions, including in his book “Bowling Alone” — said the study was important partly because it hinted at ways to increase upward mobility. “It provides a number of avenues or clues by which we might begin to move this country in a better direction,” he said. In recent decades, the U.S. has moved in the opposite direction. Rising economic inequality and a shortage of new housing in many communities have helped increase economic segregation. Even within communities, cross-class social interactions seem to have declined. This chart shows the extent to which Americans segregate themselves by class: The New York Times Mari Bowie’s story There seem to be three main mechanisms by which cross-class friendships can increase a person’s chances of escaping poverty, Chetty told me. The first is raised ambition: Social familiarity can give people a clearer sense of what’s possible. The second is basic information, such as how to apply to college and for financial aid. The third is networking, such as getting a recommendation for an internship. My colleague Claire Cain Miller, after speaking with the study’s authors in recent weeks, set out to find some real-life examples of its findings. Claire focused on Angelo Rodriguez High School in Fairfield, Calif., a midsize city between Sacramento and Oakland. The school has an unusually high number of cross-class interactions. One of the people whom Claire interviewed was Mari Bowie, a 24-year-old who grew up in a lower-middle-class family that coped with divorce, layoffs and lost homes — and who made friends with richer girls in high school. “My mom really instilled working hard in us — being knowledgeable about our family history, you have to be better, you have to do better,” Bowie said. “But I didn’t know anything about the SAT, and my friends’ parents signed up for this class, so I thought I should do that. I had friends’ parents look at my personal statements.” Today, Bowie is a criminal-defense lawyer. She found her job through the friend of one of her high school friends. How churches shine Angelo Rodriguez High School is a telling case study because it is more economically and racially diverse than most schools. That diversity is necessary for a high level of socioeconomic integration. But it is not sufficient, the study’s authors say. In some diverse communities, lower- and upper-income Americans lead relatively segregated lives. In others, cross-class interactions are more common. The study does not contain a complete explanation for the differences. But Claire discovered that the high school had taken intentional steps to connect people. The school didn’t draw its students from only one community. It instead had an unusually shaped district, including both poorer and richer neighborhoods, and also accepted some students from outside that district’s boundaries. The school’s open architecture also encouraged serendipitous socializing. “Accidental, unstructured interactions between students was a very high priority,” John Diffenderfer, one of the school’s architects, said. What might increase cross-class interactions elsewhere? Among the promising possibilities, the researchers say: more housing, including subsidized housing, in well-off areas; more diverse K-12 schools and colleges; and specific efforts — like public parks that draw a diverse mix of families — to encourage interactions among richer and poorer people. Churches and other religious organizations may have some lessons to teach other parts of society. Although many churches are socioeconomically homogeneous, those with some diversity tend to foster more cross-class interactions than most other social activities. Churchs have lower levels of what the researchers call socioeconomic “friending bias.” Youth sports, by contrast, have become more segregated, as affluent families have flocked to so-called travel teams. A successful effort to increase interactions would probably need to address the particular roles of race, too. More racially diverse places tend to have fewer cross-class friendships, the study found. “Our society is structured in ways that discourage these kinds of cross-class friendships from happening, and many parents, often white, are making choices about where to live and what extracurriculars to put their kids into that make those connections less likely to happen,” Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at Indiana University said. Claire’s story delves into more detail on the role of race. The bottom line The stagnation of living standards for working-class and poor Americans is such a giant problem that no single change will solve it. But the explosion of academic research about upward mobility, including this new study, has at least offered a clearer sense of what might help. Social integration seems to play a crucial role. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Nancy Pelosi is in Singapore for a tour of Asia. She has not yet said whether she will visit Taiwan. An emerging group of single-issue voters — anti-vaccine parents — could lift Republicans in the midterm elections. War in Ukraine The Zaporizhzhia plant, in southeastern Ukraine.David Guttenfelder for The New York Times Russia has turned Europe’s largest nuclear power plant into a fortress. A ship loaded with grain has left Ukraine for the first time since the war began. Other Big Stories The water at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in California contains almost 10 times the allowable limit of arsenic. But most residents have no other housing options. Flooding in Kentucky has killed at least 28 people. Here’s what we know about the victims. The McKinney fire in Northern California has grown to more than 52,000 acres in two days. “We just feel helpless”: After school shootings, more American teachers are carrying guns. Opinions Democrats hurt themselves when they respond to crises with fund-raising emails instead of activism, Lara Putnam and Micah Sifry write. Opposing Donald Trump may cost Liz Cheney her House seat, but there’s value in losing with integrity, Katherine Miller argues. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Katianna Hong tinkering with her grandmother’s matzo ball soup.Lauren Justice for The New York Times Food is identity: For Korean chefs who are adopted, it’s complicated. Entering adulthood: The quarter-life crisis is real. Metropolitan Diary: Balloons at Queens Plaza and more reader tales of New York City. Advice from Wirecutter: How to vacation-proof your home. Lives Lived: On “Star Trek,” Nichelle Nichols portrayed Lieutenant Uhura, an educated technician and one of the first TV roles to show a Black woman in a position of authority. Nichols died at 89. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Bill Russell, center, during a playoff game against Philadelphia.Bettmann via Getty Images Bill Russell is dead at 88: Basketball’s most accomplished player died yesterday, his family announced. He leaves behind an almost unfathomable legacy, Jay King writes. (Here is The Times’s obituary of Russell.) One in, one out: A judge is expected to announce Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson’s suspension today, while the N.F.L.’s last marquee holdout, Deebo Samuel, will be at 49ers camp after agreeing to a three-year, $73.5 million extension. The Lionesses roar: Chloe Kelly’s goal in the 110th minute led the English women’s national team to a 2-1 win over Germany in the Euros final yesterday, an iconic moment for a program that was banned until 1971. ARTS AND IDEAS Real estate as self care There are many ways to get over heartbreak: taking time to grieve, exercising, spending time with friends, to name a few. But some people are finding solace in something different: investing in real estate. Many women seeking independence, especially after a breakup or divorce, have discovered emotional empowerment, Jennifer Miller writes in The Times: “And they’ve found a unique support system, where excising relationship ghosts is as important as learning to negotiate interest rates.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Bryan Gardner for The New York Times Make a batch of chicken and celery salad with wasabi-tahini dressing, and save it for multiple meals. World Through a Lens What you see when you submerge yourself in ice-cold water. What to Read Thirteen new titles for August. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were clanged and glanced. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Sneaky (three 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. Should you check a bag at the airport? Is a rental car worth the cost? What about insurance? During this summer of travel misery, Times experts will answer your questions. Submit them here. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about monkeypox. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 2, 2022 Author Members Posted August 2, 2022 August 2, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. With tensions rising in Taiwan, we look at the shared interests of China, Russia and Iran. Vladimir Putin, left, and Xi Jinping in Beijing in February.Pool photo by Alexei Druzhinin A new axis? Vladimir Putin has traveled outside the boundaries of the former Soviet Union only twice this year. Once was to visit China in February, and once was to visit Iran last month, my colleague David Sanger points out. Those two countries obviously have something in common. Like Russia, both China and Iran view the U.S. as an adversary. If the world is breaking into two competing blocs — democracy versus autocracy, as President Biden has put it — Russia, China, and Iran make up the core of the anti-U.S. bloc. And they recently seem to be increasing their cooperation. Their closer ties raise an alarming prospect: What if all three countries decide to confront the U.S. simultaneously sometime soon in an effort to overwhelm the American ability to respond? Russia has already invaded Ukraine and has the ability to expand its attack to new parts of the country. Iran has so far refused to re-enter the nuclear pact that Donald Trump canceled and could at some point take steps to build a nuclear weapon. China has become more aggressive toward Taiwan, and U.S. officials have grown concerned about the possibility of an invasion in coming years. “I’m not predicting it,” David told me, referring to the prospect of simultaneous acts of aggression from China, Iran and Russia. “But there is reason to think it’s plausible, and our system can barely manage one big conflict at a time.” Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times Tensions in Taiwan The focus this week has turned to Taiwan. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, may soon stop there, as part of her current tour of Asia, which would make her the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island in years. Newt Gingrich visited in 1997 when he was speaker, and Alex Azar, Trump’s secretary of health and human services, went in 2020. Chinese officials have reacted angrily to Pelosi’s planned visit, which underscores China’s new aggression toward Taiwan. Xi Jinping, China’s president, seemed to be referring to her last week when he told Biden that the U.S. should not “play with fire.” Some U.S. intelligence officials believe that China may send fighter jets to escort Pelosi’s plane as it approaches Taiwan or take steps in coming weeks to damage Taiwan’s economy. Biden administration officials yesterday tried to warn China from taking aggressive action. “Our actions are not threatening and they break no new ground,” John Kirby, a spokesman, said at the White House yesterday. “Nothing about this potential visit — potential visit — which oh, by the way, has precedent, would change the status quo.” There are no easy choices for the U.S. in this situation. If Pelosi had canceled the visit, she would have been overruling the wishes of Taiwan’s leaders. A visit, said my colleague Amy Qin, who is based in Taiwan, “boosts Taiwan’s legitimacy on the international stage.” As Edward Wong, a Times correspondent who covers diplomacy from Washington, said, “Supporters of the trip argue that it’s the U.S. sending a message to Beijing that Taiwan is important enough to us that we are going to engage at senior levels.” He described the trip as a version of “diplomatic deterrence,” trying to remind China of the potential consequences if it did invade Taiwan. A cancellation, by contrast, would have risked sending the message that China can dictate American relations with Taiwan. It would have the potential to repeat the mistakes that the U.S. made with Putin over the past 20 years, when it repeatedly tried to appease him. Putin invaded Georgia, annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, murdered Russian dissidents and intervened in the U.S. presidential election in 2016. Each time, the U.S. avoided major confrontation, partly out of a worry that it could spark a larger war. Putin, viewing the U.S. and Western Europe as weak, responded last year with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. If China believes the U.S. won’t ultimately come to Taiwan’s defense, the chances of an invasion may increase. But the risks of a confrontational approach are also real. Pelosi’s visit, for example, may lead Chinese airplanes to near Taiwan in new ways. “If they enter into Taiwan’s territorial airspace, an incident could happen, whether Xi wants one or not,” Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., told The Times. Cao Qun, a researcher at a state-run Chinese think tank, recently wrote: “The chances of a clash between China and the United States in the Taiwan Strait are growing.” A shared interest Putin and Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, in Tehran in July.Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times None of this means that a coordinated campaign of aggression from China, Russia and Iran will necessarily happen in coming months. For one thing, the three countries have their own tensions, as David Sanger also notes. China and Russia have been longtime rivals for influence in Asia, and both — like the U.S. — would prefer that Iran not become a nuclear power. But the three countries also have one overarching shared goal: reducing the geopolitical influence of the U.S., Western Europe, Japan and their allies. Already, China, Russia and Iran have collaborated in recent months, especially in the purchase of Russian and Iranian energy. All three stand to benefit when the U.S. has to cope with multiple international crises at the same time. Related Used to living in a dangerous geopolitical flash point, Taiwanese people have largely taken the prospect of the visit in stride. As for Russia and Iran: Farnaz Fassihi, a Times journalist who covers the U.N., recently explained their new closeness. THE LATEST NEWS Drone Strike Osama bin Laden, left, and Ayman al-Zawahri in 2001.Ausaf Newspaper for Daily Dawn, via Reuters A U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda, who helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks. Biden said the strike, in downtown Kabul over the weekend, did not kill any civilians or members of al-Zawahri’s family. Al-Zawahri, 71, led a life steeped in conspiracy and violence. He also played roles in the attack on the destroyer Cole in 2000 and the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa that killed hundreds of Americans. Politics A judge sentenced Guy Reffitt, a Texas man who brought a pistol and zip ties to the Capitol on Jan. 6, to more than seven years in prison. To secure Senator Joe Manchin’s support for a climate bill, Democratic leaders and the White House pledged to finish a West Virginia gas pipeline. A bipartisan group of senators released a bill to protect abortion rights, but it probably lacks enough votes to pass. Trump endorsed “Eric” in today’s Republican Senate primary in Missouri, without saying which of the rival candidates named Eric he meant. Arizona, Michigan and other states also have primaries today. Here’s what to watch for. Other Big Stories At least 37 people have died in the flooding in Kentucky. More rain is on the way. The N.F.L. quarterback Deshaun Watson was suspended for six games for sexual misconduct, a smaller penalty than the league had sought. Ukrainian grain exports are moving again, but that’s not enough to stop a global food crisis. The Times identified hundreds of airstrips that bring the illegal mining industry to remote corners of the Brazilian Amazon. Doctors knew a 22-year-old woman’s pregnancy could kill her. Fearing prosecution, they canceled her abortion. Beyoncé will change one of her new songs to cut a word that people have used as a slur. (Lizzo removed the same word from lyrics in June.) Opinions Elite universities are out of touch with American society. Walled-off campuses are a big reason, Nick Burns says. Hospitals are supposed to be transparent about how much procedures cost. Many aren’t, Martin Schoeller argues in a Times Opinion video. Countries that say they care about human rights should push Egypt to release Arab Spring political prisoners, Zeynep Tufekci writes. Subscribe Today Our journalism is possible only with the support of subscribers. Access all the news and analysis from our experts with The New York Times Basic Access subscription. Subscribe today. MORNING READS The Hef, a bridge in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times Jeff Bezos’ yacht: Why did Rotterdam stand between a billionaire and his boat? What debate? In much of America, the return to the office has happened. A Times classic: Long working hours widened the gender gap. Advice from Wirecutter: Anniversary gifts for any relationship. Lives Lived: Mick Moloney was a recording artist, folklorist, concert presenter and professor who championed Irish culture and encouraged female instrumentalists in a male-dominated field. He died at 77. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC The trade machine whirs: M.L.B. teams set a frenzied pace as a trade deadline looms. We even saw the rare trade of a player to the opposite dugout right before first pitch. A Juan Soto deal is probable before today’s 6 p.m. Eastern deadline. Tiger Woods turned down what? LIV Golf frontman Greg Norman claimed in an interview that he offered Tiger Woods between $700 million and $800 million to join his rogue tour. Woods declined and has since denounced the Saudi-backed upstart league. ARTS AND IDEAS Richard III in three current productions.From left: David Hou; Sara Krulwich/The New York Times; Ellie Kurttz, via Royal Shakespeare Company Who should play the king? The eponymous king of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” was found to have a deep curvature of his spine, likely a form of scoliosis. Should the role be reserved for actors with disabilities? Three productions are taking different approaches, Marc Tracy writes in The Times. It was once common for actors to play characters who were of a different race or gender or with disabilities that they didn’t have. That practice has changed recently, as Hollywood has pushed to give more leading roles to actors from long-overlooked groups. But the shift toward authentic casting also brings a potential downside for women and marginalized groups, who may be kept from playing some of “the greatest, meatiest roles in the repertory,” Marc writes. