The New York Times

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April 11, 2026     Good morning. What can we learn from April, a month of contradictions that never cleanly resolve themselves? María Jesús Contreras Monthly report By Melissa Kirsch   It’s the 30th anniversary of National Poetry Month, begun in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. I’m celebrating it in my own fashion, reading favorite poems about April. T.S. Eliot dubbed it “the cruellest month.” Edna St. Vincent Millay was equally suspicious: “It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” An idiot! When I read those lines, spring fever beginning to throb in my veins, I feel like Millay is mocking me for being so awed, again, by the magnolia blossoms flinging open their floppy petals for a brief window of delirium. To Ogden Nash, April was “Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy.” There’s the cruelty again, but he ends having come to appreciate the month’s contradictions: “I love April, I love you.” Langston Hughes’s “April Rain Song” concludes similarly: “The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night / And I love the rain.” April has, in the Northeast, been inconstant as always. A perfect spring bike ride there; a windy, rainy hustle back. The poems tend to capture this fickle quality. As Robert Frost put it: “The sun was warm but the wind was chill. / You know how it is with an April day.” We do. April days contain multiple seasons. There’s a lesson in there, if we want to take it, about holding multiple things at once. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, the challenge of containing conflicting emotions, conflicting ideas, the alternately sunny and stormy fronts of the internal weather system. I’ve been writing this new newsletter, The Good List (you should sign up!), and while it’s meant to catalog things that bring joy, it’s not meant to deny that there are difficult things in the world, or to avoid the inevitable contradictions that come from loving things: beautiful films about sad subjects, art that emerges from suffering. Things aren’t only good (or only bad). I often return to these lines from David Ferry’s translation of Horace: “It’s true that Jupiter brings on the hard winters; / It’s also true that Jupiter takes them away.” Certainty is easier. April, in much of the country, is liminal, vacillating between winter and spring, refusing to resolve cleanly. If you look closely, you can observe this tension: the tulips quivering in the gusting wind; people in shorts and people wearing mittens on the same block; stepping onto the porch to see a robin and instead seeing your own breath. The internal work is much the same. Sitting quietly, paying close attention to the weather inside, you can observe the hope that blows in with the fear, the lightness and heaviness that seem to be competing. The psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach advises greeting each experience that arises within us with the phrase “this too,” accepting what’s there, even if it’s uncomfortable. So: How are you celebrating National Poetry Month? You might listen to “The Poetry Magazine Podcast,” or, if you’re less inclined to embrace it, read the writer Ben Lerner on “The Hatred of Poetry.” Or better yet, embrace April’s spirit of contradictions and do both. While I was writing this, a friend sent me a poem by Jane Hirshfield that reminded me of poetry’s enduring potency: “Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace. / Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder.”   THE LATEST NEWS War with Iran Peace talks are set to begin today in Pakistan. Vice President JD Vance is leading the American delegation, which includes Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. World leaders, trying to keep the negotiations on track, have called on Israel to halt its attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The scale of the fighting in Lebanon is staggering, with more than a million people forced from their homes. See what’s happening, in photos and video. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is central to the talks. But Iran has been slow to do so, in part because it can’t locate all of the mines it laid in the waterway, U.S. officials say. The Times has uncovered additional evidence that U.S.-made missiles struck a sports hall and school on the war’s first day. The strikes killed 21 people, including five children. Economy Prices in the U.S. rose 0.9 percent over the course of March, the highest monthly gain since the peak of the post-pandemic inflation crisis in 2022. Gas is getting expensive, and it’s driving prices up in seemingly far-off places like grocery stores and airports. It could strain consumer spending, which has been keeping a recession at bay. Still, the S&P 500 ended the week up 3.6 percent — its strongest showing since November. Politics Several women accused Eric Swalwell, the California congressman running for governor, of sexual misconduct. He denied the accusations. Kamala Harris said she was “thinking about” running for president again in 2028. The Trump administration released its latest plan for a triumphal arch in Washington. It would rise 250 feet, across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial. A judge declined to block the Trump administration from rushing deportations of Somali migrants, while acknowledging that the government most likely singled out those people. Other Big Stories Bill Ingalls/NASA, via Associated Press The Artemis II astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, concluding their historic 10-day mission, the first to send humans around the moon in more than 50 years. A 20-year-old man was arrested and accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the San Francisco home of Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI.   THE WEEK IN CULTURE Television The New York Times A new season of “Euphoria” starts Sunday. Since the show’s debut in 2019, three of its stars have climbed to the top of the Hollywood A-list. With its focus on the possibilities and vulnerabilities of teenage girls, “The Testaments,” Hulu’s follow-up to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” feels as prescient as ever, our critic writes. The satirical superhero series “The Boys,” which returned to Prime Video this week, won over a broad base of fans. Its showrunner, Eric Kripke, told The Times why he felt it was time to end the story. Theater Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” is back on Broadway — yet again in triumph, our critic Helen Shaw writes. (During the play’s first run, in 1949, The Times’s critic raved about it twice.) The singer Pink will host the Tony Awards this year. Her songs are part of the Broadway shows “& Juliet” and “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” Rosamund Pike, a star of “Gone Girl” and “Saltburn,” will make her Broadway debut this fall in the legal drama “Inter Alia.” More Culture An exhibition explores what people 500 years ago found beautiful and hideous — and how the two often go together. Mexicans protested an agreement to send a collection of little-seen Frida Kahlo works to Spain for several years. Alissa Wilkinson, a Times critic, reviews the new film “You, Me & Tuscany” in the video below. Click to watch. The New York Times Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.   CULTURE CALENDAR By Alexis Soloski   📺 Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Wednesday): Rufi Thorpe’s delectable novel about on-camera sex work, family both found and biological, and one young woman’s messy, vibrant networks of mutual care has become a delightful Apple TV series, adapted by David E. Kelley. Elle Fanning stars as Margo, a Southern California college student who becomes pregnant and takes an unusual approach to making ends meet. (Let’s just say it involves viral dances and a lot of body paint.) Unstinting in its comedy and its humanity, the show is especially insightful about the ways that people fail and redeem each other. The dynamite cast includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman and Greg Kinnear.   REAL ESTATE Kain Lager-Lowe and Karina Peggau. Gabriela Campos for The New York Times The Hunt: A couple leaving the Midwest for new opportunities in Albuquerque, N.M., looked for a home that could accommodate a dog, three cats, 30 plants and 75 pounds of rocks. What did they find? Play our game. What you get for $650,000 in Portugal: A duplex in Almada. A modern apartment in Lisbon. A rowhouse in Porto. A new coat: Paint is perhaps the easiest way to change the look of a room. To find the best kind for your project, look at the SPAM: solvents, pigments, additives and materials.   LIVING Richard Hartlage’s colorful home. Miranda Estes Work in progress: A landscape designer has been adding color, personality and whimsical surprise to his Seattle home for more than 15 years, and he has no plans to stop. Achoo! Allergies can be miserable. Why does your immune system treat pollen like a parasite? Everyday influencers: The latest trend in food criticism is casual, personal reviews that seem like a conversation with a friend.   ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER 3 tips for allergy season We can’t control the budding trees and blooming flowers that set off our seasonal allergies. But we can take steps to freshen the air indoors. First, an air purifier is a simple and effective way to capture common airborne allergens, including pollen. (If you already own one, make sure to clean the prefilter monthly.) A quality bagged vacuum can also make a big difference, because it sucks dust and debris into a sealed bag that won’t blow back into your face. Finally, for dust that lingers on flat surfaces, ditch the feather duster. A damp rag or microfiber cloth will do a better job of keeping allergens from becoming airborne. — Brittney Ho   GAME OF THE WEEK Collin Morikawa teeing off on the fourth hole on Friday. Doug Mills/The New York Times The Masters. Live sports are sensory experiences, and it’s hard not to feel some jealousy when watching the Masters on a screen — how nice it must be to feel the warmth of the Georgia sun, to taste the pimento cheese sandwich that still costs just $1.50. But perhaps no sporting event translates senses through the television as well as the Masters does. This weekend, if you’ve got it on, crank the volume, close your eyes and let yourself be whisked away: the birdsong and the whispered commentary and the soft thwack of a seven iron, all deliciously clear over the strictly enforced silence of the gallery. Or, if golf A.S.M.R. isn’t your thing, open your eyes and get lost in the sea of green fairways, so verdant it’s hard to believe they’re real. The latest: Rory McIlroy, last year’s champion, holds a six-shot lead over the field. Even the usual final-round drama might not be enough to stop him. Today and tomorrow, 2 p.m. Eastern on CBS   NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was oxidizing. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Crossplay, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren

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April 12, 2026

Good morning. After 21 hours of negotiations, the United States and Iran failed to agree to a peace deal. We have more on that below.

But first, a study found that some people in vegetative states may have more awareness than we thought.

Tabitha Williams kisses her husband, Aaron Williams. Alec Soth/Magnum, for The New York Times

A wake-up

	By Adam B. Kushner I’m the editor of this newsletter.

Let’s say something bad happens — a crash, a fall, a stroke, an overdose. Your brain absorbs a violent shock or a period without oxygen. But your heart still beats and your lungs still heave. Now you’re unconscious in the hospital, unable to respond when your spouse calls your name or your doctor prods you with a reflex hammer.

For years, these patients were said to be in a “persistent vegetative state”: bodies without minds. They idle, mostly in care centers and nursing homes, with little attention. But new research shows that many such patients — tens of thousands of Americans — may actually be hearing and thinking. That is the (somewhat horrifying) subject of Katie Engelhart’s new article for The Times Magazine. I asked her about it.

Adam: Now we know that some people declared vegetative can actually perceive and understand things around them. How many people are we talking about?

Katie: Nobody is counting. By some estimates, around 50,000 Americans are in a chronic vegetative state, meaning that they are technically awake, but have no awareness of what is going on around them. Another 200,000 to 400,000 are in a “minimally conscious state,” with fleeting periods of awareness. Research suggests that about a quarter of all these patients are able to follow commands like, “Imagine opening and closing your hand.”

How did researchers figure out that this set of patients was conscious?

Back in 2006, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University put a 23-year-old woman, who had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state, into an fMRI scanner and asked her to “imagine playing tennis.” And she did! The area that controls motor planning in her brain lit up in just the same way that a healthy person’s brain would. The phenomenon was widely replicated.

The scary thing is that it doesn’t seem like there’s any way for ordinary patients to get tested for this awareness.

Exactly. Researchers have been able to find covertly conscious patients for 20 years, but the testing is almost exclusively done through research trials. I interviewed many people whose loved ones had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state — and whose doctors never even raised the possibility of covert consciousness. But family members are doing their own research, and they want access to the cutting-edge science.

If you had a loved one who was unresponsive and breathing through a ventilator, what would you do?

Unless I were in Boston or London, Ontario, where they test patients at a few I.C.U.s, I wouldn’t know if he were covertly conscious. So I would speak to him as if he were aware.

Doctors tend to discourage people who think a vegetative patient’s smile or sigh is a conscious response to them. “They don’t want to give you false hope,” says a woman you profile. But at the same time, most of these patients won’t recover, even if a few of them show signs of awareness. Are physicians changing the way they talk to families and manage expectations, given the new science?

On the one hand, numerous researchers told me about the “culture of pessimism” in American I.C.U.s: Neurologists sometimes seem quick to conclude that a brain-injured patient won’t improve — or won’t improve enough. On the other hand, what does “improvement” mean? Most people who emerge from the vegetative state end up with severely impaired consciousness and significant disabilities. For some people, that’s OK. That’s a good-enough life. For others, it’s a fate worse than death.

Most patients with locked-in syndrome — people who communicate with eye movement — say they’re happy to be alive, even with their limitations. That moved me.

That comes from a 2011 study. Amazingly, the patients who were locked in longer were even more likely to be happy. Only 7 percent of the respondents wished for euthanasia.

Read Katie’s story about how one woman dealt with the uncertainty about her husband’s consciousness.

THE LATEST NEWS

Iran Negotiations

In Islamabad, Pakistan.  Pool photo by Jacquelyn Martin

Vice President JD Vance left Pakistan without a peace deal with Iran. Analysts said the issues were so complex that an agreement in one round of talks had been highly unlikely. Washington now has a few unpalatable options: A lengthy negotiation with Tehran over its nuclear program, or a resumption of a war that has already created the largest energy disruption in modern times — and the prospect of a long struggle over who controls the Strait of Hormuz. Read more about the negotiations. President Trump was watching a U.F.C. fight in Miami while the talks collapsed. In a televised address, Benjamin Netanyahu said the war would continue and sought to placate critics at home who say the war failed to achieve its goals.

Lebanon

“I’m your mother, just answer me,” Fatima Kholeif cried into her phone as she mourned two sons killed in an Israeli strike. David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

Our colleagues traveled to a city in southern Lebanon that Israel has been bombarding. There, they met a woman sitting on a curb clutching a phone with a photo on it. Read her story, and an excerpt below:

The photos were all she had left of her sons — the sons who had just bought her hair dye so she could color her wispy, gray curls, a respite from the Israeli bombing. The sons who had kissed her cheeks that morning as they left for work harvesting oranges in an orchard nearby. The sons who were killed on that orchard in an airstrike.

Hungary

Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his wife, Aniko Levai, voting. Bernadett Szabo/Reuters

Hungarians are voting for a new Parliament. The election — which will determine if the nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party stays in power — could have implications for the future of the E.U.’s vision of liberal democracy. Polls suggest that Orban will lose, but his party has tweaked the electoral system to his advantage. Gerrymandering could still help give his party enough seats to form a new government.