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook David Malosh for The New York Times Try these no-bake peanut butter and chocolate cookies. What to Watch The second season of the Native coming-of-age comedy “Reservation Dogs” deepens its emotion. What to Read Adam Langer’s new novel, “Cyclorama,” revolves around a high school’s theatrical production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Late Night The hosts discussed Biden’s “rebound Covid.” Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was nomadic. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Cruise around Los Angeles (three 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. Nicholas Kristof is returning to Times Opinion. His column will resume this fall. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the killing of al-Zawahri. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 3, 2022 Author Members Posted August 3, 2022 August 3, 2022 By German Lopez Good morning. Monkeypox is not Covid, but there are good reasons to take precautions. An electron microscope image of monkeypox virions.CDC, via Associated Press A painful illness The viral disease monkeypox is spreading around the world. So far, there are more than 6,300 known cases in the U.S., almost entirely among gay and bisexual men. New York, California, Illinois and some cities have declared states of emergency, following the World Health Organization’s own declaration of a global emergency. The headlines are grim enough that you might be worried that monkeypox is like SARS or Covid: another virus that could disrupt or even threaten your life. The good news is monkeypox is much less contagious and much less likely to be deadly than Covid. There are also vaccines and treatments originally developed for smallpox that work on monkeypox. Chart shows 7-day averages; data up to July 25. | Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention But while monkeypox probably will not kill you, it can be excruciating enough that you want to avoid it nonetheless: It can cause pain that some patients compare to glass shards scraping against the skin. And although the virus is afflicting mostly gay and bisexual men now, that could change if it continues to spread unchecked. Nothing about the virus limits its spread to only men who have sex with men (not all of whom identify as gay or bisexual). Today’s newsletter explains what we know about monkeypox and what people can do to stay safe. How bad is it? Monkeypox produces symptoms that can range from unpleasant to painful, although they are rarely deadly. At least six deaths, out of 25,000 cases, have been reported in places where the virus was not known to exist before the current outbreak. The risk of death is higher for young children and people who are immunocompromised or pregnant. The telltale symptom is sores, which can look like pimples or blisters. They can hurt, especially in sensitive areas like the genitals and anus. “I was scared to use the bathroom,” a recent monkeypox patient, Gabriel Morales, told The Times. He described the sores as feeling like “broken glass” in his body. Other symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion. The disease typically lasts two to four weeks. How does it spread? Monkeypox mostly spreads through close physical contact, typically skin-to-skin touch. Most infections in the current outbreak have occurred through close contact during sex. The virus also can spread through contaminated surfaces, including clothes and bedding. Brief contact, like a handshake, is not usually enough to spread monkeypox. Unlike Covid, it does not seem to spread much through the air. Nearly half of known U.S. cases have occurred in the first three states to declare emergencies: New York, California and Illinois. So far, about 98 percent of cases worldwide are among men who have sex with men. Many of them have had multiple partners, sometimes strangers. Some early superspreader events were gay parties in Europe, which appeared to introduce the virus into the social networks of men who have sex with men. Public health officials have struggled with acknowledging some of these factors, fearing that they could stigmatize gay and bisexual men. But part of a proper public health response is targeting the people most at risk and the riskiest activities, and that requires an honest assessment of what is happening. A line for the monkeypox vaccine in San Francisco.Jim Wilson/The New York Times What can you do? Most people are not currently at serious risk of catching monkeypox, with the virus concentrated among gay and bisexual men for now. “Your risk depends on who you are,” my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli, who has covered the current outbreak since the first U.S. case was identified, told me. To lower their risk, gay and bisexual men can try to make sure their male sex partners do not have monkeypox, watching out for sores. They can use a condom, which can at least reduce the chances of getting sores in sensitive areas. They can temporarily reduce their number of sexual partners or avoid riskier activities, such as anonymous sex and sex parties. Practicing good hygiene, like frequent hand-washing, can help, too. Vaccines and tests for monkeypox also exist, although they are not widely available right now because of supply shortages and strict government rules about access. If someone is infected, the C.D.C. recommends isolating at home and staying away from others if possible. But that can be very difficult with a disease that can last four weeks — another reason to prioritize prevention and slow the spread. What are officials doing? Public health officials are trying to make vaccines, treatments and testing more available. President Biden yesterday named a national monkeypox response coordinator to oversee those efforts. But progress has been slow. As monkeypox spread in May and June, 300,000 vaccine doses owned by the U.S. sat in Denmark. Officials are also trying to raise public awareness of monkeypox, given that it is a new virus to most Americans. Their main goal now is to avoid a wider outbreak that makes monkeypox an endemic virus that spreads regularly across the U.S., like influenza. If monkeypox keeps spreading unchecked, it could eventually spill over to a broader population than gay and bisexual men, said Dr. Céline Gounder, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s still containable,” she added. “But it is going to require more aggressive screening, testing and vaccination.” The bottom line Monkeypox is not typically fatal, but it still can cause painful disease and permanent scarring. The risk is not high for most people now, but that could change if the virus continues to spread. And the people who are at serious risk can take steps to stay safe and prevent the outbreak from getting worse. Related Stopping the spread of monkeypox will depend on three crucial questions. Some gay men see echoes of H.I.V./AIDS. From Times Opinion: Monkeypox is about to become the next U.S. public health failure, writes Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the F.D.A. THE LATEST NEWS Primaries Voters in St. Louis yesterday.Whitney Curtis for The New York Times Kansas voted to keep abortion protections in the State Constitution, a major victory for abortion rights in a red state. In Arizona, a Donald Trump-backed newcomer won the Republican Senate nomination. A 2020 election denier became the party’s choice for secretary of state. In Michigan, Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Trump, lost his primary. Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality who has questioned the 2020 election results, will face Democrat Gretchen Whitmer in the Michigan governor’s race. Eric Greitens, a scandal-ridden former governor, lost Missouri’s Republican Senate primary. Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan A billboard welcoming Nancy Pelosi to Taipei.Chiang Ying-Ying/Associated Press Speaker Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan after meeting with its president today. Her trip set up a standoff with China. China will respond with military drills. Analysts believe they’re aimed at projecting strength rather preparing for an invasion. (Here’s why China is angry.) Politics The Senate passed a bill to expand medical care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits. Two officials involved in Trump’s plan to falsely claim he had won Arizona in 2020 told lawyers they feared accusations of treason. Other Big Stories Russia’s invasion has displaced a third of Ukraine’s population, creating Europe’s biggest migration crisis since the aftermath of World War II. The C.I.A. had tracked Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, for decades. His morning routine on the balcony provided a window to strike. A 12-year-old girl escaped captivity in rural Alabama, and the authorities found two decomposing bodies where she had been held. “Originalists” like Justice Samuel Alito have never quite explained how their theory squares with racial integration, writes Adam Liptak, The Times’s Supreme Court reporter. Opinions Bret Stephens applauds Pelosi for standing up to China. Thomas Friedman thinks her trip endangers Taiwan. America’s decline is eroding other countries’ faith in democracy, Farah Stockman argues. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Outdoor cats: Neighborhood mascot or menace? Silent killer: A simple alarm can detect carbon monoxide. Why don’t more hotels have them? A Times classic: Why “Euphoria” enthralls. Advice from Wirecutter: How to clean your yoga mat. Lives Lived: Vin Scully served as the announcer for Dodgers baseball games for 67 years, first in Brooklyn and later in Los Angeles. He died at 94. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC A history-making M.L.B. trade: By last night, the news that 23-year-old superstar Juan Soto had been shipped from the Nationals to the Padres had barely sunk in. Even The Athletic’s seen-it-all squad was stunned by the deal. As for the return, it might be the biggest prospect haul ever. Soto will probably debut with the Padres tonight. For more: Winners and losers of the trade deadline. King of Queens: After 391 days, Mets ace Jacob deGrom looked like himself in his return to a big-league mound. ARTS AND IDEAS Pickle-flavored products.Zack Wittman for The New York Times Sprinkle on some pickle It’s the summer of the pickle. Not actual pickles — although they’re as popular as ever — but the flavor, which is everywhere, Christina Morales writes. Pickle spice adds a sweet-and-sour flavor, which complements snack foods like popcorn and pizza. Frito-Lay now makes pickle-flavored Lays, Doritos and Ruffles chips. Trader Joe’s said its dill pickle seasoning blend sold out soon after it hit shelves in May. Social media has helped spur the flavor’s popularity. Meg and Maddie Antonelli, a mother-and-daughter TikTok duo, make pickle pizzas at home, slather pickle dip on burgers and pair pasta with dill pickle seasoning. “I wish this was always trending,” Meg Antonelli said, “because I love pickles.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Ryan Liebe for The New York Times This skillet chicken recipe is inspired by ingredients used in Moroccan cuisine: orange and ground turmeric. What to Listen to Six podcasts about political scandals. What to Watch In the film “Shalom Taiwan,” a Buenos Aires rabbi hits the road to raise money for his community center. Late Night The hosts discussed the killing of al-Zawahri. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was picnicked. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Ocean motion (four 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 Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter incorrectly said that Russia began its invasion of Ukraine last year. It began in February. P.S. Times journalists won awards from the Asian American Journalists Association. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the primaries. On “Popcast,” Beyoncé’s robust return. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 12, 2022 Author Members Posted August 12, 2022 August 12, 2022 By German Lopez Good morning. The climate bill will make cleaner energy cheaper for everyone. Solar panels in Grafton, Mass.Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Ditching fossil fuels By the end of today, Congress will likely have passed the biggest climate bill in U.S. history. This newsletter has already covered the bill’s main goals and the back story of how it came together. Today, I want to get more detailed and explain how it will help people and businesses abandon the dirty energy that contributes to global warming. What’s in the bill The bill’s climate provisions are mostly a collection of subsidies for energy that does not emit any carbon, like solar, wind and nuclear power. Without those subsidies, polluting fossil fuels are often still cheaper. The subsidies try to give cleaner energy an edge. “I don’t mean this as an exaggeration: This really changes everything,” said Jesse Jenkins, a climate policy expert at Princeton University. “It is effectively going to shift the financial case away from dirty energy toward clean energy for everyone.” For consumers, the subsidies will reduce the prices of electric vehicles, solar panels, heat pumps and other energy-efficient home improvements. You can claim the subsidies through tax filings; as a separate rebate if you don’t file taxes; or, in some cases, immediately when you make a purchase. Let’s say you want to buy one of the cheaper, new electric vehicles on the market right now, priced around $40,000. To get the subsidy, you will first want to make sure the car qualifies; the bill requires, among other things, that the vehicles are assembled in North America. (Ask the car dealer or manufacturer to find out.) Then, make sure that you qualify; individual tax filers cannot make more than $150,000 a year, for example. And, given high demand, you might have to order a car well in advance. If you meet the requirements, you can claim up to $7,500 in tax credits — effectively bringing the price of a $40,000 vehicle to $32,500. That is the tax credit for new cars. For used cars, there will be a smaller tax credit of up to $4,000. The goal of both credits is to even the playing field: Cars that burn fossil fuels are still generally cheaper than electric vehicles. With the credits, electric cars will be much closer in price to, if not cheaper than, similar nonelectric vehicles. For home improvements, the process will be different, but the basic idea is similar. For a typical $20,000 rooftop solar installation, tax credits will cut the price by up to $6,000. There are also subsidies for heat pumps, electric stoves and other energy-efficiency projects. The hope is to make all these changes much more affordable for everyday Americans, leading to less reliance on fossil fuels and expanding the market for cleaner energy. President Biden touring wind turbines in Colorado last year.Doug Mills/The New York Times ‘A good deal’ The bill includes a slew of benefits for businesses, too. For example, they will be able to claim credits to replace traditional cars with electric ones, saving as much as 30 percent on each vehicle’s cost. Another set of incentives will encourage businesses to build and use cleaner energy. Similar credits have existed in the past, but they often expired after one or two years — producing unpredictable boom-and-bust cycles for investors and businesses. This time, Congress is establishing the credits for at least a decade, helping create more certainty. And the credits will for the first time apply to publicly owned utilities and nonprofits, a large segment of U.S. electricity providers. The bill does include a compromise: It requires more leasing of federal lands and waters for oil and gas projects. Senator Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, demanded this provision. But experts say that it will have only a modest impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, the bill will subtract at least 24 tons of carbon emissions for each ton of emissions that the oil and gas provision adds, according to Energy Innovation, a think tank. “It’s a trade-off,” my colleague Coral Davenport, who covers energy and environmental policy, told me. “But in terms of emissions impact, it’s a good deal.” The bottom line The bill will make cleaner energy and electric vehicles much cheaper for many Americans. Over time, it will also likely make them more affordable for the rest of the world, as more competition and innovation in the U.S. lead to cheaper, better products that can be shipped worldwide. And it will move America close to President Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse emissions to half their peak by 2030, according to three independent analyses. Modeling for the new climate bill is based on draft legislation from July 27, 2022. | Source: REPEAT Project, E.P.A. | By Nadja Popovich The bill is also a sign that the U.S. is starting to take climate change seriously. That will give American diplomats more credibility as they ask other countries, such as China and India, to do the same. Still, many scientists believe the U.S. will eventually need to do more to prevent severe damage from climate change. “This bill is really only the beginning,” said Leah Stokes, a climate policy expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara. For more After decades of climate inaction, the Arctic is warming much faster than thought. The current bill avoided the political pitfalls of past climate proposals by focusing on incentives for cleaner energy instead of higher taxes on dirty energy. Some car manufacturers are upset with the requirements for the electric vehicle tax credit. But not Tesla and General Motors, which have already started shifting production to the U.S. THE LATEST NEWS Trump Investigation Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday.Leah Millis/Reuters The Justice Department asked a judge to unseal the warrant for the F.B.I.’