Moon Mission

In Houston. Ronaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Artemis II crew reunited with their families in Houston after their 10-day journey around the moon. The mission reminded all of us for just a few days how small we are.

Other Big Stories

The Trump administration fired two immigration judges who had blocked the deportation of international students who supported Palestinians. A stampede at a popular tourist destination in Haiti killed at least 30 people, officials estimated. Rain seemed to cause chaos at the entrance.

THE SUNDAY DEBATE

Changes to the N.C.A.A.’s transfer rules allow college athletes to switch teams as often as they wish. This month, Michigan won a men’s basketball title with an all-transfer starting lineup, and Trump signed an executive order trying to limit transfers.

How is this new era affecting college sports? We sought out opinion articles from student journalists, who have seen these changes up close.

It’s bad for fans, writes Bethany Mann in The Battalion of Texas A&M University. “When people transfer every year, it’s hard to keep track of the players, loosening the ties between the fans and the team,” Mann writes. “If there are players consistently moving in and out every year, fans have no one to cling to in hopes of a winning season.”

It’s good for athletes, writes Serena Thiede in The Times-Delphic of Drake University. “It creates possibilities for athletes to follow their dreams,” Thiede writes, adding, “It also challenges the decade-long tradition of staying at a struggling school despite coaching changes, team issues or overall program cuts.”

FROM OPINION

The United States is on the cusp of a humiliating strategic defeat in its war with Iran, the editorial board writes.

Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on Hungary’s election and Ross Douthat on Washington’s foreign policy failure in the Middle East.

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Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.

MORNING READS

Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Stealing a subway: Meet the vandals who want to break into the operator’s booth, fool around with the control panel — and maybe take a quick joyride.

A taste of your own medicine: More doctors are learning how to cook and use food as a tool for treating patients.

SPORTS

Golf: Rory McIlroy surrendered a record six-shot, 36-hole lead in the third round of the Masters. He shares a lead with Cameron Young, and they will begin the final round today at 11 under.

Hockey: The Denver Pioneers are national champions for the third time in five years after defeating Wisconsin 2-1 in Las Vegas.

Boxing: Tyson Fury beat Arslanbek Makhmudov in 12 rounds. Fury won his first bout after 16 months out of the ring after back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

	By Elisabeth Egan

“London Falling” by Patrick Radden Keefe: In 2023, Keefe, a writer for The New Yorker, was in England working on the television adaptation of his book “Say Nothing,” when he struck up a conversation with a stranger who told him about the mysterious death of a 19-year-old Londoner named Zac Brettler. The status-obsessed teen — who’d been posing as the son of a Russian oligarch — fell from the fifth-floor balcony of a riverfront apartment after spending time with two shady older men. There were many confounding aspects of the story, yet Scotland Yard’s response seemed sluggish to the point of disinterest. Keefe began his own investigation, one that took him from the depths of a criminal underworld to the heights of parental devotion. “He is a master builder of intricate narratives, arranging the many pieces just so,” our critic wrote in her review. “‘London Falling’ suggests that Zac’s story is ultimately a crime story, in a city so warped by money that it’s losing its bearings.”

The Times has a new profile of Keefe, “one of the last household names in nonfiction at a time when the entire future of the enterprise — writing — is up in the air.”

THE INTERVIEW

Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times

	By David Marchese

This week’s subject for The Interview is the divisive former “Girls” star Lena Dunham. Her new project is “Famesick,” a highly anticipated and extremely revealing memoir due out this week.

At the beginning of the book, you write about your name and how it started to carry negative connotations. For you, not even for other people. What did your name represent?

Myopic millennial thinking or hapless feminism or man-hating or liberal twit-dom or —

It’s a long list!

It’s a long list, and there were people who maybe shared my politics and my lifestyle but were irritated that I was talking. I remember, and this is not in the book, I was going to vote with my father. I’d been campaigning for Obama. It was 2012. And he said, “I don’t know if I want to go vote with Lena Dunham.” I was like, My father feels like going to vote with me is going to signal something. He’s like, “I don’t want to go and have it be a whole thing.” That’s your father. Who’s like my best friend in the whole world. But he was saying, basically, Can you go around the block and vote on your own? That was the moment when I understood something’s going on here. “Girls” had only been on the air for six months at that point.

Read more of the interview here. Or watch a longer version on YouTube.

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

Read this week’s magazine.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Blast that unsightly stain with one of these jack-of-all-trades spot cleaners.

Cultivate the green space of your dreams with these tips for starting a garden. (Hint: It’s all in the soil.)

MEAL PLAN

Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist; Hadas Smirnoff. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgepeth.

Days can get easily overrun with emails, spreadsheets and “circling back.” So Mia Leimkuhler at NYT Cooking has some classic recipes that can inject a satisfying dose of cooking creativity into your week. Maybe one is already a favorite of yours (hello, Sam Sifton’s oven-roasted chicken shawarma); maybe you’ll find something new that catches your eye and your appetite, like caramelized cabbage and walnut pasta. Get all of the recipes here.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were delight, delighted, highlighted and lighted.

Can you put eight historical events — including Leonardo da Vinci, the eruption of Krakatoa and the creation of Play-Doh — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Crossplay, Connections and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren

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April 13, 2026

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. The far right suffered a blow yesterday: Viktor Orban, a beacon for populists around the world, conceded defeat in Hungary’s general election. It was also a loss for President Trump, who had backed Orban.

Oil is now more than $100 a barrel, after Trump promised to blockade Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz.

He also attacked Pope Leo as being “weak on crime.” The pope, who has criticized the war in Iran, said he wasn’t afraid of Trump.

And Lauren Sánchez Bezos just wants to be happy. We’ll tell you about all of that and more. But first, you had some questions for us.

In the Strait of Hormuz.  Reuters

Your news questions

It’s a journalist’s job to ask questions. And it’s a great job. But it’s not as if any of us here at The Times have cornered the market on curiosity. Subscribers to The Morning have questions, too — this week about mail-in ballots, oil in the Middle East, manufacturing jobs and more. We took them to expert beat reporters for answers.

And we’ll keep doing so. Have a news question for us? Submit it here.

I live in a state where people can vote by mail, and I wonder how the president’s executive order — trying to limit such ballots — may affect our upcoming elections. | Laura Young, Portland, Oregon

Nick Corasaniti, who covers elections, writes:

Well, the president has no explicit constitutional authority over elections, and aspects of the order appear difficult to enforce. Legal experts expect courts to block large parts of it. Two issues are likelier to affect mail voting this year: a looming Supreme Court decision on late-arriving ballots and budget changes at the Postal Service. Many election officials, as well as the Postal Service, recommend that voters send their ballots at least one week before Election Day.

The Persian Gulf countries are struggling to export their oil because Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. Why don’t they just build an oil pipeline across Saudi Arabia? | Will Karlin, Denver, Colorado

Vivian Nereim, the Gulf bureau chief, writes:

Saudi Arabia actually did build an oil pipeline to bypass the strait, decades ago, to prepare for a moment like this. It was transporting up to seven million barrels per day of oil — until it was bombed during the Iran war, reducing its capacity by around 10 percent. The vulnerability of pipelines is one reason that this one isn’t a cure-all. Another is that the six Gulf countries are economic competitors that often have tense political relationships; the Gulf countries are not always inclined to share. So a cross-border project would be a tall order.

What happened to all of the people that ICE deported to countries — not the ones they came from — with jails that torture inmates? | Gail Mielziner, St. Louis, Missouri

A prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Fred Ramos for The New York Times

Eileen Sullivan, who covers the federal government, writes:

It is not always clear, and the Trump administration has said it has no duty to follow up on them once they leave U.S. custody. I wrote about their fortunes here. Some are captives — in jails or even decrepit hotels — in places like Cameroon, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini and Rwanda; others, like Cubans deported to Mexico, are struggling to find adequate living situations. Some migrants were sent back to their home countries (Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone, and others) and are now in hiding because they fear for their lives. Lawyers have lost contact with the deportees who are still in South Sudan.

Who pays for the electricity that A.I. data centers use? | Beatrice Reiss, Yakima, Washington

A data center built by OpenAI and Oracle in Abilene, Texas. Scott Ball for The New York Times

Brad Plumer, who covers energy policy, writes:

It varies by location. Utilities may have to invest in new power plants and transmission lines to serve new data centers. They can pass some of those costs on to other customers in the form of higher electricity bills, which is wildly unpopular. Many states are now trying to get tech companies to shoulder more of the costs themselves.

Are manufacturing jobs coming back, as Donald Trump said they would when he ran for office? | Amy Richards, Mission, Kansas

Alan Rappeport, who covers economic policy, writes:

On “Liberation Day” a year ago, President Trump said that his sweeping global tariffs would bring jobs and factories “roaring back” to the United States. But manufacturing employment continues to decline, and more than 80,000 of those jobs have been lost since he took office. That’s because the tariffs impose additional costs on domestic producers that rely on imports to make their goods, so it’s harder for them to expand and hire. The administration also noted this month that manufacturing wages and labor productivity are both rising — tech advances mean factories need fewer people to do the same work. Both things make it harder to hire.

THE LATEST NEWS

Hungary

Prime Minister Viktor Orban Attila Kisbenedek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Orban’s loss was a blow to right-wing populism globally: Hungary’s parliamentary election was seen as a showdown between friends and foes of liberal democracy. The White House and the Kremlin wanted Orban to win. Many E.U. leaders did not; he often antagonizes them. His loss could reshape the war in Ukraine. Orban gave a surprisingly early and gracious concession speech in Budapest. He congratulated the opposition, but he also made a vow: “We are not giving up. Never, never, never.” Peter Magyar, the leader of the main opposition party, is expected to become Hungary’s prime minister. Read more about him.

Middle East

Oil prices surged and stocks fell today after the U.S. said it would block ships entering or exiting Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices may not drop before the midterms. Israel attacked Lebanon again after the U.S. and Iran failed to reach a peace deal. Israeli and Lebanese officials plan to meet for rare talks in Washington this week. Trump said the U.S. military would begin destroying mines that Iran had placed underwater in the Strait. Pakistan is trying to bring the U.S. and Iran back into negotiation.

The Pope

Pope Leo XIV Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

Trump attacked Pope Leo, who is a powerful and outspoken critic of the war in Iran. “I’m not a big fan,” Trump said. Leo said he wasn’t afraid of “speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do.”

Leo is traveling to Africa, where his church is growing fast. He will visit Algeria, Angola, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea and will likely address the issue of polygamy.

Eric Swalwell

Representative Eric Swalwell of California. Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Swalwell, a democratic congressman from California, suspended his campaign to become governor of the state. He is under criminal investigation after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staff member and engaged in sexual misconduct with other women. He said he was “deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past,” but promised to fight what he called “false allegations.” Democrats had backed him, but they quickly abandoned him.

Around the World

An autonomous vehicle in a factory outside Columbus, Ohio. Kristian Thacker for The New York Times

China: The country is in an arms race with the U.S. over A.I.-backed autonomous weapons, including drones that strike without human command. Peru: 35 candidates were on the ballot for a presidential election yesterday. Officials extended voting in parts of Lima after logistical failures. Cuba: The president described himself as open to dialogue with the U.S. South Korea: The emergency-care system is buckling because of a shortage of doctors. Sometimes, ambulances have had to call over 20 hospitals before finding a bed for a patient.

OPINIONS

Parents are doing too much for their kids, Rachel Feintzeig argues: “I dream of the day we can all take it down a notch without shame.”

Democrats should seek to understand, not push away, Hasan Piker, the popular (and sometimes controversial) left-wing commentator, Ezra Klein writes.

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Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.

MORNING READS

At Coachella. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Coachella

Bieberchella: Justin Bieber headlined Coachella with a nostalgic set — he played videos of himself as a child singing, and harmonized with them live. Watch one song.

Lauren Sánchez Bezos: In a profile, we found out she drinks her morning coffee from a mug that says “Woke Up Sexy as Hell Again.” See inside her life.

Your pick: You all wanted to know about the best spot cleaner yesterday.

Metropolitan Diary: A bird of prey in Morningside Park.

Lives Lived: Asha Bhosle, whose voice was the soundtrack for generations of Bollywood films, has died at 92.

TODAY’S NUMBER

15

— That is the rough percentage increase in U.S. traffic fatalities on days when albums drop from major pop stars like Taylor Swift, according to a new study. Why?

SPORTS

Rory McIlroy Hector Vivas/Getty Images

Golf: Rory McIlroy won the Masters for the second year in a row. He beat Scottie Scheffler by a stroke.

N.B.A.: Doc Rivers agreed to step down as the Milwaukee Bucks’ head coach.

M.L.B.: Phil Garner, who won a World Series as a Pittsburgh Pirates player in 1979 and managed the Houston Astros to their first World Series appearance in 2005, has died at 76.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I’m not generally bossy about what kind of pasta you cook. But for Melissa Clark’s seasonally effective recipe for pasta primavera with asparagus and peas, a soft, fresh egg number is best — the kind you’ll find in the refrigerated aisle of the supermarket. Its chewiness is a perfect foil for the vegetables, cooked just to the edge of softness. Melissa adds crème fraîche at the end, with a handful of finely chopped parsley. And, because she’s fancy, she adds finely chopped tarragon, too. Do that yourself. Fancy suits us this year.

A JUMP ROPE QUEEN

Cassandra Giraldo for The New York Times

Annie Judis, 82, holds the Guinness World Record for oldest competitive rope skipper. She shares her daily workouts with some 187,000 Instagram followers. A former Playboy centerfold and veteran of Hollywood sitcoms, she told The Times she now sees her life’s purpose as defying expectations of what bodies can do — and look like — into their 80s and beyond. “That rope saved my life,” she said.