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and an inventory of items retrieved. The search was part of an effort to account for documents related to highly classified U.S. programs. Attorney General Merrick Garland personally approved the search. “The department does not take such a decision lightly,” he said. The search caps years of conflict between Trump and the keepers of U.S. secrets. In the spring, Trump had received a subpoena for documents he took from the White House. Other Big Stories Covid testing in Berkeley, Calif., last month.Jim Wilson/The New York Times New C.D.C. guidance: People who have been exposed to Covid no longer need to isolate, unless they test positive. An armed man tried to breach the F.B.I.’s Cincinnati office. Officers killed him after a standoff. Russia is suffering heavy casualties in Ukraine, which may foil its plans to seize the entire eastern region this year, U.S. officials say. The actress Anne Heche, 53, is not expected to survive after a car crash last week. Opinions The Mar-a-Lago raid validates Trump supporters’ sense of persecution, bolstering his chances of winning in 2024, David Brooks says. Michelle Goldberg counters that fear of Trump’s base shouldn’t shield him from accountability. Akiko Iwasaki, Jennifer Nuzzo and Marion Pepper answered questions about the pandemic. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Most like “Papa”: Jon Auvil, center, from Florida.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times The old men and the sea: Scenes from an annual Hemingway look-alike contest. Nostalgia: What keeps the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appealing? Modern Love: Was it a meet-cute or a meet creep? A Times classic: What to know about eyelash extensions. Advice from Wirecutter: Get reliable internet on remote vacations. Lives Lived: Jean-Jacques Sempé, the French cartoonist known for children’s book illustrations and New Yorker magazine covers, portrayed tiny people at poignant moments. He died at 89. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC An honor: The N.B.A. is making Bill Russell’s No. 6 jersey the first to be retired across the league in recognition of his “transcendent” career. So, will LeBron James have to ditch his No. 6? Officially: No. Tom Brady steps away: No, he’s not retiring. The Tampa Bay Bucs star had an excused absence from practice yesterday and won’t return until after the team’s second preseason game on Aug. 20 as he deals with a “personal matter.” Relax. It’s August. A beef within an athletic department: Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari wants a flashy new practice facility. And he wants it ASAP — because he works at a “basketball school.” Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops would beg to differ. A classic S.E.C. squabble. ARTS AND IDEAS Anime idealizes intimacy and romance. The power of hugs A common motif in Japanese animation is the hug — two characters collide in an embrace, often while falling through the air. An essay from the Times critic Maya Phillips explains how hugs became such an important part of the art form. Anime is characterized by exaggeration, in its characters, design and action, but it tends to be coy in its depictions of romance. The dramatic hug satisfies both criteria, she writes: “An embrace between lovers or family or friends is an expression of intimacy that anime can magnify.” Read the essay, which visualizes many of anime’s iconic hugs. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Bobbi Lin for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Eugene Jho. Prop Stylist: Christina Lane. A standout caprese starts with great fruit. What to Watch “Five Days at Memorial,” on Apple TV+, dramatizes the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at a hospital. What to Read “If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal,” by Justin Gregg, contrasts human thought with animal intelligence. News Quiz Test your knowledge of this week’s headlines. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were captivate and captive. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: BTS’s genre (four 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 National Association of Black Journalists gave Dean Baquet, The Times’s former executive editor, its lifetime achievement award. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about boy scouts vs. girl scouts. “Popcast” is about American hardcore music. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 14, 2022 Author Members Posted August 14, 2022 August 13, 2022 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. Here’s how to make the most of the last weeks of summer, whether you’re dreading its end or dancing about it. Allie Sullberg Enjoy the ride We’re nearing the middle of August, summer at its ripest. Earlier this week, a New York weather Twitter account issued a reminder that, depending on your disposition, could be taken as good tidings or as a bit of a bummer: I’m in the latter camp, but I’m working through it. A lifelong partisan of summer’s long days, I try not to feel cross at those who come alive when the light gets lower. I try not to feel personally attacked by the candy corn display in the drugstore, by Billy Crystal in his fisherman sweater and sweatpants. Recently, my colleague Sam Sifton and I were discussing the matter of summer’s passing, and when I began to get rueful, he stopped me. “We’re not in the down elevator just yet,” he said. This was at the end of July, and I agreed. There were still six weeks till Labor Day. We were still in the middle of the ascent. So rather than pressing every floor’s button trying vainly to make the elevator stop, I’m determined to enjoy the ride. First off, it’s peak corn on the cob and Caprese season, time to go full tomato mode. It’s also s’mores season, and I’m excited to try replacing graham crackers with saltines, as my colleague Tanya Sichynsky suggested, for a slightly less-sweet treat. There’s still plenty of summer left: time for letting your mind wander, for hitting Coney Island, for tracking the migrations of ships and sharks. Another way to stave off the sense of things ending: Make plans. This is the time to book a trip, to fill your calendar with meet-ups and movies, to plant seeds that will blossom when the weather turns colder. “Imagining good things ahead of us makes us feel better in the current moment,” the psychologist Simon A. Rego told The Times. At Sam’s recommendation, I checked out Robert McCloskey’s 1958 Caldecott Medal-winning “Time of Wonder” from the library. It’s a picture book about a summer spent on the islands of Maine. The book captures well that wistfulness of loving summer and leaving it behind: “Take a farewell look at the waves and sky. Take a farewell sniff of the salty sea. A little bit sad about the place you are leaving, a little bit glad about the place you are going.” For more Read Daisy Alioto on Billy Crystal’s sweater look in “When Harry Met Sally …” See how sunrise and sunset times are determined. Try out some mindfulness experts’ meditations for the end of summer. Here are four movies about summer to stream now. THE WEEK IN CULTURE “House of the Dragon” is set nearly 200 years before “Game of Thrones.”HBO Can “House of the Dragon” be the next “Game of Thrones”? George R.R. Martin and HBO are about to find out. (Here’s a primer.) Athleisure and leggings owe a debt to Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” video. She died this week at 73. Issey Miyake was the original champion of fashion tech — and designed Steve Jobs’s signature black turtleneck. Miyake died this month at 84. The Orlando Museum of Art, where the F.B.I. seized 25 paintings attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat, has canceled three shows and may lose donors. The creators of “Hamilton” protested after a Texas church introduced Christian themes into a production of the musical. Bold acting choices, like auditioning in costume, helped Julia Lester secure the role of Little Red Riding Hood in a Broadway revival of “Into the Woods.” He was suspected of trafficking antiquities. He invited the authorities to inspect some. The six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald will return to Broadway this fall in “Ohio State Murders,” Vulture reports. Lamont Dozier wrote “You Can’t Hurry Love” and dozens of other Motown hits. He died this week at 81. THE LATEST NEWS Donald Trump leaving Trump Tower in New York this week.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times The search of Donald Trump’s Florida residence was part of an investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act. The man killed by the police after he tried to breach the F.B.I.’s Cincinnati office had been under investigation for possible involvement in the Jan. 6 attack. The House passed Democrats’ health care, climate and tax bill, sending it to President Biden. The author Salman Rushdie was stabbed onstage in western New York, where he was about to give a lecture. The actress Anne Heche, who had been in a coma since a car crash last week, was declared brain-dead. Polio was found in wastewater samples from New York City, suggesting that it is circulating in the city. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. CULTURE CALENDAR By Gilbert Cruz ? “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (limited engagement starting this weekend): August is often a terrible month for new movies, but we’re in a particularly dry spell at the moment. I know what I’ll be doing this weekend, though: taking my kid to see the 40th anniversary rerelease of this classic Steven Spielberg film, which is playing at select IMAX screen locations across the country. Everyone, I watched the trailer and the music made me tear up. The music. (I will also be seeing “Jaws” when it gets a rerelease on IMAX screens, starting Sept. 2.) ? “Heat 2” (out now): If you know a guy who likes crime dramas, then you might know someone who likes “Heat,” the epic — in length, at least — 1995 film starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer. (There’s an easy test to discern whether or not someone likes “Heat.” Just say the line “For me, the action is the juice” and see whether or not they smile in recognition.) The director Michael Mann has now published a novel with the thriller writer Meg Gardiner that serves as both prequel and sequel to the film. I’m so excited to read this that I looked at my copy the other day and said, “Brother, you are going down.” (Just to be clear, that’s also a line from “Heat.”) RECIPE OF THE WEEK Bryan Gardner for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Coconut Rice With Shrimp and Corn My family just returned from a nearly two-week vacation, and I have to admit, easing back into the nightly ritual of cooking dinner has been a challenge. Happily, Samantha Seneviratne has my back with her delightful one-pot coconut rice with shrimp and corn. Although you can make it in winter with frozen corn, it’s really sensational with the fresh corn that’s available right now. Her tip for cutting the kernels off the cob is my go-to method: Lay the cob flat on the cutting board for slicing, rather than standing it upright; it’s much faster and less messy. The coconut milk adds just the right richness here, balanced with jalapeño, ginger and loads of fresh lime juice and zest. It’s a satisfying combination, all year long. A selection of New York Times recipes is available to all readers. Please consider a Cooking subscription for full access. REAL ESTATE Left, Jennifer Gessner; top right, Realkit for Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty; bottom right, Tom Ludemann/Drone Home Media What you get for $575,000: an eight-bedroom house in Springfield, Mass.; a 1913 home in New Orleans; or a three-bedroom bungalow in Atlanta. The hunt: She wanted a starter apartment in Brooklyn. Which did she choose? Play our game. Urban planning: A D.C. neighborhood is trying to build a park without displacing its residents. Inside out: A garden in Rhode Island makes rooms out of the landscape to create calm and focus. LIVING Joey Boyd-Scott, left, and her wife, Maria, both have part-time travel jobs.Beth Coller for The New York Times Shameless about the perks: Retirees are seeing Europe at a fraction of the usual cost — by working part-time. Outdoor dining: This lamp is taking over New York. Mile high and on the rise: Festivals are resuming and new hotels and restaurants are opening in Denver. Ready to eat: Twenty-four freezer-friendly recipes to cook for new parents. Why not try: Standing on one leg. It could extend your life. GAME OF THE WEEKEND Aaron Judge.Desiree Rios/The New York Times New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox, M.L.B.: Aaron Judge is having the season of his life. Heading into this series with the Red Sox, Judge had 45 home runs. That’s not just the most in the league — it’s also on pace to break the Yankees’ single-season record of 61, set by Roger Maris in 1961. “It doesn’t cease to amaze, the season he’s putting together,” Yankees Manager Aaron Boone said recently. 7 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, ESPN. For more: The Times’s Benjamin Hoffman has been tracking every home run Judge hits. Sure, the Yankees are great. But are the Mets the best team in New York? NOW TIME TO PLAY The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was doughnut. 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 … Take a look at the love notes and other mementos a librarian has found in books. Don’t miss Tad Friend’s profile of a successful door-to-door salesman in The New Yorker. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 14, 2022 Author Members Posted August 14, 2022 August 14, 2022 By Ashley Wu Good morning. Sam Ezersky, the editor of the Spelling Bee game, answers your questions. Tess Mayer for The New York Times Entering the #HiveMind Sam Ezersky has been the editor of the digital Spelling Bee since its launch in 2018. In today’s newsletter, he answers questions, including from readers. Could you describe your Bee creation process? — Mary Stella, Florida Keys, Fla. I always start with the pangram (a word that contains all the letters in the puzzle) because that is the linchpin. There are a lot of esoteric words I wouldn’t want to base a puzzle around — like “ultravacua,” “clyping,” “choragi” — which is why the Spelling Bee needs a human touch. I want to offer fun pangrams, some variety throughout the week, some puzzles that are easier than others. I like to save the hardest or longest puzzles for the weekend, but that doesn’t mean every Saturday or Sunday is going to be crazy hard. I like keeping you all on your toes. How do you gauge a puzzle’s difficulty? One metric is how long the answer list is. If the puzzle contains many frequently used letters — E, L, T — it might yield at least 100 words, regardless of the center letter. I never offer puzzles with that many words. My golden zone is between 30 and 45 words. Another is the center letter itself. If a puzzle has a J in the center, that’s not going to be easy. One of my favorites had a Z in the center. It was diabolical but fun: Spelling Bee from April 6, 2022 There were two pangrams — “razoring” and “organizing” — and a bunch of great words like “razzing” and “zigzag.” Who doesn’t love “zigzag”? I’ve ruled out puzzles because other words in the answer list were really tough. A good example is “ebullience.” It’s a tough pangram, and the answer list had “incubi,” “nubbin,” “bluebell,” “leucine” and “nucleic.” It would have be a painstaking road to Genius. Do you ever change puzzles based on current events? — Meg Goble, Brooklyn, N.Y. I held off for a long time on “infection.” It’s part of a pangram set that includes “confetti,” “confection” and “coefficient,” so it’s nice from a word-brain perspective. But I know that many enjoy this game as a diversion from the world — and the news cycle — around us. We finally used it two years into the pandemic, on April 27 of this year, with F in the center. Sam Ezersky.Melissa Bunni Elian for The New York Times Occasionally I spell a legitimate word, but the Bee rejects it. What deems a word unacceptable? — Morgan, Durham, N.C. Two dictionaries I use are the built-in Apple dictionary, which is based on New Oxford American, and Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. I like using Google’s News tab, so if there is a technical word, I’ll see if it’s being used in articles without much explanation. Ultimately, the decisions can seem arbitrary because every solver has a different background and vocabulary. If an answer list had every possible word, it would be harder to make progress toward Genius and beyond. I can understand the frustration, but my mission is not to be a dictionary. I want to do my best to reflect the Bee’s broad audience and the language we speak. Dear ’am, Why don’t you ever include the letter S in ’pelling Bee? There are ’o many good word that have been left by the ’ide of the road! — Flip Johnson, Brookline, Mass. I love the letter S — it’s my favorite besides Z. But if every other word is a plural, it can make for tedious solving. That said, I’ve avoided “-ed” and “-ing” for the longest time, and now there are some puzzles where most words end in “-ing.” I feel a little different about S, but never say never. How the heck do I get better at this game? — Zahava P., Austin, Texas It’s a game of pattern rather than memory. If you type your letters in a different arrangement, you can connect bridges that you weren’t seeing before. Use the shuffle button or even Scrabble tiles. That said, memory can be helpful. Remember your vowel-rich words like “onion,” “onto,” “idea” and “algae.” These are going to show up in plenty of Bees, but they’re tough to see. My last bit of advice is to come back to it. Give your brain a break, and you’ll see something you didn’t see before. The Bee has a large, devoted audience. How important is it for you to connect with them? — Pat Dailey, Chicago, Ill. Without an audience playing these puzzles, what’s the point? I love the way this community has organically formed. It started with a few people posting their Bee screenshots. Then I tweeted out the #HiveMind hashtag. Now we have a forum that has more comments than I could have ever imagined. It’s staggering to see how many people care about this game and seek it to find joy in their days. Hearing feedback from the community fuels me to do my best. So many people start their mornings with the Bee. What do you start your morning with? Wordle. It’s the first thing I do when I open my eyes. Sam also helps edit the Crossword and other games, and has been contributing puzzles to The Times since he was 17. Before The Times, he studied mechanical engineering and economics at the University of Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter @thegridkid. Related: Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. For more NEWS The Latest Supporters of Donald Trump outside Mar-a-Lago following the F.B.I. search last week.Marco Bello/Reuters Since the Jan. 6 attack, right-wing threats and acts of political violence have become a reality of American life. A lawyer for Donald Trump told investigators in June that all classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence had been returned. But last week’s search turned up more. A defamation case against Fox News is a rarity because it involves dozens of accusations of false claims about the 2020 election, not just a single statement. Some Asian American voters feel overlooked by national political leaders despite the constituency’s increasing electoral clout. Other Big Stories Climate change could someday hasten a California megastorm that would be worse than any in memory. A 24-year-old New Jersey man was charged with attempted murder in the stabbing of the author Salman Rushdie. An 8-year-old Ukrainian boy who fled the war is starting a new life through chess. FROM OPINION Donald Trump hijacked the Republican Party to turn it against the F.B.I., Maureen Dowd argues. U.S. public health officials are consistently behind on Covid, and are making similar mistakes with monkeypox, Ross Douthat writes. Go ahead, work on your vacation. But vacation a bit at work, too, Laura Vanderkam writes. Jane Coaston wants you to get better at admitting when you’re wrong. Just as Generation X got a shot at running the office, being a boss grew less alluring, Pamela Paul argues. The Sunday question: Prices barely budged last month. Has inflation peaked? With gas prices falling and supply chain issues abating, the New Yorker writer John Cassidy thinks so — barring an escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war or a deadlier Covid variant. But food and housing costs are still rising, Henry Olsen notes in The Washington Post, and high prices overall mean the Federal Reserve must remain hawkish on inflation. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova in “Bodies Bodies Bodies.”A24 “Bodies Bodies Bodies”: A new slasher film shows what happens when Gen Z loses Wi-Fi. Fighting stigma: Men and women with monkeypox are sharing their stories. Maritime apps: How to improve that seaside vacation. Sunday routine: A jazz musician composes for hours. Advice from Wirecutter: Barbecue tools and accessories for better grilling. A Times classic: Maybe your sleep problem isn’t a problem. BOOKS The bookstore, reimagined: A corporate lobbyist thinks that selling books can be seen as philanthropy. By the Book: Beth Macy’s parents never bought books. They borrowed them. Our editors’ picks: A jaw-droppingly candid memoir about Mary Rodgers, the daughter of Richard Rodgers, and 10 other titles. Times best sellers: Gillian McAllister’s “Wrong Place Wrong Time” is one of five new hardcover fiction best sellers. See our lists. The Book Review podcast: Mark Braude discusses his new biography, “Kiki Man Ray.” THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Kiana Hayeri. On the cover: The Taliban’s dangerous collision course with the West. Recommendation: To stay cool with style, use an Ankara hand fan. Diagnosis: Her lungs mysteriously shut down. How? Eat: Yotam Ottolenghi has made thousands of meringues. Here’s his favorite. Read the full issue. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For Wyoming and Alaska will hold primary elections on Tuesday. In Wyoming, Representative Liz Cheney is expected to lose her seat to a Trump-endorsed opponent. President Biden is planning to sign the Democrats’ climate and tax bill into law this week. R. Kelly will face another trial beginning tomorrow, with the possibility of extending his 30-year sentence. The W.N.B.A. playoffs begin on Wednesday. Canada’s ban on handgun imports will take effect on Friday. What to Cook This Week Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Emily Weinstein is completing her own trilogy: first tomatoes, then corn, and now, of course, zucchini. For weeknight dinners, she suggests summer squash scampi, sheet-pan chicken with zucchini and basil or zucchini pancakes. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword: 58 Across: “If we don’t end ___, ___ will end us”: H.G. Wells 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. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Tom Wright-Piersanti 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 16, 2022 Author Members Posted August 16, 2022 August 15, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Employers have a new tool in the struggle with employees over workplace power: constant monitoring. Dora Potts, editor in chief of a test prep service, in her home office in Minnesota.Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times We see you In the back and forth over workplace power, American employers have been getting the better of employees for the past few decades. Companies have been getting bigger, giving them greater ability to set prices and wages. Labor unions have been shrinking, leaving workers with less ability to negotiate for raises. And court rulings, especially from the Supreme Court, have tended to side with companies over workers or regulators. You can see these trends in the macroeconomic data. The share of the economy’s output that flows to corporate profits has almost doubled since the mid-1970s, while the share flowing to workers’ compensation has fallen. Or consider this chart: Data is adjusted for inflation; 1947 numbers are set to one. | Sources: Refinitiv; U.S. Census Bureau; Bureau of Labor Statistics As you can see, stock prices and family incomes tracked each other somewhat closely in the decades after World War II — but no longer do. The Times has just published a story that examines the latest manifestation of companies having the upper hand on workers. The story, by Jodi Kantor and Arya Sundaram, is called “The Rise of the Worker Productivity Score,” and it’s the result of a monthslong investigation. It describes technology-based employee monitoring that often has a Big Brother quality, tracking workers’ keystrokes and more. Jodi and Arya write: In lower-paying jobs, the monitoring is already ubiquitous: not just at Amazon, where the second-by-second measurements became notorious, but also for Kroger cashiers, UPS drivers and millions of others. Now digital productivity monitoring is also spreading among white-collar jobs and roles that require graduate degrees. Many employees, whether working remotely or in person, are subject to trackers, scores, “idle” buttons, or just quiet, constantly accumulating records. Employees at UnitedHealth Group can lose out on raises or bonuses if they have low keyboard activity. Some radiologists have scoreboards on their computer screens that compare their “inactivity” time with that of colleagues. In New York, the transit system has told some employees that they can work remotely one day a week if they agree to full-time monitoring. Work from home The trend began before the pandemic, and the rise of at-home white-collar work over the past two years has intensified it. “If we’re going to give up on bringing people back to the office, we’re not going to give up on managing productivity,” said Paul Wartenberg, who installs monitoring systems for companies. But even many in-person jobs now include productivity tabulations. One section of Jodi and Arya’s story describes the frustration of hospice chaplains who receive “productivity points” based partly on how many terminally ill patients they saw in a day. “This is going to sound terrible,” one chaplain said, “but every now and again I would do what I thought of as ‘spiritual care drive-bys’” to rack up points. If a patient was sleeping, “I could just talk to the nurse and say, ‘Are there any concerns?’ It counted as a visit because I laid eyes.” Trying to get the most out of workers is nothing new. And some form of accountability is crucial to an organization’s success. But minute-to-minute tracking of employee behavior, often using crude metrics, is a more aggressive form of accountability than has been historically normal. “This is such an intimate form of control, which is part of why it took months of reporting to see,” Jodi told me. “To be clear, some workers really are derelict. But for many others, this is about what happens when you need to grab 10 minutes to clear your head, or deal with a kid interruption, or take a couple of extra minutes in the bathroom.” In some cases, the monitoring systems may backfire, and the story documents how they can be inaccurate. Often, though, they can also contain accurate information about how an employee is performing from one minute to the next. And in doing so, they will further tilt the balance of workplace power away from workers and toward employers. The growing mismatch also helps explain another trend: the increasing interest in labor unions among some workers, after decades of decline. Companies, not surprisingly, are pushing back. For more: If you read the full story, you will get a sense for what it feels like to be tracked, thanks to a design by my colleagues Aliza Aufrichtig and Rumsey Taylor. A programming note I want to take a moment to explain the main New York Times subscription options, because there have been some recent changes. A Basic Access subscription grants access to all Times news, analysis and Opinion — but not all NYT Cooking, Games, Wirecutter or The Athletic. For that full experience, we offer an All Access subscription. And print subscribers automatically receive All Access. This newsletter continues to be free to all readers. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Volunteers before Kansas’ vote on abortion rights last month.Katie Currid for The New York Times Democrats are outspending Republicans on TV ads about abortion, betting the issue will win independent voters. After last week’s F.B.I. search of Donald Trump’s home, Republicans are split about how much to criticize law enforcement. Trump has given conflicting defenses of keeping classified documents, without saying why he kept them. Five members of Congress arrived in Taiwan, less than two weeks after a visit by Speaker Nancy Pelosi prompted Chinese military drills. TikTok has become an incubator for political misinformation. Other Big Stories Residents fled Russian-held territory yesterday near Europe’s biggest nuclear plant.David Guttenfelder for The New York Times Explosions around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine have forced civilians from the area. Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the attacks. A fire during Sunday Mass at a Coptic Orthodox church in Egypt killed at least 41 people. Before the U.S. can close Guantánamo Bay, it needs to relocate 36 remaining prisoners. Could they be held in Saudi Arabia? The author Salman Rushdie, who was attacked onstage last week, is starting to recover. Iran has denied involvement, the Washington Post reports. Anne Heche, whose films included “Donnie Brasco” and “Wag the Dog,” was taken off life support after a car crash. She died at 53. Norway killed a 1,300-pound walrus named Freya, who had attracted crowds as she lounged on boats. Opinions Congress is shooting for the moon. It’s getting close, Farah Stockman writes. In the opioid epidemic, citizens are stepping in to help where the government does not, Beth Macy writes. MORNING READS No more lush lawns: In dry Los Angeles, grass gives way to gravel. Seventy-five years later: The fading ghosts of India’s bloody partition. Joy and relief: How baby gear beat fears of pointless consumerism. Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.1. Can you beat it? A Times classic: Coming to understand a schizophrenic mother. Advice from Wirecutter: How to get rid of ants. Lives Lived: Years after Zofia Posmysz survived concentration camps, she thought she heard the voice of her former guard in Paris — a moment that inspired her best-known work, “The Passenger in Cabin 45.” She died at 98. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Disaster averted? New York Jets starting quarterback Zach Wilson will undergo surgery this week for a knee injury sustained in the team’s first preseason game Friday. If all goes smoothly, he could be recovered by Week 1 of the regular season. If not? It could be Joe Flacco time. A playoff picture is set: The W.N.B.A. playoffs are here to save us from the sports lull of deep summer. The league wrapped up its regular season yesterday as the Las Vegas Aces claimed the No. 1 seed for the postseason, relegating the defending champion Chicago Sky to No. 2. A classic Premier League rivalry renewed: Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham yesterday had both head coaches red-carded after the final whistle as match-long tension boiled over. The season is just two weeks young, but we may have already seen one of its defining moments. Has Deshaun Watson hurt the Cleveland Browns’ bottom line? Depends on where you look. ARTS AND IDEAS From left: Keith Strickland, Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson and Fred Schneider of the B-52’s.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times Goodbye to rock’s favorite weirdos When the B-52’s played their first gig in 1977, the self-described “freaks” from Athens, Ga., couldn’t imagine that they would someday be rock stars. “It was a hobby,” the singer Fred Schneider said. “We’d jammed once or twice. We didn’t even have the money to buy guitar strings.” But they had an undeniable appeal — sharp guitars, shouted choruses, campy wigs — that carried them from underground misfits to Top 10 hits, most memorably the 1989 song “Love Shack.” Now, after more than four decades, they have announced that their upcoming tour will be their last. They spoke with The Times about their careers. For more: These bands influenced, and were influenced by, the first B-52’s album. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Bryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. Use summer tomatoes for pasta with goat cheese. What to Watch These action movies. What to Read In the novel “A History of Present Illness,” a doctor feels everything. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were draping and parading. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Blended mush (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. During an “unremitting” heat wave, New Yorkers bought up almost all of the area’s air-conditioners, The Times reported 34 years ago today. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about a tax loophole. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 16, 2022 Author Members Posted August 16, 2022 August 16, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Congress is known for being dysfunctional. Why hasn’t it been over the past two years? Congress has been productive.Tom Brenner for The New York Times Who deserves credit? Describing Congress as dysfunctional seems unobjectionable, even clichéd. I’ve done it myself this summer. Yet as the current session enters its final months, the description feels off. The 117th Congress has been strikingly functional. On a bipartisan basis, it has passed bills to build roads and other infrastructure; tighten gun safety; expand health care for veterans; protect victims of sexual misconduct; overhaul the Postal Service; support Ukraine’s war effort; and respond to China’s growing aggressiveness. Just as important, the majority party (the Democrats) didn’t give a complete veto to the minority party. On a few major issues, Democrats decided that taking action was too important. They passed the most significant response to climate change in the country’s history. They also increased access to medical care for middle- and lower-income Americans and enacted programs that softened the blow from the pandemic. Congress still has plenty of problems. It remains polarized on many issues. It has not figured out how to respond to the growing threats to American democracy. The House suffers from gerrymandering, and the Senate has a growing bias against residents of large states, who are disproportionately Black, Latino, Asian and young. The Senate can also struggle at the basic function of approving presidential nominees. The current Congress has also passed at least one law that seems clearly flawed in retrospect: It appears to have spent too much money on pandemic stimulus last year, exacerbating inflation. As regular readers know, though, this newsletter tries to avoid bad-news bias and cover both accomplishments and failures. Today, I want to focus on how Congress — a reliably unpopular institution — has managed to be more productive than almost anybody expected. I’ll focus on four groups: Democratic congressional leaders; Republican lawmakers; progressive Democrats; and President Biden and his aides. 1. Democratic leaders Earlier this year, Chuck Schumer — the Democratic leader in the Senate — seemed to have lost control of his caucus. He devoted Senate time to a doomed voting-rights bill, while his talks with party centrists over Biden’s economic agenda looked dead. Critics believed that Schumer, fearing a primary challenge for his own seat in New York, was making pointless symbolic gestures to the left. And Schumer did seem strangely anxious about his left flank. But he also continued to negotiate quietly with the crucial Democratic Senate centrist, Joe Manchin, while urging Senate progressives to accept the deal on health care and climate policy that he and Manchin were making. His performance was impressive, especially because Schumer could not afford to lose a single Democratic vote in the Senate, and evoked the successes of his predecessor as Senate leader, Harry Reid. It also resembled the skillful management of the House Democratic caucus by Nancy Pelosi over the past 20 years. She also runs a diverse caucus that holds a narrow majority. 