More on culture: “Euphoria” returned to television last night after a four-year hiatus. The Times talked to the show’s creator, Sam Levinson, about its journey so far. Levinson is, Joe Coscarelli writes, “the kind of auteur who sees the licking flames of chaos and only wants to lean closer.”

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Clockwise from left: Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England; Photo by Hufton and Crow; Sir John Soane's Museum; Photo by Gareth Gardner; Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Explore London through the eyes of our art critic Jason Farago. He’s selected his five favorite places to see art there.

Eat a French toast bagel — it’s a slightly sweet, cinnamon-scented egg number that’s become a minor player in New York’s cutthroat bagel scene. Get it toasted, with salted butter and strawberry jam. Objection OVERRULED.

Stop buying stuff you don’t need.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was nonchalance.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam

Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren

[phkrause]

April 14, 2026

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. The two most powerful Americans in the world — the pope and the president — are clashing.

In Algiers. Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

President vs. pope

Pope Leo’s visit to Algeria today was meant to be stirring. The first member of the Order of Augustine to ascend to the papacy is visiting the place where Augustine was bishop starting in A.D. 395.

Instead, President Trump is hammering him.

Leo doesn’t like to see war in the Middle East. Trump doesn’t like other leaders criticizing him, even implicitly. After he called the pope “weak on crime” and posted an A.I. image of himself as a Jesus-like figure, he said, “I’m just responding to Pope Leo.”

The pontiff seemed unfazed. (“Too many innocent people are being killed,” he said on his way to a 10-day Africa tour. “Someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.”) But Catholic clerics in America called on Trump to apologize. He declined.

It’s an odd conflict. The people in these two roles have generally treated each other with deference, or pretended to. What gives?

A curious tableau

Trump’s A.I. answer to Pope Leo. via Truth Social

This image Trump posted, then deleted, was especially strange, and not only because the patient in it bears a resemblance to Jon Stewart, as the late night hosts pointed out.

I asked Jason Farago, our art critic, about it:

The image — do not call it a painting — is like other works of propaganda during this second term: the ideology of Leni Riefenstahl expressed in the style of Lisa Frank. The incumbent appears as Christ the Healer. Supplicants, or their disembodied heads, ring the messiah-president like the saints and donors in an early Renaissance altarpiece; note the grizzled veteran at left, whose cap has nonsense A.I. lettering more Cyrillic than Roman.

When he took down the image, Trump said he hadn’t meant to compare himself to Jesus. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” he said.

Popes and politics

Lots of popes have waded into the political muck, as my colleague Elisabetta Povoledo reports from Rome.

Pope Francis, who died last year, hated poverty and climate change. He was also more compassionate about migration and homosexuality than his predecessors. In 1979, John Paul II, the first Polish pope, told students in Krakow: Don’t be afraid to reject totalitarian oppression. It took 10 more years for communism there to fall. Pius XII is remembered for what he didn’t say: As the pope during World War II, he avoided explicitly condemning the Nazis.

A question of stability

Where is all this rancor from the president coming from? Peter Baker, who has covered six presidencies, wrote about that yesterday:

Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments in recent days and weeks have turbocharged the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate that has followed him on the national political stage for a decade.

It’s a debate you can see in the polls. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in February found that 61 percent of Americans think Trump has become more erratic with age. Just 45 percent say he is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges.” That’s down from 54 percent in 2023.

Trump’s language fuels the fire. “He uses more profanity, speaks longer and regularly makes comments rooted in fantasy rather than fact,” Peter writes:

He wanders off into odd tangents — an eight-minute ramble at a Christmas reception about poisonous snakes in Peru, a long digression during a cabinet meeting about Sharpie pens, an interruption of an Iran war update to praise the White House drapes. He has confused Greenland with Iceland and more than once boasted of ending a fictional war between Cambodia and Azerbaijan, two countries separated by nearly 4,000 miles. (He evidently means Armenia and Azerbaijan).

Still, part of Trump’s base loves it. A Princeton historian put this question to Peter: “What can be more anti-establishment than someone who is willing to be out of control?”

THE LATEST NEWS

War in Iran

A billboard in Iran showing the Strait of Hormuz, saying “Forever in Iran’s hands.” Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The U.S. and Iran are trading proposals on nuclear restrictions. Iran said it could suspend its uranium enrichment for up to five years, but the Trump administration insisted on 20 years, officials from both countries said. A deal on those lines would buy time, but it wouldn’t solve deeper problems, my colleagues David Sanger and Tyler Pager write. Officials also said they were discussing a second round of face-to-face talks. Since the U.S. has announced a blockade of Iranian ports on the Strait of Hormuz, several ships coming from Iran have still been able to cross the strait. There’s little precedent for such a blockade, and the military has offered few details about its plan. John Ismay, a former naval officer, explains how it might work. Many Americans have expressed bewilderment about a conflict that came with little warning.

Congress

Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman from the San Francisco Bay Area, said he’ll resign after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staff member and engaged in misconduct with other women. He suspended his campaign to be California governor yesterday. Tony Gonzales, a Republican congressman from Texas accused of having a coercive sexual relationship with a staff member who later killed herself, said he would resign as well.

More on Politics

In California, Democrats are struggling to identify the right candidate for governor. Here are the candidates still running. Prosecutors are investigating ICE agents who in January arrested a Minnesota man in his underwear. (Images of the arrest went viral on social media.)

A federal judge dismissed Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its report of his lewd birthday greeting to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has said the message was not his.

Around the World

A pier on the Irrawaddy River, looking out toward Yangon, Myanmar.  Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

Myanmar: Five years into a civil war, fear consumes everyday life. A reporter and a photographer for The Times traveled the country and found a population terrified of one another, and of the next attack. Hungary: Viktor Orban’s election defeat ends his run as Europe’s pre-eminent populist leader. Many Hungarians rejoiced, but U.S. members of the MAGA movement were worried. Canada: Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has governed for a year without a Commons majority, now has one after three special parliamentary elections. China: Beijing has enacted sweeping regulations to investigate and punish foreign companies that stop using Chinese suppliers.

OPINIONS

Looking to pay less than $20,000 for a car? Good luck. Clifford Winston explains how cars got so expensive.

The U.S. has helped fix crises around the world. Sudan needs help now, Ann Curry writes.

Human made. Human played. 75% off.

Subscribe to New York Times Games for 75% off your first year. Our best offer is only available for a limited time. Relax and recharge with our full portfolio of games, including Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, the Crossword and more — all mindfully made by humans.

MORNING READS

Chimpanzees in Uganda. Aaron Sandel

Going ape: These chimps began a bloody “civil war” that has continued for years. No one knows why.

Extra syrup: Chains like Dunkin’ and Starbucks already sell more cold drinks than hot ones. Now McDonald’s is introducing fruit-flavored refresher drinks.

Two-button rule: Men are generally advised to leave open the bottom button of their suits. Why?

Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about Lauren Sánchez Bezos.

Insect carwash: A unique “choreography” between two ant species suggests a partnership in which one cleans the other.

TODAY’S NUMBER

90

— That is the number of seconds it takes the massive, revolving, two-story set of “Innocence” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York to transform, as if in a series of magic tricks, from a fancy restaurant into a school cafeteria and classroom. The size of the team that makes that possible is astonishing. Look at the pictures.

SPORTS

W.N.B.A.: The Dallas Wings selected UConn guard Azzi Fudd with the No. 1 pick in the draft, reuniting her with former Huskies teammate Paige Bueckers, the top pick in 2025.

College basketball: ESPN broadcaster Dick Vitale, 86, who has battled multiple forms of cancer, announced that he has been diagnosed with melanoma.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Linda Xiao for The New York Times

Eric Kim’s from Atlanta, where lemon-pepper chicken wings emerged, and his recipe for them is legitimate. I cook them a little differently, though. I make a mixture of lemon pepper, cornstarch and kosher salt, then swirl some neutral oil into it to make a kind of slurry. I toss my wings in that before roasting them on a rack in a sheet pan, which gives the chicken a shatteringly crisp crust. Then I toss them in butter, hot sauce and more lemon pepper, as if they were Buffalo wings. In Atlanta, they call that lemon pepper wet. With enough celery and carrot and ranch dressing, it makes for a lovely, messy weeknight dinner.

THE AMOEBA

Jake Michaels for The New York Times

Michael Kimmelman, our architecture critic, took measure of the new $724 million home for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, called the David Geffen Galleries for the donor who gave $150 million to the cause. Kimmelman calls the building “spectacular”:

By turns uplifting, lyrical and pugnacious, the new Geffen Galleries bid to alter the cultural and civic weather of Los Angeles and reassert the city’s role as an American petri dish for experimental design and derring-do.

The museum opens to the public on May 4. “I expect it will be wildly popular,” Michael said. Read his whole review.

More on culture

Oasis, Phil Collins and Sade will enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, alongside Billy Idol, Iron Maiden and Wu-Tang Clan. Who failed to make the cut? Among others: Jeff Buckley, Mariah Carey and Melissa Etheridge. “Comebacks require landing places,” writes Jon Caramanica, our pop music critic, about the return of the rapper once known as Kanye West. “For almost his whole career, Ye has been tempting fate with a combination of alienating people and wooing them right back. But in this moment, his ability to do both at once is more brittle than ever.” Influencers tried begging and manifesting to get someone to pay their way to see Justin Bieber perform at Coachella.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

David Cross Ye Fan for The New York Times

Spend a day with the comedian David Cross. People in show business who aren’t global superstars lead interesting lives.

Step up your body-weight workout — literally.

Watch Stephen Colbert riff on The Morning’s conversion of the moon mission’s mileage into Dachshunds.

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were outgrowth and wrought.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. If you want to see more of my colleagues’ great reporting in your Google search results, take a minute to add The Times as a preferred source. It’s easy: Just click this link. See you tomorrow. — Sam

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren

[phkrause]

April 15, 2026

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. It’s tax day. I wish you many happy returns.

A tax preparation clinic in Los Angeles. Mark Abramson for The New York Times

Paying their way

Today, many undocumented immigrants are debating whether to file their taxes.

That may — or may not — come as a surprise to you. To some, undocumented immigrants are scofflaws, people who come here and leech off the system. “Many, many illegal aliens do not pay taxes,” Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told Politico last year.

Except most do pay taxes, according to researchers. The Internal Revenue Service lets anyone file, whether they have a Social Security number or not. Undocumented workers in the United States pay roughly $20 billion in income taxes each year.

As today’s tax day loomed, many of those immigrants worried. Under the Trump administration, the I.R.S. shared some of their addresses with immigration officials — something it had never done before. They fear that federal agents might scoop them up, should they send in their tax forms.

“I don’t know if we can trust this government not to come after us,” one woman told The Times. She and her husband, also undocumented, have paid federal taxes every year for more than a decade. He described their thinking to my colleague Miriam Jordan, who covers immigration: “If one day there’s immigration reform and the chance to legalize our status, we can show that we file our taxes, are not a burden — that we do the right thing,” he said.

The Treasury will collect a lot less money if undocumented workers skip filing season this year. Many have taxes withheld in their paychecks, but more of them could take under-the-table jobs and pay no federal taxes at all. The Yale Budget Lab, a nonpartisan research center, estimated a loss of $300 billion in tax revenue over a decade.

Read more about feeling caught between the desire to do right and the fear of deportation.

Nice returns

Plenty of taxpayers who are in the country legally, though, are starting to benefit from the tax cut that Republicans passed last year, reports Andrew Duehren, who covers tax policy. He spoke with more than three dozen taxpayers about that, up and down the income ladder.

Many told him they had received their largest refund in years, allowing them to pay down debt, save more or cover the cost of a vacation or a new bed. That was true of higher earners especially. “I thought it could be five figures, but it was still a little more, and a welcome surprise,” one told Andrew.

Those at the other end of the scale sometimes saw little to no benefit. “Now we’re going to have to figure out where to tighten up in other areas so we can get that money a different way,” a scheduling manager at a home improvement company told Andrew. She had thought her refund would allow her to put money toward a car to replace her 2006 Acura. It did not.

But even breaking even can feel like a win. Nicole Mendoza, 68, a waitress at a Cracker Barrel in Canton, Ga., told Andrew she earned about $38,000 last year and paid $551 in federal income taxes. “I got back every penny,” Mendoza said.

A slog

Filing taxes is one of those rare activities that everyone hates. (I loathe it so much that I don’t even know if my family has filed this year. That’s my wife’s game. I have different responsibilities.) My colleague Evan Gorelick breaks down just how painful it is, in relative terms:

The Treasury Department estimates that 169 million Americans file individual income tax returns every year. On average, each respondent spends about 12 hours and 37 minutes on them. That translates to more than 2.1 billion total hours. If you volunteered to file everyone’s returns, it would take you around 243,000 sleepless years. To make today’s deadline, you would need to have started during a prehistoric ice age, before Homo sapiens wore clothes. (The world was populated by woolly mammoths and beavers the size of bears.) If Americans spent that time on other things, they could generate an extra $94 billion per year, according to Treasury data. That’s almost triple the G.D.P. of Iceland and more than Trump’s tariffs have lawfully raised in revenue so far, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in the Middle East

The U.S. military said it had blockaded Iranian ports. Israeli and Lebanese officials met in Washington and, according to the U.S., agreed to more peace talks. The war is straining U.S. relations with China. In a thinly veiled critique, Xi Jinping said the world could not risk reverting “to the law of the jungle.”

The war has also upended the global economy, the International Monetary Fund said, warning that more inflation could follow.

Low-income and developing countries will bear much of that pain, economists say. Big banks in the U.S. are reporting strong profits, and the stock market closed near a high.