2. Congressional Republicans In recent decades, congressional Republicans have almost uniformly opposed policies to address some of the country’s biggest problems, including climate change and economic inequality. That opposition has continued in the current Congress. But Republicans have not reflexively opposed all legislation in this Congress — as they tended to do during Barack Obama’s presidency, Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg Opinion points out. In the current session, some Republicans worked hard to help write bipartisan legislation on other issues. Below is a list of Senate Republicans who voted for at least three of five major bills (on infrastructure, China policy, gun safety, veterans’ health care and the Postal Service). Note the presence of Mitch McConnell, the Republicans’ Senate leader: Eleven voted for two bipartisan bills, and 13 voted for one. | The New York Times Only five Republican senators did not vote for any of those bills: James Lankford of Oklahoma, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Richard Shelby and Tommy Tuberville, both of Alabama. 3. Progressives The progressive wing of the Democratic Party can sometimes seem self-defeating these days, focused on internal purity rather than policy changes. (Ryan Grim wrote a remarkable article in The Intercept in June about the meltdowns at some liberal groups.) But progressive members of Congress have been strikingly practical this year. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and most House progressives understood that keeping Manchin on board offered the only hope of ambitious climate legislation. They refused to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As a result, the current Congress will end up being one of the most progressive of the past century. Its successes don’t measure up to the New Deal, the Great Society and maybe not Obama’s first two years (with legislation on health care, climate and economic rescue). Yet the current session can compete with any other one. 4. Joe Biden That’s true partly because most Democratic presidents in the 20th century failed to pass their biggest domestic priorities. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman all fall into this category. Their disappointments helped spawn jokes about Democratic disarray. “I don’t belong to an organized political party,” the humorist Will Rogers once said. “I’m a Democrat.” Those jokes now seem outdated. Biden is the second straight Democratic president to shepherd a big agenda through Congress. During the first of those two presidencies, of course, Biden was the vice president, and he helped manage congressional relations. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and President Biden in Washington in February.Oliver Contreras for The New York Times “Many of us dismissed Biden’s claim that he could bring the parties closer together as delusional,” New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait wrote. “To an extent we didn’t expect, he’s managed to do it.” What’s Biden strategy? He and his top aides rarely take opposition personally. They don’t get too down when things look bad. They trust and respect their party’s congressional leaders. They keep talking — and talking — with members of Congress and looking for areas of compromise. For his efforts, Biden has been able to sign a string of major bills in recent months. The signing ceremony for the climate bill is scheduled for today. For more: Farah Stockman of Times Opinion and the Washington Post editorial board have both written about the surprising functionality of the current Congress. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to appear before a special grand jury tomorrow.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times Rudy Giuliani is a target of the Georgia criminal investigation into 2020 election interference. The Justice Department objected to the news media’s request to make public the affidavit for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant because they said releasing it could deter witnesses. New York prosecutors are nearing a plea deal with Allen Weisselberg, a longtime Trump executive. Liz Cheney, Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin are on the ballot in primaries in Wyoming and Alaska today. International Supporters of William Ruto in Kenya yesterday.Simon Maina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Kenya declared William Ruto, the country’s vice president, winner of the presidential election. The losing candidate has rejected the results. Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians have disappeared into Russian jails. Those who have made it out report beatings and electrical shocks. Scotland is the first country to make period products free. Other Big Stories There was so much fraud in federal Covid relief programs that prosecutors have struggled to keep up. Oil prices are at their lowest level in months and fell yesterday after data showed that China’s economy was faltering. After a string of killings, Albuquerque’s Muslim community was shaken that the suspect was a fellow Muslim. More than two million infant swings and rockers were recalled after a baby died. Opinions The Republican Party has turned strongly anti-environmental, Paul Krugman writes. But why? How would you describe Liz Cheney? Here’s what Wyoming voters answered. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Precious leather: Don’t get between a major leaguer and his glove. Pigs to the rescue: Invasive hogs make for good crocodile food. Metropolitan Diary: Reader tales from New York City. A Times classic: The psychology of cults. Advice from Wirecutter: Build an ebike. Lives Lived: Nicholas Evans’s “The Horse Whisperer,” a 1995 novel that became a film, broke publishing records along with readers’ hearts. He died at 72. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Mark your calendars: N.B.A. opening night is set for Oct. 18. The Boston Celtics will host the Philadelphia 76ers in the first game of a doubleheader, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reports, and the Golden State Warriors will receive their championship rings ahead of a matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers. Same as it ever was: The programs in the A.P. college football preseason poll won’t shock you. Alabama is ranked No. 1 for the ninth time, Ohio State is No. 2 and Georgia, the defending champion, is No. 3. Some voters didn’t know what to do with No. 14 U.S.C., though. Is Manchester United already too far gone? After an embarrassing loss Saturday, the club appears divided by dynamics that could give you chilling flashbacks to high school (even Cristiano Ronaldo eats alone, sometimes). They’re last place in the Premier League table with no clear path to the top. ARTS AND IDEAS “The Satanic Verses” being burned in Britain in 1988.Derek Hudson/Getty Images A fight over free speech Salman Rushdie had wondered in recent years whether the public was losing its appetite for free speech, a principle on which he staked his life when Iran sought to have him killed for his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses.” As Rushdie told The Guardian last year, “The kinds of people who stood up for me in the bad years might not do so now.” After Rushdie was stabbed onstage Friday, the initial denunciation gave way to a renewal of the debate over free speech, Jennifer Schuessler writes in The Times. Some of Rushdie’s supporters lamented growing acceptance, on parts of the political right and left, of the notion that speech that offends is grounds for censorship. Jennifer’s story also notes some surprising history — including a Times opinion essay by Jimmy Carter decrying Rushdie’s novel. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Joe Lingeman for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. Make the most of zucchini season with a one-bowl loaf cake. Travel A Times journalist spent part of his childhood in Budapest. He returned in search of the familiar and the new. What to Watch In the movie “Emily the Criminal,” a young woman descends into lawlessness. Late Night The hosts discussed the F.B.I. search of Trump’s home. Now Time to Play The pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were javelin and javelina. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Spooky (five letters). And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. The Times’s Pam Belluck won the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting for her Covid coverage. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the Taliban. On “The Ezra Klein Show,” the future of work. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 17, 2022 Author Members Posted August 17, 2022 August 17, 2022 By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. We have the latest results from last night’s primaries — and their larger meaning for the Republican Party. Liz Cheney’s concession speech in Jackson, Wyo.Kim Raff for The New York Times The party of Trump Last night offered the latest evidence of Donald Trump’s continued influence over the Republican Party. In today’s newsletter, we’ll give you the results and also offer some larger perspective on the overall success rate of Trump’s endorsements this year. First, here are the main results: Liz Cheney — Trump’s highest-profile critic within the party — resoundingly lost her primary race for Wyoming’s lone House seat. Cheney received 29 percent of the vote, compared with 66 percent for Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed candidate who has not held elected office before. (Here’s a Times profile of Hageman, and an analysis about what Cheney’s loss means for the G.O.P.) In Wyoming’s Republican primary for secretary of state, the office that oversees elections, the winner was Chuck Gray, a state legislator whom Trump endorsed. Gray, like Trump, has falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. In Alaska, Sarah Palin, the state’s former governor whom Trump endorsed, and two rivals — Mary Peltola, a Democrat, and Nick Begich, a Republican — advanced to the November election for Alaska’s open House seat to replace Don Young, who died in March. Alaska also held a Senate primary, but its results are unlikely to matter much. The state uses open primaries in which the top four vote getters advance to the general election. Both the incumbent — Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial for the Capitol attack — and Trump’s preferred candidate, Kelly Tshibaka, advanced. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, which may favor a moderate like Murkowski. Here are the latest vote counts from Alaska and Wyoming. Trump’s 2022 record The 2022 primary schedule is winding down, with only six states yet to hold elections, including Florida next week. The full picture of Trump’s influence is becoming clear. He has become the rare defeated president to wield enormous sway over his party, with the ability to end careers (like Cheney’s, perhaps) and to turn once-obscure candidates into winners. Trump even persuaded other top Republicans, like Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Ted Cruz, to endorse Cheney’s opponent. But Trump’s influence is not complete. The success rate of his endorsements in competitive elections hovers around 80 percent, and some incumbents (like Murkowski, perhaps) have proven strong enough to overcome his criticism of them. The Times’s Maggie Haberman notes that Trump sometimes makes endorsements without thinking them through, including in multicandidate races with more than one candidate who supports his agenda. “Trump tends to treat politics like a scoreboard, as opposed to a strategic effort,” Maggie said. This chart, by our colleague Ashley Wu, summarizes Trump’s record in the 2022 primaries so far. Data up to Aug. 15. Based on initial endorsements and excludes uncontested candidates and Trump-endorsed incumbents. | The New York Times Trump’s biggest successes include races in which he has helped defeat incumbents who defied him, including four of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him over Jan. 6. Trump has also transformed some campaigns without an incumbent, allowing his endorsee to win a crowded field. Examples include J.D. Vance in the Ohio Senate primary; Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate primary; and Kari Lake in the Arizona governor primary. If anything, our chart above understates Trump’s influence, because it does not include officials who resigned partly out of a fear that a more Trump-friendly candidate might beat them. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Senate seats, as well as those in Missouri and North Carolina, seem to be examples. The senators who chose not to run for election in these states — like Rob Portman in Ohio — were not even regular Trump critics. They instead tended to be establishment Republicans who tried to avoid talking about him. Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, four also did not run for re-election. Overall, only two still have a chance to remain in Congress next year. With all this said, Trump is not omnipotent. The races where his endorsed candidates have lost this year tend to fall into one of two categories: Either his chosen candidates were facing incumbents with a strong enough connection to voters to survive, or the Trump-backed candidates seemed too flawed to win. Georgia falls into the first category. There, both Gov. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, survived primary challengers despite their refusal to help Trump’s attempt to reverse the 2020 election result. The Alabama senate race falls into the second category. Mo Brooks, a House member involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, was struggling so much that Trump withdrew his endorsement late in the campaign and later switched to Katie Britt, who already seemed on course to win. Other Trump endorsees who lost their races include Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who has been accused of insider trading and sexual misconduct; and Charles Herbster, a candidate for Nebraska governor whom multiple women accused of groping. Trump endorsed Tim Michels, left, who won the Republican primary for governor in Wisconsin.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times The bottom line Even if Trump does not become the Republican presidential nominee again, he continues to shape the Republican Party. He has helped push out of Congress some of the Republicans who have voted for bipartisan legislation this year. He has also pushed out some of those who have called out his lies about his election and criticized his encouragement of the Jan. 6 rioters. In their place are candidates who have signaled they might be willing to commit election fraud to keep Democrats from taking office, regardless of the vote count. “These primary fights aren’t between the ‘pro-Trump’ wing versus the ‘anti- or Never-Trump’ wing of the G.O.P.,” Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report has written, referring to most races. “In both style and substance, the current G.O.P. remains Trump’s party.” For more: Cheney is a victim of conservative cancel culture, Stephanie Muravchik and Jon Shields write in Times Opinion. And Jonathan Martin and Blake Hounshell explain how Cheney thinks about her place in history. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Biden handing the pen to Senator Joe Manchin.Doug Mills/The New York Times President Biden signed the Democrats’ climate, health and tax bill into law. (The Upshot has a breakdown of its programs.) Afterward, Biden handed the pen to Joe Manchin, whose reversal allowed Democrats to pass the bill. (Biden’s expression attracted attention on social media.) A top Trump lawyer tried to help the National Archives retrieve White House documents from Mar-a-Lago, but Trump resisted. “It’s not theirs, it’s mine,” several advisers say he told them. A federal grand jury charged T.J. Cox, a former Democratic lawmaker from California, with fraud and other financial crimes. Health The F.D.A. will allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter, removing a barrier for millions of Americans who have not sought help. A century-old vaccine may protect against Covid by bolstering the immune system. Young adults are checking if they are vaccinated against polio after a case was detected in New York. Other Big Stories Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border.Caitlin Ochs/Reuters With water levels extremely low in the Colorado River, Arizona and Nevada are facing restrictions on how much water they can pump out of it. Dangerous levels of heat are forecast in much of the U.S. See how hot it’ll be in your area. A Ukrainian unit blew up a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea, the latest attack in the Russian-controlled territory. The Academy Awards apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache woman who was booed when she refused the 1973 best actor award on Marlon Brando’s behalf. Manchester United fans got excited after Elon Musk tweeted he’d buy the club, The Guardian reports. (Hours later Musk said it was a joke.) Opinions Reading while incarcerated saved Christopher Blackwell. So why are prisons banning books? Yvonne Shortt is going blind. A video by James Robinson shows what she wants you to see. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Monarchy: A royal family feuds over who should be king of the Zulus. Cowtown: One of the country’s oldest rodeos is in … New Jersey? Move: Household chores can help your brain. A Times classic: How to be more patient. Advice from Wirecutter: Gifts for travelers. Lives Lived: Wolfgang Petersen made big Hollywood hits, but he’s best remembered for the harrowing 1981 German war film “Das Boot.” He died at 81. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC How long will Kevin Durant be in limbo? There’s little we can glean from recent N.B.A. trade request history. The ultimatum Durant presented to the Brooklyn Nets — and the fact that he’s owed $194 million — means the process could take a while. Another LIV related lawsuit: Former PGA Tour golfer Patrick Reed is suing the Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee for defamation. PGA Tour stars, including Tiger Woods, are meeting to discuss the rebel venture. More Jets misery? Quarterback Zach Wilson underwent knee surgery and is expected to miss four to six weeks. New York’s Week 1 matchup is in three-and-a-half weeks. This probably means it’s Joe Flacco time for the Jets. ARTS AND IDEAS Willie Nelson in Austin, Texas, in April.Philip Montgomery for The New York Times Willie Nelson is still standing Willie Nelson has reached the age — 89 — when getting out of bed each morning can be considered a feat of survival, Jody Rosen writes in The Times Magazine. Musically, though, he’s going strong as ever. Nelson is an exception in the youth-obsessed music industry. He didn’t reach superstardom until he was 45, and once he did, he never stopped working. Over the past two decades he has made 36 albums, including forays into reggae and gospel. “It’s a decent job,” he says. “Best one I’ve had, at least.” PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Joe Lingeman for The New York Times Turn tomato salad into a meal by adding creamy beans. What to Watch A new biopic series about Leonardo da Vinci prefers contemporary clichés to exploring what made the artist fascinating. What to Read Two memoirs excavate the denouements of different relationships in which former wives have something in common: relief. Late Night Al Franken hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was competed. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Increased (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 word “telehandler” — a giant forklift at a construction-themed amusement park in New Jersey — appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about airline chaos. On “The Argument,” celebrity and politics. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 19, 2022 Author Members Posted August 19, 2022 August 18, 2022 By German Lopez Good morning. The C.D.C. acknowledged it had botched its Covid response. It is part of a broader set of failures. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director.Pool photo by J. Scott Applewhite Three big mistakes The U.S. seemed ready for the monkeypox outbreak. It had vaccines and treatments that are effective and experts had studied the virus for decades. Yet the U.S. response has fallen short. The country cannot use millions of vaccine doses it owns because they were not bottled for distribution. The available vaccines and medications remain out of reach for a vast majority of Americans — a result of poor communication by federal officials and of other bureaucratic barriers. Monkeypox is not very deadly, so this is not a Covid-level catastrophe. But the flawed response suggests that, nearly three years after Covid first appeared, the U.S. is still unprepared for the next deadly pandemic. The C.D.C. director, Rochelle Walensky, acknowledged that much yesterday. She called for her agency to be overhauled after an external review found it had failed to respond quickly and clearly to Covid. She faulted the agency for acting too much like an academic institution that was focused on producing “data for publication” instead of “data for action.” “For 75 years, C.D.C. and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Walensky said. In today’s newsletter, I want to explain three vulnerabilities that Covid, and now monkeypox, exposed: unclear communication, a fragmented public health system and a tendency for public officials to be reactive instead of proactive. Unclear communication During the early days of the Covid pandemic, a lot of criticism focused on Donald Trump. He downplayed the threat, pushed the U.S. to reopen quickly after an initial lockdown and made outright false statements about treatments. Trump’s poor performance sometimes made it seem as if he was the sole reason the U.S. had struggled more than other countries in combating Covid. But he wasn’t; the broader public health system struggled, too. For its part, the C.D.C. said yesterday that its public guidance on Covid was “confusing and overwhelming.” One memorable example was officials’ initial, monthslong refusal to recommend that the public wear masks — not because they thought masks were ineffective, but because they worried that public demand would cause a shortage of masks for health care workers. Their hesitation represented what would become a pattern throughout the pandemic: a reluctance to communicate the truth clearly and directly. The resulting lack of clarity made it harder for Americans to act on expert advice. But it also damaged public trust, when people eventually found out they had been deceived. Similar problems have emerged with monkeypox. Some public health officials have been reluctant to acknowledge that the virus is mostly spreading among gay and bisexual men, out of fear of stigmatizing this group. But about 95 percent of known U.S. cases are among men who have sex with men (not all of whom identify as gay or bisexual). Failing to acknowledge that makes it harder to target and advise the most at-risk group. (I went into more detail in a previous newsletter about who should take precautions and why.) Effective public health messaging needs to be honest, said Ellen Carlin, a health security policy expert at Georgetown University. If officials do not trust the public with the truth, then the public will eventually stop trusting officials, too. A monkeypox vaccination site in San Francisco this month.Jim Wilson/The New York Times Fragmented systems Another problem that made the U.S.’s Covid and monkeypox responses less effective: The American public health system is divided — among the federal government, 50 states, thousands of local governments and many more private organizations and workers both inside and outside the health care system. We saw the results when the U.S. first started distributing Covid vaccines. Poor planning and communication between the layers of government, along with limited supply, made it harder for front-line officials to plan for how many shots they could get in arms. Similar problems have appeared with monkeypox vaccine distribution. The C.D.C. is a key federal agency that is supposed to rise above this fragmentation and help coordinate the national response to disease outbreaks. But throughout the pandemic, as Walensky acknowledged, it has struggled. And it seems to be struggling with monkeypox, too. Reactive, not proactive Many of these problems could have been avoided with better pandemic preparedness. The federal government could have, for example, bulked up mask stockpiles or manufacturing before the pandemic, easing early concerns about shortages. But the U.S. has underfunded public health for years, experts said. So when Covid first began to spread, officials suddenly had to shift limited resources to deal with a crisis that had caught them by surprise — making mistakes more likely. In the early days of the pandemic, experts often said that the plane was being built as it was being flown. Covid has worsened the problem. “Health departments have lost a lot of staff and have been very burned out,” said Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “There’s just not a lot left to bring resources to their full potential.” To address the gaps, the Biden administration has called for tens of billions more in funding for pandemic preparedness. Congress has so far ignored those proposals, in what seems like history repeating itself. The bottom line Nearly three years into Covid, the U.S. is still not ready for the next pandemic. The C.D.C. is moving to remedy some of the problems plaguing the country’s public health system. Those changes, along with the broader lessons from Covid and monkeypox, could be the difference between another deadly pandemic and a crisis averted. For more From toilets to the lab, this visual guide follows the journey of wastewater to help track viruses. After the government announced a plan to stretch out monkeypox vaccine doses, a manufacturer threatened to cancel future U.S. orders, The Washington Post reports. Europe has also struggled with equitable distribution of Covid and monkeypox vaccines. From Times Opinion: The low Covid vaccination rate among toddlers is indicative of Americans’ lack of trust in the public health system, Aaron Carroll argues. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Liz Cheney after her concession speech this week.Kim Raff for The New York Times Representative Liz Cheney, who lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger this week, said she was “thinking” about running for president. Mike Pence called on Republicans to stop attacking law enforcement agencies over the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago. Why did Trump resist returning the documents? Here are some possible explanations. The Biden administration will begin trade negotiations with Taiwan in the fall. “I kept trying”: Quiet lobbying from Bill Gates and others helped save Democrats’ climate bill, Bloomberg reports. Other Big Stories Heat and drought in Europe this summer are putting an unexpected strain on its energy supply. Allen Weisselberg, a longtime Trump executive, reached a plea deal that will require him to testify at the company’s trial if prosecutors choose to call on him. A federal judge ordered CVS, Walgreens and Walmart to pay $650.5 million for helping fuel the opioid crisis. A teenager used abortion pills. She’s facing charges, and so is her mother. Schools have been caught up in debates over what students should learn about U.S. history. Social studies teachers explained what they teach. A Texas school district ordered the removal of the Bible and a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary. Opinions Rushdie’s readers saved his art — and maybe his life, too, Pamela Paul writes. Democrats’ climate law is historic. Action on child care, elder care and paid leave must come next, writes Ai-jen Poo. Oren Cass and Chris Griswold lay out what the G.O.P. should do if it gains power in Congress. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Randall Munroe Shark or orca: Which should you fear more? Tech hacks: How to make traveling less of a headache. A Times classic: Is early puberty a new “normal?” Advice from Wirecutter: Consider a portable power station to charge during outages. Lives Lived: Hanae Mori built a fashion house that popularized East-West styles and symbolized the rise of postwar Japan. She died at 96. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Pressure’s on: The Los Angeles Lakers’ N.B.A. title window is clear after LeBron James signed a two-year contract extension yesterday. Can they get his supporting cast right, and in a hurry? That might mean Russell Westbrook out, Kyrie Irving in. Deshaun Watson decision still looms: Another day closer to the start of the N.F.L.’s regular season and we have no clarity on the Cleveland Browns quarterback’s suspension status. A new ruling or a settlement could come at any time. An American soccer star on the move? Manchester United is considering bringing in the U.S. men’s national team captain Christian Pulisic on loan from Chelsea. Would the move make sense? ARTS AND IDEAS via University of Michigan Library A fake Galileo The University of Michigan Library had described a manuscript from Galileo Galilei as “one of the great treasures” in its collection. On Wednesday, the university announced that the document — which purported to document his 1610 discovery of moons orbiting Jupiter — was a 20th-century forgery. Nick Wilding, an expert on forgeries who is working on a Galileo biography, first noticed that something seemed off. One clue: The ink at the top and the bottom of the page were remarkably similar, even though the two sections were supposedly written months apart. From there, he traced the manuscript to a Detroit businessman, an archbishop of Pisa and finally a notorious counterfeiter in Milan. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Paola & Murray for The New York Times Top this tuna poke with roasted macadamia nuts. What to Read In “Breaking History,” Jared Kushner recounts his time in the White House. A Times book critic calls it “soulless.” What to Wear Welcome back, tank tops. Late Night Trevor Noah discussed Cheney’s loss. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was honeydew. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Ginormous (four letters). Here’s today’s Wordle. And The Times has relaunched the WordleBot, with new features, to help you get better. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — German P.S. The Times’s Video team won an Edward R. Murrow Award for its documentary about Jan. 6. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the documents at Mar-a-Lago. “Popcast” is about Beyoncé. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 20, 2022 Author Members Posted August 20, 2022 August 19, 2022 By David Leonhardt and Claire Moses Good morning. We explain why the last several weeks of the war in Ukraine have gone poorly for Russia. A Ukrainian artillery unit.David Guttenfelder for The New York Times Feet not miles When we last updated you on the war in Ukraine, we laid out three possible scenarios for the near future. This morning, we’ll explain how the events of the past six weeks have affected the war, with help from our colleagues who are covering it from Ukraine, Washington and elsewhere. The bottom line is that the most recent phase of the war has gone better for Ukraine than many observers expected after Russia’s progress earlier this year. “The Ukrainians are doing well,” Helene Cooper, a Washington correspondent, told us. “The Russians are measuring progress in feet, not even miles, at this point.” As Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, puts it: “The Russians appeared to have lost some of the momentum they had earlier in the summer. If you look closely, you see the Ukrainians gaining a bit of momentum, even though not that much is changing on the map.” Victory, stalemate, defeat As a reminder, here are the three scenarios we described last month, which were based partly on public comments by Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence: Russia starts to win. Russia would continue to take over more of eastern Ukraine, as it did in the spring, and ultimately control all of the Donbas region. This progress might break Ukrainians’ will to fight elsewhere — and weaken support for the war in Western Europe and the U.S. The war falls into a stalemate. Many analysts, including Haines, consider this scenario the most likely. In it, Russia would dominate the east but would not be able to go much farther. Ukraine starts to win. Ukraine would halt Russia’s advance in the east and also succeed in launching counterattacks, potentially reclaiming some territory in the south, where Russia has also taken over some cities. Looking back at this list now, we are struck that the recent events seem to fall somewhere between the second and third scenarios. In the early summer, Russia seemed to be making progress toward taking over all of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, which includes two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk. But that progress appears to have slowed. Russia controls only Luhansk, not all of Donetsk. The New York Times “Russia has made little to no inroads in the Donetsk province, and U.S. officials don’t think they’ll take it this year,” said our colleague Eric Schmitt, a senior correspondent covering security issues. Colin Kahl, a top Pentagon official, has pointed out that Russia’s minuscule progress in the east has come at a high cost — about 20,000 troop deaths and another 50,000 or so injuries. Michael Schwirtz, a Times correspondent who has been covering the war in Ukraine, calls these numbers “astonishing.” Seth Jones, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “The Russians probably don’t have enough effective combat forces to fully take Donetsk,” at least not anytime soon. (This recent story by Helene has more details.) Ukraine has been able to stymie Russia thanks in large part to weapons from the U.S., the E.U. and other allies. Especially important in recent weeks have been truck-mounted rocket launchers, known as HIMARS, whose satellite-guided missiles can travel nearly 50 miles. The U.S. has sent 16 of the launchers to Ukraine so far and helped train their crews. The HIMARS are one reason that Ukraine has been able to strike more deeply into Russian-held territory than before. One target has been Kherson, a region in southern Ukraine that Russia controls and where Ukraine may be gearing up for a counterattack. Ukraine has also carried out successful sabotage attacks in Crimea, an area of southern Ukraine that Vladimir Putin annexed in 2014. “To walk right in and start blowing up military bases in Crimea is a real embarrassment for Russia,” Michael said. (Here’s a profile of the resistance fighters conducting the sabotage operations, written from Ukraine by Andrew Kramer.) Together, these attacks have forced Russia to divert several thousand troops from the east to defend areas that had previously seemed secure. As Helene said, “The Russians are now fighting a two-front war.” Putin was hoping to be in a better position by now. After he was defeated in his initial attempt to oust Ukraine’s government, his fallback goal became taking over eastern Ukraine. That now seems unlikely to happen this year. “Russia is not even accomplishing its scaled-down goal,” Helene added. A long war With all this said, Russia still has some major advantages. Putin seems completely in control of Russia’s government, allowing him to play a long game. And Russia has a history of winning wars of attrition, recently in Syria and Chechnya and less recently during World War II — although not in Afghanistan, which demonstrates that Russia can also lose these conflicts. In the current war, Russian troops may not be making much progress, but neither is Ukraine. It still has not recaptured large amounts of territory in the east or the south. Ukrainian troops and civilians have also suffered heavy casualties, Michael said. One unexpected recent positive for Putin has been his ability to fight the war without having to resort to a draft. Some analysts had predicted that he would need to mobilize more troops from the Russian population, Anton notes. Instead, Russia has continued to fight using only its existing troops, and forcibly drafted residents of eastern Ukraine. In coming weeks, Putin will likely try to bolster domestic support by holding show trials for Ukrainian prisoners of war from the southern city of Mariupol. Over the longer term, he seems to be hoping that European and U.S. support for Ukraine may flag, especially if he can keep energy prices high. As well as the past few weeks have gone for Ukraine, Putin has overcome setbacks before, through a mixture of patience and brutality. For more Dancers in front of a theater in Odesa in June.Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times The openness and diversity in Odesa, a Ukrainian port city, embody what Putin wants to destroy, The Times’s Roger Cohen writes. Russia and Ukraine accused each other of preparing an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia has controlled since March. THE LATEST NEWS Politics A judge may release the affidavit used in the search of Donald Trump’s Florida home, but only after a redaction. President Biden’s aides are embracing the “Dark Brandon” meme that mocks a vulgar conservative insult — and he is wearing his aviator sunglasses a lot, which he tends to do on good days. Other Big Stories Three men have been charged in the killing of the Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger, who was beaten to death in a West Virginia prison in 2018. Allen Weisselberg, a Trump Organization executive, admitted to conspiring with the company to avoid taxes on lavish perks. Experts say that Tesla data, if shared, can be an investigative tool to understand car crashes. The N.F.L. will suspend Deshaun Watson for 11 games after sexual misconduct claims, longer than the initial six-game punishment suggested. Opinions David Brooks remembers the writer Frederick Buechner, who understood that to close yourself off from pain is to close yourself off from being transformed. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is back in good standing, but women’s rights in Saudi Arabia remain a mirage, Megan Stack says. Why did the I.R.S. need $80 billion? Look at its cafeteria, The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell writes. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Jamad Fiin, 22, has more than a million Instagram followers. What will she do with her influence?Vanessa Leroy for The New York Times On sports and fame: A basketball player and influencer. A fighter who survived a murder attempt. And much more. An investigation: As a C.E.O., Dan Price criticized corporate greed. His social media fame helped enable a pattern of abuse. Modern Love: A sister’s last act of intimate kindness. A Times classic: Your air-conditioner is bad for the climate. Advice from Wirecutter: Try this carry-on. Lives Lived: Norah Vincent was a 35-year-old journalist when she disguised herself and lived as a man, an 18-month experience she chronicled in a best-selling book. She died at 53. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC The Big Ten cashes in: The conference announced its media rights agreements, which total over $8 billion across seven years. Split across multiple networks (think N.F.L.-style), the rights distribution represents a new mind-set for college sports. So you want to know where to find your games? That’s here. A final ruling on Watson: The Cleveland Browns quarterback is eligible to return from his 11-game suspension on Dec. 4 — a matchup with his former team, the Houston Texans. From an on-field standpoint, the lengthened ban might not make much of a difference. No. 700 in sight: The St. Louis Cardinals legend Albert Pujols, set to retire, is experiencing a midlife power surge and sits at 690 career home runs. Can he squeeze in 10 more? ARTS AND IDEAS A scene from “House of the Dragon.”Ollie Upton/HBO Return to Westeros This Sunday HBO will premiere “House of the Dragon” a prequel series to “Game of Thrones.” The Times has a few stories to help fans prepare — or to decide whether, after the original series’ disappointing finale, they want to tune in again. The new show takes place nearly 200 years before the original, at a time when the dragon-riding Targaryen family — ancestors of Daenerys — ruled the land. This guide explains what’s going on. John Koblin spoke with George R.R. Martin, on whose books the shows are based. Martin is shaping the new series — unlike the final seasons of “Game of Thrones.” For those, he said, he was “pretty much out of the loop.” “The signs are there, but the spirit is weak.” Here’s a review by the critic Mike Hale. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Mark Weinberg for The New York Times This mash-up of crispy rice treats and s’mores is smile inducing. What to Read “Slenderman” explores what drove two 12-year-olds to try to kill a friend. What to Watch Tatiana Maslany is the giant, green protagonist in “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” a Marvel comedy series on Disney+. Late Night Trevor Noah on Trump’s jailbird friends. News Quiz How well did you keep up with the headlines this week? Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was officially. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Polemology: the study of ___ (three 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. Ken Bensinger is joining The Times’s Politics desk to cover right-wing media. Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about cosmic questions. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 21, 2022 Author Members Posted August 21, 2022 August 20, 2022 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. We have a big, uplifting playlist to add (even more) sunshine to your weekend. Allie Sullberg Let’s dance It’s still August, but I listened to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” several times the other day, thanks to a reader email proclaiming it “hands down the best feel-good song.” It appears on The Morning Summer 2022 Playlist, a collection of songs we put together based on reader suggestions. These songs have made you dance while driving, gotten you through breakups, soothed your crying babies and reminded you that this, too, shall pass. I’m nostalgic for the mixtapes my friends and I made for each other in elementary school, with songs recorded clumsily off the radio. They were time capsules of feelings and moods, of semesters and seasons. I’ve always found the playlist a little too easy compared with the painstaking work of making a mixtape: trying to keep the clicking of the “record” and “stop” buttons between songs as unobtrusive as possible, the handwritten liner notes I inevitably smeared and had to do over (the lefty’s curse). But as much as I miss mixtapes, I’m deeply in love with one innovation of the streaming era: the collaborative playlist. It’s an art project with limitless contributors, a way to easily gather the enthusiasms and inspirations from people all over the world. More than just a soundtrack, the collaborative playlist is an engine for discovery. (And rediscovery: I’d all but forgotten about They Might Be Giants’ “Birdhouse in Your Soul.”) We received hundreds of readers’ contributions to our feel-good summer playlist. Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” was popular. For Crystal Hannan from Cornelius, Ore., it’s been her anthem during a challenging year. Joanna O. from Washington, D.C., loves “Silk Chiffon” by MUNA, featuring Phoebe Bridgers. “It’s a breezy, queer romantic bop that evokes summer and the excitement of meeting someone new,” she wrote. Michelle Higgins in Haddon Heights, N.J., recommends “Don’t Wanna” and “Now I’m in It” by the Haim sisters. “These ladies are my yes vibe for the summer,” she wrote. For Ridwan Khan in Houston, it’s “Music,” by Erick Sermon, featuring Marvin Gaye. “It lifts my spirits and takes me back to a simpler time in life, when all I had to worry about was having a fun-filled summer before I start college,” he wrote. Kyle McVicker, a carpenter from Newport, R.I., listens to the mandolin compilation “Trattoria Italiana” on Spotify while he works. “The gaps between power tool screams are filled with something soothing and beautiful, gently guiding my adrenaline back down to earth,” he wrote. Ashley Song from Lexington, Mass., shared “This Is A Life” by Son Lux, Mitski and David Byrne. It’s “quenching my summertime existential crisis as a rising high school senior,” she wrote. And Jim Lin in Richardson, Texas, wrote, “When nations have summits or negotiations, ‘You Make My Dreams’ by Hall & Oates should be playing in the background. You can’t help smile and/or bop along joyously as it plays.” My contribution to the playlist is “That’s Where I Am,” from Maggie Rogers’s recent album, “Surrender.” It’s the song I’ve listened to most this summer, easy to sing along to, with the refrain “It all works out in the end.” The whole album is irresistible. I agree with what Rogers told The Times last month: “Right now, the joy on the record feels like the greatest form of rebellion.” For more I love this NPR interview with Allee Willis, who co-wrote Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.” Check out a contemporary guide to making a mixtape. How to make the perfect playlist. More new music for your summer compilations: Sylvan Esso and Rina Sawayama. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Adele will begin a residency in Las Vegas in November.Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Adele Building hype and lowering costs are among the reasons that pop stars are choosing residencies over tours. Writers including Gay Talese gathered yesterday to read from Salman Rushdie’s writing and support free expression. The pop star Solange will write a score for a work that will premiere at New York City Ballet next month. “Better Call Saul” was more than “Breaking Bad 2,” James Poniewozik wrote after the show’s finale. (Meet the brain trust who kept its story straight.) Anne Heche was brilliantly unnerving and funny onscreen, with intelligence and wiliness that served her in playing competent women in extreme situations. She died at 53. A highlight of the Salzburg Festival, classical music’s pre-eminent annual event, was a production of the opera “Kat’a Kabanova.” The Trisha Brown Dance Company will perform today in an unusual setting: the sand and surf of Rockaway Beach. Denzel Washington honored the playwright August Wilson at the dedication of Wilson’s childhood home, restored as a community center. To try to stave off anxiety attacks, Jonah Hill will no longer promote his films, The Los Angeles Times reported. The actor Ezra Miller, who faces felony burglary charges, apologized for “past behavior” and is seeking mental health treatment, Vulture reported. The Oscars apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather, the Apache actress who was booed in 1973 after she refused the best actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando. A woman testified that R. Kelly sexually abused her on video when she was 14. (Here’s what to know about his new trial.) The Cambodian government suspects that lost artifacts were looted and ended up at the Met. THE LATEST NEWS President Biden after signing the climate bill.Doug Mills/The New York Times President Biden plans to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to supplement the major climate legislation he signed this week. Slow wage growth among middle- to upper-middle-income workers, like pharmacists, points to a larger shift that has made once sought-after jobs less rewarding. A pregnant woman in Louisiana was told her fetus had a fatal condition, but doctors fearful of violating new bans would not perform an abortion. Congressional districts in Manhattan and Brooklyn are holding an unusual August primary, but the voters are in the Hamptons. The killing of Freya, a walrus who had gained fame this summer, polarized Norway and threatened to blight its nature-loving image. Doctors are prescribing a cheap, longstanding baldness treatment in a new form: low-dose pills. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. CULTURE CALENDAR By Gilbert Cruz ? “House of the Dragon” (Sunday): Three years have passed since we last saw King’s Landing. And whether or not you were satisfied with how “Game of Thrones” ended, you’re probably more than a little curious about the prequel series, which debuts tomorrow on HBO. Set almost 200 years before the time of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, “Dragon” focuses on a budding war of succession within the Targaryen family over who might assume the Iron Throne, that most uncomfortable and lusted-after piece of furniture. (Here’s a primer, if you want to brush up.) ? “Cheat Codes” (Out now): The math is not particularly difficult: Take two great artists, put them together, magic. Here, you have the prolific musician Danger Mouse — half of the group Gnarls Barkley as well as a producer on albums by Gorillaz, the Black Keys, MF Doom and Adele — and the incomparable Black Thought, frontman for the Roots, delivering a late-summer gem of an album. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Fruit Galette Peaches (white, donut and yellow), little green plums, purple pluots, freckled orange apricots and a whole lot of nectarines. That’s what’s on my kitchen counter right now, after an overly enthusiastic trip to the farmers’ market. I will eat through most of it standing over the sink in the next few days. Whatever’s left will find a happy home in pastry dough, baked into a gorgeous fruit galette. My favorite recipe is supremely adaptable. Just use whatever fruits you have on hand and adjust the sugar depending on how sweet they are. A mix of stone fruit is my favorite (which is how I justified my recent shopping spree), but late-summer berries are another terrific option. Then, save the recipe for winter; it works nearly as well with frozen fruit. A selection of New York Times recipes is available to all readers. Please consider a Cooking subscription for full access. REAL ESTATE Left, Showcase Photographers; top right, Virtuance; bottom left, Peter G. Morneau What you get for $2 million: a Tudor-style home in Nashville; a 1904 Edwardian in San Antonio; or a Greek Revival in Bethel, Maine. The hunt: They wanted to buy a home on Long Island. Which did they choose? Play our game. Bathroom clutter: How to banish it. Getting the timing right: Should renters move now, or wait? Accusations of undervaluing: A home was appraised at $472,000 with a Black owner. With a white owner, it was valued at $750,000. LIVING The Big Diggers at the Diggerland park let children scoop sand like the pros.Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Dig it: In New Jersey, a theme park lets children operate real construction equipment. Wedding crawls: Some couples are extending the day with sightseeing and barhopping. Summer cocktails: Beat the heat with coolers, and plenty of ice. Let the music play: Earbuds are not more damaging than other headphones. Love in the metaverse: What it’s like to date in virtual reality. GAME OF THE WEEKEND Sabrina Ionescu attempts a 3-pointer.Christian Petersen/Getty Images New York Liberty vs. Chicago Sky, W.N.B.A. Playoffs: Early in the season, these teams were on opposite trajectories. The Sky, last season’s champions, were one of the best teams in the league; the Liberty started 1-7 and looked like one of the worst. But the Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu started playing like a superstar, and a late-season hot streak carried them into the playoffs. Now, after an upset win in Game 1, the Liberty have pushed the defending champs to the brink of elimination. Noon Eastern today, ESPN. For more: Liberty fans explained why they stick with the team during hard times. NOW TIME TO PLAY The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was occupant. 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 … Read about Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of Hawaii. And don’t miss Lucy Sante on being an “intuitive” writer. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 21, 2022 Author Members Posted August 21, 2022 August 21, 2022 By Ian Prasad Philbrick Good morning. At the heart of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation are the cases against the riot suspects. Kenny Holston for The New York Times Rage and consequences Nineteen months after the Jan. 6 attack, hundreds of criminal cases that stem from it are playing out in court. They have been getting less attention than the Justice Department’s scrutiny of Donald Trump, but my colleague Alan Feuer has spent hours and hours watching these trials. This morning, he offers you a glimpse of them. Ian: Who are the Jan. 6 defendants, and what are they charged with? Alan: It’s a wide range. People from all 50 states have been prosecuted. Most are white men from middle- or working-class backgrounds, but there are also women, Hispanic people, Black people. A lot have military backgrounds. There are also professional people, which is unusual for an event involving far-right extremism: doctors, a State Department aide, business owners, people who flew there on a private jet. Most have been charged with misdemeanors and have gotten little to no prison time. Others have been charged with assaulting police officers or damaging government property. And a few hundred people have been charged with obstructing Congress’ certification that day of the Electoral College vote. About 350 defendants have pleaded guilty, and more than 200 have been sentenced. About half a dozen have gotten four years or more, and two have gotten more than seven years. The government is still arresting people, and prosecutors estimate around 2,000 could ultimately face charges. The hearings open windows into defendants’ lives, many of which seem quite dysfunctional. You covered the trial of a defendant named Guy Reffitt, a Texas militia member whose own son turned him in to the F.B.I. and testified against him. If someone is being criminally prosecuted, there’s often some dysfunction in their past. But I’ve been struck by how trauma rests at the center of so many of the Jan. 6 defendants’ lives, whether it’s poverty, addiction or deep family dysfunction. You also see defendants say things to the judge like, I’ve lost everything because of what I did on Jan. 6. My job has been taken from me. My neighbors no longer talk to me. My church has essentially excommunicated me. Please don’t send me to prison as well. Hundreds of defendants are being prosecuted, all in federal court in Washington. How do you keep up? Covid restrictions enabled remote access, which lets me jump from courtroom to courtroom with the push of a button and listen to multiple hearings over the phone in a day. The big exception is trials. I’ve covered two in Washington in person — the Reffitt trial and the case against Dustin Thompson, an unemployed Ohio exterminator. Two seditious conspiracy cases — against members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, two far-right groups — will likely go to trial later this year, and I’ll almost certainly be in the courtroom for those. I prefer the courtroom. You pick up on body language and facial expressions that aren’t available when you’re just listening in. How many Jan. 6 hearings have you listened to? Hundreds. It’s not really countable at this point. How did you become the reporter who covers these hearings? I’ve covered courts and crime for over 20 years: murders, mafia and police corruption trials and the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo. I’ve also spent a lot of time covering far-right extremist groups. As I watched the Jan. 6 attack on TV, I actually recognized people in the crowd. As people started getting arrested, I did what I’ve always done: track documents and set up a database of the now 850-plus cases. Pro-Trump protesters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Erin Schaff/The New York Times How are these cases different from other criminal proceedings? On one level, the process is the same: Defendants get charged. Some plead guilty, some go to trial. People are acquitted or convicted. But the context is very different. Jan. 6 was a political action that became a federal crime, and politics infuses these cases. Some defendants have argued that they’re being persecuted for their political beliefs. Thompson’s defense was that Trump authorized him to go into the Capitol that day and that he was merely following Trump’s orders. That did not fly in front of a jury. I’ve never covered anything that’s taken place in an atmosphere as polarized as this one. Trump seems to have motivated not only some Jan. 6 defendants to commit violence, but also people who have threatened the F.B.I. after agents searched his home, Mar-a-Lago, this month. Do you see parallels between the groups? The Ohio man who attacked the F.B.I. field office in Cincinnati this month was, in fact, outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. The F.B.I. investigated his role in the riot but never arrested him. In a larger sense, one researcher has found that 15 to 20 million Americans think violence would be justified to return Trump to office. We’ve seen this in the reaction to the Mar-a-Lago raid, but I’m also concerned about what a potential criminal prosecution of Trump could bring. What will the reaction be if Trump is indicted? What will happen on the day he appears in court? What will happen if he goes to trial and is convicted? There may be moments when the risk of violence in defense of Trump is high. As threats of violence become more widespread, it can create an atmosphere in which the threshold for committing actual violence is lowered. When violent rhetoric becomes pervasive, people willing to commit violence feel justified. They feel like there’s community support. It enables them. That’s a reality we all have to start grappling with. More about Alan: Before becoming a reporter, he worked for a private detective agency run by two former New York City police officers. He later spent three years as a stringer for The Times, covering fires, murders and other middle-of-the-night stories in New York before joining the staff in 1999. In 2020, he published a book about El Chapo. For more In his final days in office, Trump had done little to leave the White House — but he had packed papers instead of sending them to the National Archives. An associate sought a pardon for Rudolph Giuliani just after the Jan. 6 attack, but the request was intercepted before it reached Trump. NEWS International Destroyed Russian armored vehicles were paraded yesterday in Kyiv.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Ukrainian attacks in Crimea, including a drone assault yesterday, appeared on Russian social media, putting domestic pressure on the Kremlin. Mexico’s former attorney general was arrested in connection with the abduction and likely massacre of 43 students in 2014. Two pilots for Africa’s largest airline fell asleep and missed their scheduled window to land in Ethiopia. Other Big Stories An influx of migrants has strained New York City’s social safety net. Republican candidates are invoking “the American dream” in a pessimistic tone. UPS drivers, whose trucks lack air conditioning, say heat waves are endangering them. The actor Gary Busey was charged with criminal sexual contact and harassment related to an encounter at a fan convention in New Jersey. FROM OPINION If the Justice Department goes after Trump, it can’t afford to miss, Ross Douthat says. Damon Linker thinks voters, not prosecutors, should take down Trump. The dream of a secular, liberal Indian democracy is receding, Maya Jasanoff argues. Let’s skip the “Game of Thrones” prequel, says Scott Woods. The Sunday question: How will Democrats’ legislative successes affect the midterm elections? Democrats’ achievements on climate and gun control could energize base voters and blunt the losses the president’s party typically suffers, New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore writes. But consumer confidence and Biden’s job approval remain low, and voters overall tend not to reward big policy victories, The Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter notes. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Joyce Lee for The New York Times Weed drinks: They’re becoming widely available, but doctors know little about the effects. Sunday routine: A wine writer plays folk music and visits wine bars. Pickleball: Its popularity is growing rapidly. So is the injury count. A Times classic: The best way to cool your space. Advice from Wirecutter: How to pick the right computer for your kid. BOOKS Read your way through Reykjavik: Iceland has a reputation for having more authors per capita than any country. By the Book: When Frances Mayes discovers that the author of a good book has written others, “that’s bliss.” Our editors’ picks: “Picasso’s War,” a narrative of how modern art came to be celebrated in the U.S., and 10 other books. Times best sellers: Rinker Buck shares his adventures on a wooden flatboat in “Life On The Mississippi,” a nonfiction best seller. See all our lists. THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Philip Montgomery for The New York Times On the cover: Willie Nelson’s long encore. Recommendation: Write fan mail to artists you admire. Diagnosis: She couldn’t stand still without pain. What was wrong? Eat: Late summer tomatoes are perfect for Spaghetti al Pomodoro. Read the full issue. THE WEEK AHEAD What to Watch For A detective tied to the fatal Breonna Taylor raid is expected to enter a guilty plea on Monday. She would be the first officer convicted in the case. Florida and New York will hold primary elections on Tuesday. Senator Lindsey Graham was ordered to testify before a grand jury on Tuesday in a Georgia investigation into Republican efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s election loss. Wednesday marks six months since Russia invaded Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s Independence Day. New jobless claims will be announced on Thursday. So-called trigger bans on abortion in Idaho, Tennessee and Texas will go into effect on Thursday. The college football season kicks off on Saturday. What to Cook This Week Karsten Moran for The New York Times Mussels seem luxurious, but they are among the most budget-friendly seafood options, Tanya Sichynsky writes. Her weeknight dinner recommendations include steamed mussels with garlic and parsley, sheet-pan gnocchi with mushrooms and spinach and linguine with lemon sauce. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here’s a clue from the Sunday crossword: 72-Across: Pharmaceutical company whose Nasdaq symbol is MRNA 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. Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
Members phkrause Posted August 22, 2022 Author Members Posted August 22, 2022 August 22, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Facebook remains extremely powerful, but it also faces legitimate problems. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has seen its stock fall over the past year.Benoit Tessier/Reuters Where is the innovation? In October of last year, my colleague Kevin Roose wrote a column titled, “Facebook Is Weaker Than We Knew.” His hook was a series of stories in The Wall Street Journal, based on internal company documents, which revealed the company’s failure to stop content that damaged teen mental health, spread vaccine misinformation and more. “It would be easy enough to come away thinking that Facebook is terrifyingly powerful,” Kevin wrote. “But there’s another way to read the series, and it’s the interpretation that has reverberated louder inside my brain as each new installment has landed. Which is: Facebook is in trouble.” The societal damage that the company was causing seemed to be a sign that its executives were struggling to attract more users and taking desperate measures to do so. Yet Kevin also included a major caveat: The company’s stock had still been rising over the previous year, a sign that investors remained confident. That’s no longer the case. The stock has fallen more than 50 percent over the past year. In the most recent quarter, company revenue fell slightly and profits fell 36 percent. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, blamed a broad economic downturn that had reduced spending on digital ads, and it certainly played a role. But the specific problems facing Meta, as Facebook’s parent company is now called, seem to be the main cause. Consider this chart, with compares Meta, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and the S&P 500: Monthly data from Yahoo! Finance, except for August 2022, which is the most recent price.By The New York Times I know that many readers probably still think of Facebook as a behemoth. And in many ways it still is. As Kevin has written: “It can simultaneously be true that Facebook is in decline and that it is still one of the most influential companies in history, with the ability to shape politics and culture all over the globe.” This morning, I’ll lay out the four biggest problems facing the company. 1. The age problem If you have children, you’ve probably noticed that they prefer other social media platforms. To many of them, Facebook is for older people — which is not exactly a recipe for growth. Helen Lewis of The Atlantic, among others, has described the platform as “Boomerbook.” Yes, many teenagers and younger adults use Instagram, which Facebook bought a decade ago. But even Instagram has been struggling to keep up. “TikTok is absolutely eating Instagram’s lunch right now, in terms of usage and cultural sway, and advertisers generally want to be where the young people are,” Kevin told me. “Even though Meta has tried to copy TikTok’s most successful features and shove them into Instagram Reels, they’re limited in how much change users will accept without a fight.” Last month, for example, Kylie Jenner complained to her 361 million followers, “Make Instagram Instagram again.” An anti-Instagram pile-on ensued, as The Times’s Kalley Huang wrote. 2. The innovation problem “The company just doesn’t appear to know how to invent successful new stuff,” Farhad Manjoo of Times Opinion has written. “Most of its biggest hits — not just two of its main products, Instagram and WhatsApp, but many of its most-used features, like Instagram Stories — were invented elsewhere. They made their way to Facebook either through acquisitions or, when that didn’t work, outright copying.” That’s a big change from Facebook’s first decade, when it transformed social media. Especially important was its News Feed, which meant users no longer had to spend time searching out other accounts to know what people were posting. Since the company went public in 2012, it has been much less innovative. 3. The metaverse problem Zuckerberg feels so strongly that the metaverse — based around world of virtual-reality, or VR — represents the future of the internet that he renamed the company after it. “It’s been almost a year since Facebook rebranded itself Meta and announced its big push into the metaverse, and there aren’t a lot of big, obvious wins to show for it,” Kevin said. “VR is still pretty niche, and it’s not clear how much usage apps like Horizon Worlds are getting. (Although, if any Meta employees are reading this, I would love to know!)” When Zuckerberg unveiled parts of the company’s platform last week, critics mocked it as looking dated. He responded by acknowledging it was “pretty basic” and promised “major updates” soon. One positive sign for the company: It has sold more than 10 million of its VR headsets, which may suggest the niche is growing. But it remains unclear whether VR has anywhere near the mass-market appeal that social media does. Meta’s VR headset on display at a conference in Paris.Benoit Tessier/Reuters 4. The antitrust problem Some Meta supporters argue that the company’s recent struggles prove that it isn’t the omnipotent force that its critics claim — and that the federal government should go easy on it. But I think that claim misses what’s really going on. The company has become less dominant partly because both the Trump and Biden administrations have taken a tougher stance toward mergers. “If Mark Zuckerberg could acquire his way out of this problem, as he did by buying Instagram back in 2012, he absolutely would,” Kevin said. “But regulators, at least under this administration, aren’t going to let him.” One example: The Federal Trade Commission, led by Lina Khan, who has called for tougher antimonopoly policies, is trying to block Meta’s acquisition of Within, a VR fitness start-up. Khan and her colleagues worry Meta may be trying prevent future competitors from forming by buying them first. Depending on your point of view, it’s either ironic or fitting. As Kevin said, “Facebook became so dominant, in part by acting in anticompetitive ways for so many years, that Meta is losing its dominance as a result.” The bottom line: Facebook remains among the world’s most powerful companies, with the ability to influence elections, public health much more. It also continues to produce huge amounts of revenue, which will allow it many chances to create successful new products. But its struggles are real, and they don’t show any sign of disappearing. THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine Investigators this weekend at the site of a car explosion outside Moscow.Investigative Committee of Russia, via Associated Press A car bomb near Moscow killed a 29-year-old woman, who was a hawkish commentator and the daughter of a prominent backer of Vladimir Putin’s war. In the Kremlin-controlled news media, the war is about a long history of enemies trying to keep Russia down. A five-deck yacht formerly owned by a Russian businessman will be the first to be publicly auctioned, Bloomberg reports. International Singapore will decriminalize sex between men, but it will continue to prohibit same-sex marriage. The face of China: The country’s foreign minister has been to dozens of countries, extolling Beijing’s vision for the world. Other Big Stories So-called fetal personhood laws would make abortions murder. But they also open up questions about immigration and public benefits. Mayor Eric Adams vowed to bolster nightlife around New York City. But he mostly visits the same restaurant, run by friends with troubled pasts. A father took photos of his toddler’s groin for the doctor. Google flagged him as a criminal. A woman pretending to be stranded killed a 22-year-old in an Alabama forest after he and his girlfriend pulled over to help. “People got used to not going places”: Live performances are back, but audiences have been slow to return. Opinions Office buildings waste energy. Small changes — unplugging coffee machines, keeping common spaces a few degrees warmer — can help, Carlos Gamarra says. The Biden comeback. The Mar-a-Lago blowback. The Liz Cheney takedown. Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss it all. Journalism like this is only possible with subscribers. Support the reporting that goes into The Morning. Become a subscriber today. MORNING READS Andrew White for The New York Times Moisturizer: How lush gardens turn into skin cream. Peace: Meet the conscientious objectors in the war on the lanternfly. Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.6. Can you do better? Metropolitan Diary: Feeling joy in an empty place and more reader tales from New York. A Times classic: Which vitamins are worth it? Advice from Wirecutter: The best housewarming gifts. Lives Lived: Latisha Chong, a hair stylist, was part of a vanguard of Black talent that altered an industry and expanded the canon of beauty. She died at 32. SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC Chill, everyone: Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is returning to practice this week after taking a mysterious but excused leave of absence. What he’s returning to might be the bigger issue: The Bucs’ offensive line is riddled with injuries. A new American star overseas? U.S. men’s national team and Leeds United attacker Brenden Aaronson baited Chelsea’s keeper into an embarrassing error to score his first Premier League goal. Your fantasy football draft needs, covered: The Athletic fantasy expert Jake Ciely dropped his 2022 fantasy draft rankings, an essential tool as you plan your picks. ARTS AND IDEAS “City” is finally opening to visitors.Noah Thropp/The New York Times The art world’s Atlantis For 50 years, the artist Michael Heizer has toiled in a remote stretch of the Nevada desert, working on a sculpture whose size — a mile and a half long, nearly half a mile wide — can be hard to fathom. Now, finally, he is set to open his life’s work, “City.” The megasculpture is meant to be explored on foot, allowing the site to swallow you up. Exquisitely groomed mounds, buttes and depressions spread far into the distance. Monumental structures evoke ancient ruins. Michael Kimmelman, The Times’s architecture critic, has been reporting on Heizer’s progress since the 1990s. “I have come to think of ‘City’ like Mount Rushmore and Hoover Dam,” he writes. “It is bravado, awesome and nuts, a testament to a certain crusty kind of American can-do-ism.” Read the story and watch a mesmerizing drone video by Noah Throop. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook Joe Lingeman for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. This dish is inspired by the spiced chicken and rice from street carts in Manhattan. What to Watch In “Spin Me Round,” Alison Brie plays the manager of a restaurant chain whose trip to Italy does not go as expected. What to Read Try these utterly intoxicating romance novels. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was empathy. Here is today’s puzzle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Price (four 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. Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting president to publicly appear in an automobile 120 years ago today (William McKinley was the first to ride in one). Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about a coal miner on strike. Matthew Cullen, 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 Read Isaiah 10:1-13
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