The Pope

JD Vance Alyssa Pointer/Reuters

Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, said Pope Leo should be more careful when talking about theology. He took issue with Leo’s criticism of the war in Iran. Trump’s criticism of the pope could complicate the midterms. Republicans are counting on Catholics’ votes to maintain control of Congress. Leo is in Cameroon as part of a papal trip to Africa, where Catholicism is growing fast.

More on Politics

Lonna Drewes with her attorney Lisa Bloom. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

Another woman accused Representative Eric Swalwell of sexual assault, saying he raped her in a hotel room in 2018. Swalwell’s lawyer denied the accusation. The abrupt resignations of Swalwell, who is a California Democrat, and a Texas Republican, Tony Gonzales, have started another scramble between their states for seats in the House. Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, wants to tax people with second homes in New York City that are worth $5 million or more.

Around the World

Manama, Bahrain’s capital. Reuters

Bahrain: A man accused of spying for Iran died while in custody. His body was returned to his family bearing injuries that suggest he was tortured, people who viewed it say. Hungary: Peter Magyar was a loyal ally of Viktor Orban, the far-right Hungarian leader. Then he changed sides and beat his former boss by a landslide.

OPINIONS

The novelist Colson Whitehead says you should use A.I. for whatever you like — except one thing. “If you use it for your art, you’re a freakin’ hack.”

Here’s a column by Bret Stephens on what Trump should do next in Iran.

Human made. Human played. 75% off.

Subscribe to New York Times Games for 75% off your first year. Our best offer is only available for a limited time. Relax and recharge with our full portfolio of games, including Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, the Crossword and more — all mindfully made by humans.

MORNING READS

It’s half a rotisserie chicken. What could it cost? Cole Saladino for The New York Times

Pricey birds: Should half a rotisserie chicken cost $40? New Yorkers can’t decide.

King of Pop: A biopic is the latest move by the Michael Jackson estate to rehabilitate his public image.

A higher education crisis: Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in Massachusetts, will permanently shutter. It’s part of an epidemic of college closures.

Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the two-button rule for suits.

TODAY’S NUMBER

100

— That is the age Route 66 is turning this year. The road runs for roughly 2,400 miles, from Chicago to Los Angeles, and helped define the American road trip. Read why John Steinbeck called it “the mother road, the road of flight.”

SPORTS

N.B.A.: LaMelo Ball scored a layup with 4.7 seconds remaining to give the Charlotte Hornets a 127-126 overtime win over the Miami Heat.

N.F.L. The Athletic’s senior N.F.L. reporter, Dianna Russini, resigned a week after photographs emerged of her holding hands with and embracing Mike Vrabel, head coach of the New England Patriots.

Soccer: New Jersey and Massachusetts are hiking prices for fans traveling to World Cup games. NJ Transit plans to charge more than $100 for return rail tickets from New York’s Pennsylvania Station to MetLife Stadium, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will charge $95 a seat on a bus service to and from Gillette Stadium.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

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

Elaine’s was an Upper East Side saloon that Elaine Kaufman, its owner, maintained as a kind of club for writers, cops, movie stars, entrepreneurs, politicians and other members of New York’s power elite. The place was never known for its food, but the fettuccine Alfredo there was excellent, even if Italians may blanch at the cup and a half of heavy cream that gives the dish its heft. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a fan.

COLLECTIVE SOUL

A house being built in Altadena, Calif.  Carlos Jaramillo for The New York Times

The fires that swept through Los Angeles last year incinerated more than 16,000 homes. As residents rebuild, writes Sam Lubell, who has been covering the fires and their impact, they’re banding together to keep costs down — and to innovate:

What’s unfolding across the fire zones of the city is a wide field of experimentation not seen since California attempted to reinvent the single-family house after World War II, a time when the United States was facing a severe housing shortage.

The renderings of what could come next — simple but soulful houses built at a fraction of the cost of custom homes — are impressive. Check them out.

More on culture

Billy Crystal lost his house in the Los Angeles fires. This fall, he’ll return to Broadway with a solo show reflecting on that experience. The Danish writer Solvej Balle is six books into a seven-volume maxi-novel, “On the Calculation of Volume,” in which the protagonist lives through the same calendar day every day — nearly 10 years’ worth of Nov. 18s so far. The protagonist now has peers — other rootless Novembrists — and that makes the days complicated, A.O. Scott writes in his review of the fourth book, the latest to be published in English.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Lena Dunham OK McCausland for The New York Times

Read “Famesick,” Lena Dunham’s new memoir of life on the celebrity hamster wheel. “It has a whiff of the old Hollywood tell-all, indie edition, with trash bags for curtains in an Eagle Rock group house,” writes Alexandra Jacobs.

Get help, my dudes. Psychologists told The Times that men are less likely to seek mental-health care than women. Here’s what they want you to know.

Clean your outside world with the best electric pressure washer tested by the finicky property managers at Wirecutter. (I use mine as often as I loan it out to friends — we’re spraying everything.)

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was celibacy.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren

[phkrause]

April 16, 2026

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. The war in Sudan has entered its fourth year. It is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Before we get to that, though, I wanted to share a few stories I think you should know about — and answer your question about what astronauts got paid to fly by the moon.

Construction of the White House ballroom project last month. Eric Lee for The New York Times

For your safety

Why do we need a $400 million White House ballroom? Why must the United States stop the construction of offshore wind turbines? Why did President Trump strip hundreds and thousands of federal workers of union protections last year?

In each case, the Trump administration has said it’s a matter of national security, report my colleagues Maxine Joselow and Devlin Barrett.

Experts say some of the arguments strain credulity. The ballroom will have a bunker underneath (but there was already one under the East Wing that Trump demolished). The windmills supposedly interfere with radar off the Northeast coast (military analysts say that’s not true). Collective bargaining is said to hamper the work of government employees focused on national security issues.

Judges have raised their eyebrows at some of these claims, though the law gives the president wide latitude on national security matters. (Adam Kushner, my editor, wrote about what happens when judges don’t believe the president.)

One legal test will pit Trump’s national security arguments against the Endangered Species Act. The government last month exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from federal protections for endangered whales, saying the rules had hindered oil production there. “To be as secure as a nation, we need a steady, affordable supply of our own energy,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Richard Borge

What A.I. can’t do

Artificial intelligence has sped up a lot of tasks at the office, reports Noam Scheiber, who covers the plight of white-collar workers. In some cases A.I. just does the tasks outright. (That’s the plight.)

But what A.I. can’t do — at least for the moment — is take a meeting:

As A.I. makes the production of knowledge work more and more efficient, the job of presenting, debating, lobbying, arm-twisting, reassuring or just plain selling the work appears to be rising in importance. And the need for those sometimes messy human tasks may limit the number of people A.I. displaces.

“These were always important skills,” said David Deming, an economist who is the dean of Harvard College. “But as the information landscape becomes more saturated, the ability to tell a story out of it — to take a ton of text and turn it into something people want — is more valuable.”

Noam spoke to a number of executives who feel the same way. I particularly liked his interaction with a consultant who had historically relied on experts (in, say, tax law or coding). The consultant told him A.I. was reducing the need for that expertise and increasing the value of generalists who excel at the complex business of dealing with clients. What he needs now are people “who have their phone glued to their head, who are everybody’s best friend, who are go-go-go.”

Take a moment to think about that — ideally during a meeting you hate. It could save your job!

Related: Stop debating whether A.I. is smarter than humans. It has “jagged intelligence”: brilliance in some areas, incompetence in others.

Peter Arkle

Here’s to dense dogs

Is your dog smart? One of mine is as dumb as a box of rocks. The other’s about 7 cents short of a dollar. (I love them both.) Yet many people, my colleague Emily Anthes reports, have dogs of exceptional intellect. Or so they think.

Earlier this year, Emily wrote about “canine prodigies” that know the names for dozens, even hundreds, of different toys. Afterward, she heard from many readers who said that their dogs were lexical masterminds, too.

She realized she was experiencing what scientists call the better-than-average effect. That’s a cognitive bias in which people overestimate their own abilities — and their dogs’ abilities — in comparison with those of other people (or dogs). A lot of people have it. In a 2025 YouGov survey, two-thirds of dog owners said that their animals were smarter than the average dog. It’s statistically impossible.

And that’s just fine. Watson, Emily’s dog, isn’t a genius. But he is “everything we could want in a dog: sweet, gentle, goofy, loving. I don’t need him to help me with the crossword — I just want him to curl up next to me while I do it. And at this, he excels.”

Read Emily’s paean to a very good boy.

Now let’s see what else is happening in the world.

THE LATEST NEWS

War in the Middle East

In Tyre, Lebanon. David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

Israel is considering a short-term cease-fire in its war against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, officials from both countries say. Pakistan said it expected to host a second round of peace negotiations between the United States and Iran but declined to give a date. The U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz appears to be working: No Iranian-linked ships have been seen leaving since it took effect, officials and vessel-tracking firms say. But more ships have been trying to avoid detection in and around the strait, experts say. While not directly involved in the war, China has a lot at stake. In the video below, David Sanger explains. Click to watch.

The New York Times

The Pope

Catholics bishops defended Pope Leo after Vice President JD Vance suggested he be more “careful” talking about theology. Trump’s comments about Leo have threatened his friendship with Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

War in Sudan

A 2-month-old, Saidal Altaher, getting treatment for malnutrition in Port Sudan. Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

The war in Sudan, between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, is stretching into a fourth year. The conflict is the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis. Millions of Sudanese people have fled their homes and much of the population of about 50 million is not getting enough to eat. Read more about the war.

Other Big Stories

Trump vowed to fire Jerome Powell if he doesn’t quit the Federal Reserve after his term as chair ends next month. He could stay as a governor until 2028. Public trust in higher education is plunging, and a Yale report suggests that colleges and universities should bear a significant part of the blame. A poll found a sharp rise in the share of men under 30 who declare religion “very important” to them. The latest figure, from 2025, was 42 percent, up from 28 percent two years earlier.

ASK THE MORNING

How much does an astronaut get paid to go to the moon? | Diane Young | Ipswich, Massachusetts

Kenneth Chang, who covers NASA and the solar system, writes:

They don’t get paid extra for long-distance travel. It’s their job. They earn the same salary whether they’re on Earth or in space. They also don’t get extra pay for overtime or holidays and weekends. In 2024, the average salary for NASA astronauts was $152,258.

OPINIONS

Younger men are increasingly seeking out older women — and it’s not just a dating trend. It’s a shift in power, desire and modern masculinity, The Opinions podcast argues.

Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens discuss Trump, his supporters and Jesus.

Human made. Human played. 75% off.

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MORNING READS

Braden Peters, known as Clavicular. Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times

Clavicular: The popular influencer known for “looksmaxxing,” an internet subculture obsessed with male attractiveness, was taken to a hospital after he appeared to overdose during a livestream, Vanity Fair reported. Read more about him here.

The bard: Researchers found the site of a home Shakespeare bought in London.

Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about rebuilding after the L.A. wildfires.

TODAY’S NUMBER

38.4

— That’s how many millions of dollars Vivek Ramaswamy and his super PAC have raised in his race for Ohio governor, a record by a wide margin. Will this haul help this Trump ally overcome voters’ skepticism? Here’s a good look at his conundrum.

SPORTS

N.B.A.: The Philadelphia 76ers made the Eastern Conference playoffs with a 109-97 win over the Orlando Magic.

W.N.B.A.: A’ja Wilson will be the league’s highest-paid player after signing a three-year contract with the Las Vegas Aces. With maximum raises, it could reach more than $4.7 million.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Chris Simpson for The New York Times

I love the blank canvas of miso soup, which makes for a delicious light dinner on a springtime evening, even if, as my daughter was, you’re too sick to enjoy it. I like this version, adapted from one cooked by the chef Seiji Ando of the restaurant Benkay in Portland, Maine. There are whispers of sake and mirin in there to balance the salinity of the dashi and miso. Ando says you can add a pat of butter, too. I always do.

HOME ALONE

Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. Jillian Freyer for The New York Times

Music directors — the conductors responsible for the artistic and technical aspects of orchestras — tend to have multiple gigs these days. (Klaus Mäkelä, the 30-year-old Finnish star, juggles assignments with orchestras in Oslo, Paris and Amsterdam.)

But their employers face declining audiences and budget shortfalls, and they’ve begun to regard that rootlessness with disfavor, reports Adam Nagourney, who covers classical music. Music directors should understand the communities they serve, the head of the Los Angeles Philharmonic told Adam. The job is to be “both an artistic visionary and a collaborative leader.” In other words, music directors should stay put more.

More on culture

Jay McInerney is 71. His latest novel is out this week. “I’ve traded cocaine for fitness,” he told us. The second season of “Beef,” a breakout hit for Netflix, arrives tonight. This time Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan are the leads, a married couple on the edge. (Last season had Ali Wong and Steven Yeun as beefing strangers.) The actors spoke with The Times about the darkness of dark comedy.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Michelle Pfeiffer and Elle Fanning play mother and daughter in “Margo’s Got Money Troubles.” Allyson Riggs/Apple TV

Watch “Margo’s Got Money Problems,” on Apple TV, the latest in a string of shows that use OnlyFans as a plot point. James Poniewozik, our television critic, calls it “as empathetic, funny and openhearted a series about an adult performer monetizing her exposure on the internet as you might expect to see.” It stars Elle Fanning as that performer, and Michelle Pfeiffer as her mom.

File for a sleep divorce. It could reignite your sex life.

Hang your bananas, at least if you always have bananas on hand. The monkeys at Wirecutter tell us a small investment in a storage hook means they won’t spoil so quickly.

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was pavement.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam

Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren