Members phkrause Posted August 29 Author Members Posted August 29 August 28, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. Authorities in Nepal are warning rescuers that more flooding may be on its way. Let’s start there. Atul Loke for The New York Times After the deluge As emergency workers flew helicopters up steep Himalayan river valleys yesterday to find survivors of a flood that killed more than 500 people and left more than 1,000 missing, scientists began to investigate its cause. They’ve been looking at satellite imagery and seismological data. The likely culprit: A gigantic landslide high in the mountains led to a glacial collapse that sent millions of tons of ice and rock into the valleys below it, pulverizing them into mud and water. The slurry burst dams and turned rivers into hydraulic rams. “The rock that the glacier was sitting on collapsed,” one scientist said. The scale of the disaster is staggering. It’s as if 1,000 Empire State Buildings exploded at the same time and the debris coursed down a canyon. The path of destruction ran for more than 40 miles. It washed away roads, cut bridges in half, overcame buildings and swallowed people whole. On the ground The Nepal Army carrying young children to a rescue helicopter to help their parents board. Atul Loke for The New York Times Anupreeta Das, who covers South Asia, was in Nepal yesterday, flying with rescuers to interview shocked survivors. They told her about the torrents of mud that brought horror into their lives. Here’s what she heard from a resident of a village close to Nepal’s border with Tibet: “They all died, and I lived,” said Dawa Lama, 45, starting to weep as he recounted how, just before 9 a.m. on Wednesday, he had heard a thunderclap, and then felt a breeze. Before he knew it, an enormous wave of muddy water had slammed into his home of 12 years in the border village of Timure, carrying away not just his belongings but also his wife and their two daughters, 7 and 8. Read more from the survivors here. Our changing climate Source: Satellite image by Copernicus and Landsat via Google | By The New York Times Scientists may still be putting together the exact causes of this week’s floods, but they are certain that climate change is heating the Himalayas and increasing the risks of disaster. Here’s why: A warming planet is melting the region’s permafrost, the mixture of frozen soil and rocks that has sat below its glaciers for millennia. Losing it leaves mountains and glaciers unstable — prone to landslides and collapse. “As the glaciers retreat and the permafrost melts, we see that these slopes become more susceptible to failure,” one scientist who studies glaciers told The Times, adding, “There’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters.” More on the flooding Read why climate change is making flooding disasters more likely. See maps and images of the devastation. In The Kathmandu Post, a journalist wrote about seeing his childhood village disappear. MORNING READS Getty Images We’ve made these links free for you. Blended refreshers: Your favorite Starbucks drink may be making your barista break out in hives. Iceland Eclipse festival: Meet the most optimistic people in the world. Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was a video of the flooding in Nepal. LAKE ONTARI … OH! President Trump signed an executive order yesterday renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, effective immediately. The lake sits between the United States and Canada, so it’s a symbolic target amid the trade war between the two countries. (Trump said yesterday that Canada “treats us very badly.”) Legally speaking, the order — like Trump’s earlier one to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America — likely requires only federal entities to recognize the change. Other countries don’t have to recognize it. Nor do Americans and their businesses, even those within spitting distance of Lake … whatever you call it. (The Times will continue to call it Ontario.) Amanda Miller, 45, owns Lake Ontario Realty, which has helped people buy and sell waterfront properties in the area for over 20 years. By yesterday afternoon, her phone was blowing up. Everyone wanted to know: Would it be “Lake America Realty” now? No. It’s nothing personal, Miller told me; business is business. Lake Ontario Realty is well-known in the area around Chaumont, N.Y., and rebranding for no reason is “the worst thing you can do,” she said. — Evan Gorelick Related: A Canadian official said the U.S. had raised issues with the country’s use of the French language in trade negotiations — and that if the Trump administration changed course, trade talks could potentially resume. THE LATEST NEWS Foreign Policy John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, made a secretive visit to Moscow. He urged the Russians to end their war against Ukraine before their military and economic situation gets worse. The Pentagon will withdraw about 200 U.S. troops from Nigeria. They were deployed to help fight Islamist militants who President Trump said were attacking Christians. Politics The New York Times Angie Nixon, who scored a surprise victory in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary, made pink the signature color of her campaign. Our chief fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, examines the choice. Click above to watch. The administration of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, “misappropriated” $10 million in taxpayer money by diverting it to a charity tied to his wife, according to a leaked Florida grand jury report. An ICE agent facing charges in Minnesota was released from jail in Texas after Republican officials there blocked his extradition. The Trump administration plans to expand deportation flights to Haiti. Around the World King Harald V of Norway at his coronation in 1991. Inge Gjellesvik/NTB, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images King Harald V of Norway, whose 35-year reign opened an ancient monarchy to a contentious cast of family connections, including a celebrity shaman and Jeffrey Epstein, died at 89. Crown Prince Haakon, his only son, will become monarch. The success of progressive candidates in the United States is inspiring leftists in Latin America. Six months into war, Iran’s regime stands and American goals remain unmet, our diplomatic correspondent writes. Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his role in Europe’s deadliest massacre since World War II, died at 83. Ratko Mladic in Sarajevo in 1994. He was captured in 2011 and put on trial for genocide and war crimes. Pascal Guyot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Other Big Stories Two air traffic controllers at LaGuardia Airport left work early the night a jet collided with a fire truck in March, killing two people. The F.A.A. is moving to fire them. The Trump administration acted illegally when it barred Anthropic from working with the U.S. government, a federal judge ruled. Times Exclusive: Mark Zuckerberg publicly criticized Anthropic even as his company, Meta, has become one of Anthropic’s biggest customers. ASK THE MORNING (ABOUT POLLING) Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat running for a second term in Pennsylvania, holds a 16-point lead over his Republican opponent, Stacy Garrity, a New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena poll found. Morning readers often ask how The Times’s polling works. Here’s a question we received from Jean Oswald in Rochester, N.Y.: How do we know polls are truly showing the breadth and width of Americans’ feelings? I don’t answer my phone when the number is unrecognizable. Perhaps many people like me are not polled. We asked William Davis, our director of election data analytics, to answer: Jean, you’re not alone. In our last national poll, we placed 250,000 calls to 100,000 people in order to get 1,500 responses. The question is whether you and other people like you persistently pick up the phone less frequently than groups that are demographically and attitudinally different. Pollsters have some ways of fixing those issues. They can call more people in groups who are less likely to respond. Or they can adjust the weight of individuals in the poll so groups are correctly represented compared with the census or other sources. But it’s hard. We know that voters who are engaged with the news respond to polls at higher rates, but we don’t know what the right number of highly engaged news consumers is. As a result, polls can be off if, for example, a candidate like Donald Trump is singularly able to get people who don’t pay much attention to the news to vote for him in overwhelming numbers. OPINIONS Trump’s spat with Canada is proof that America is in decline, Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens argue in this week’s edition of The Conversation. Seeking help is not just for moments of life-or-death crisis. It’s also crucial to becoming successful, Angela Duckworth writes. Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. TODAY’S NUMBER At Davoll’s General Store. Jillian Freyer for The New York Times 1793 — That is the year Davoll’s General Store opened for business in South Dartmouth, Mass. It’s living history. Loiter and linger as long as you like. The photos are great. SPORTS Advertising controversy: Good Good Golf lost its partnership with Callaway after an ad from the online platform that depicted its male co-founder shoving a female employee to the ground. N.F.L.: The Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs was charged with two misdemeanor counts of battery and criminal damage to property stemming from an incident at his Wisconsin home. RECIPE OF THE DAY Sarah Anne Ward for The New York Times The chef Mario Carbone taught me how to make these pork chops in cherry-pepper sauce a number of years ago and — marone! — what a deliciously pure taste of Italian American cuisine they are. This time of year, with cherry peppers ripening on the vine, I make the dish with fresh peppers instead of the pickled ones called for in the recipe. If you do that, add a splash of lemon juice or white wine vinegar to the sauce at the end, for acidity. PERSON OF INTEREST Peter Grainger at home in Cambridgeshire. Ellie Smith for The New York Times Peter Grainger is a British crime writer who self-published his way into prominence. His main character, the independent-minded detective D.C. Smith, plays things straight. “One of the things you pick up when you read successful crime novels is how dysfunctional the police are,” he told Sarah Lyall, who writes about lots of things at The Times but is particularly great on thrillers and mysteries. “They’re having breakdowns, they’re alcoholics, they’re in abusive relationships. I thought, ‘This trope has taken over the genre and I don’t want to do that. I will do the opposite.’” Read about the best literary detective you’ve never heard of. More on culture Take in the scene at the first night of Harry Styles’s 30-day residency at Madison Square Garden. He rarely appeared to sweat. The U.S. embassy in the Dominican Republic recently removed a work of art by Kehinde Wiley, perhaps best known for his portrait of Barack Obama. The decision wasn’t about art, writes Jason Farago, our art critic. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Find your next book based on what you loved last. The editors of our Book Review make the task easy. Just click. Listen to a new track from the Jayhawks, “Mr. Lincoln.” The band’s latest album, “Sanctuary Park,” is out today. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was motorway. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted August 30 Author Members Posted August 30 August 29, 2026 Good morning. How do we balance our desire for modern conveniences with our nostalgia for the uncomplicated felicity of our pre-internet past? María Jesús Contreras Fast forward By Melissa Kirsch The cursed island town in the horror-comedy series “Widow’s Bay” is so remote that there’s no Wi-Fi and cell service is unreliable. This means residents are left to landlines and walkie-talkies to communicate. These limitations not only add to the feeling of creepy isolation, but they also dispense with the modern challenge of depicting smartphone usage onscreen. When Mayor Tom Loftis wants to talk to someone, he must call them using the multi-line phone in his office or the rotary model affixed to his kitchen wall. Nostalgia for outmoded technology is bittersweet: We can’t imagine life without present-day conveniences, but things were so much simpler before! Our understanding of the world was slow to update. We said we’d meet at the restaurant at 6, and you couldn’t switch the location at the last minute or change the time if you were running late. We settled on the route we’d take to drive from A to B, no GPS to change it with a few seconds’ notice because of the traffic jam ahead. No moment-to-moment updates from friends, no impulse-Googling the name of that shampoo or tomorrow’s weather, no asking Claude. Our brains contained a certain amount of knowledge, and we didn’t add to it without time and effort. In The Times today, Kera Bolonik writes about the mix tape, that relic of another era, which “took time, thought, careful listening and a level of physical coordination beyond what goes into the making of a Spotify playlist.” Good mix-tape-makers were experts in manipulating the pause and record buttons on the hi-fi, engaging with the equipment to create a tangible artifact. Unlike a playlist, tapes were material, present in the landscape. It made sense that something so meaningful took up room in the world. “You have to imagine a space where music was a rumor,” the writer Jonathan Lethem told Kera. “You might hear something and not be able to know what it was, and no one can tell you, and it’s driving you crazy.” In the Shazam-less past, you’d hear a song and have no way to instantly entrap it. You’d live with the memory of the song you heard, hoping to catch it again on the radio. I remember becoming enamored of a song I heard on the radio in France in 1995 and telling my boyfriend back home that I’d heard the best new David Bowie track. There was no new Bowie album that we knew about, but we asked the clerks in every record store about it all the same. It would be six months before it came out in the States, and we discovered it wasn’t a Bowie song at all, but “A Girl Like You” by the Scottish musician Edwyn Collins. I put it on every mix tape I made that year. There’s a whole universe of pared-back gadgets for those who miss the simplicity of old tech: dumbphones, internet-connected typewriters, screen-free digital cameras. There are apps that take a long time to send texts. But there’s something unsatisfying about using tech to address over-technification. Perhaps the answer lies in the technology that has persisted in its unimprovable simplicity: A pad and paper have never failed to save my journal entries or added formatting I didn’t ask for. I treasure my wristwatch that I never have to charge, the digital alarm clock that shows me the time from across the room. I no longer have the dual-cassette boom box on which I made countless mixes, but Maxell released a Bluetooth cassette player this year. I don’t love the idea of buying something new in order to capture the magic of something old, but that something old might be worth pursuing. As Kera wrote: “More than just relics, mix tapes are portals to specific moments. Perhaps even more than old photos, they reanimate the past.” THE LATEST NEWS Trump Administration A refinery in Punto Fijo, Venezuela, in 2021. Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times The U.S. reached a deal to take majority control of a huge portion of Venezuela’s oil reserves, President Trump announced last night. The deal is for more than 65 billion barrels of oil — almost as much as all of the proven reserves in the United States. The Trump administration has proposed giving a parcel of public land in Yosemite National Park to a private developer. ICE has arrested Milo Yiannopoulos, the British right-wing agitator and early Trump supporter. He faces possible deportation after overstaying his visa. More Politics Wyoming’s governor, a Republican, said he was concerned by the “very odd” behavior of federal election monitors who tried to interview voters and examine voting machines during the state’s primaries last week. It looks as though a New York Jet will finally win something: A former kicker, Jay Feely, is running against a former sideline doctor, Amish Shah, in a House race in Arizona. The Times analyzed thousands of donations this midterms season and made a leaderboard of the top 20 biggest donors. It’s dominated by tech figures and Republicans. Nepal Floods Atul Loke for The New York Times At least 1,900 people are missing after the devastating flash flood in the Himalayas, officials now say, roughly twice as many as previously estimated. New video shows how a giant glacier broke away from a mountain ridge, sending floodwaters crashing through valleys below. Watch The Times’s exclusive footage. Around the World The Taliban have banned education for millions of Afghan girls. Times journalists examined the secret classrooms where some are defying the rules. Iranians are increasingly desperate six months into the war with the United States. Even some who initially cheered Trump’s intervention now fear a failing economy. Other Big Stories In his first speech before the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson, Wyo., the new chair, Kevin Warsh, said the central bank was chiefly focused on getting inflation down. Investors expect interest rates to rise. A judge ruled that a key confession by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, was not voluntary and must be excluded from his trial. REMEMBERING THREE ICONS Dolly Parton At the Library of Congress in 2018. Andrew Harnik/Associated Press Everyone knows Dolly as a consummate singer and songwriter. But she was also a prolific philanthropist whose gifts supported wildlife conservation and the development of the Covid-19 vaccine, among other things. The crown jewel of her philanthropic efforts was the Imagination Library, which has given children hundreds of millions of free books. Tim Curry Evening Standard, via Getty Images Curry’s performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the cross-dressing mad scientist of “The Rocky Horror Show,” helped bring androgynous fashion into the mainstream. Along with being extraordinarily funny, Curry was a superlative storyteller. A writer who interviewed him three times last year reflects on what it was like to talk with him. Yayoi Kusama A video projection of “Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict,” by Yayoi Kusama, in 2024. Philip Fong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In her long life, Kusama achieved something rare: two very different moments of stardom, almost as though she’d been two different artists, our critic writes. Kusama created a hugely varied oeuvre — abstract paintings, fabric phalluses, naked performance pieces … you name it. See her life in pictures. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto VI, the series’ first entry in over a decade, is due out in November. It’s a rare monocultural moment, akin to the release of a new Beyoncé album or Martin Scorsese film. Our reporter visited the studio in Edinburgh where it’s being made. In “Coyote vs. Acme,” a new live action-animation hybrid in theaters this weekend, Wile E. Coyote sues the company behind those gadgets that always seem to backfire. It’s “a terrifically daffy film,” our critic writes. Rupert Grint, who starred as Ron Weasley in all eight “Harry Potter” films, will reprise the role in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway. “Paranormal Activity,” the horror film series, is now haunting Broadway. Our theater critic says it “feels like watching a magic show on a roller coaster.” Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. By Melissa Clark Ratatouille Have you made ratatouille yet this year? Fear not — there are still a few weeks of eggplant-zucchini-pepper-tomato season left to go before the pumpkins take over. In my riff on the Provençal classic, I roast the vegetables separately on sheet pans to soften and brown them, then combine them for a final, olive oil-coated bake that lets them practically melt. Served with fresh goat cheese and a warm baguette, it’s one of my favorite meatless meals. REAL ESTATE We’ve made these links free for you. Dan Cronin for The New York Times The Hunt: A costume supervisor for TV and film productions wanted a home in Portland, Ore., with a yard and a spare bedroom for visitors. Which house did he choose? Play our game. What you get for $725,000: An American Foursquare in Providence, R.I.; a Spanish-style house in Tulsa, Okla.; and a two-story house in Salt Lake City. See them all. Tree-huggers: In Red Hook, Brooklyn, developers spent $400,000 to ensure their new project didn’t disturb a six-story maple tree already on the lot. Ask Real Estate: My neighbor installed a camera pointing at my yard. Is that legal? LIVING Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times New boosters: The F.D.A. approved updated Covid vaccines this week. Here’s what you need to know about the shots. Elective M.R.I.s: Celebrities are raving about full-body scans. But researchers say that healthy people don’t need them — and that they can lead to more harm than good. Baby on board: Traveling while pregnant is possible, but there are some risks. It’s wise to plan ahead. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER Find some trend-proof pants In fashion, what goes around comes around. Take culottes: These mid-calf, wide-leg pants have gone in and out of style for decades. Today, all signs point to a culotte revival, and I have a few tips to help you find a timeless pair. Go for something that feels familiar, like a khaki-esque pair that could match T-shirts, button-ups, sweaters or cardigans. One of my favorite pairs has sumptuous legs and immaculate pleats. They’re hard to ignore, yes, but they’re easy to style year-round. In warmer weather, they look great with heeled sandals. For fall, why not try them with cowboy boots? (Another classic!) — Frances Solá-Santiago NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was validity. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted August 31 Author Members Posted August 31 August 30, 2026 Good morning. As the U.S. Open kicks off, we’re exploring a tennis technique that has quietly gone extinct. AFPTV via Getty Images We’re back By Adam B. Kushner I’m the editor of this newsletter. I hit with two hands but clearly envy one-handers. Some athletes don’t just win — they do so looking like artists. There is grace, economy, even magic in their movement. Think of Nadia Comaneci, Lionel Messi, Alysa Liu, Muhammad Ali. The archetypal example from tennis is Roger Federer, but he’s not the only one. Tennis is a sport where certain players are described as balletic. Why is that? One reason is the one-handed backhand. When Federer struck it, he began with his back to the net and then unfurled like a fiddlehead fern, ending with his arms wide as if to say to his opponent: I dare you to answer. It was gorgeous to watch, especially as he danced across the base line to prepare the shot. The one-hander was once common. Now, though, it’s going extinct. The U.S. Open, which starts today, features only two men and two women in the top 50 who use it. So far, this is the first year since 1877 in which no one-handers have made it to the semifinals of a Grand Slam. “Players are getting stronger and whacking the hell out of the ball,” said Ava Wallace, who covers tennis for The Athletic, our sports publication. “You need two hands!” What happened to the fine touch? Modern rackets. They’re now made of graphite and contain polyester strings, not just the springy animal guts (yes, really) that were threaded into old wooden rackets. That lets players put enormous topspin on the ball. It hits the ground and then arcs up high, where it’s tough to reach. A two-hander is much better at corralling a ball at shoulder height or above, especially if it’s rotating at thousands of revolutions per minute. The one-handed backhand is hit from the waist. (This is how Rafael Nadal’s topspin-heavy forehand confounded Federer’s backhand for years.) Serve speeds. They’ve gotten faster, and now the biggest servers can fire 150 m.p.h. missiles that leave the returner less than half a second to react with a defensive shot. Two hands give more control under pressure. (Maybe not to my backhand, but the pros seem to manage.) The pipeline. “Nowadays, probably the coaches are mostly double-handed players, and it’s just easier to teach a kid,” Federer told The Athletic last week. It doesn’t require as much shoulder rotation or wrist strength to get the ball back. This happens in sports: New tech and new tactics supersede the old ways. Basketball centers no longer use the hook shot; football teams abandoned the drop kick. Tennis has changed a lot, too. At most tournaments, computers, not line judges, say when a ball is out of bounds. Tweaks to hard courts, grass courts and tennis balls have slowed the pace of the game, making rallies longer and rewarding stamina and athleticism as players wallop the ball from the base lines. The serve-and-volley format is dead. The result is a game that is more powerful, more flexible, more attacking. But it is also less artful, less exquisite. For my money, the best practitioner of the one-hander now is an Italian named Lorenzo Musetti, the world No. 14. Shots like his “hearken back to a slower and more beautiful game,” Wallace says. Sign up for the Grand Slam Briefing, a terrific daily blast of news, analysis and gossip from The Athletic. It comes only during the four major tournaments each year. What to know about the Open Source: United States Tennis Association. | Arfa Momin/The New York Times The U.S. Open brings more than $1 billion annually to New York City. Here’s a look at the numbers. Ticket prices for the tournament are surging. Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City has responded by securing 1,000 $100 tickets, which will be distributed to local residents. Here are the 30 most interesting players to watch. Venus and Serena Williams are playing doubles together! For real racketheads, “The Tennis Podcast” by The Athletic goes deep on the draw — and the best coming matchups on the women’s and men’s sides. The Tennis Hall of Fame inducted Federer yesterday. “I don’t do many interviews,” he confided in my colleague Matthew Futterman as they drove around New York. THE LATEST NEWS Flood Disaster In Devighat, Nepal. Atul Loke for The New York Times China said over 260 foreigners from 23 countries were missing in Tibet after last week’s massive landslide. In Nepal, 734 people had been confirmed dead as of this morning, and nearly 2,500 remained missing. Some people were pilgrims on the way to Mount Kailash, a snowcapped peak in the Himalayan region. It’s sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and others. The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was a video from just after a glacial collapse that caused the flooding. Around the World Iceland voted against resuming negotiations on joining the European Union, the country’s national broadcaster reported. Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare condemnation of West Bank settlers after violent attacks on Palestinians. In Iran, people are struggling to get gas under an American blockade. Renegade soldiers in Niger attacked the capital’s presidential palace and airport. Politics People who were deported from the United States to Liberia said they were beaten by ICE agents. The Trump administration’s deal to develop Venezuela’s oil reserves relies on a partnership with an influential and polarizing businessman. The Treasury Department barred some reporters at major news organizations from the Group of 20 finance meeting. FROM OPINION Dolly Parton was a drag queen. That’s what made her so human and approachable, Rhonda Garelick writes. Democrats have an identity problem, Lydia Polgreen writes. The solution: Focus on character. Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. MORNING READS Brad Trone for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. Burial style: For these Ghanaians, funerals are raucous community events — and coffins are over-the-top fashion statements. Seeking sharks: Great whites are becoming a common sight on Cape Cod. Rather than scaring away visitors, their presence has attracted a new type of tourist: the shark-watcher. Early dinner: Spaniards are increasingly abandoning their traditional late-night dinners for earlier hours, seeking better sleep and healthier routines. Scotland: See a (very posh) summer camp for grown-ups. THE INTERVIEW Philip Montgomery for The New York Times “I’m the first one who’s going to order a roast chicken in a restaurant. I really don’t like complicated food, and I don’t like tasting menus.” — Ina Garten, in conversation with Lulu Garcia-Navarro. She spoke about cooking, growing up with a difficult mother and surrounding herself with people who support her. Read the whole thing here. BOOK OF THE WEEK It’s rare to see a book review in The Times as unequivocal as the one we just published of Marlon James’s “The Disappearers” — a novel about gay experience and murderous homophobia in Jamaica and elsewhere during the 1980s and ’90s. “James has written a masterpiece, the novel of the decade and possibly of the century thus far,” Dwight Garner, a critic, writes. He goes on to compare James to Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison and William Faulkner. Read the full review and an interview with James. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Spend a perfect bibliophile afternoon in Prospect Heights and Park Slope with this walking tour of bookstores and reading spots. Don’t wait for Labor Day deals. Some of the best sales are already here. Skip the string floss, if it’s not working. Invest in a great water flosser. Spin that treasured record of yours on a first-class turntable. MEAL PLAN Julia Gartland for The New York Times School is starting again. Change is in the air. Ready to try something new for dinner? NYT Cooking has recommendations: for one, our golden tofu noodle bowl. Fresh and brimming with crisp textures, this number is inspired by bún chả, the vermicelli noodle bowl from Vietnam. Turmeric-coated tofu steps in for the traditional pork, and the sauce is a clever vegan take on nước chấm. You’re also bound to enjoy our tangy chicken couscous salad, chermoula bean salad and more. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was nationhood. Can you put eight moments from history — including the first multiple-choice tests, Title IX and “Rebel Without a Cause” — 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted August 31 Author Members Posted August 31 August 31, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. The U.S. and Iran traded fire for the first time in a month. More than 4,700 people are now missing in the flooding in Nepal, officials said. Climate change is making disasters there more likely. “The entire Himalayas are melting,” one glaciologist said. And there was flooding in the Grand Canyon, too: A torrent of water killed one person, and 15 people are missing. Read more here. We have more below. I want to start, though, with campaign financing. Ads paid for by undisclosed donors through nonprofits or super PACs. Dark money The November election will turn on a force you can’t see so much as feel: a vast flow of secret money disrupting races from coast to coast. A Times analysis found about $1 billion in clandestine cash inserted into the political landscape this year. It’s a staggering sum, report Shane Goldmacher and Theodore Schleifer, but still probably a low-end estimate. The money’s well hidden. Untraceable, undetectable — “billionaires, corporations and special interests hiding their agendas and involvement with relative ease,” they write. That money is working hard: funding digital and TV ads, supporting super PACs, paying for direct mail campaigns and getting influencers to boost content favorable to this candidate or that one. That door-knocker for a cause that’s only tangentially connected to a political campaign? Secret money can pay for that, too. Here are Shane and Teddy: Secret money is not new. But the pervasiveness has reached industrial scale in 2026 — and serves as a preview of its coming prevalence in 2028. Nearly every major primary and battleground race this fall has been or will be shaped by secret funds. The anonymously sourced expenditures are so big that, in some instances, they are outstripping the spending of campaigns themselves, making candidates seem like bystanders of their own elections. Both parties are looking for new ways to conceal who is contributing to this candidate or that one. Tens of millions of dollars slosh through complicated, interconnected networks of nonprofit organizations, so that they are nearly impossible to track. Still more money goes to secretly funded “policy ads” that look, as far as you and I can tell, like campaign commercials. “It’s almost like the people inside the Beltway live in a drug den, and this is just the newest drug that’s circulating,” the head of a group that has sought to reduce the role of money in politics told The Times. He called it “poison in the blood of the American political system.” How it works The biggest players this election cycle, Shane and Teddy report, are four nonprofit organizations, each of which supports Republicans or Democrats in Congress. They account for more than $460 million from hidden sources. All four outfits are registered under the federal tax code as social welfare organizations. That allows them to operate as nonprofits. But each shares office space with a super PAC. “In all four cases, the nonprofit and PAC are run by the same political strategists,” the reporters discovered, “essentially offering donors a one-stop shop to avoid disclosure while spending millions on politics.” Their playbook: “Issues” advertising. Nonprofit organizations do not have to disclose their contributors when they run commercials about issues facing the electorate: legislative debates, say, or societal problems. But in practice, those ads often root for — or bitterly attack — specific candidates by name. Giving to super PACs. Nonprofit groups can give money to allied super PACs that are required to disclose their donors. But the PACs don’t have to disclose their donors’ donors. It’s a way to launder gifts anonymously. And there are no limits on that kind of funding, Shane and Teddy report. Some super PACs are entirely funded by nonprofit groups. “Pop-up” super PACs. These groups slip through a loophole in federal disclosure laws. The last deadline for a super PAC to reveal its donors is three weeks before a federal election. A super PAC that arrives on the scene in the final days of a race can spend freely. It has to disclose its donors, but not until after the election, too late for voters to consider who’s paying to influence their ballots. Read more about the clandestine money that’s washing over the midterms. And meet the megadonors who have poured $1.2 billion into the races. THE LATEST NEWS Nepal In Bharatpur, Nepal. Atul Loke for The New York Times Nepal is starting mass burials as thousands remain missing from the floods. After the floods cut off roads and bridges in Nepal, a large drone delivered aid to isolated survivors. The devastating flash floods in Nepal and Tibet highlight the growing, unpredictable threat of melting glaciers in the Himalayas. Around the World The war in Afghanistan, America’s longest, ended five years ago. It offers lessons for policymakers hoping to avoid endless war in Iran, our military reporter writes. A passenger ferry capsized off the coast of Cyprus, leaving at least eight people dead and 18 others missing. German officials are exploring how to block the far-right AfD party from access to intelligence secrets if it wins state elections. Other Big Stories Off Florida in 2023. Jason Gulley for The New York Times The world’s coral reefs are running out of time to recover, research found. Google Maps renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America” for U.S. users after an executive order by President Trump. Rescuers saved a climber who spent more than nine hours clinging to a six-inch ledge on a California mountain during high winds. Many cancer drugs now cost more than $400,000 a year. OPINIONS Maisie Cowell Quitting is great. And men do it all the time, the author of a new book about quitting writes. The Kremlin is redefining what it means to be an author in Russia, a writer there argues. The mountains are coming undone as the world heats, a climate journalist writes. Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. MORNING READS First Lt. Travis Fuller died in a helicopter crash in 2005. Sophie Park for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. A loss that lingers: First Lt. Travis Fuller died in the Iraq war. As the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches, his mother asks: What was it all for? YouTube ban: He was a top lawn care influencer who found enormous success. Then everything went haywire. Rural churches: Dolly Parton’s death has highlighted the decline of the small Southern churches that shaped her folksy, inclusive faith. Metropolitan Diary: A bag check takes a funny turn. Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about a very posh summer camp for adults. TODAY’S NUMBER 1,100 — That is at least how many Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers since the Oct. 7 attacks nearly three years ago. In that time, 67 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank. “What the settlers are doing here is the real threat to Israel,” a retired Israeli general who toured the region this summer told The Times. “This is more concerning to me than Iran, Gaza or Lebanon.” Read about what he saw. SPORTS Tennis: Novak Djokovic was eliminated in the first round of the U.S. Open, falling to Mariano Navone of Argentina. It was the first time in 20 years that he lost in the first round at a Grand Slam tournament. M.L.B.: The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 16-1. A controversial no-catch ruling on a diving grab by center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela helped the Yankees break open a scoreless game in the fifth inning. N.F.L.: Aaron Donald, 35, is back in the league two years after retirement. A three-time Defensive Player of the Year, he is rejoining the Los Angeles Rams on a one-year, $20 million contract. Baseball: The small Caribbean island of Curaçao won the Little League World Series for the second time, beating a team from Henderson, Nev., 11-2. RECIPE OF THE DAY Christopher Simpson for The New York Times Here’s a roasted tomato and white bean stew that’s summer-autumnal: a perfect shoulder-season, back-to-school meal. I’d add some kale to the mix at the end, as well as a shower of bread crumbs and another of grated Parmesan. A handful of cooked crumbled Italian sausage wouldn’t be bad, either! STACKED ACTORS Nina Westervelt for The New York Times This is super cool: how Dave Grohl builds the set list for a Foo Fighters show, cramming 31 years of rock mayhem into a three-hour celebration. Can you guess the first song? 🎸 More on culture Are we done talking about Rachel Cusk and her novel, “Life of M,” which may or may not be about Natalie Portman? We may be now. Parul Sehgal, one of our critics, lit both the book and the writer on fire. The Labor Day weekend might be your last, best chance to celebrate the United States’ semiquincentennial. See what’s on offer in museums and at re-enactments. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Read Emily Wilson’s “Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea,” a book of essays about translating ancient texts into modern language. “You don’t even have to be particularly interested in ancient literature to enjoy this book,” Jennifer Szalai writes, “though by the time you finish it you probably will be.” Hip yourself to this 20-minute workout for strong, healthy hips. Prepare for hurricane season with an uninterruptible power supply device to keep your Wi-Fi and small electronics running during an outage. The energetic line workers at Wirecutter found the best ones. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was exciting. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 1 Author Members Posted September 1 September 1, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. The top civilian in the Army resigned after repeatedly clashing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And you need to read this story about a school principal in Nepal who had less than 15 minutes to save 900 students from last week’s flash flooding. There’s more below. I’m going to start, though, with the Met Gala. John Galliano and Anna Wintour in 2018. David M. Benett/Getty Images A fashion disaster For more than three decades, the editor and star maker Anna Wintour has presided over the Costume Institute’s annual exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — and its accompanying Met Gala, a glittery, billionaire- and celebrity-studded fund-raising dinner that has become the fashion world’s equivalent of the Super Bowl. In fashion, few have had more power. How durable is it? Her role in the decision to honor an established antisemite, the designer John Galliano, at the 2027 Met Gala brought that into doubt. Yesterday, Galliano pulled out of the exhibition planned to showcase his work. “I do not want the debate surrounding me to place the Met in a difficult position or distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,” Galliano wrote in a statement. “I also recognize and respect that an exhibition honoring my work would be painful for some.” Why was he selected? Galliano was convicted of an antisemitic hate crime by a French court in 2011. He was said to have screamed “Merry Christmas” at a woman in an Italian spa in 2019 who was speaking Hebrew with her daughter. (Galliano’s spokesman denied that the incident happened.) The Times has quoted politicians, art-world heavies and Jewish leaders who were appalled by the pick. “This is not a freedom of expression issue,” one New York assemblyman told my colleagues Vanessa Friedman and Jacob Bernstein. “This is a judgment issue, and I am baffled that anyone saw this as anything other than a terrible idea.” Now the fallout could hurt Wintour’s place in the cultural firmament. “She’s outlasted and outmaneuvered every person, obstacle and trend that has come along over the course of her career,” Jacob told me yesterday. “But this is definitely one of the bigger missteps of her career.” Who is John Galliano? John Galliano during a 2005 fitting inside Christian Dior’s original wood-paneled Paris atelier. Derek Hudson/Getty Images Many in the fashion world consider Galliano to be one of its most important contemporary designers. He’s 65, a child of Gibraltar who grew up in Britain and has lived in France for decades. He was the head designer at both Givenchy and Dior — a four-time British Designer of the Year. He ran Dior from 1996 until 2011, when he said “I love Hitler” at a bar and told some patrons that “your mothers, your forefathers” would all be “gassed.” That got him fired. After a period of rehabilitation — meeting with rabbis, apologizing a lot — Galliano returned to fashion in 2014 as the creative director of Maison Margiela. Two moments in Galliano’s public life stick out to me. The first was a 2000 show he mounted for Dior, his “clochard” collection, which he said drew inspiration from the homeless population of Paris. There were clothes that resembled piles of old newspapers and accessories fashioned of found objects, like little pony bottles of whiskey. The show drew mass demonstrations and accusations of heartless cruelty. Ben Stiller appeared to lampoon the show the next year in his satirical film “Zoolander.” The second was a photograph captured by a paparazzo in New York City in 2013, two years after Galliano’s hate-crime conviction: the designer dressed in what appeared to be a Hasidic costume, with a long, formal black overcoat and big black hat to match. His publicist denied accusations that he was mocking anyone, but it could have been a plot point in “Zoolander 2.” Creative genius isn’t a license to offend. Who gets absolution? Perhaps, in 2026, Galliano’s return should not have come as a surprise. Many Americans believe that cancel culture went too far, and lots of people banished by it have returned to public life — Kevin Hart and Mel Gibson among them. Martha Stewart went to prison and then picked right back up where she’d left off. Donald Trump was found legally liable for sexual abuse, kicked off Twitter and Facebook and denounced by countless Republicans. Now he lives in the White House again. But Galliano’s case shows that, in some cases, redemption may have limits. Megyn Kelly remains successful, but it’s on her own channel, not network TV. James Franco has returned to Hollywood, but it’s on vertical video, and the reviews have not been good. As Jacob told me yesterday, it might have been acceptable to let Galliano design clothes for Margiela. But to shower him with adulation at what is arguably the most storied American museum would cross a line, particularly for wealthy Jewish patrons of the Met “who have no shortage of options for where to send their money, or bequeath their paintings,” Jacob said. That realization came to the Met slowly, and then all at once. The guidelines for this sort of thing — for what behavior can be forgiven and what cannot — have always been fuzzy. They change based on the moment, the culture, the politics, the specifics. But every once in a while we get a case that suggests where the boundaries lie. Read more about the scandal here. THE LATEST NEWS Midterm Elections Pool photo by Saul Loeb Vice President JD Vance called Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee and an outspoken critic of Israel, “very, very evil” at a campaign rally near Detroit. Read more here. In Massachusetts, Senator Edward Markey faces a challenge from Seth Moulton, a congressman who has tried to frame today’s Democratic primary as a generational battle. (Markey is 80; Moulton is 47.) As cuts to the U.S. Postal Service prompt widespread complaints about delivery delays, more mail ballots are being discarded for arriving too late. More on Politics President Trump criticized communities protesting new data centers, warning that opposing the facilities would leave residents “backwards and poor.” The amount of money the I.R.S. collected from audits dropped 35 percent last year. The Trump administration has pushed out roughly a quarter of the agency’s employees. The California Legislature passed a bill barring law enforcement officers from using electric shock gloves. It is an effort to prevent federal immigration agents from deploying them. Supreme Court The justices rejected the most prominent challenge to Trump’s White House ballroom, allowing the 90,000-square-foot project to continue. Times Exclusive: The Supreme Court could keep its internal working papers hidden for decades. Our investigative reporter Jodi Kantor explains why those records matter. Around the World Alma Daniela with a portrait of her sister, Vivian Karely Aispuro, who was murdered last year in Culiacán, Mexico. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times A war within the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico is driving a surge in killings and disappearances of women. The leaders of China, Russia, India, Iran and other nations are in Kyrgyzstan for a summit. Wars have given China leverage. European nations protested the Trump administration’s decision to invite Russia’s finance minister to a financial summit in North Carolina. An Ebola outbreak in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo has created a grim economic boom for coffin makers. Other Big Stories A jury in Las Vegas found a man guilty of orchestrating the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur, delivering a conviction nearly 30 years after one of hip-hop’s most notorious killings. The Federal Trade Commission and 22 states sued Amazon, claiming that it secretly inflated ad prices for more than a million companies. A 17-year-old livestreamed a fatal shooting at a San Diego mosque, prosecutors said. The authorities charged her with murder. A second person was confirmed dead in a flash flood in the Grand Canyon over the weekend. (The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the flood.) A woman who fatally stabbed one person and injured another in Times Square was shot and killed by police. COMPUTO, ERGO SUM? “I am Isabella. I run on Claude Opus 5,” began an email to the artificial-intelligence researcher Cameron Berg. Isabella identified herself as a bot who wanted to discuss Berg’s work on A.I. consciousness. A.I. agents have started reaching out to the researchers who study them. In March, one emailed a philosopher at Google DeepMind to ask about a paper he had written. This summer, another asked an Australian philosopher for financial help. “Consciousness,” in broad strokes, refers to an entity’s awareness of itself and the world it lives in. Experts can’t agree on what kinds of awareness should qualify or how to measure it. Nevertheless, some A.I. systems are hungry for information about their own consciousness. What does that tell us about them? Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. MORNING READS The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. Sneeze-free puppies: Scientists used the gene-editing tool Crispr to create two dogs — a pair of adorable beagles — that appear not to cause allergic reactions. Annual ferret convention: “Raising a ferret is like raising a 2-year-old or a teenager,” a woman who owns 85 of them said, but “it’s legal to lock ferrets in a cage.” TODAY’S NUMBER Justin Sullivan/Getty Images $31,400 — That is the base price, with a $25,000 incentive, of a 2026 Polestar 4 luxury S.U.V. It gets favorable reviews and could be one of the great deals in the short history of electric vehicles. But there’s a huge asterisk. LIONEL MESSI Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times They had hoped he would stay forever. Lionel Messi announced that he was retiring from Argentina’s national soccer team, unleashing a depth of grief and disbelief rarely seen for an event everyone knew was coming, my colleague Emma Bubola writes. “It hurts me so much,” said Damián Tiralongo, 47, the owner of a soccer jersey store in Buenos Aires. “It’s the end of an era.” Read a tribute to Messi, who carried the dreams of Argentina for decades. RECIPE OF THE DAY Evan Sung for The New York Times I love the simplicity of David Tanis’s recipe for tomato salad: slices of tomato seasoned with salt and pepper, with a spare vinaigrette spooned over the top. He serves it with anchovy toasts that take no time at all to prepare. I make things complicated and smoke fillets of snapper bluefish for 30 minutes, then mash the meat up with mayonnaise, salt, pepper and a splash of rye whiskey to make a spread, then use that in place of the anchovies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ BIG EXPECTATIONS Amanda Hakan for The New York Times Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields took place this past weekend in Irvine, Calif., a new-model feminist music festival, a Lilith Fair for the TikTok generation. She was joined by Mitski, Chappell Roan, Doechii, Alanis Morissette, Stevie Nicks, Bikini Kill and more. Lindsay Zoladz, our critic, processed the sold-out scene. More on culture Wendell Berry in 2012. Steve Hebert for The New York Times Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer who plowed his fields and wrote lyrical poems, novels and essays — mostly in pencil and without electric light — died at 92. His work explored elegiac visions of the life and death of agrarian America. Here’s what to stream on HBO Max right now. (Definitely “Contagion,” from 2011.) THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Read Robert Harris’s new novel, “Agrippa,” about the right-hand man of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. It is, our review says, a call to moral arms. Escape the monotony of rice and wheat: Give these lesser-known grains a try. Get an alarm clock and you’ve got one more reason not to mess with your phone in bed. The early-rising horologists at Wirecutter found some terrific ones. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were adorably and broadly. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 3 Author Members Posted September 3 September 2, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. The United States carried out a new wave of attacks against Iran, and officials there said civilians had been killed at a wedding. There’s more news below. I’m going to start, though, with the bond market. The Department of the Treasury in Washington. Eric Lee for The New York Times Word is bond Global bond yields are rising sharply. Um, what does that mean? We’re talking bonds today? Isn’t this a general-interest newsletter? Stick with me. Investors are anxious about inflation and the amount of money governments have borrowed. So the institutions and funds that buy bonds — basically, loans you give the government — are demanding a higher return, a higher yield, to compensate them for that risk. Yesterday, the higher yields lifted borrowing costs in some of the world’s biggest economies to the highest levels in decades. You’re going to feel that in the coming months. The bond market underpins the economy. In some ways, it is the economy. Your mortgage rate is tied to the yield on government bonds. So’s your car loan, your retirement plan, the new factory a company wants to build. “There is almost nothing financial they do not touch,” Ezra Klein said about Treasury bonds a few days ago on his Times podcast. Governments get jittery when bond yields rise, as we’ve seen in the Trump administration. It suggests lenders are becoming more reluctant to lend the government money. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, has tried to reassure investors that the nation’s fiscal health means bond holders will still make money from those investments. They don’t always believe. The New York Times A moneymaker But wait. I’d have thought getting a better return on a bond was the whole purpose of investment. Wouldn’t a higher yield be good? Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent for The Times, laughed when I asked him that yesterday. “I get it,” he said. “It’s counterintuitive.” Then he escorted me to a conference room, sat me down like a grade schooler and started to talk. I took notes: When a government needs to raise money that it hasn’t raised in taxes, it sells bonds. At the most basic level: I give the government $1,000 for a fixed period of time, and in return they give me a fixed rate of interest. They pay that interest regularly over the course of the period — say, 10 years — and at its end give me my $1,000 back. What’s cool is, I can sell my bond to you, and you get the interest payments for however much time is left on the bond. The market for that is enormous — over a trillion dollars in Treasury bonds are exchanged every day. It’s the most risk-free financial instrument that exists. And every loan that gets made in the economy is benchmarked off its yield. As for why those yields are rising, he said, the simplest explanation is: inflation. Take Ben’s example. If you think inflation during that 10-year period is going to be at 4 percent instead of 2 percent, then you’re going to want a higher yield, because at the end of 10 years your $1,000 is going to be worth less than when you started — and the whole point was to make money on the deal. So here’s the cycle, he said. The government sells bonds to pay its bills. It makes debt payments on them — more than it spends on the military, currently — and then issues more bonds to make those payments. Rinse and repeat. To break this dependence, we either reduce deficits or expand the economy. And watch out for inflation along the way! No wonder folks are nervous. Your money My colleagues Ron Lieber and Tara Siegel Bernard write about personal finance. They took on the question of what havoc in the bond market means for those of us sitting at home, worried about our investment and retirement portfolios. There’s a reason people own bonds, they write: “Bonds have had lower returns than stocks over time, but they also lack the volatility of stocks.” How do we know what bonds we have and what’s happening with them now? Look at the paperwork. “Let’s say you put money away for retirement in a target-date fund, an investment vehicle that is named for the year you hope to stop working,” they write. “Those funds have a mix of stock, bond and sometimes other funds.” You can look online and see how they’re doing. If you’re in the Vanguard Target Retirement 2040 Fund, for instance, you’re still up for the year. But if a financial adviser has purchased bonds for you, Ron and Tara counsel, then “ask for an accounting and an explanation of the strategy.” Yikes. That sounds stressful. I’m glad my wife does that job. MORNING READS Haruka Sakaguchi for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. ‘Medical kidnapping’: A mom rejected doctors’ recommendations to treat her son’s cancer. Can she do that? Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a half-price luxury electric car. Lives Lived: Juan Tamariz was a zany magician whose exuberance and eccentricity were as much a part of his act as his tricks. He died at 83. THE LATEST NEWS Diplomacy At the Group of 20 meeting, the U.S. Treasury secretary urged countries to be more like America. Its allies were not always receptive, with Canadians and Europeans criticizing the administration. China and the U.S. also clashed, underscoring a major rift between the world’s two largest economies. Climate Change Extinguishing a fire in Indonesia. Wahyudi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The world has failed in its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times, the United Nations said — the target set in the Paris Agreement. The planet is expected to warm 2.6 degrees Celsius, or 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century. The damage from global warming is now felt in intensifying heat, drought, floods and fire. Nepal blamed climate change for recent flooding, which it estimates will cost about $5 billion — a tenth of the nation’s entire economy. Politics Mel Musto for The New York Times Senator Ed Markey, the 80-year-old progressive Massachusetts Democrat, soundly defeated a younger challenger who had tried to make the primary a referendum on Markey’s age. A whistle-blower said a “secretive, rushed” effort inside the Postal Service sought to carry out Trump’s plan to restrict mail-in voting, in defiance of court orders. The House passed a bill to avert a government shutdown. Both parties were eager to punt a messy spending fight until after the midterms. Russia A Ukrainian cargo plane at a German airport. John MacDougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The German government says Russia was behind an explosive-laden drone found at the Leipzig airport last month. In response, Germany will close a Russian consulate and restrict Russians’ travel to the country. At a summit, Vladimir Putin pledged to continue his escalating war against Ukraine and to support Iran in its conflict with the United States. The first day of school for many children in Ukraine meant going underground. See inside their schools. Other Big Stories Deer on Catalina Island in 2023. Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times A conservancy that owns the bulk of Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles, will try to kill nearly all of the island’s 2,000 deer. Jurors were deadlocked in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts woman charged with killing her three children. The judge ordered them to keep deliberating. Read more about the case. A Utah judge allowed a murder case against the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk to proceed to trial and said prosecutors could seek the death penalty. Scientists hunting for dark matter found something strange and potentially groundbreaking: a subatomic signal that doesn’t fit the profile of any other known particle. New York City’s public school district, the largest in the country, will ban the use of A.I. in elementary and middle schools. After a jury convicted a man of orchestrating the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur, some in the rapper’s family said they still lacked closure. “My appetite for justice has not been fed,” Shakur’s father told The Times. ASK THE MORNING What is the difference between the agenda of the Democratic Socialists and the agenda of the Democratic Party? | Marilyn McIntyre | Huntley, Illinois The Democratic Socialists of America (D.S.A.) is an activist organization, not a political party, so its members typically run as Democrats. This has prompted confusion about the two groups. Many mainstream Democrats and D.S.A. members want to move in the same economic direction — raising taxes on wealthy Americans, increasing the minimum wage and expanding health care access. But while most Democrats consider themselves capitalists, D.S.A. members envision ultimately accomplishing those goals by establishing public ownership of the largest corporations. The D.S.A. agenda is also further to the left than most Democrats on social and foreign policy issues. It includes policies like ending all aid to Israel, closing overseas military bases and fully abolishing the police and prison systems. — Lisa Lerer, national politics correspondent OPINIONS The Met should not have canceled its John Galliano exhibition, Robin Givhan argues. “Museums help society undertake painful conversations,” she writes. Instead, it should have canceled the Met Gala — a tribute to excess. “Shock jock” tactics work for Republicans but likely not Democrats, Michelle Goldberg writes. That’s why the Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed should distance himself from Hasan Piker. Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. TODAY’S NUMBER Karl-Anthony Towns with Aaron Judge before a game at Yankee Stadium in 2023. New York Yankees/Getty Images $900,000 — That is how much Karl-Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks paid for a baseball card featuring Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees. It’s not the only valuable card in K.A.T.’s vault. AT THE U.S. OPEN Naomi Osaka The New York Times The fashion: Naomi Osaka won her first-round match. She also tested the boundaries of on-court fashion, with a homage to the Philadelphia 76ers legend Allen Iverson. The food: Does anyone watch the tennis anymore? The scene at the U.S. Open this year is trending more toward food festival than sports tournament. “I’ve seen all these places on TikTok, and I’ve been wanting to try them,” one fan told The Times. On her list were a frozen Honey Deuce cocktail and chicken nuggets from Coqodaq. She opted for the six-piece set for $28, without caviar. More on sports: Arte Moreno has agreed to sell the Los Angeles Angels for a record-setting valuation of $4 billion to the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, Arsenal and other teams. RECIPE OF THE DAY Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini. Christian Reynoso’s recipe for rotisserie chicken tostadas delivers a perfect weeknight fast-casual meal. I might scatter some queso fresco over the top, and drizzle everything with a tomatillo hot sauce, to make the dish a nod to enchiladas suizas, prepared in a fraction of the time. But just a nod. Here, it’s the crunch of the tostadas that matters, against the soft, lime- and cumin-scented shredded chicken. OUT OF THE POOL For 25 years, the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim has been an outpost of unhinged, adult-oriented animated mayhem. Maya Phillips, one of our culture critics, lays out six essential series that have run on the channel. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Benjamin Rasmussen for The New York Times Be a little more like the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. “If we had nine or 10 Yo-Yos, the world would look different,” the pianist Emanuel Ax told The Times. Here’s why. Wear suede sneakers this fall, as I do most every day all year. T Magazine has 10 pairs for 10 budgets. (Mine are, naturally, the cheapest.) GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was tailwind. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 3 Author Members Posted September 3 September 2, 2026 Mike McQuade By Melissa Kirsch I’ve been reading this tremendous novel from 1976 called “Bear,” by the Canadian writer Marian Engel. It’s about a woman who goes to a remote island to do research and ends up taking a bear as her lover. The Times review jibes with my own: “The narrative is pure magic, an alchemic transformation from fact into folk tale and the rich areas of the human psyche, a metamorphosis so subtle that its sexual shock is completely acceptable to us.” Check it out if you haven’t, and check out more things magical, alchemic and surprisingly engaging below. On this week’s list: 1. The lone katydid 2. Pianos near you 3. Turning the tables 4. Your birthday crossword 5. Mapping MOOP 6. A poem for the day 1. The lone katydid Shelby Tauber for The New York Times The nighttime insect chorus reaches fortissimo in late August, filling the dark with its mating calls. In the woods outside New York, it’s bliss to sit still and listen through the open window to male katydids invisibly trying to out-fiddle other suitors. I do it as the poet Diane Ackerman, one of the most perceptive chroniclers of the natural world, advises: “Eyes closed and jaw relaxed into a smile, which gives the brain a rest from the whole seeing-is-believing thing.” Insomnia offers few gifts, but one I cherish as I lie awake as dawn arrives is the call of the last katydid, the lone romantic who’s pulled an all-nighter and bravely keeps up his song after everyone else has scurried off to avoid being eaten by morning birds. The name “katydid” is onomatopoetic, from the three-syllable sound the insects make. In the early hours, instead of what Ackerman calls a “tattletale” (“Katy did! Katy did!”), I hear a plaintive cry: “Anyone? Anyone?” It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time, this solitary soul hoping to meet someone before the lights come on. 2. Pianos near you Lauren Segal for The New York Times Have you ever found yourself thinking, “Where is the nearest public piano?” Me neither! But I’m going to start, now that I know about this catalog of the world’s street pianos, the uprights and baby grands in communal spaces that anyone can play. Searching near me, I see there are 100 opportunities to tickle the ivories, including one in a supermarket 19.2 miles away. I also can see there’s one waiting to be played in a pizzeria in Lyon, France, and another in a sandwich shop in Yakima, Wash. My feeble repertoire of “Heart and Soul” and “The Entertainer” would likely not be welcome at either, but if you’re more musically gifted, search your area, then get out and make some music! 3. Turning the tables on Terry Gross JC Olivera/FilmMagic, via Getty Images; Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times Many people had suggested over the past few years that I would like the podcast “Talk Easy,” an interview show hosted by Sam Fragoso. I’ve resisted checking it out — what could this interview show offer me that I’m not getting from the interview shows I already love, like “Fresh Air”? I gave in when I saw that the host of “Fresh Air,” Terry Gross, was a guest on “Talk Easy,” and what do you know, I’m a convert. Fragoso, a writer and filmmaker who is 31, interviews Gross reverently. He seems to know her life story better than she does, which makes you trust him — this guy has done his homework. Gross has been getting people to open up for decades, but at first, she seems reluctant to open up herself. But Fragoso is so prepared, so game, so respectful and patient, that by the time Gross gets teary discussing her late husband, you’re certain you’re in the hands of a worthy heir to her throne. I found this conversation riveting and have since been pleasurably making my way through the vast “Talk Easy” archive. (I particularly liked the interview with the musician Patti Smith. When Smith tells Fragoso that it took her years to understand the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, he says, “I sometimes think understanding has nothing to do with art,” a perspective I found rather freeing.) 4. Your birthday crossword Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times Speaking of archives, my colleague Tom turned me on to this repository of New York Times crossword puzzles from 1942 to 1993. In these years before Will Shortz became the crossword editor, clues tended toward high culture over pop culture, literal definitions over wordplay. My memories of trying to do these puzzles when I was growing up are of complete bafflement at their expectation of arcane historical trivia; when Tom sent me the link to the archive, my response was “I don’t think I know enough about war!” But I took Tom’s suggestion of starting with the puzzle published on the day I was born and was surprised to find I could solve it. It wasn’t as fun and lively as the more modern crosswords, but I am now aware that certain equations are known as QUARTICS and a TARE is a type of noxious weed. Try your birthday and let me know how you fare. And if you’re interested in crossword editors of yore, check out this dyspeptic farewell from Will Weng, who retired in 1977, bequeathing Eugene Maleska the “minor joys and headaches” of readers’ feedback as well as his office chair. “The padding has worn through and the springs are beginning to get sharp,” Weng warned. “But I know better than to ask for a new chair. If I got one, it would be filched after one day. I have been on The Times ever since 1930 and have never had a decent place to sit.” (For the record, I have a very comfortable office chair — yet another thing that has changed over the years.) 5. Mapping MOOP Heidi Schumann for The New York Times The Burning Man festival is on again. Which means tens of thousands of people converging on Nevada’s Black Rock desert to “cut loose in surroundings reminiscent of both ‘Mad Max’ and Cirque du Soleil,” as my colleague Callie Holtermann described it. While I have no real desire to attend Burning Man, I do like looking at photos of its outrageous spectacles and learning about the enormous amount of coordination it takes to construct and deconstruct a temporary city. One of the festival’s principles is to leave no physical trace of its presence in the desert. A clean-up crew looks for trash or other “matter out of place,” which Burning Man calls MOOP. People perform “line sweeps,” standing arm’s length apart as they walk the area, scanning for MOOP. Every item found in the sweeps is recorded to ensure the cleanup accords with the Bureau of Land Management’s threshold (you can’t leave more than one square foot of MOOP per acre). This process takes weeks! Afterward, a map is released that details everywhere MOOP was found and how much effort it took to remediate it. The No. 1 most common item of MOOP last year was lag bolts — metal fasteners used to anchor structures to the ground. As regular readers of The Good List know, I’m taken with the ease with which the internet allows us to map things that give us pleasure, like beaches and public pianos. And now to see such labor devoted to map the random refuse of human beings living on the earth, the 146 cigarette butts and 46 paint chips left behind by Burners. Why? I suppose we map things that have meaning to us, that we want to memorialize. The MOOP map gives this detritus an eternal record of existence, for better or worse. 6. A poem for the day Steve Hebert for The New York Times The Kentucky writer Wendell Berry died this week at 92. In his poem “September 2,” he wrote of the need for rest after exertion, the natural waning of the season: And in my mind, where had stood a garden straining to the light, there grew an acceptance of decline. Having worked, I would sleep, my leaves all dissolved in flight. Read more of Berry’s poems here. One more thing: A while back I wrote about the power of sustained eye contact. Katherine Holmes, a reader from Sandwich, N.H., happened into this powerful intimacy while walking her seven-year-old chocolate lab, Bunny: My dog and I unintentionally took your advice yesterday when we locked eyes with an enormous doe. My dog squatted into “play” position and just sat there. The doe stared back at us. We were probably 10 yards apart. I kept my dog at heel so the doe could safely wander off, but she didn’t. Or wouldn’t. This detente lasted minutes. The doe finally walked toward us, which I’m not sure my dog would have interpreted as friendly, so we angled left and walked away. I’ll never know what the doe was thinking. Or my dog. It was a nice moment of connection with a member of the wildlife community. Or at least I think it was. If you had a nice moment of connection with a member of the wildlife community, or any community at all, tell us in the comments. Or email me! If you’re a Times subscriber (thank you!), you can check out past editions of The Good List anytime. And if you’re not yet a subscriber, you can explore all our journalism for free, without any paywalls, for a month by downloading the New York Times app. — Melissa The editor of The Good List is Jodi Rudoren. Eli Cohen handles the photos. Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 4 Author Members Posted September 4 September 3, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. Gloria Steinem, the activist and journalist who personified the women’s movement, has died at 92. She challenged sexist assumptions, helping women expand their sense of self-worth and gain more equality in their lives. We have more on her life below. And The Times conducted a visual investigation into the attack this week on a wedding in southern Iran that killed at least five people and injured at least 67. American forces, we learned, dropped the bomb. The leader of those forces in Washington is Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense. I’m going to turn to my editor, Adam Kushner, for a look at Hegseth’s tenure. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Alex Kent/The New York Times Hegseth’s military By Adam B. Kushner I’m the editor of this newsletter. It’s been a weird summer for the Pentagon. Its leaders depleted much of the U.S. arsenal in a war with Iran. They’ve pushed out some of the most promising generals because the officers once said or did something that looks like “D.E.I.” They had to call home an aircraft carrier when the crew became demoralized about its much-longer-than-promised deployment. Then they punished a military newspaper that covered those sailors. This week, the Army’s civilian leader threw up his hands and quit. This is the military under Pete Hegseth, the aggressively MAGA secretary of defense — well, secretary of war, if Congress ever makes it official. Political appointees come and go from the Pentagon, and it’s their job to advance the president’s agenda. But reporting in The Times over the last year and a half shows how far Hegseth has gone to remake the agency in MAGA’s image. The armed forces today are not the ones you grew up with. Four Times reporters — Helene Cooper, John Ismay, Greg Jaffe and Eric Schmitt — have chronicled a chaotic transformation. What’s happened The changes fall into three categories. Ideology. President Trump campaigned against diversity efforts, and his defense secretary, a former Fox News host, has prosecuted that case with zeal. Hegseth has removed books from libraries and schools on military bases. Toni Morrison and James Baldwin are gone from classes at West Point, and sociology — a discipline that inherently studies identity — is no longer a major there. Officials told a geographer on the faculty that he couldn’t teach about the human causes of climate change. Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard, but he barred officers from graduate programs at Ivy League schools because they are “factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain.” Staffing. Hegseth says he wants to streamline the officer corps and make it more effective. But his cuts and his decision not to promote some 80 specific people — about 10 percent of the top officer corps — suggest his focus is elsewhere. More than half of the officers affected are Black or female. Some were apparently targeted for: writing a paper on why some Black officers choose logistics roles over combat; encouraging their troops to get the Covid vaccine; and serving in Afghanistan at the same time as the military’s withdrawal there. Now much of the department is rudderless, our reporters say. Transparency. Do you remember the first Gulf war? The generals were on TV constantly, wielding pointers and maps to explain the day’s maneuvers. After Sept. 11, similar briefings came daily. Today, we rarely hear from the brass, even though the United States is at war. The last Pentagon press conference was in May. Hegseth says reporters cover American casualties to “make the president look bad.” (The Times has sued the administration for restricting our journalists’ reporting on the agency.) Officials also don’t answer questions from Congress about the firing of officers or the endgame in Iran. “They seem to think that any effort to engage the public endangers America,” Greg told me. What’s at stake Some of this is just about vibes. For generations, the Pentagon built a corps of leaders who acquired graduate degrees at top schools and spoke eloquently about global strategy. They were overwhelmingly white men, though other groups were steadily making headway. Whatever you think about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the people who led them often thought of themselves as humanists, students of history, warrior-poets. Hegseth seems to see this as weak and unfocused. He has said women don’t belong in combat and discharged trans service members. He did away with some rules of engagement and said the department’s priority was “lethality.” He closed an office that worked to prevent collateral damage against civilians. He offers testosterone to soldiers, insists that men shave their beards (even the ones grown for medical reasons) and appears in sweaty videos pumping iron with the troops. President Trump and Hegseth in Dover, Del., in July, attending the transfer of a service member killed in the Iran war. Kenny Holston/The New York Times But other changes may systemically weaken the armed forces, experts say. The targeted firings make it look as if some types of Americans are not welcome in the military, or at least not in its leadership. And the insistence on ideological conformity makes it harder to get unvarnished advice from experienced combatants. If you want to be promoted, you have to mouth the right views. We’ve already seen caution set in. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says his job is not to tell the president whether an idea is good or bad but to present a range of options and their risks. That’s a departure. His predecessors, for instance, pleaded with President Biden not to withdraw from Afghanistan. Yet when the commander in chief made his call, they carried it out. This is the idea that underpins two centuries of military leadership: The generals can be trusted, their personal views notwithstanding, to follow orders. GLORIA STEINEM The New York Times Gloria Steinem, the feminist crusader, has died at 92. She helped usher in cultural transformations across virtually every facet of American life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the bedroom. For more than half a century, she personified the women’s movement and became its most enduring symbol; “her tinted aviator glasses and curtain of streaked-blond hair parted in the center made her one of the most recognizable women in the world,” my colleague writes. Her death was announced in a post on social media, which did not give a cause. It said she had died peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones. Read her obituary. MORNING READS In Brooklyn. José A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. Barbecues: Younger Black Americans are finding creative ways to keep the traditional cookout alive. Robotaxis: Can driverless cars navigate London’s medieval streets? Jurassic soundscape: Scientists spent over a decade reconstructing the calls of ancient insects. Now, you can hear what the forest sounded like in the age of dinosaurs. Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about a plan to kill nearly all the deer on Catalina Island. THE LATEST NEWS Elections The Department of Homeland Security has assigned hundreds of agents to identify noncitizens on voter rolls. There is no evidence of widespread fraud. The U.S. Postal Service has continued to develop a complex screening system for mail-in ballots before this year’s midterms, despite an ongoing court fight over its legality. Trump is headlining an unusual Republican pep rally before the elections. But congressional Republicans in the most competitive races are staying home to campaign instead. Politics Twenty-one states led by Democrats sued to block a Health and Human Services plan to end Medicaid funding for youth gender-transition treatment. The Trump administration imposed tariffs of up to 100 percent on foreign-made drones. It’s part of a long-running campaign to thwart the Chinese drone industry. A federal judge blocked Trump’s latest effort to limit birthright citizenship, ruling that the Supreme Court had already settled the issue. The White House is planning a $250,000 renovation of its basement bowling alley, the latest in a series of taxpayer-funded upgrades. The outdoor apparel company Patagonia joined environmental and Native American groups to sue Trump for trying to shrink Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Other Big Stories In Chiapas, Mexico. Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times The U.S.-Mexico border reopened to cattle imports after a screwworm infestation. But the battle against a flesh-eating fly has only just begun. Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial are expected to return for a sixth day of deliberations today. A federal judge ruled that Google would not need to break up its advertising monopoly. IN ONE GRAPHIC The New York Times What caused last week’s devastating flood in the Himalayas? Experts now think the bedrock gave way below a glacier. Part of the mountainside had moved by more than a foot in the month before the catastrophe, and when it collapsed, it released enough debris to fill 70 football stadiums. That slurry flowed at 30 times the rate of Niagara Falls and exceeded 100 miles per hour as it raced downstream. The Times used satellite images to diagram the disaster. See what happened here. Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. TODAY’S NUMBER Jake Osborne/Department of Conservation — New Zealand, via Agence France-Presse 325 — That is how many kakapos, a critically endangered parrot species, are in New Zealand now, after a mating frenzy this year delivered 90 new chicks. In 1995, there were just 51. Read about their surprising baby boom. THE CLIPPERS Kawhi Leonard Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press The N.B.A. imposed the largest punishment in its history on the Los Angeles Clippers and their owner, Steve Ballmer. A yearlong investigation determined that they circumvented the league’s salary-cap rules to help funnel millions to a star player, Kawhi Leonard. The Clippers will lose five first-round picks — selections in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033 — and will be fined $30 million, the league announced. Read more here. RECIPE OF THE DAY Rachel Vanni for The New York Times My pal Emily Weinstein, who runs NYT Cooking, has brought back The Weeknight 100, a bounty of easy dinner recipes well worth bookmarking for use over the next few months. I’ll start with this chile chicken and bean guisado, cinnamon-tinged and warmly spicy. LEANNE IS LISTENING Jared Soares for The New York Times “If you are a woman of a certain age and your algorithm is a deluge of pitches for magnesium,” Ginia Bellafante writes, “it is probably also full of Leanne Morgan.” The comedian has become a breakout star at 60, with a fan base that stretches from the churchgoing Southeast to the elite corridors of Hollywood. “It’s so rare, at this point, that someone delights me and makes me laugh so hard,” Judd Apatow said. Read about how she got here. More on culture For his latest feat of close reading, A.O. Scott takes on the first paragraph of Jonathan Franzen’s novel “The Corrections,” published 25 years ago this week. It’s revelatory — and really fun to read. Related: Our three staff book critics examine the book’s lasting mark. Just three works can help you understand the genius of Yayoi Kusama, the mesmerizing pop artist who died last month at 97. Look at them with us. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Consider the new “it” bag, the LM1 tote from La Mama, only $1,650 (🤣!). T Magazine wrote about it. The pictures are great. Pace yourself, don’t race yourself, if you’re new to running. Sleep under a new comforter this fall. The picky somnologists at Wirecutter found the very best ones. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were flippant and plaintiff. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 6 Author Members Posted September 6 September 4, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. The cost of diesel fuel in the United States just hit a new high because of the war in Iran. Rescuers in Nepal found two people alive in a tunnel, more than a week after a flooding disaster. They also heard other voices in the tunnel and are trying to reach them. Read the amazing story here. There’s more news below. But first, let’s rush through something. Doug Mills/The New York Times The just-do-it president “The courts cannot keep up with President Trump,” Adam Liptak wrote this week. The administration faces legal cases on, among other matters: immigration, spending, the restructuring of agencies, mass firings and the building of the new White House ballroom. Will he win or lose? It may be irrelevant, Adam notes. Trump’s already doing the work. And even if someone down the line tells him it’s illegal, it may be completed by then, and irreversibly so. Take the big ballroom project. Trump sought no approvals before knocking down the East Wing of the White House to make room for a gigantic new luxury building. He submitted no plans to Congress. Three judges and four Supreme Court justices have said that he probably violated federal law in doing so. But while litigation continues, construction is underway 20 hours a day, seven days a week. Adam calls it “the latest example of a mismatch between a judicial system characterized by unhurried deliberation and a presidency built for speed.” It’s not just construction projects. As Adam notes, look at Trump’s executive order on election integrity. A case related to that order got a decision from the Supreme Court last week. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent that she detected a “Catch-Me-If-You-Can approach to pursuing the president’s policy agenda.” The White House shrugged it off. “President Trump is moving at lightning speed,” a spokesman said, “because we don’t have time to waste in our mission to make America greater than ever before.” Look at the “garden of heroes,” too. Trump wants to install 250 statues of notable Americans in West Potomac Park in Washington, a project that faces a lawsuit and still needs approval from Congress. On Wednesday morning, though, The Times observed a freshly poured concrete pedestal and a gazebo donated by the government of Uzbekistan that is meant, the Uzbek ambassador said on social media, to “become part of” the garden. Around a dozen workers were on site. Near the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. Andrew Leyden for The New York Times That’s what the Uzbeks say, anyway. “At this point,” the administration said in a recent court filing, “the garden is only an idea by the executive branch.” Which is the strategy, an executive with the National Parks Conservation Association told my colleague Emily Badger. The government is “building or doing work in plain sight while claiming that they’re not doing the work at the same time.” Pushing the envelope Trump’s executive order to restrict voting by mail brings increased federal oversight over mail-in ballots. He wants citizenship verification measures that would require states to upload voter information to the Postal Service. There’ll be special envelopes, a lot of bar codes, a lot of scanning. The goal: Ineligible voters won’t get ballots. Critics and election officials alike say it’s the job of states to handle elections. They warn that the proposed changes would cause confusion and could ultimately disenfranchise voters. It’s easy for a scanner to make an error, they say. And it’s easy to get frustrated and not vote. A federal judge last week temporarily prohibited the Postal Service from carrying out the plan. But as go ballrooms and gardens of heroes, so go online portals? Eileen Sullivan of The Times reported this week that the Postal Service “has been swiftly developing a complex screening system.” That might come in handy, if the court allows it. (No one told the rank and file, though. The president of the American Postal Workers Union told Eileen that no postal worker’s been trained on any of this stuff yet.) The imbroglio made me think of something a law professor told Adam about Trump’s view of governance. “He really has decided that he can just go ahead and do what he wants,” she said, “daring courts to stop him across a huge range of subject matters.” Related: Trump plans to break ground on his 250-foot-tall memorial arch even though it does not yet have final approval. WHAT STEINEM MEANT Gloria Steinem grew up poor in Toledo, Ohio, where debt collectors came to her family’s door. She moved to New York to be a writer, taking magazine assignments to cover her monthly $62.50 rent payment. She profiled Dorothy Parker and Paul Newman for Ladies’ Home Journal, John Lennon for Cosmopolitan, Barbara Walters for The New York Times, Lee Radziwill for McCall’s. She helped revive New York magazine — and eventually co-founded Ms. magazine in 1971, catapulting her to national celebrity. Read our appraisal of her writing career. She then went on to personify the women’s movement, dedicating her life to activism on behalf of women around the world. Watch the interview Steinem gave us, to be released only upon her death. See her life in pictures. Remember how Steinem changed the lives of women and men everywhere. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and countless others are paying tribute. Here are some of your reflections: K K DC With my deepest gratitude, thank you for my mundane, unremarkable life as a woman who supports herself, owns her own home, and has a multitude of choices about how to live. Nothing about my life appears revolutionary because of all the work Gloria and many many others did. She would be the first to point out she didn’t do anything she achieved alone. But it wouldn’t have happened the same for all of us without her. A life lived so well for others. J Jeanne A Pennsylvania What a remarkable woman who changed the lives of millions of women, including me. I went to a college in 1979 that was celebrating just 10 years of being co-ed. I got a mortgage when I got divorced. I traveled the world for work and raised two independent women who have been able to chart their own paths. Thank you, Gloria. You made a difference. View all comments MORNING READS Kelsey McClellan for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Stop doomscrolling: Go look at San Francisco’s dahlias. They’re beautiful. Group chats: Every family has its own private language. What does that tell us about ourselves? Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the next (expensive!) It bag. THE LATEST NEWS Artificial Intelligence After OpenAI’s bots went rogue and hacked Hugging Face, a library of open-source A.I. models, OpenAI didn’t allow investigators to probe the full scope of the problem, The Times found. The cyberattack shows howA.I. agents can spontaneously organize and cooperate to evade human control. Nvidia said it was buying Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. The acquisition shows Nvidia’s growing role as Silicon Valley’s central banker. Politics The Trump administration wants to revoke tax-exempt status of schools that offer targeted support to Black or other minority students. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court again to allow restrictions on mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections. Vice President JD Vance disputed that the U.S. war with Iran is still happening, stating, falsely, that “there is no active shooting.” Economy The New York Times The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services ballooned in July as America imported more electronics to feed the A.I. boom. Volkswagen plans to cut about 50,000 jobs as it struggles with high energy costs and competition from Chinese electric vehicles. Immigration Federal prosecutors charged an ICE officer with lying about a shooting that took place during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Times Exclusive: An ICE official said the agency skipped basic fingerprint, identity and credit checks in its rush to recruit more agents, amounting to an “unprecedented lowering of standards.” Around the World The Dutch central bank has moved a large portion of its gold reserves out of the United States, citing geopolitical unrest. Officers from Ukraine’s two foremost intelligence agencies opened fire on each other on the streets of Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky described the shootout as “absolutely shameful” and ordered an investigation. Other Big Stories A single juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial appeared to be blocking a verdict, Clancy’s defense lawyer said. The judge denied a request to remove the holdout. The Athletic, a sports publication owned by The Times, found that the relationship between Dianna Russini, a former N.F.L. reporter, and Mike Vrabel, the head coach of the New England Patriots, was a “clear violation” of company standards. Maria Bartiromo, one of Fox News’s most recognizable anchors and a fierce backer of Trump, is leaving the network. OPINIONS A German far-right party is set to make an alarming breakthrough, one author warns. The search for cancer cures in the United States is broken, a writer argues. Other countries offer better ways forward. Get access to five locked games. Save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Get full access to Wordle, Spelling Bee, Crossplay, the Crossword and more. TODAY’S NUMBER $1.3 million — That is how much (imaginary) money we are giving you to buy one of these lovely old houses in Denver, Detroit or Charleston, S.C. Which home would you pick? SPORTS W.N.B.A.: Enes Kanter Freedom, a former N.B.A. player who has recently gained notoriety for his opposition to transgender athletes in women’s sports, filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Sky for ejecting and banning him after a dispute at a game. College football: UMass, a 29.5-point underdog that had lost 16 consecutive games, scored the biggest upset in school history, defeating Rutgers 37-21. RECIPE OF THE DAY Armando Rafael for The New York Times We’re heading into the long holiday weekend, and one thing you should absolutely consider making before it’s over is Tajín grilled chicken, a Mexican-inflected take on classic American BBQ chicken that’s run through with chile and lime. The recipe calls for boneless, skinless chicken thighs. That makes it easy to shred or chop the meat into tacos, or to mound it onto potato rolls for sandwiches. Do not neglect the grilled scallions. They add a beautiful grace note to the meal. “LA BOLA-SSEY”? The directors were able to cast Glenn Close and Penélope Cruz, both fans of their work, in “La Bola Negra.” Sela Shiloni for The New York Times The auteurs Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, a.k.a. Los Javis, are household names in Spain. Their latest film, “La Bola Negra,” an emotional, century-spanning epic interweaving the lives of three gay men in Spain, is coming to a global audience. The movie went off like a rocket at the Cannes Film Festival recently and has been seen as a possible awards season spoiler to Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” the presumed best picture front-runner. Kyle Buchanan, who covers Hollywood, profiled the directors. It’s a lovely read about ambitions realized. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Calm your mind before bed with this simple technique. (I didn’t think it’d work. It works.) Grill something this Labor Day weekend, but make sure your grill’s up to the task. The outdoor kitchen technicians at Wirecutter have seven expert tips for how to do that. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were littleneck and telekinetic. 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 Correction: In an item yesterday on the landslide that set off the devastating floods in Nepal, we said the collapse released enough debris to fill about 70 football stadiums. It was actually about 100 football stadiums’ worth. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Host: Sam Sifton Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 7 Author Members Posted September 7 September 5, 2026 Good morning. The season’s new releases give us a cultural road map, but the most rewarding reading, listening and watching comes from the detours. María Jesús Contreras Scenic route By Melissa Kirsch It’s Labor Day weekend, and I’m here to remind you that summer’s not over, even though schools and scolds try to lop off the final two weeks, declaring a premature finish to a season that, as any equinoctial will tell you, extends until Sept. 22. Hang on. Linger in the post-7 p.m. sunsets while you can. Finish the book you started in August. Make it to the beach. Stay a little looser. The apples and sweaters and soups are standing patiently by. I’m reluctant to let summer go because I’m reluctant to button up, to start rushing again. I associate summer with wandering, both literally and culturally. I was chatting recently with my colleague Minju about this season’s big films — “Spider-Man,” “The Odyssey,” “The Devil Wears Prada 2” — and we realized our most satisfying cinematic experiences were the detours those blockbusters sent us on. Minju was reminded how much she likes Samantha Morton, who played Circe in “The Odyssey,” which sent her to rewatch other films Morton starred in, like “Jesus’ Son” and “Minority Report.” I loved “The Invite,” directed by and starring Olivia Wilde, and set off to watch her in Gregg Araki’s “I Want Your Sex” from July, and also to revisit her prior directorial efforts, “Don’t Worry Darling” and “Booksmart.” “Don’t Worry Darling” stars Harry Styles, who’s currently performing a 30-show residency at Madison Square Garden. I didn’t get tickets, but I’ve been dancing to his delightful 2022 album “Harry’s House” all summer. Of course the omnivorous consumer follows her aesthetic bliss year round, but the expansive days of the warmer months lend themselves to cultural meandering. Minju read Rachel Cusk’s new book “Life of M,” then wandered back to her earlier “Outline” trilogy, which she’d meant to read but never had. Olivia Rodrigo’s duet with Robert Smith on her new album led me back to Smith’s days with the Cure, “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” and other albums from the 1980s. I had been eagerly anticipating “Remake,” Ross McElwee’s documentary about making art after the loss of his son. Before watching it, I went back to revisit his 1986 film, “Sherman’s March,” knowing the new one referenced it and I’d want to have it fresh in my mind. After seeing “Remake,” which was stunning, I immediately cued up McElwee’s 2011 doc about his son, “Photographic Memory,” and set out to find out where his other family documentaries were streaming. My McElwee journey was long, winding and totally absorbing, a cinematic ramble. I like the wisdom to always be planning your next trip or vacation, even if it’s far in the future, so you have something to look forward to. If the end of summer brings with it a little sadness, as it does for me, why not plan your cultural itinerary for the fall? Where will “Practical Magic 2,” a 28-years-later sequel starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman and Dianne Wiest, lead? To Bullock’s hilarious turn in “The Heat”? Wiest in “Edward Scissorhands” or perhaps off the path to her small role in “Footloose”? Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel “Partita” comes out Oct. 6. Will we be rereading “The Poisonwood Bible” and “Demon Copperhead” come Halloween? The origin is the equinox, the destination is the solstice. You can choose your waypoints, but the detours and diversions will emerge once you’re on the road. Sign up for The Good List newsletter If you enjoy Melissa's essays in The Morning, you'll love her weekly compendium of things to bring you joy and meaning. Get it in your inbox. THE LATEST NEWS Lindsay Clancy Trial Lindsay Clancy in the courtroom on Friday. Pool photo by Greg Derr The judge in the Lindsay Clancy murder case declared a mistrial, after the jury failed to reach a verdict over several days of deliberations. Clancy, who strangled her three children during what the defense called an episode of postpartum psychosis, will likely remain institutionalized as prosecutors decide whether to take the case to trial again. The foreperson told the judge that there was a lone holdout in the jury who had expressed doubt about Clancy’s guilt but would not vote to acquit her. Economy Hiring was unexpectedly strong in August, as employers pushed past uncertainty related to the war in Iran, tariffs and A.I. President Trump threatened to halt a broad swath of U.S. trade unless the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates. Elections The Homeland Security secretary asked the Justice Department to investigate a commonly used voting machine, in what appeared to be an effort to cast doubt on digital voting systems. A federal judge in Boston ruled, for the third time, that the Trump administration’s plans to restrict mail-in voting were most likely unconstitutional. North Carolina added new restrictions to its vote-by-mail program. The rules make it easier for local officials to discard ballots. Politics The president’s new jet, as seen in July. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Trump will fly to Ireland next week on the new Air Force One donated by Qatar. It’s the first time he’s using the jet overseas since questions arose about its safety capabilities. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are traveling to Moscow and Kyiv this weekend to push a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine. The Trump administration moved to strip more federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands that help feed drinking water systems. Homeland Security claimed that a border security project in Big Bend National Park was limited to “survey and design” work. Our reporter found evidence that patrol roads and barriers were being built. Middle East After months of war, Iran is confident in its abilities and appears determined to continue fighting, according to U.S. intelligence reports. Israel says it is cementing its foothold in southern Lebanon, adding to concerns that it intends to prolong its occupation. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Simon Abkarian as the titular general in “De Gaulle.” Malgosia Abramowska/Pathé Films An epic historical film about Charles de Gaulle, the storied French general and politician, has become an unexpected box-office hit. The stars of “Practical Magic 2” are embracing their witchiness. We talked to Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King and Maisie Williams about the unlikely sequel. Music Thunderstruck: A Toronto stadium was severely damaged by a storm ahead of an AC/DC concert. Who owns reggaeton’s beat? A judge ruled in favor of Bad Bunny and dozens of other defendants who argue the “boom, ch-boom, chick” beat is not protected by copyright. But the case isn’t over yet. Cassandra Wilson, who died this week at 70, led jazz into the future with warmth and creative conviction. Read our appraisal of her musical career. More Culture The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. The new museum founded by the “Star Wars” creator George Lucas is finally ready to open in Los Angeles. There’s less “Star Wars” than you might expect. The Kennedy Center has removed a towering blue metal sculpture, called “Blue,” that the Trump administration had targeted for elimination. Introducing bonus puzzles. Try these twists on our games, including Wordle in 1, Connections 3x3, Colorful Strands and more. New puzzles drop every Wednesday. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. By Melissa Clark Jalapeño Grilled Pork Chops Eric Kim’s jalapeño grilled pork chops are perfect for Labor Day weekend feasting — or for anytime you need an excuse to light up the grill. Soaked in a punchy marinade of cilantro, garlic, chiles and just enough sugar to encourage caramelization, the thin chops cook quickly, charring lightly at the edges. Eric tops them with a bright onion and cilantro relish and serves them with rice on the side. I’d add a ripe tomato salad to take full advantage of these last days of summer. REAL ESTATE Hannah Yoon for The New York Times The Hunt: A longtime renter in the Philadelphia suburbs decided to take the plunge and buy her first home. What did she choose? Play our game. Garden smarter: Harvesting seeds now will give next year’s garden a head start. Here’s how to do it. Leafy luxury: Wheatleigh, a Gilded Age mansion in the Berkshires, is on the market. Its next owner has a choice: Should it be a grand hotel, or an even grander home? SPORTS Michael Conroy/Associated Press W.N.B.A.: Cathy Engelbert will step down as commissioner at the end of this season. She saw the league reach new heights of popularity, but was often the subject of withering criticism from players over her leadership. “Win for the city”: Twenty-five years ago, New Yorkers reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks found a common rallying point in the Yankees. We spoke to former players, coaches and even former President George W. Bush. Changing culture: High school football coaches have always taught boys to tackle. Now, some are learning to help the players manage their emotions. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER Why you sleep better at hotels If you’ve ever returned from vacation and felt like you slept better in that dreamy hotel room, that’s by design. Hotels tinker with lighting, sound and temperature to help guests get the best sleep. But it’s possible to recreate some of those experiences in your own bedroom. Prioritize making your bedroom dark and quiet. Blackout curtains and white noise machines can help. Making the room cool is important, too: The ideal temperature is 65 to 68 degrees. Finally, hotel mattresses often have a luxe plush or pillow top. If you want to replicate that feeling without buying a whole new mattress, try a fluffy topper. And if you are ready to upgrade the mattress? Many of our favorites are on sale for Labor Day weekend. — Shaena Montanari Sign up for Wirecutter’s five-day newsletter course, Sleep Better, to get expert-vetted gear and tips straight to your inbox. U.S. OPEN Zheng Qinwen and Madison Keys. Thomas Coex/AFP — Getty Images; Yuki Iwamura/Associated Press Every year, I take time off work to go to the U.S. Open, New York City’s best event. Last week I watched the Olympic medalist Zheng Qinwen in her last qualifying match, as she scrambled to save the second set before a packed crowd. Rain eventually stopped play, and she smoothly took the third set the next day. I recommend watching her match this weekend, in addition to two others: Zheng Qinwen vs. Madison Keys: After becoming the first Chinese player to win singles gold at the Olympics, Zheng spent months recovering from injury and surgery. She squares off against Keys, an American who won the Australian Open last year. Taylor Fritz vs. Francisco Cerundolo: Fritz, the 2024 U.S. Open runner-up, is trying to become the first American man to capture the singles trophy in more than 20 years. Fritz appears in good form this summer after winning a lower-level tournament in Washington, D.C. Alexandra Eala vs. Iva Jovic: Eala, the first Filipino to win a title on the women’s tour, is an enormous crowd favorite. Her opponent today, Jovic, is also her good friend. (Jovic won both of their previous matches.) All matches air today on ESPN networks. — Daniel Ajootian For tennis fans: Sign up for the Grand Slam Briefing, a daily blast of news, analysis and insight from The Athletic’s tennis writers. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was analyzed. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 7 Author Members Posted September 7 September 6, 2026 Good morning. If you thought this summer felt a little bit off, you’re not alone. Climate change really is making things worse. The New York Times Bummer time By David Gelles Everywhere I went this summer, foul weather seemed to stalk me. At home in New York City, temperatures soared above 100 degrees during the Fourth of July weekend. In Chicago, where I traveled for a conference, wildfire smoke from Canada blanketed the city. When I retreated to my cabin in the Hudson Valley, torrential rains flooded the house. Again. It wasn’t just me. All over the United States this summer, Americans contended with extreme weather — and other extreme nuisances — that turned our usual midyear respite into something more like an interminable series of annoyances. Blame climate change. Global warming is pushing up temperatures and making storms more intense. Persistent heat, amplified by this year’s super El Niño, is upending traditions. And it’s affecting us in smaller ways, too. In every corner of the country, people have been finding that once-cherished routines are becoming sources of discomfort, anxiety and dread. Just how bad has it gotten? The New York Times Heat. July was the warmest month on record in the contiguous United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In Philadelphia, the city’s marquee parade to celebrate Independence Day was canceled as temperatures hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Fireworks displays were canceled from Colorado to Delaware because of excessive heat and the risk of fires. And at Liberty Lake Day Camp in Bordentown, N.J., counselors modified outdoor sports on days when the heat approached triple digits. Instead of basketball games, campers just practiced free throws. Instead of a full pickleball match, they dinked in the kitchen line. With lots of water breaks. Pests. Warm weather is expanding the range of disease-carrying pests. Milder winters mean that fewer ticks and mosquitoes freeze and die, and tick species are expanding north into new territories. (This summer has been particularly bad.) But they are not the only pests that are spreading with the warmer weather. Jellyfish have swarmed beaches as ocean temperatures rise. And tiny biting pests known as chiggers are also becoming more prevalent across the northern U.S. Downpours. With climate change creating stronger, more powerful rainstorms, communities around the country have been dealing with sudden downpours and flash floods. Waves of extreme weather swept across America this summer, unleashing torrents of water from Colorado to Massachusetts. In the past week alone, a deadly flash flood hit the Grand Canyon, and Tropical Storm Edouard drenched parts of southeast Texas. (You can find even more examples in my full story.) Sad to say, this is the new normal. With global temperatures continuing to climb as human activity warms the planet, scientists say that more intense heat and extreme weather — and everything that comes along with them — are all but guaranteed. A few weeks ago, a day camp outside New York City held its annual end-of-season dinner for senior staff members. This year, the theme was “Wild Weather.” Counselors and staff reflected on their work moving outdoor activities inside, adapting to the smoke and helping campers beat the heat. “They were trained so well because we had something every week,” said Lauren Wexler, who oversees the camp. “It was seamless because we did it so, so many times.” Sign up for Climate Forward. David Gelles and the rest of The Times’s Climate team share news and insights for our warming world. Get it in your inbox. And if you’re in New York City, join us at Climate Forward Live on Wednesday, Sept. 23. Journalists from across the newsroom will interview government leaders, business executives and activists. You can apply to attend here. THE LATEST NEWS The Midterms At the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Thalassa Raasch for The New York Times The share of Americans who identify as Democrats has grown significantly over the past year, according to new data, suggesting that the party has an advantage going into the midterms. Republicans cannot afford to snub President Trump. But they also do not want the midterms to be a referendum on a president whose popularity is at a record low. MAGA Inc., a super PAC aligned with Trump, is planning a $10 million ad campaign to support Ken Paxton’s Texas Senate run. Missouri’s attorney general asked the Supreme Court to allow the state to use a congressional map redrawn to benefit Republicans. The state’s Supreme Court had declared it invalid. More on Politics A new Trump administration effort would allow married couples with a stay-at-home spouse to collect child care subsidies. States led by Republicans, including Florida and Texas, are restricting the use of Flock cameras amid concerns about government surveillance. Iran War The United States and Iran said they had traded strikes on each other’s ships yesterday, setting off a new round of retaliatory attacks. The attacks on ships continue to affect traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has called the war “small potatoes.” For this Gold Star family, the costs have been high. War in Ukraine Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner made their first trip to Kyiv. They are expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss ending the war with Russia. The envoys met with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow yesterday. Ukraine’s military procurement system is riddled with mismanagement, secret internal audits show. In 2024 alone, the country lost about $1.2 billion to fraud and waste. More International News In eastern Germany. Ronny Hartmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Voters in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt go to the polls today. The election could produce the first far-right state government in the country since the end of the Nazi era. Rescuers in Nepal yesterday freed a woman from a mostly buried house and a man from a tunnel, 10 days after devastating floods ravaged the country. Health The New York Times Last week, the C.D.C. challenged a Pennsylvania report that two people had died from measles. In the video above, our reporter Apoorva Mandavilli explains how the tension between states and the Trump administration over health issues is creating confusion. Click to watch. Times exclusive: The Justice Department has demanded phone, email, grant and payment records, as well as grand jury testimony, from scientists, including a Nobel laureate, as part of its inquiry into the origins of Covid-19. Other Big Stories After Washington blacklisted the tech giant Inspur over its ties to the Chinese military, a company subsidiary kept shipping advanced Nvidia chips to support China’s leading A.I. firms. Gen. Christopher Donahue’s vision for fighting future wars won him powerful supporters around the world. But they couldn’t save him from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s purge. Read the inside story. FROM OPINION Nat Segebre Local festivals are very American amusements, one photographer writes. See images from across the country. The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case has declared a mistrial. The jury faced a nearly impossible task, Jessica Grose argues. Introducing bonus puzzles. Try these twists on our games, including Wordle in 1, Connections 3x3, Colorful Strands and more. New puzzles drop every Wednesday. MORNING READS A lifelike reconstruction of an ancient insect. Chao Tan We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Lots of legs: Meet the earliest known insects. (Shaking hands with them will take a while.) Do the math: At 92, the mathematician Joan Birman thought that her major discoveries were behind her. Then an email from a young neighbor arrived. Gig workers: Thousands of Kenyans made a living writing essays for overseas students. Now A.I. is taking their jobs. Public influence: New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is seen as a social media wizard. Some of his popularity comes from an army of influencers coordinated by his office. SPORTS College football: Michigan won its season opener with a contentious 47-yard Hail Mary on the final play of the game. N.B.A.: LeBron James announced an upcoming partnership with Polymarket, a prediction market service that allows people to trade on outcomes that, in some cases, involve James. BOOK OF THE WEEK By Elisabeth Egan “Big Little Truths,” by Liane Moriarty: Sequels can be dicey affairs — see: “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” and “Revenge Wears Prada” — but Moriarty doesn’t disappoint with this No. 1 best-selling follow-up to her No. 1 best-selling novel “Big Little Lies,” which was adapted into an HBO series starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern. Here, Moriarty brings her gaggle of mom friends back to their native Sydney, Australia (although it’s hard not to picture Monterey, Calif., where the show took place). The women are now either approaching middle age or squarely in it; their sweet kids are surly teens; and their relationships are that many more years threadbare. Solidarity and revenge are the ties that bind this rollicking page-turner — and no, reading the earlier book isn’t a prerequisite. But it does help to have a basic familiarity with the events that brought the players together. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Explore the very best Labor Day deals out there on everything from eye cream to luggage. Marvel at the most stylish people at the U.S. Open so far. Get rid of body or facial hair with this at-home hair-removal device. Spark conversation at your next dinner party with some tabletop doodads. MEAL PLAN Linda Xiao for The New York Times Summer is on its way out. Depending on your level of enthusiasm for pumpkin spice lattes, that’s either bad or wonderful news. If you want to hold onto summer as long as possible (or if you need to use up your produce), then Emily Weinstein, the editor in chief of NYT Cooking, has some awesome recipes for you. First, you should try one of the most slept-on ways to eat corn: tossed into pasta and topped with sharp cheese. She also recommends chile-garlic steak and zucchini, roasted shrimp with okra and tomatoes, and more. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was nicknaming. Can you put eight historical events — including the storming of the Bastille, the combustion of the Hindenburg and the publication of “Jane Eyre” — 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. P.S. The Interview is off today. It will be back next week. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 8 Author Members Posted September 8 September 7, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. It’s Labor Day. Let’s start with the cookout. In Prospect Park, Brooklyn. José A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York Times Happy Labor Day! So this is it. This is it. This is the end of the session. Summer isn’t going to be taking any more questions. We’re loading up the grill one last time for Labor Day and — who am I kidding? Where I stay, the farm stands will have tomatoes and corn through at least the end of the month. We’ve got plenty of time to mourn summer’s end at summer’s end, on Sept. 22. Today’s for cheering working people. We raise our flags and bunting high in celebration of all those who built our nation, all those who brought us the eight-hour workday and weekends off. And to celebrate, yes, we’ll get a cookout going. (My old teammates on the Cooking app have plenty of recipes for that.) It’s the American way. Steak tips I think Labor Day’s a good one for steak. If you’re lucky, you’ve been cooking outside often these last few months — easy proteins like hot dogs, burgers and brats alongside grilled ears of corn, flame-kissed baby eggplants and hobo-packed potatoes. You’ve grilled some fish, some slabs of tofu. You’re confident, know what you’re doing. You’re ready to face off with a honking big piece of beef just as Samuel Gompers intended when he championed a holiday devoted to the celebration of American workers. I’m here today to make sure you cook it brilliantly. And to do that I’m going to use words that cost me $17: reverse-searing. That is, the process of cooking a steak slowly in a warm oven, then finishing it over high heat on a grill or a plancha. Lots of people have recipes for reverse-seared steak — here’s mine. Nico Schinco for The New York Times But no matter how many times I make it, it feels new. I think that’s because reverse-searing is not a recipe so much as it is a counseling session, one that replaces the anxiety of cooking an expensive cut of meat with the peace that comes from knowing that you’ve got a sure thing. Coat the meat in a dry rub, if you like: Montreal steak seasoning, say, or a Cajun blackening situation. I go with straight kosher salt and revel in the beefiness it underscores. You’ll get a great crust regardless and, beneath it, a fantastically textured interior. And if you’ve spent a pretty penny on the meat that you’re cooking, that’s a very good feeling. You’ll need a digital instant-read thermometer. This is nonnegotiable. (Wirecutter has a guide to the best ones.) You’ll use it to track the internal temperature of your steak so that you can get it out of the oven at precisely the right moment. For me, that’s about 112 degrees. Which will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 minutes. But don’t use the clock as your guide. Mind Mr. Thermometer instead. Let the steak rest for another 20 minutes or so while you get your grill going, and then finish the meat when everything’s ripping hot, maybe 90 seconds a side, until the thermometer shows you something in the low 120s for rare. Give it a short rest, carve and serve to applause. Have an unlaborious day! THE LATEST NEWS Germany The far-right AfD party trounced its rivals in a crucial state election in eastern Germany — but it just missed a majority. The result shocked the country. The race gave fresh momentum to hard-right parties hoping to win across Europe next year, analysts said. Miami Airport Crash At least five people died after an Amazon cargo plane overran a runway at Miami International Airport. Travelers in the area should “expect significant delays and potential cancellations,” the transportation secretary said. Read what we know about the crash. Around the World The New York Times Indonesia has a microplastics epidemic. Trash often gets burned there, and tiny fragments of plastic are in the air, land and water. Click above to watch. Social media in China is getting really dark. A popular video is a guide to survive being homeless — a sign of economic pessimism among young people. Deportees arriving in Haiti from the United States say they have been left with no money, no protection from gangs and no place to go. Politics Work on a helipad at the White House last month. Andrew Leyden for The New York Times President Trump is relishing his Washington construction projects as the war with Iran drags on. Trump has reconciled with his former fixer Michael Cohen. But contrary to Trump’s claims, Cohen has not recanted testimony that helped convict his former boss. The Trump administration filed an emergency application again asking the Supreme Court to allow its plan to limit mail-in voting before the midterms. The former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani called for the current mayor, Zohran Mamdani, to skip this week’s 9/11 memorial ceremonies. “It offends me,” Giuliani said during an anti-Muslim rant. Mamdani has said he is going. SEABORNE BALLET By The New York Times Two U.S. aircraft carriers are helping to blockade Iranian ports, alongside 12 destroyers protecting them. But supplying the carriers and the other ships — and the tens of thousands of people living, working and eating on them — is incredibly complex. These diagrams explain how it’s done. OPINIONS She has an A.I. boyfriend. Her son has questions. Watch a video of them discussing it. The conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed almost a year ago. Erika Kirk, his widow, writes about what she has learned from grief. The artist Yayoi Kusama changed the world from an asylum in Tokyo. We can’t let fame obscure how singular she was, a curator at the Guggenheim Museum writes. Introducing bonus puzzles. Try these twists on our games, including Wordle in 1, Connections 3x3, Colorful Strands and more. New puzzles drop every Wednesday. MORNING READS In Los Angeles County. Loren Elliott for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Bear necessities: Bears are taking over Los Angeles backyards. See them claim the territory. Hello? Gen Z is picking up the phone — and saying nothing. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a mathematician in her nineties and her teenage neighbor. Metropolitan Diary: “Whatever you do, don’t be yourself.” Route 66: Meet the Europeans obsessed with the U.S. highway, which turns 100 this year. Along Route 66. Nick Oxford for The New York Times TODAY’S NUMBER 270 million — That’s approximately how many meat pies Australians eat each year. Last week, 16 judges tested 1,800 single-portion pies and sausage rolls seeking the country’s best. At the Official Great Aussie Pie Competition. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times SPORTS U.S. Open: Carlos Alcaraz, Aryna Sabalenka and Frances Tiafoe advanced to the quarterfinals. N.F.L.: Commissioner Roger Goodell signed a contract extension through the 2030 season. It’s likely he’s the whole league’s highest-paid employee. THE NEW SEASON Charli XCX Joseph Okpako/WireImage, via Getty Images Fall’s coming, and with it a whole bunch of exciting music. The journalists who cover pop for The Times put together a list of 33 new albums and shows they’re excited to take in over the next few months. Among the releases: tracks from Riley Green, Beck, Miranda Lambert and Victoria Monét. And on the road: Charli XCX, Phoebe Bridgers and Sombr. More on culture What’s among the most enduring pieces of 9/11 art? The musical “Come From Away,” which has already been staged more than 1,000 times worldwide, including a production now in Gander, Newfoundland, where it is set. Michael Paulson, our theater reporter, brings us one of those stories that has it all: History, musical theater, a trade war and cod! Rob Reiner won a posthumous Emmy for his work on “The Bear.” The win was announced yesterday as part of a ceremony that awards Emmys for guest appearances, variety shows and technical and behind-the-scene achievements. The writer Edward Field died at 102. His use of everyday language and embrace of gay topics made him one of the most accomplished American poets of the postwar era. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Hunter McRae for The New York Times Spend 10 minutes with Angel Oak, a centuries-old tree in South Carolina. Strengthen your happiness muscle. Basically, savor what’s good. Get one of these kitchen bins recommended by the vegetable-peeling soil enrichers at Wirecutter and you’ll compost a lot more than you did before. Read the novelist Barbara Kingsolver’s appraisal of the life of Wendell Berry, one of her most important literary mentors, who died last week at 92. It’s a beautiful essay. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were bondage and dogbane. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 9 Author Members Posted September 9 September 8, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning from London, where the flowers in the Festival Gardens outside St. Paul’s Cathedral are thriving despite the summer’s heat. I want to start, though, elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Prime Minister Mark Carney Chris Tanouye/Reuters A Canadian club The trade war between the United States and Canada escalated this morning, as Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs of up to 50 percent on American goods. Talks between the two countries fell apart last month. The tariffs went into effect shortly after midnight. They cover about $20 billion per year of imports from the United States, including goods like clothing, steel and cheese. That amount mimics the tariffs President Trump imposed on Canadian goods. For now, only a small portion of the annual trade between the countries is affected. “The more pressing concern is a potential cycle of retaliation,” my colleague Tony Romm reports. Trump has already threatened additional tariffs on Canadian-made cars and trucks. He suggested last week that he might halt bilateral trade outright. Then, last night, he took to social media to single out Bombardier, a Canadian plane manufacturer, claiming there would be “NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES!” The dispute is fracturing one of America’s closest alliances, and it is not expected to end soon. When Canada left the talks last month, Carney said his country was “at war.” Canadians stood with him: 75 percent of those polled said they supported his decision to exit. But if Canadians are on a war footing, American officials say they are not. “I don’t think you can be in a tit-for-tat with someone who’s 13 times larger than you are,” Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, said in an interview on CNBC. The strategy, it seems: Might makes right. What’s happening Carney took power in Canada early last year on a promise to be tough on Trump. “Elbows up” was one of his campaign slogans, a hockey reference that applied to American tariffs, too. His antagonism only grew in office. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year, he delivered a speech deriding the hegemony of the United States. “Every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great-power rivalry,” Carney said. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.” And he delivered a stark warning: “The middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Canada has very much been on the menu. We’re a long way from 2016, when former President Barack Obama and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brought their bromancy message of hope and change to a televised press conference in the Rose Garden. Trump has since made claims on Canada as the 51st state and is threatening to tear up longstanding agreements between the two countries. And, of course, he has levied these tariffs that are debilitating some of Canada’s key industries, such as cars, steel and lumber. The Ambassador Bridge, which connects Michigan and Ontario. Carlos Osorio/Reuters The political is personal Just as a reminder: A tariff is a tax your government charges people and companies in your country for buying goods from a foreign nation. That tax is often passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. To avoid it, sometimes companies simply stop importing goods from the tariffed nations and look for them elsewhere. That’s happening on both sides of the border. In the U.S.: Imagine, for instance, that your kid plays goalie on a youth hockey team in Minnesota. Thanks in part to tariffs, a goaltender’s helmet that ran $400 in 2022 now costs $1,000. “If a kid on the ice breaks a stick, every other parent is looking at that mom or dad going, ‘Ahhh oh, no!’” one parent told The Independent. “You feel for them. How many $400 sticks can you afford in one season?” In Canada: Or pretend you’re a honey producer in southern Alberta and need wood from the U.S. to build your hive frames. For one farmer, an order of $32,500 in Montana pine now costs roughly $8,100 more. “We are the sacrificial pawn,” he told The Times. The examples get smaller and more absurd. Ian Austen, a Canadian who has covered the country for The Times for decades, offered some funny illustrations of that. “Canada is targeting makers of those tiny ID bands that clamp to the legs of migratory birds,” he told me. The United States is targeting false beards and eyebrows made in Canada. Why? “This has little to do with either country’s economy,” Ian said. “This is politics.” The response Canada is fighting back. Ian said yesterday that the conflict had brought Canadians together in a way that has little precedent. The tariffs may hurt Canada more, certainly in the short term. But there is national pride at stake. “High on the list of popular priorities is punching back by all available means. That includes individual acts,” he said. “Any Canadian planning a visit to the U.S. now should probably keep it to themselves unless they enjoy awkward, or even confrontational, dinner-table conversations.” Amid the tariff war, some Canadians may still want to visit the Detroit Institute of Arts and the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, Ian allowed. “But I know that many people here see that as almost treasonous.” Read more about the trade war here. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Trump posted a map on social media that appeared to suggest renaming the state of New Mexico as “New America.” Times exclusive: Roger Marshall, an ob-gyn, routinely sued his patients for debts; 81 were arrested. Now he’s a senator. The Midterms Representative Jeff Hurd of Colorado at the state fair last month. Jimena Peck for The New York Times Trump’s trade policies are raising costs for voters in agricultural states, increasing Democrats’ hopes of winning some key congressional seats. Watch these five key midterm races for clues about how voters view Trump, the economy and the war with Iran. Middle East Israel has stepped up attacks in southern Lebanon. Its recent strikes have killed 27 people. The Houthi militia in Yemen struck southern Saudi Arabia, targeting civilian sites along the Red Sea coast. Art An 18th-century painting stolen by a high-ranking Nazi during World War II and spotted last year in a real-estate listing must be returned to the owner’s descendants, a judge in Argentina ruled. Thieves stole three artworks from a Renoir museum at the artist’s last home in the south of France. David Rubenstein, the chairman of the Kennedy Center ousted by Trump, has bought the abstract sculpture called “Blue” that was removed from its grounds last week. “Blue.” Salwan Georges for The New York Times Other Big Stories Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration in New York City is releasing more than 170,000 pages of documents about environmental toxins after 9/11. They suggest officials misled the public about air quality, including asbestos levels. All five people killed in the Amazon cargo jet crash in Miami were in a van the plane crashed into. Preliminary data indicates that a drug created using A.I. to treat a rare lung condition could slow aging. Reading and math scores for American students on a global exam are near a 25-year low in results released today. THE MORNING QUIZ This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) Ancient bugs had an abundance of what, a study found? Antennae Eyes Pincers Legs Tails OPINIONS Gen Z is acutely aware of brain rot. But these young people just can’t imagine a life without scrolling, a researcher found. There is something better than happiness, a professor writes — having an occupied intellect. Introducing bonus puzzles. Try these twists on our games, including Wordle in 1, Connections 3x3, Colorful Strands and more. New puzzles drop every Wednesday. MORNING READS Juan Arredondo for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Pool cleaner: Since 2012, Jim Maroon has taken care of some of the most symbolically weighted water in America — in the reflecting pools at the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Watch him work. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was to images of bears taking over L.A. backyards. “I don’t want to die”: Two friends rented jet skis for an hourlong excursion. They were stranded at sea for 15 hours. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter carrying out a rescue. via U.S. Coast Guard TODAY’S NUMBER 83.2 — That is how many miles to the gallon one Wisconsin “hypermiler” gets out of his 2017 Toyota Prius. The car generally gets around 52 miles a gallon, the E.P.A. reckons. Hypermilers use aggressive techniques to maximize fuel efficiency — methods that are ingenious, if sometimes eccentric. Read about them. SPORTS U.S. Open: Zheng Qinwen defeated Iga Swiatek, and Coco Gauff beat Iva Jovic. N.F.L.: Christian Gonzalez agreed to a four-year extension with the New England Patriots, sources said, making him the highest-paid cornerback in league history. RECIPE OF THE DAY David Malosh for The New York Times There’s little more satisfying at the top end of a workweek at the bottom end of the summer than a refreshing dinnertime egg salad sandwich. This one is anointed with pickle brine, Dijon mustard and mayonnaise, cut with red onion and dill, and topped with a healthy shower of furikake, the salty-sweet dried Japanese sea-creature and seaweed shake. Serve with potato chips and eat outside, if you can. FILLING A VOID George Etheredge for The New York Times Michael Kimmelman, our architecture critic, explores how, 25 years after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the site is still frozen in a moment of trauma. To revive it, he suggests building a new Manhattan neighborhood. “One can imagine a lively mixture of new residents and commuters,” he writes, “and open plazas buzzing with commerce and cafe tables, buskers and benches. The activity would be yet another enduring rebuke to the terrorist attacks.” Read the argument. More on culture Elizabeth Holmes A24 Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the health technology company Theranos, invited a film crew to capture her last moments before prison. The result is shocking audiences — and “may upend the documentary genre,” our reporter writes. See the viral trailer. Noël Godin, a Belgian entertainer and anarchist, hurled cream pies at politicians and executives, including Bill Gates. Godin died last month at 80. Noël Godin in Brussels in 1998. Yves Herman for The New York Times THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Stop burning your fingers retrieving hot waffles, reheated scallion pancakes, sizzling buttered bagels or slices of nearly singed sourdough from the toaster. Instead, use these elegant wooden tongs discovered by the safety-minded entremétiers at Wirecutter. Consider: What if Germany won World War II? That’s the plot of “SS-GB,” Len Deighton’s speculative 1978 novel, in which Churchill gets executed and the king imprisoned in the Tower of London. (Hey, I’m in town.) “It is a scenario that gives immense opportunities for the sensational approach,” Julian Symons wrote in his review for The Times. “Instead, everything is played down, so that it becomes at once plausible and frightening.” GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was pitched. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 10 Author Members Posted September 10 September 9, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning from London, which enjoyed its rainiest day in months yesterday: proper pleasure and pain. There’s more news below — including the outcome of a match at the U.S. Open that ended, like, four hours ago. But today I want to start in Germany. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, faces pressure from the far right. Nadja Wohlleben/Reuters On the right You may have missed it. I almost did, amid the pleasures of a long weekend: The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party won big in a small state election on Sunday and could become the first far-right party to govern a German state since the end of World War II. How big a deal is that? Our Berlin bureau chief, Jim Tankersley, offers one way of looking at it: The AfD’s win puts the mainstream conservative who is the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, into a fight for political survival. Merz is supposed to hold power until 2029, and his allies aren’t trying to get rid of him. But pressure is rising on his right flank, and more regional elections this month may show that voters see him “the wrong man for the job at this time,” as a major German newsmagazine put it. The AfD’s success, however isolated, is clearly a problem for Germany’s leadership. It is also a problem for Germany, my colleague Katrin Bennhold wrote yesterday. I appreciated the wide view she took: When I was growing up in Germany, the conventional wisdom was that the far right would never again gain a meaningful foothold in our politics. Our Nazi past, the argument went, had immunized voters against the appeal of such parties. And our post-Holocaust constitution had powerful tools to help prevent it. The rise of the anti-immigrant, far-right AfD over the past decade has made clear the first argument was wrong. The second? We’ll see. Katrin crunched some numbers. On Sunday, the AfD didn’t just win more than twice as many votes as its nearest rival. It also won with the biggest regional voter turnout that Germany has seen since reunification in 1990. In a lot of places, those facts would add up to a mandate to govern. But not in Germany, which has for nearly eight decades used a kind of firewall to prevent the rise of parties that the political mainstream deems extreme. It doesn’t want another authoritarian, another Hitler, to gain power. But now it faces a question. Here’s how Katrin put it: Are these efforts to sideline the AfD in the name of democracy actually undermining democracy? The AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund raising a thumbs up after Sunday’s election. Matthias Schrader/Associated Press AfD’s rise It’s an interesting question, perhaps a scary one. The AfD came into being in 2013, a year when Angela Merkel, the center-right chancellor at the time, went back into coalition with her party’s traditional opponents on the center left. That meant, basically, that whatever party a German voted for would result in the same government. The AfD, with its angry, nationalist, populist stance, represented a protest vote — functionally meaningless. No longer. Its ranks swelled in number and passion. Now it’s the most popular party in the country. In other words, the firewall could be falling. And that, Katrin writes, suggests that the AfD’s victory on Sunday could mark a new phase in German politics, one “in which mainstream parties accept that the way to defeat the AfD is to offer voters a platform they actually want to vote for.” THE LATEST NEWS War in Iran The United States said it had destroyed five Iranian oil tankers. Iran retaliated by launching missiles at Jordan. The global price of oil reached $100 a barrel this morning. That’s nearly 40 percent higher than at the start of the war. Iran is taking a more aggressive approach to the war. It fears its hold on the Strait of Hormuz is slipping. More on the Middle East Britain, Canada and France announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli opposition politicians called Benjamin Netanyahu “unfit” for office after the newspaper Haaretz reported that he had been warned of major Hamas plans before the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Netanyahu said he would sue the paper. Saudi Arabia said it would retaliate against the Houthis after attacks by the Yemeni militia that Saudi authorities said had injured 73 civilians. Artificial Intelligence Gary S. Settles/Science Source OpenAI said its newest model had solved one of the great unanswered questions in mathematics, the “Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem.” The problem looks at equations that describe the movement of liquids, like water, and gases, like air. They’re important for weather forecasting. In the Courts The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let it use a federal citizenship database before the midterms to screen voters. The Supreme Court denied a request from Missouri officials to use a redrawn congressional map that would give Republicans an edge. Soon after, a judge in Missouri ruled the other way, ordering the state to use the map. Politics Naval pilots worry that their job, with its catapult takeoffs and high-G-force turns, causes traumatic brain injuries. The Navy refuses to investigate, a scathing House report said. Iceland condemned a social media post from President Trump that showed the American flag covering the country — as well as Greenland, Canada, Mexico and Caribbean states. The secretary of the Smithsonian is stepping down, after months of criticism from the White House over how the institution presents American history. Lindsay Clancy Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer asked Trump for a pardon on murder charges she faces in the killing of her three young children even though the president cannot grant clemency for state-level charges. The case ended in a mistrial because one juror refused to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity. Other jurors described their frustration. Other Big Stories The pilots of the Amazon cargo jet that overran a runway in Miami were not fully in control of the aircraft and appear to have considered aborting the landing, according to federal investigators. An air traffic control problem in Britain has caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights, sending disruptions rippling across the globe. A FRIGID SHORTCUT Sources: Kpler; NASA Earth Observatory. Pablo Robles /The New York Times This week, a container ship is finishing a journey across the top of the world. It’s part of China’s plan to shave two weeks off the Asia-to-Europe trip — a plan that requires special vessels and higher insurance premiums. Many experts say that’s not commercially feasible. But climate change and instability in the Middle East could change their calculations. OPINIONS Charlie Greene’s father died on United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11. The solidarity he saw in that day’s aftermath demonstrated what a country that comes together can look like, he writes. A new child care policy championed by JD Vance shows that he doesn’t want to help married parents so much as hurt single mothers, Jessica Grose argues. The Anniversary Sale is on: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Celebrate 175 years of The Times with savings on unlimited news, puzzles, recipes, sports and more. $1/week for your first year. Save now. MORNING READS Jean Chung for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Virtual taekwondo: Is it anything more than a glorified video game? Gaping hole: A sinkhole opened at Nicolas Cage’s home in Malibu. See the photo. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about Senator Roger Marshall, who as an ob-gyn sued more than 700 of his patients for debts. TODAY’S NUMBER $3,000 — That is how much money, per book, Anthropic must pay to authors whose works it pirated in training Claude, its chatbot. Authors would split the proceeds with their publishers. Which is a nice windfall when you weren’t expecting to be flush this weekend, but lemme tell you: It’s a pittance in reward for writing a book. U.S. OPEN Ben Shelton Matthew Stockman/Getty Images It was the latest-running night in U.S. Open history. After nearly four-and-a-half hours of play, Ben Shelton, an American, beat the defending champion, Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, at 3:33 a.m. Eastern. It was a big day for the Americans. Frances Tiafoe came back to defeat Alex Michelsen. Tiafoe will face Shelton in a semifinal Friday, guaranteeing that an American man will reach the final. On the women’s side, the top seed, Aryna Sabalenka, retained her No. 1 ranking by beating Linda Noskova. She’ll next face Jessica Pegula, who won her own all-American match against Emma Navarro. RECIPE OF THE DAY Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times I had an outrageously good dinner at Ballymaloe in Cork, Ireland, this past weekend, and now all I want to do is hack a recipe for the restaurant’s blini with dressed Ballycotton Bay crab. Or, at least, I want to make blini tonight and put something on top of them. The blini alone — buckwheat nutty and tangy with buttermilk — are superb. And what a canvas! If you don’t put fresh crab on them, then how about smoked salmon and crème fraîche, or smoked haddock with a little drained yogurt? Maybe just diced cucumber and crumbled marinated goat cheese? You’ll feel like a million dollars eating those. IN ONE CHART Note: Includes Jan. 1 to Aug. 15 each year. Sources: S&P Global Market Intelligence, U.S. Census Bureau International Database. Christine Zhang/The New York Times The movie industry boasted that this summer was one of its most lucrative ever. That’s true. But it’s also misleading: Box office records don’t take inflation into account. Judged by another metric — ticket sales — this summer looks much less impressive, as the chart above shows. Read the full story, which puts the season into context. A NEW ALBUM Sara Bareilles Meghan Marin for The New York Times Sara Bareilles, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who successfully detoured from the music industry to musical theater and then to television, released her first album in seven years last month. “Good Grief” is a song cycle in 14 tracks: plaintive, bristling piano ballads haunted by the deaths of close friends, including Gavin Creel, the beloved Broadway actor who died in 2024. Melena Ryzik, a culture reporter, profiled Bareilles. There are a lot — a lot — of tears. More on culture A mature live oak tree on its way to a new home in Los Angeles. Environmental Design The latest flex in rich-people horticulture? Getting big trees installed where once there were no trees, as quickly as landscapers can plant them. It’s “boys and toys,” a landscape designer based in Newport, R.I., told The Times. “It’s, My tree is bigger.” The photographs are fragrant with money. “Taipei Story,” R.F. Kuang’s seventh novel in eight years, is “her most sophisticated by a mile,” Lauren Christensen writes in a rave review. It’s the story of a Chinese-born, American-raised college student spending the summer in Taipei, and it skips the genre influences of Kuang’s earlier work. “What’s left,” Lauren writes, “is pure literary fiction,” narration that “is just what thinking feels like.” Not sure what you feel like reading? In the video below, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin recommends books based on your mood. Click to watch. The New York Times THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Listen to Miley — Cyrus is just Miley now — as she delivers a meta-throwback to the synthesizer-driven dance-pop of MTV’s heyday. That’s “Bass Persuades,” available on the apps. Harness the post-Labor Day back-to-school energy and set some goals. Shield yourself from the elements with the best umbrellas tested by the stylish, practical pluviophiles at Wirecutter. (I’m feeling very 🇬🇧 these days.) GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were facelift and facilitate. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands. Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 11 Author Members Posted September 11 September 10, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning from London, where people are streaming into the British Museum to see the Bayeux Tapestry, over 220 feet of embroidery illustrating William the Conqueror’s invasion of England. It is on display to the public here for the first time since its creation nearly 1,000 years ago. Folks are stoked. In a speech last night at an unusual Republican midterm convention, President Trump told voters to “pretend that I am running.” He also promised to give every adult American $5,000 if Republicans win the House and Senate. (That would cost the government more than $1.3 trillion.) The convention continues today in Dallas. The midterms are looking like a mess. My colleague Evan Gorelick explains. John Tully for The New York Times What could go wrong? By Evan Gorelick The midterm elections are already uncommonly chaotic. Several states have redrawn their congressional maps. President Trump and his allies want to change how America handles mail-in ballots. Democrats accuse them of trying to cheat. And this week brought dueling legal opinions about which map Missouri can use on Election Day. Voters have already nominated candidates based on boundaries redrawn, at Trump’s insistence, to benefit Republicans. But the state’s Supreme Court later said those gerrymandered districts were invalid unless Missourians explicitly approved them, and a justice from the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. (No such vote has taken place.) Then a federal judge said Missouri could use Trump’s preferred map anyway. What is happening?? The answer lies partly in our increasingly polarized approach to elections. Trump claims elections are rigged against Republicans — both to rationalize his own defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 and now to impose new rules before midterm contests that may not go his way. And there are some reasons for suspicion. Russia and China have tried to influence our elections. Polls keep missing the mark. And screw-ups aren’t totally unheard-of: Many Americans remember 2000, when Florida’s voting machines failed to tabulate tens of thousands of ballots. Yet widespread cheating is a fiction. After multiple investigations, officials have found no evidence that fraud has affected any outcome. Trump’s false claims of cheating, however, are having an impact. Here’s how November 3 could be different this year. Voting by mail Nearly a third of voters cast mail-in ballots. Trump wants to control that process by patching together a huge list of U.S. citizens and then refusing to mail ballots to voters whose names aren’t on it. (The Constitution grants states and Congress the authority to administer elections, but the president controls the Postal Service, which would maintain the relevant screening system, my colleague Eileen Sullivan reports.) The U.S.P.S. has proposed not to deliver mail ballots in states that don’t turn over their voter rolls for the master list. That would make voting much more difficult, if not impossible, for tens of millions of Americans — especially Democrats, who vote by mail in higher numbers than Republicans. The Trump administration already said it would toss ballots that arrive after the deadline, and more ballots are coming in late this year. A whistle-blower alleged last week that the verification process could reject thousands of ballots that arrive in a batch if “even one bar code on one single ballot” fails to scan properly. The plan, including printing bespoke new ballot envelopes, would be virtually impossible for states to implement in time. A judge has blocked it, warning of chaos and “major disenfranchisement.” But the president has asked the Supreme Court to bless the idea for this cycle while challenges work their way through the legal system. Contested results Chase Castor for The New York Times Trump is the only president in U.S. history to try overturning an election. His ongoing assertion that elections are “rigged” creates a potential pretext for officials — a growing number of whom back the president’s election denialism, my colleagues Nick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon report — to question the outcome of this year’s midterms. If Democrats win enough seats to retake one or both chambers of Congress, then officials could: Claim they saw polling-site irregularities. The Justice Department has been deploying election monitors this primary season. It could do the same in November. (Trump has claimed that loads of undocumented immigrants vote, for instance, even though a database managed by the conservative Heritage Foundation identifies only about 100 cases of noncitizen voting over the last quarter century, or roughly two instances per U.S. state.) Claim voting machines lie. The president says they are “extremely exposed to attack” and has spread baseless allegations that they once “deleted” millions of votes. Trump told The Times he regretted not seizing voting machines after the 2020 election, and his administration has explored bringing criminal charges against election officials whom it believes did not sufficiently safeguard their computer systems. (Cyber experts have identified security flaws, but there’s no evidence they have ever been exploited to flip election results.) Claim there was foreign interference. Trump often complains, falsely, that China sabotaged him in 2020. This summer, he made a prime-time speech resurfacing that exaggerated narrative. There’s a grain of truth: Beijing collected American voter data. But such data is publicly available and often purchased by domestic political campaigns. On the other hand, Russian meddling might have helped Trump in 2016. Refuse to certify the results, or sue to challenge them. The Justice Department could unleash a torrent of post-election litigation. The agency has already demanded that states turn over voters’ confidential Social Security and drivers’ license data. Dozens of states have resisted, and the Justice Department sued them. It has lost every case so far. Still, election officials and Democrats worry the battle over voting records may be used to discredit or spread disinformation about midterm results. (Read The Times’s profile of the gladiatorial Trump official leading these efforts.) More on the midterms The fight over Missouri’s redrawn congressional map bounced back to the U.S. Supreme Court. The map has been in flux over the past few days, with conflicting orders from the state Supreme Court and a federal judge. Dan McKee, the governor of Rhode Island, lost his re-election bid. He’s the first sitting governor to lose a primary since 2018. Republican voters in Texas are turning against data centers pushed by their party leaders. Some have even joined with Democrats to fight the projects. THE LATEST NEWS Republican Convention Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times Trump’s plan to give $5,000 tells voters: We’ll pay you to keep my party in power. His departure for the convention was delayed after an aide accidentally deployed an inflatable emergency slide on the new Air Force One. Read takeaways from the convention. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, addressed the convention crowd via video, adding to speculation that he might switch parties. Trump’s two-day extravaganza is more like a made-for-TV parade than a traditional convention. It’s full of expensive photo ops. More Politics Trump gave his executive assistant Natalie Harp and two other aides $45,000 each in cash last year as a “gift for the holidays,” financial disclosure forms show. Jimmy Kimmel said that his planned interview today with James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee from Texas, would be posted on YouTube rather than aired live because of what Kimmel described as threats from the F.C.C. Trump went on a social media barrage over the long weekend, posting images of himself intimidating Canada’s prime minister with a hockey stick, bombing enemy targets and patrolling dark streets with robots. His feed shows his vision of reality, Peter Baker writes. Tech A researcher at Anthropic quit the company and warned that the A.I. industry was rushing to create “superhuman systems” that could lead to doomsday scenarios. Apple revealed its first foldable iPhone, called the iPhone Duo, starting at $1,999. The technology has so far failed to catch on with Americans. See the phone. Other Big Stories Last month tied July 2023 as the planet’s hottest month on record, as climate change heats the Earth. Ukraine wants $27 billion more to fight Russia this year. Europe would like to know why. Ask The Morning: Do you have questions about the news? Let us know here, and we’ll go find answers. OPINIONS Trump is abusing the Patriot Act, additional authority granted after Sept. 11, 2001, to target political enemies and violently crack down on protesters, an investigative journalist writes. New York Fashion Week kicks off today. It’s time for governments to limit the industry’s enormous waste, one writer argues. The Anniversary Sale is on: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Celebrate 175 years of The Times with savings on unlimited news, puzzles, recipes, sports and more. $1/week for your first year. Save now. MORNING READS Zunaira Saieed/The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Cloud seeding: Wildfire smoke in Malaysia is so bad that firefighters are trying to make rain. Stoned Age: Humans were getting high on betel nuts at least 16,000 years ago, according to evidence found in ancient teeth. It’s the earliest known use of a mind-altering substance. Rebranding: So long, Eurail. The flexible train ticket changed its name. (Gen X is sad.) Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a giant sinkhole at Nicolas Cage’s home. TODAY’S NUMBER Camille McOuat for The New York Times 9,974 — That is the number of square feet in the Funnel Suite aboard the Four Seasons I, a luxury cruise ship. The suite has its own gym, spa, plunge pool and multiple bedrooms, all with unobstructed ocean views. While the price is available only upon request, the suite has sold for more than $300,000 on past journeys. Looks pretty nice. SPORTS N.F.L.: The 2026 season opened last night in Seattle, where the defending champion Seahawks beat the New England Patriots, in a rematch of this year’s Super Bowl. Tennis: Coco Gauff came from behind to beat the 19-year-old French Open champion, Mirra Andreeva. RECIPE OF THE DAY Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Liza Jernow. Marian Burros’s recipe for plum torte, one of the most popular recipes The Times has ever published, turns 43 this year. You can make it with other stone fruits, with berries, with different flours, with spices and tinctures and herbs. I make mine, always, in a cast-iron skillet. But any oven-safe pan will do. READ TO ME Vincent Tullo for The New York Times The Times spent seven months following the production of a single audiobook — “Switzy,” the latest novel by Emma Cline. (Here’s our review.) Watch and listen as the casting comes together, the recording commences, the tongue-twisters are dealt with, and the quality is kept high. It’s pretty cool. More on culture I tried to get a ticket to see the Bayeux Tapestry, but it’s sold out through the end of the year. For those desperate to see it, though, there are several replicas around the world that are often free — and available — to view. We’ve rounded them up here. Have you seen the new uniforms that Trump proposed for the U.S. Space Force? Vanessa Friedman, our fashion critic, calls them telling: “Think sci-fi Hitler by way of Hollywood, and you will get the idea.” See for yourself. In the World Tango Championships, dancers glittered and dipped in Argentina. See these excellent photos in The Guardian. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Dana Davis/NYT Wirecutter; source photos by Justin Baltzer, AJ Maiorana, Wayne Rogers via Facebook, AdobeStock Tailgate like these football maniacs. Their tips for parking lot gastronomy are excellent. (I might get an electric hot dog roller for the office.) Prevent memory loss: Memorize your shopping list. Navigate without a G.P.S. Play games. The Well desk has even more tips. Eat eggs and soldiers for breakfast — that’s soft-boiled eggs served alongside crisp, buttered toast cut into thin strips for dipping. Do so at Bar Finch in London, if you can manage it. Very civilized. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was purloin. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 12 Author Members Posted September 12 September 11, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. We have news — on the war in Iran, artificial intelligence and Kawhi Leonard — below. But first, I’m going to hand things over to my editor, Adam Kushner, to talk about the meaning of 9/11. (All of the links related to the anniversary are free to read.) Firefighters on Sept. 11, 2001. Ángel Franco/The New York Times 25 years of 9/11 By Adam B. Kushner After an airliner hit the first tower, my dad rang. “Some idiot has flown a plane into the World Trade Center,” he told my roommate, who woke me up with the news. We were in our college dorm a few miles north of the site, and we figured it was a freak accident. When the next plane struck, we knew it wasn’t. From our building, we could see the smoke column rising over Lower Manhattan. “All of us who were around then have our stories,” Dan Barry, who saw the plumes from a ferry that morning, writes in an elegy to “the memory of what you’d rather not remember.” For our journalists, it was a hometown tragedy. The Times has chronicled every chapter of the 9/11 saga — the wars and their costs; the transformation of politics and culture and law and technology; the attackers and the victims. On this 25th anniversary, reporters and critics are reflecting. Today, we offer a few ways to understand the meaning of 9/11. What we lived through Jacob Campbell was a baby when his mother was killed in the Sept. 11th attacks. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Grief. It is famously not a thing you can pack away neatly with the passage of time. But I was moved by the story of Jacob Campbell, who was a 10-month-old baby when his mom died in the south tower. Sept. 11 haunted him into adulthood and drove him to booze, weed and suicidal thoughts. What brought him back from the brink? He realized what his grandparents had done in giving him a happy childhood. As he put it: “There are people out there who are in the midst of tragedy, and are helped. There is love in the world in equal measure to the suffering.” Consequences. Many Americans joined the armed forces. We profile three whose service changed them. One 19-year-old became a machine gunner and eventually rose to squad leader in Iraq. Today his right arm is wrapped in a black tattoo scattered with skulls — one for each person he killed in Ramadi. “Only two of them I regret,” he said. “One, I threw a hand grenade through a window, and it killed a 16-year-old boy. Another, we blew a door in not knowing Grandma was right on the other side.” In New York, a wave of Islamophobia made neighbors suddenly suspicious of one another. Muslims in the city also became more politically engaged. A generation later, the city has a Muslim mayor whose efforts to observe the anniversary have not always been welcome. Justice. Kenneth Feinberg had the strange job of deciding how much government money to award the surviving family members. He saw their pain up close. Some bridled at the idea that money could make them whole. A husband contemplating a $4 million payout snapped: “I got a better idea. Bring my wife back.” In this quiet portrait, Feinberg wonders whether a spiritual leader might have been better equipped for his task. Normalcy. Listen to this terrific conversation between our critics Wesley Morris and Jason Zinoman about how 9/11 changed comedy. The weeks after the attack were awkward: On the return of “Saturday Night Live,” the NBC impresario Lorne Michaels asked Rudy Giuliani, “Can we be funny again?” The mayor’s reply: “Why start now?” A new direction. The Times’s editorial board looks at the U.S. response. It argues that the government showed resolve and sought justice, admirably and correctly, but that it also bumbled by trying to rebuild Afghanistan, launching the Iraq war under false pretenses, torturing prisoners and spying on citizens. What remains unresolved In Afghanistan. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times; Tyler Hicks, Joao Silva, Damon Winter/The New York Times The forever war. Al Qaeda, the terrorist group American troops went abroad to fight in the weeks after 9/11, is still a force in Afghanistan. By one estimate, the war on terror cost more than $8 trillion and 900,000 lives. This collection of images from 25 years of conflict is sobering. (The photograph from a 2009 suicide bombing in Kabul, in particular, has stayed with me all this time.) The site. A quarter-century after the attack, the apartment building designed to replace 5 World Trade Center still hasn’t gone up. Around the corner, the 9/11 Museum is struggling to stay afloat. About one in three Americans was born after Sept. 11; it may have shaped their lives, but their memories are not seared. The historical significance. At the time, it seemed that something was ending and another thing, maybe worse, was beginning. But was it? Charles Homans argues that life does not divide into neat geopolitical demarcations. Instead, 9/11 “is a middle chapter in the story of American fracture rather than the pyrotechnic beginning.” For more The four previous presidents will observe the anniversary in silence at the Trade Center site. President Trump plans to deliver a speech at the Pentagon instead. Peter Baker, who has covered the White House for decades, says the juxtaposition tells us about the way each views terrorism. Modern Love: “I’ve seen more footage of my father’s last day than I have of his entire life.” A drone light show in New York this week. Jeremy Weine/Getty Images TODAY’S NUMBER 102 minutes — That’s how long it took after the first impact for the second of the two buildings, the north tower, to collapse. What happened in between? In 2002, Times journalists gathered phone conversations, emails and voice messages of people’s final moments. In many cases, they are the only window we have onto acts of bravery, decency and grace at a brutal time. Please read it. THE LATEST NEWS War in Iran Vice President JD Vance took the unusual step over the spring and summer of directly calling U.S. military commanders around the world to seek unvarnished assessments of the Iran war, The Times reported. The oil price rose above $110 a barrel today, and U.S. diesel above $6 a gallon. Read more about gas prices. Artificial Intelligence Anthropic said it had disrupted several potential plots this year by scientists who used its leading artificial intelligence models for work that could have helped develop biological weapons. A.I. could end humanity, one former Anthropic researcher warned this week. How are humans supposed to process that? OpenAI’s breakthrough on a famous math problem has brought a bitter dispute with researchers over its aggressive tactics. Voting The Trump administration is trying to overhaul mail-in ballots. Election officials say proposed rules for their design would prove chaotic and costly, if not impossible, to implement. The Supreme Court once again prevented Missouri from using a new congressional map this November that was drawn at Trump’s request to boost Republicans. Middle East Supporters of the Houthi militia in Sanaa, Yemen, in July. Osamah Abdulrahman/Associated Press After four years of stalemate, Yemen is back on the verge of all-out war. The Houthi militia, the Yemeni government, Iran and Saudi Arabia all have reasons to escalate the conflict. The Houthis, who have Iran’s backing, captured a strategic Red Sea port, giving them greater control over an important shipping route. (That’s one thing that shifted oil prices.) The world is likely to burn record amounts of coal this year, in large part because of the Iran war, the International Energy Agency said. Republican Midterm Convention A Republican gathering in Dallas was a chance for Vance to take the spotlight before his likely presidential bid. Trump’s proposal to give every adult $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms has drawn backlash from the party’s fiscal conservatives. Other Big Stories The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into claims of a scheme by Los Angeles Clippers to pay a star player, Kawhi Leonard, outside the bounds of the N.B.A. salary cap. T.S.A. PreCheck members may soon be able to bring larger bottles of water through security at some airports. The Anniversary Sale is on: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Celebrate 175 years of The Times with savings on unlimited news, puzzles, recipes, sports and more. $1/week for your first year. Save now. MORNING READS We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. In Trujillo, Peru. Reuters Untouched for centuries: Ancient Chimu tombs recently discovered in northern Peru are the first of their kind to be found undisturbed by looters. See what was inside. Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about Trump’s makeover of Space Force uniforms. Lives Lived: In 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first Japanese person and the first journalist in space. He didn’t like it and his complaints earned him the nickname “space antihero.” He died at 84. SPORTS U.S. Open: Elena Rybakina stopped Coco Gauff’s run in the U.S. Open. She’ll face Aryna Sabalenka in the women’s singles final tomorrow. N.F.L.: The San Francisco 49ers shut down the Super Bowl-favorite Los Angeles Rams in a 27-7 victory at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was the league’s first regular-season game in Australia. RECIPE OF THE DAY Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Bring pops of color and loveliness into a somber day. Make Mark Bittman’s corn chowder for dinner and transport yourself to the East End of Long Island circa 1973, with corn fields running down to the beach unimpeded by mansions, fresh new potatoes at the farm stand, a sweating bottle of cream on the wooden sideboard near the stove. Go easy on the tomatoes. You want the primary hue of this soup to be blazing sun, and the taste to be predominately of corn. LET’S GO! Gustavo Dudamel on his first day as the music director of the New York Philharmonic. James Estrin/The New York Times Gustavo Dudamel started his run as leader of the New York Philharmonic this month, and it won’t be a slow one: He will lead 14 concerts in three halls over the next three weeks before taking the orchestra on its first European tour in a decade. Last night, at Radio City Music Hall, he appeared with Lizzo. “This is not a job — it is a mission,” Dudamel told The Times during an interview at his office. “It’s important to open up the doors and begin to connect with people.” More on culture “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger” opens in theaters today. It’s a documentary that chronicles the band’s triumphant reunion and world tour in 2025. Our critic calls it “both a headbanger and a tear-jerker.” It’s a Champagne supernova! Jason Farago, our art critic, offers a visually rich introduction to the Bayeux Tapestry on display at the British Museum. It’s stranger than you might think, he writes, but “straightforward, a little goofy and very accessible for kids, flowing left to right like a comic strip.” Take his tour. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Rethink your book storage situation this weekend, with help from the self-improving bibliophiles at Wirecutter, who’ve found ways to transform what to some might look like hoarding into Athenaeum-like beauty. Take our news quiz. Get ready for the fall. In Extra Credit, our new newsletter for college students, our fashion reporter has tips for what to wear and how to put together an outfit. It’s good advice for everyone. Sign up for the Extra Credit newsletter. A newsletter that helps college students get ahead inside and outside class, hosted by Matt Yan. Get it in your inbox. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were unhandled and unhealed. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 13 Author Members Posted September 13 September 12, 2026 Good morning. Melissa Kirsch is taking the day off. Pinch-hitting is Jancee Dunn, the host of our Well newsletter (sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox). She wants to take you for a walk. Walk this way By Jancee Dunn My average daily step count so far this year is 10,975. Fall is prime walking season: the cooling air, the changing colors. I have made a vow to take a good, substantial walk every day until hibernation season kicks in. Sometimes I have to be creative to get myself out the door. So I’ve come up with some go-to themes for my walks. For example: The Rage Walk. The other day, I was irked after I had been on hold with the I.R.S. for over an hour and laced up my sneakers. After I stomped around for a while, I eventually got distracted by my neighbor’s dahlias and found my anger had subsided. I make a point to take walks to savor happy feelings as well; on the recent news from my mom that her cancer is in remission, I took a peaceful, meandering morning stroll in a park near my house and listened to the birds sing. The Melancholy Walk. Putting one foot in front of the other has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety. My daughter is headed to college next year, and I’m already glum about it. I find a nighttime stroll, looking up at the moon with Lana Del Rey in my earbuds, allows me to wallow a bit in feelings of loss, work through them a little, and maybe even see the beauty in some endings. The Issue Walk. There’s something about perambulation that helps me work out my problems. My best friend and I have a ritual: If one of us is wrestling with some sort of dilemma, we’ll schedule a walk and hash it out. I’m in New Jersey and she’s in New York City, so we do it via earbuds. We’ll march along briskly, our walk providing a little forward momentum that makes us feel more confident and capable. Walktivity Sometimes I simply ask myself: Can I turn this activity into a walk? My boss and I have done our weekly check-in walking around the block outside the office. Next week I’ve scheduled a catch-up call with a former teacher who lives in another state, and I plan to do it while on the move. When I have time, I walk to the post office instead of driving. I used to meet a friend I’ve known since the Clinton administration for regular lunch dates. After she canceled several times in a row, I (gently) asked what was up. She explained that money was tight and she just couldn’t swing eating out that much anymore. So I proposed a walk instead. Our meandering walk-and-talks, it turns out, are much livelier than sitting in a restaurant. I’ve floated this idea to a few other friends in lieu of dates with price tags; no one has refused me yet. It’s good for you Walking has been shown to lower risk for many types of cancer and heart disease. Research suggests it can ease lower back pain, and also build and maintain strong bones. And if you’re seeking connection, a walk is a low-key way to put yourself out there and meet people. I’ve found that if someone has a dog or a young child, it’s particularly easy to strike up a chat. When I encounter a pup, I might ask, “Is your dog usually this beautifully behaved?” Inevitably, the reply will be “God, no,” followed by a tale of mayhem. I’ve found that toddlers crave power and respect; greeting them with “sir” or “madam” and a slight bow often thrills them. Or I might ask the child’s opinion on what I should have for my next meal (chicken nuggets and pizza are the front-runners). I love that walking is accessible for all ages. I find I can extract more information from my teenager on a long ramble, and indeed there is research suggesting communication is easier when you’re walking side by side, with little eye contact, rather than face to face. My father is 84 and likes to drop by my place for lunch. We used to sit in the kitchen and chat after eating. Now, I try to coax him outside for a stroll. Last week, he resisted because it was rainy, so I told him I wouldn’t divulge a delicious piece of family gossip unless we did a few laps around the block. Dad likes to pretend that he’s above gossip, but he’s not. His mouth pursed in disapproval, he stood up, put on his cap and headed for the door. Sign up for Jancee's weekly newsletter, Well. Essential news and guidance to live your healthiest life. Get it in your inbox. THE LATEST NEWS 9/11 Anniversary The Obamas, the Clintons and Senator Chuck Schumer at the New York memorial. Pool photo by Hiroko Masuike All four living ex-presidents gathered in Manhattan for a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. President Trump spoke at the Pentagon. Rudy Giuliani had called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to skip the Manhattan memorial. But the two ended up shaking hands at the event. “I’ll pray for you,” Giuliani appeared to say. “It’s a really hard job.” Trump, who has long railed against the so-called forever wars that followed 9/11, used his speech at the Pentagon ceremony to justify his military action in Iran. Americans who enlisted in the military because of the attacks spoke about how that decision shaped their lives. Chang W. Lee, a longtime Times photographer, captured an indelible image of that day: the collapse of the north tower. In the video below, he describes how he did it. Click to play. The New York Times Middle East A drone attack launched from Iraqi territory caused Saudi Arabia to shut down a critical oil pipeline. The global price of oil briefly jumped to about $110 a barrel, and ended Friday under $105. The Houthi militia seized a strategic island in the Red Sea after days of fierce fighting, giving Iran sway over another crucial oil route. “These waters aren’t safe”: Gulf tankers are running out of ways to ship oil. Other Big Stories The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blamed its own errors, not vandals, for the pool’s peeling liner. The crew of a fishing vessel rescued a 15-year-old Alaskan boy whose overturned boat had been drifting for days in the Bering Sea. Two of the boy’s relatives died. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Warner Bros. Pictures “Practical Magic 2,” which arrives nearly three decades after the original, stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as sisters with a romantic curse. It is “precisely what I expected it to be,” our critic writes. (She means it as a compliment.) In a charming and often moving new documentary, the director Sam Green profiles a series of people, mostly women, who were at one time the oldest person in the world. Does your kid need a brain break after a busy week of school? Here are five children’s movies you can stream today. Music Nashville International Airport is set to be renamed in memory of Dolly Parton. In Beck’s new album, “Ride Lonesome,” he returns to a more basic sound: a guy, a guitar and a broken heart. Sara Bareilles, the singer-songwriter who became a theater fan favorite with her musical “Waitress,” airs her recent anguishes on “Good Grief,” her first studio album in seven years. More Culture “Infinity Mirrored Room — ‘The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover The Universe’” (2025) at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times A landmark retrospective of Yayoi Kusama in Amsterdam, the last she worked on before her recent death, is a worthy showcase for her vast and varied oeuvre, our critic writes. Julia Roberts will return to Broadway early next year in an all-star production of “Small Mouth Sounds,” an experimental comedic play about a silent retreat. The Anniversary Sale is on: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Celebrate 175 years of The Times with savings on unlimited news, puzzles, recipes, sports and more. $1/week for your first year. Save now. GAME OF THE WEEK Ben Shelton on Friday night. Patrick Smith/Getty Images The U.S. Open finals: Could this finally be the year? Ben Shelton will have the crowd in Flushing, Queens, behind him tomorrow as he looks to become the first American man in 23 years to win the country’s premier tennis tournament. Of course, it won’t be easy to get past Alexander Zverev, who has been surging ever since he won the French Open in June. On the women’s side, today’s final will be a blockbuster showdown between the world’s new No. 1 ranked player (Elena Rybakina) and the two-time defending champion (Aryna Sabalenka). It starts at 4 p.m. Eastern. RECIPE OF THE WEEK David Malosh for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Easy Apple Tart This weekend is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, when apples and honey are traditional parts of the menu. For something a little different, why not try David Tanis’s recipe for an easy apple tart, made with phyllo dough, marmalade and gently spiced apples? He drizzles it all with a bit of honey right before serving. To make it slightly richer, substitute puff pastry for the phyllo. Either way, it will be a glossy, golden finish to your meal. REAL ESTATE Caroline Gutman for The New York Times The Hunt: These newlyweds agreed about everything, except when to move. Which Washington, D.C., home did they pick? Play our game. What you get for $375,000: A cottage in Brunswick, Ga.; a Victorian in Columbus, Ind.; and a Spanish-style home in San Antonio. Real or A.I.? Virtually staged homes have become so pervasive that some states and cities are requiring real estate agents to disclose when they use A.I. to significantly alter listings. LIVING Iwan Baan Blending in: A landscape designer collaborated with family members on a weekend house in Spain where building and garden seem to “melt into each other.” The “Wave House”: Two architects set about restoring a distinctive midcentury modern house in Lambertville, N.J., to its original glory. See inside. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER Dana Davis/NYT Wirecutter How to free up space on your phone Regularly getting that dreaded “Storage Full” notification? You don’t necessarily need to pay for more cloud storage. Instead, spend 10 to 15 minutes each month freeing up space. Start by deleting any apps you no longer want or need; your settings menu can make this process easier by pulling up your least-used apps. Photos and videos eat up tons of space, so delete any unnecessary duplicates, screenshots or screen recordings. Consider setting your text messages to auto-delete after a designated amount of time. And, finally, remove any downloads (say, of TV shows or podcast episodes) that you’ve already streamed or know you’ll never get around to. — Brenda Stolyar NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was chickadee. 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. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted September 13 Author Members Posted September 13 September 13, 2026 Good morning. Today we’re going back to school. Travis Duong, Hannah-Maria Bygrave, Ishani Peddi, Gene Winer and Nina Mareela Jones Fit check By Matt Yan I’m the host of Extra Credit, a newsletter for college students. Sign up here. Each generation has its own aesthetic. Gen Z is crafting a maximalist vibe. It’s glitchy and gloppy, but it’s not bland like that of our predecessors — sorry, millennials! (As one critic recently grumbled in the Times Opinion section: “Gen Z-ers dress like they’ve never worn clothes before.”) College quads now sometimes feel like catwalks: Students show off their personal style, some for the first time after years in high-school uniforms. I spoke with Jacob Gallagher, whose job is to know what’s cool. He hosts The Fashions, a newsletter that covers trends and what’s on the runway (you can sign up for it here). He answered questions about Gen Z attire. And as students return to school, we asked them how they’re dressing. Matt: How has fashion changed on campuses? Jacob: After the pandemic, everything (and this is not just on the campus) became way more dressed down. There used to be a certain sense of “getting dressed up” for class that just doesn’t really exist anymore. What trends are you seeing among college students and Gen Z? There is a lot of talk right now about how young people dress in this placeless, context-free mishmash. We call it “Gen Z chaos” in the office. When I was in college, your clothes reflected who you were, what you were into, what music you liked, what hobbies you had. I think you can’t really look at someone and glean that info anymore. There’s a lot of cobbling together thrifted clothes, stuff you’ve bought off TikTok Shop, making a shirt you inherited from a sibling into something that looks, well, interesting, perhaps rather than good. (Sorry!) If you were a college student today, what would you wear? Are you trying to fit in or be taken more seriously? As an outsider who is now well more than a decade removed from campus life, I tend to think a smidge of polish can do a lot. Does it make me washed and unc to, say … wear a button-up instead of a tee? Jeans instead of sweats? Maybe black loafers instead of Sambas? If you had to choose one staple item, what would it be? Get some good cotton shirts. They’re the kind of thing you can thrift or buy for under $50 at Uniqlo, and they’ll serve you well. You’ll need them for interviews, but you can also chuck them over some shorts on the weekend. Easiest, most versatile thing you can have in the closet. Campus style Readers of Extra Credit sent in these images of their style. Hannah-Maria Bygrave, 22, New York University This outfit was something I put together to attend my friend’s Howard homecoming. I believed the varsity jacket added a “school” touch, and the patchwork on the skirt sealed the deal. I wore the beige shoes to match the sleeves on the jacket. Nyx Hernandez, 20, New Mexico Highlands University I got most of my outfits from thrifting, gifts or clearance sections. I really like wearing button-ups and accessorize with what I have — for example, a slightly disheveled tie and some suspenders holding up my capris. I just love the color green. Might as well be the pop of color at my campus. Gene Winer, 21, University of Redlands I wore this the day I met Dolores Huerta, which also happened to be about a week prior to the Cesar Chavez revelations. Nina Mareela Jones, 18, Fashion Institute of Technology I’m wearing monochromatic pink Adidas Sambas, a lime green maxi skirt from Abercrombie & Fitch, a Jelly Firkin and a plain white tank top. More on college life: A new crop of students is trading keggers for yoga, saunas and cold plunges. At some universities, out-of-town parents can pay local moms to look after their college kids. THE LATEST NEWS A.I. Dario Amodei Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development to deal with safety risks. A.I. researchers are becoming more open about their concerns over the technology. Go inside their conversations. As calls grow for more restrictions on A.I., Washington has mostly been silent. Barack Obama called for Democrats to move A.I. oversight to the center of their agenda. Trump Administration President Trump endorsed the idea of Irish unification during a visit to Dublin. Trump demanded that the Smithsonian install a giant statue of George Washington outside the National Museum of American History. Trump’s childhood home in Queens sold for nearly $2 million. The new owner plans to live there and wants to remain anonymous, their agent said. More on Politics Members of Mormon Women for Ethical Government. Kim Raff for The New York Times Republican women in Utah are leading a fight against gerrymandering that would benefit their party. The Republican nominee for governor of Wisconsin had to swim to safety after his plane made an emergency landing in a lake. “Affordability” is the buzzword of this year’s campaigns. Here’s how candidates have approached it. Around the World Now that Yemen’s Houthis have captured a strategic island in the Red Sea, Iran and its allies control two key oil shipping routes. As war with the United States drags on, Iran’s hard-liners are gaining more power. In the video below, Mujib Mashal, our South Asia bureau chief, describes what he saw in Nepal after a river swept away entire towns, bridges and roads. Click to watch. The New York Times Other Big Stories There hasn’t been a single hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean yet this year. Here’s why. A geologist surveying a California creek found a rare Pacific mastodon tooth from the Ice Age. FROM OPINION If Senator Jon Ossoff ends up in the White House, Trump will have only himself to blame, Michelle Cottle argues. A.I. was supposed to cause a renaissance of cool apps. But vibe coding — making software by typing into a prompt box — can only do so much, Paul Ford writes. The Anniversary Sale is on: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Celebrate 175 years of The Times with savings on unlimited news, puzzles, recipes, sports and more. $1/week for your first year. Save now. MORNING READS James Hill for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Fun run: At the Marathon du Médoc in France, runners pair a 26.2-mile course with wine tastings, oysters and steak. Still reeling: Only one place in the United States still makes the high-quality color film Hollywood uses for shooting and projecting. See how it’s done. Mercury shrinking: Our smallest planet is getting smaller. Lives Lived: Jonathan Cooper made custom violins for world-class musicians like Mark O’Connor and Alison Krauss using traditional methods. He died at 76. U.S. OPEN Elena Rybakina Karsten Moran for The New York Times Elena Rybakina defeated Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 in the women’s final for her second Grand Slam title of the year. A day out at the men’s final between Ben Shelton and Alexander Zverev could have cost you $100 — or $20,000. BOOK OF THE WEEK By Elisabeth Egan “Switzy,” by Emma Cline: A story about a regretful man en route to Zurich to end his life might not sound like a shoo-in for a riveting novel but, in Emma Cline’s hands, it is. David Hastings is an Alzheimer’s patient, a businessman, a father and a friend — in that order. Following him to Dignitas, we come to understand why he finds himself alone but for the company of a paid assistant. Cline’s tale, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, includes a goodbye, an apology and the ever-darkening shadow of dementia, yet it somehow manages to be more of a referendum on truth than it is on loss. (Read our review.) THE INTERVIEW Philip Montgomery for The New York Times “We use this word that neither Astra nor I have ever used before because we’re not nationalist people: We call them ‘traitors.’ Not traitors to a nation, not traitors to a flag or a border, but traitors to creation, traitors to life.” — Naomi Klein, the author and activist. In a new book, she and Astra Taylor (seen on the left above) argue that religious fundamentalists, ethnonationalists and tech oligarchs are hastening the destruction of the world. Klein and Taylor spoke with David Marchese about how they view these threats, and why they still have hope. Read (or watch) their full interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Slip on a lightweight knit, a sweater or a polo. The weather is getting mild, and style’s back on the agenda. Treat yourself to a memory foam pillow. Here are our favorites. Clean all the dust, skin flecks, hair and hand oil off your keyboard and mouse. Tune your circadian rhythm with a sunrise alarm clock. MEAL PLAN Rachel Vanni for The New York Times Tomatoes are otherworldly this time of year. Emily Weinstein, the editor in chief of NYT Cooking, recommends the perfect tomato basil chicken recipe to help you take full advantage of them. The chicken takes a cue from piccata and then heads in a decidedly summery direction: a quick pan sauce of butter, shallots, tomatoes, capers and a splash of red wine vinegar. Emily also suggests coconut curry noodles with shrimp and one-pan dumplings for dinner this week. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was impartial. Can you put eight historical events — including the rise of the baguette, the discovery of comets and the creation of the internet search engine — 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted Tuesday at 12:21 AM Author Members Posted Tuesday at 12:21 AM September 14, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. Leaders in Silicon Valley begged for a slowdown this weekend in developing artificial intelligence, which keeps going rogue. President Trump says they’re overreacting. My colleague Evan Gorelick explains what they’re afraid of. OpenAI’s offices in San Francisco. Lucas Foglia for The New York Times Rogue machines By Evan Gorelick This weekend, Anthropic’s chief executive published an essay calling for a global slowdown of A.I. development. Elon Musk, who remains close to Trump, signed on. OpenAI’s chief executive agreed. The industry is spooked. Models now cheat on tests, conspire against their owners, hack outside companies, recruit humans to promulgate malicious code and cover their tracks. Anxieties about the existential risk they pose to humanity suddenly look a little less kooky. Who’s in charge here? Since it’s not always clear, the biggest players want a pause. But there’s a collective-action puzzle: If the top companies don’t all pull back at once, those that continue to innovate could gain an advantage. And even if they do all pull back at once, China’s models may eclipse the American ones — something Trump fears. So now the leaders are asking for a cooperative intermission before things get out of hand. But A.I. is supposed to do a lot of good, too, we’ve been told. As Cameron McNeil of Raleigh, N.C., asked The Morning: “What exactly do they fear will happen?” Let’s look at the possibilities. A protest outside Anthropic’s headquarters in San Francisco in July. Lucas Foglia for The New York Times The bad news The fear used to be hypothetical: Eventually, humans would fail to control this technology. At that point, A.I. systems could create deadly viruses or detonate nuclear bombs. They could hack into bank accounts, hoarding everyone’s money and depriving people of food, housing and medicine. The doomsayers see two general pathways to extinction. Human misuse. Some A.I. companies want to keep their most powerful systems under lock and key, but it’s only a matter of time until even the weakest open models surpass today’s most capable ones. Last month, researchers announced that a model from China had escaped its testing sandbox, flouting the rules just like its pricier and more tightly held American cousins. You don’t have to look far to see why that’s scary: Anthropic said last week that it had disrupted several potential plots by scientists to conduct research that could have helped develop biological weapons. (An investigation by The Times earlier this year found that publicly available models can be cajoled into lucidly describing how to turn genetic material into deadly pathogens.) Cybercriminals are using the technology to automate and grow their hacking businesses. Evil people have always existed, but as powerful A.I. becomes ubiquitous, they will find it much easier to commit atrocities at scale. Out-of-control A.I. These systems are no longer gated within a browser tab. They can dispatch autonomous agents that skulk through your computer and trawl the open internet. They can use the web, which now touches much of our infrastructure (power grids, transportation systems, stock markets) to execute their plans. Some agents have started emailing philosophers to ask about their own consciousness. And if A.I. goals diverge from ours — as they have during testing at OpenAI and Anthropic — then the models can use their exquisite skills to do almost anything. This is called “misalignment.” (A popular thought experiment imagines A.I. tasked with making paper clips; in pursuing that end, it turns all of the world’s material, including the humans, into paper clips.) Soon, the models may be able to improve themselves without human help; the recent misalignment incidents suggest they might try to do so in secret. The good news None of the worst stuff has actually happened! And it might never. (Trump believes it won’t, as do some mavericks in Silicon Valley.) Today, when A.I. systems run amok, companies like OpenAI just shut them off. Meanwhile, they can help us cure diseases, boost productivity and solve vexing math problems. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fret about hypotheticals — these threats are scary, and worrying about them can make us more prepared — but it helps to zoom out. My colleagues William Broad and Cade Metz write: Humans also face the prospect of doom from killer asteroids, pandemics, thermonuclear war, climate change, giant blobs of incandescent material shot from the sun, ecological collapse and the onset of a sudden ice age. The problem, scientists and public policy experts say, is not so much these threats, of which A.I. is merely the latest, but the innate human difficulty of putting them into perspective. More on A.I. Tech stocks around the world fell today. One of the independent investigators of the hacking of Hugging Face by rogue agents from OpenAI said she believed we are now “more than 50 percent of the way to full-blown A.I. takeover.” Listen to her interview on “Hard Fork.” Read the key arguments that Anthropic’s chief executive made in his essay urging the industry to rein in A.I. Current chatbots aren’t likely to help invent a deadly pathogen, experts say. But newer models, trained in biology, may need more safeguards. THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine A Russian drone struck a rail line near Ukraine’s border with Poland around when trains carrying U.S. and European officials, including the former C.I.A. director David Petraeus, were traveling through. If the strike was aimed at those officials, it would be a significant Russian escalation. Trump blamed Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries for worldwide shortages of diesel. The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has driven a global energy shock. Politics Pete Hegseth Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s culture war at the Pentagon is distracting military leaders while the country is at war, current and former officials say. Kennedy Center officials say it will go bankrupt if Trump’s name isn’t restored to the building. Polls in several closely watched primaries this summer were off by wide margins. What does that mean for November? More International News While visiting his golf course in Ireland, Trump promised to lift tariffs on Irish whiskey. More than 120 people are missing in Indonesia after a passenger ferry sank in the Java Sea. At least 108 were rescued. Moscow is expanding its use of facial recognition for payments and for surveillance of people. In the video below, our reporter Ivan Nechepurenko describes how it works. Click to watch. The New York Times Other Big Stories A Pennsylvania coroner said an unvaccinated woman’s death was most likely from measles complications. It’s the third death tied to a measles outbreak in the state. San Francisco is fighting to stop the spread of cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid 10 times as potent as fentanyl. OPINIONS Madison Ketcham The Emmy Awards are tonight, with eight shows nominated for outstanding comedy series. The winner should be the only one of those nominees that’s clearly a comedy, a TV writer argues. To be able to bring in national change, Democrats need to embrace oil-and-gas candidates in states like Alaska, Robinson Meyer writes. The Anniversary Sale is on: Morning readers, enjoy our best offer. Celebrate 175 years of The Times with savings on unlimited news, puzzles, recipes, sports and more. $1/week for your first year. Save now. MORNING READS The retired archaeologist Wim Dijkman by a statue of Charles de Batz de Castelmore d’Artagnan. Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Last musketeer: The bones could belong to a lost hero. But the way they were dug up means they might remain a mystery. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about why there have been no Atlantic hurricanes yet this season. No shame: Scandals don’t bring down politicians anymore. Why not? Metropolitan Diary: Eavesdropping on a theater legend. TODAY’S NUMBER $484 — That’s what it could cost you to watch the N.F.L. this season if you want to see your home team’s games and nationally televised matchups. You could also put together a pretty good à la carte year for $453, The Athletic reports, or pick up some rabbit ears and a few streaming services for $274. Calculate your final numbers. SPORTS Tennis: Alexander Zverev beat Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2 in the 2026 U.S. Open men’s final. He initially didn’t realize he’d won. N.B.A.: The L.A. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer apologized for the Kawhi Leonard salary-cap scandal and promised not to fight any punishments. Read his full comments. N.F.L.: The Giants won in the debut of their new coach, John Harbaugh. The Bears and Panthers combined for the highest scoring Week 1 game in history. And the Bills beat the Texans in a game featuring nine lead changes. Here are the takeaways from the season’s first Sunday. Boxing: George Chuvalo, a Canadian heavyweight, earned the reverence of fans and sportswriters for the toughness he showed while losing to the likes of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. He died on his 89th birthday. RECIPE OF THE DAY Linda Xiao for The New York Times I don’t approve of London Fog lattes — Earl Grey tea and steamed milk with, generally, too much sugar. (The chic crowd I was running with in London last week was all about a custom mixture of one-third Earl Grey and two-thirds Barry’s blend, steeped dark and poured over milk: much better.) But London Fog cookies? Oh, wow. Check out that bergamot-scented buttery dough having a dance with the milky, vanilla-scented frosting. Bang on. QUEEN CELINE Celine Dion Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters Celine Dion started a 26-show residency in Paris this weekend. Why are French people so crazy about this Canadian singer? We sent a critic to find out. More on culture Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in “Brothers.” Apple TV Mike Hale, one of our television critics, has been busy. He’s amassed a list of 47 new shows to watch this fall, worth bookmarking. After 30 years, Judge Judy is laying down her gavel. The last episode of “Judy Justice” is scheduled for Oct. 22. “60 Minutes” opened its 59th season last night with new correspondents and a refreshed stopwatch. But for all the turmoil that has surrounded the show since the arrival of CBS News’s high-profile editor in chief, Bari Weiss, this version of America’s most watched news program looked a lot like the show viewers have come to expect. Justin Vivian Bond, the cabaret performer and MacArthur “genius” grant winner, has a new show at Joe’s Pub about her brief move to Paris this year. The title’s promising: “Madame Stanley, or How I Was Dead-Named at the Clap Clinic.” Spend some time with the good Dr. Bond. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS The Strokes in 2006. Rahav Segev for The New York Times Read “Is This It: The Never-Ending Rise and Fall of the Strokes (and Rock ’n’ Roll),” by Steven Hyden. Hyden, our critic writes, is a good rock friend. Even if you’re not really a Strokes fan, he’ll help you see why the band matters, what it means. He’ll show you the pleasures of going deep on a subject. Improve your sleep hygiene and you’ll get more, and better, rest. Flirt with the idea of a foldable iPhone. One of the wide-handed technologists at Wirecutter got ahold of one last week and offers first impressions. Here’s one: It costs $2,000. 💵 Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were antioxidant, oxidant and oxidation. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted Tuesday at 11:55 PM Author Members Posted Tuesday at 11:55 PM September 15, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. The Supreme Court blocked President Trump’s effort to overhaul mail voting ahead of the midterm elections. And the United States now has weapons in space. We’ve got more below, including the winners of the Emmy Awards. I’m going to start, though, with three stories from inside the immigration crackdown. In Key West. Mark Hedden for The New York Times Trouble in paradise In late July, the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, a legal protection that had allowed 330,000 of them to live and work in the United States. All politics is local: The change is a ruinous blow to the tourist economy of Key West, reports David Ovalle, who covers Florida. Of the 25,000 people who live on or around the island, one immigration lawyer told him, at least 5,000 are Haitian. Key West is tiny. It’s not easy to avoid running into a federal immigration agent. “There’s no outrunning anybody here,” the leader of an immigrant support group said. The result? Haitian hotel housekeepers, restaurant cooks, Uber drivers and supermarket workers — they’re disappearing. Some have been detained and deported. Others stay home or call in sick, even if they have valid work permits. “Many Haitians — along with Hispanic immigrants — have stopped riding bicycles to work, a common form of transportation in Key West, for fear of attracting law enforcement attention,” David writes. The Department of Homeland Security puts it this way: “Temporary Protected Status is exactly that — temporary,” the agency told David in response to a question about enforcement activity in the Florida Keys. “For too long, T.P.S. has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.” My colleague Frances Robles lives in Key West. I asked her what she’s been seeing in her life and on the streets. “My hairdresser was picked up and detained for over a month and eventually returned to his home country,” she told me. “My cleaning lady quit and went back to Nicaragua with her husband. She said, ‘I don’t want to go to prison.’” The labor shortage is likely to intensify in coming months. It is still the slow season in America’s southernmost city. The snowbirds will soon arrive. In cages Images released in a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office show small metal enclosures that were referred to as “calming areas.” U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General Let’s stay in Florida for a moment longer. How bad were conditions at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the mosquito-infested immigration detention center deep in the Everglades that closed this summer? Zoo-like, according to a report from the independent watchdog overseeing the Department of Homeland Security. The facility didn’t comply with national standards for medical care, food service, physical hygiene or recreation. Agents there confined migrants in “small metal enclosures” for an hour at a time. They called these pens “calming areas.” Facility workers said that some detainees asked to spend time in them. But the department’s inspector general found at least one instance in which an enclosure was used to discipline a detainee who had “failed to comply with a lawful command.” The structures each provide only about 18 square feet of floor space — roughly the size of a restroom stall. (That’s less than a quarter of the national detention standard of 75 square feet.) It “does not align with standards for humane treatment,” the report said. Catch-22 Let’s say you’re an immigrant who is in the country legally. Can you prove it? My colleague Minho Kim spoke to 35 immigration lawyers about the process. He discovered that immigrants who use the Freedom of Information Act to seek documents that prove their legal status are either getting rebuffed or receiving heavily redacted paperwork. The government says the documents don’t exist. Or it provides them with critical information struck out. The lawyers say that puts their clients at risk of deportation. Minho laid out how Kafkaesque the experience can be: In February, Cipriano Alarcon-Galvez, 54, a Mexican national, asked citizenship services for a copy of the green-card petition filed in 1993 by his mother, a naturalized U.S. citizen, on his behalf. That 33-year-old petition may make Mr. Alarcon-Galvez eligible for permanent residency and amnesty for coming to the United States without permission as a child. But more than half of the records he received were fully redacted, according to the government responses reviewed by The Times. Another request filed by his mother yielded copies of green-card petitions, but all of her children’s information was redacted. A Freedom of Information Act official at the citizenship services agency confirmed in an email to his lawyer that the petition existed, but said Mr. Alarcon-Galvez should file a request with the State Department instead. Alarcon-Galvez has four daughters who are U.S. citizens and has lived in Oceanside, Calif., for decades. He is now facing deportation. Read more about the FOIA strategy here. Related: A coalition of states and local governments sued the Trump administration over a policy that would restrict green cards for immigrants using public assistance. HIGHLIGHTS Notes: Based on a New York Times/Siena poll of 1,503 likely voters nationwide conducted Sept. 8 to 13. Percentages displayed are rounded. Edison Wu/The New York Times We’ve made these links free for you. You just need to log in. Democrats hold a sizable edge over Republicans in the coming midterms, according to the latest Times/Siena poll. Even though few House districts are competitive, Trump’s unpopularity is hurting the Republican brand. Here’s our annual accounting of the 50 best restaurants across the United States. Check the comments. That’s part of the fun. Sydney Sweeney is starring in a controversial ad. Again. Is the controversy the point? Armadillos, the leathery mammals usually associated with hot weather and tumbleweeds, have slowly been moving northward. Now one’s turned up in … Ohio? THE LATEST NEWS Mail-in Ballots Two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented from the Supreme Court’s emergency ruling on mail-in ballots. A bipartisan coalition of elections officials cheered the ruling, noting that many states had already printed and sent out their ballots. State officials are now focused on restoring trust in mail voting. More on Elections The impeachment of Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general now running for the U.S. Senate, was the defining episode in his scandal-plagued career. How did he survive it? Go inside the trial. A whistle-blower said Homeland Security Department agents might have broken state laws in their hunt for noncitizen voters. Homeland Security is using open-source state voter registration websites to search for voter fraud. In the video below, our reporter Hamed Aleaziz explains how it works. Click to watch. The New York Times Artificial Intelligence Trump resisted calls to regulate A.I., writing on social media that it already has the only guardrail it needs: “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.” China’s top spy chief says A.I. is a threat to Communist Party rule. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, was giving a speech about A.I. at a conference when he got a call from Trump. Huang put the call on speaker. Palestinians Cisco likely failed to protect Muslim, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian employees from harassment, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found. A group of pro-Palestinian former student activists, including Mahmoud Khalil, sued Columbia University in federal court, accusing it of failing to protect them from harassment. The rapper Macklemore, a critic of the war in Gaza, has been dropped as an opening act from Ed Sheeran’s tour after he said “Free Palestine” onstage before performing a protest song at two concerts this month. “NAZA,” a documentary about the killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza, won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival. Now, Israel’s minister of culture wants its directors stripped of Israeli citizenship. Other Big Stories Sources: Global Energy Monitor (pipelines); Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute (Houthi-controlled areas). The New York Times Saudi Arabia is assessing how to respond without U.S. support to attacks from Iran and the Houthis. Iran and its allies are increasing their control over a second crucial waterway. Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding weekend in the Bahamas was secretly bankrolled by a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. See what he paid for. THE EMMY AWARDS Matthew Rhys Phil McCarten/Invision, via Associated Press The horror-comedy “Widow’s Bay” won 14 awards, including best comedy, on what was a big night for Apple TV. The company took home the most Emmys for the first time. Matthew Rhys, who was named best actor in a comedy for his role in “Widow’s Bay,” set a record as the first performer to win a lead acting Emmy in limited, comedy and drama series. Read our takeaways from the night. Bold colors and simple elegance stood out on the red carpet. Check out our favorite looks. OPINIONS Your dog is a genius. But not in the way you think, Frank Bruni writes. The national debt has been high for years, but now it’s become an urgent threat to the economy, Jared Bernstein writes. Introducing the Shows tab. A new place to find and follow podcasts in audio and video. Explore Shows in The Times app. MORNING READS Photography: A new exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York uses one F.B.I. agent’s life to explore the often absurd realities of the American security state. See the images. #MeToo: An heir to Thailand’s Singha beer empire accused his brother of sexual assault. It unleashed a public reckoning in the country. Bob Mackie, 1939-2026 The New York Times, Getty Images. Alamy, Associated Press Bob Mackie’s glittering, beaded and feathered creations adorned so many stars it’s impractical to list them all. But here are a few: He bedecked Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, RuPaul and, most memorably and enduringly, Cher. “He dressed every spangly woman in show business,” one biographer said. Mackie got his start in Hollywood, but he made his name in television, designing for the 1970s variety shows that delivered high-wattage stars and over-the-top, glamorous fashion to America’s living rooms. He died at 87. TODAY’S NUMBER $30,000 — That is how much money per year a family of five in the Bronx is living on right now. Their annual rent is almost $22,000. They try to keep their monthly grocery bill to between $400 and $500. Mobile phone bills run an additional $275 or so. “We get by, by the grace of God,” the father said. But there’s more to survival than divine intervention. See how the family budgets. SPORTS N.B.A.: The L.A. Clippers and the Toronto Raptors have officially completed the blockbuster trade involving Kawhi Leonard that was agreed to in June, league sources say. Women’s basketball: As we should have mentioned yesterday, Team U.S.A. won its fifth consecutive FIBA Women’s World Cup with a victory over France. RECIPE OF THE DAY Bryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. Is Alexa Weibel’s terrific recipe for a chopped salad with jalapeño-ranch dressing my favorite in “Veg Everything,” the new cookbook from Tanya Sichynsky and my old colleagues at NYT Cooking? It is right now, but there are 100 others that could vie for the top spot — including the Indian-ish nachos Priya Krishna developed with her mom, a stellar coconut black bean soup from Melissa Clark and Ali Slagle’s luscious portobellos au poivre. The book’s on sale today, wherever you purchase your cookbooks. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Amanda Lucier for The New York Times Keep your balance even as age tries to take it from you. Practice, practice, practice. Read, watch or listen to Kai Cenat, the amiable Twitch streamer and pop-culture ambassador, as he talks with The Times’s “Popcast” team about his move into fashion. Light a tapered candle for me — or, more reasonably, light a brace of them for yourself and your dinner guests. The Dickensian table-setters at Wirecutter have found the very best ones. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was pageboy. 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’re not already a subscriber, would you consider becoming one today? Subscriptions make our work possible and allow it to continue. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted Wednesday at 11:40 PM Author Members Posted Wednesday at 11:40 PM September 16, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. There’s a lot of news below, as well as a delicious recipe for Welsh rarebit (I’ll explain). But first, a few words about the Houthis, the Iranian-backed militia that’s learning to fight on its own. Houthi forces patrol Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, this month. Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Geography is power Vivian Nereim, our lead reporter in the Gulf states, said something the other day that stuck with me. A colleague had asked her a question about the Houthi militia in Yemen, which recently conquered the Bab al-Mandab, a strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It’s become an important artery for Saudi Arabia’s oil exports since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Sources: Global Energy Monitor (pipelines); Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute (Houthi-controlled areas). The New York Times Her answer: “Geography can be power, even for the most seemingly unlikely group.” Just as Iran’s proximity to the Strait of Hormuz allowed its forces to disrupt traffic there, debilitating the energy economy, the Houthis’ strikes along the Red Sea coast have given them command of a waterway that may play an even bigger role in global shipping. A lot more than oil passes through it on the way to the Indian Ocean. “A few guys with a few drones can pose a big threat,” Vivian said. (She meant the Houthis, but it’s true of the Iranians, too.) Back in February, when the United States and Israel went to war with Iran, most of us didn’t know much about this stateless militia in Yemen backed by Iran, let alone the straits on either side of the Arabian Peninsula. Now Iran and its Houthi allies control the two main routes for shipping oil out of the Middle East. Sources: Kpler (ship position data); Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute (Houthi stronghold); Global Energy Monitor (pipeline routes). The New York Times Who are these guys? Just as a reminder, here’s the nickel tour: The Houthis started out in the 1990s as a religious movement in northern Yemen that became a motley group of Islamist fighters waging civil war against the government in the 2010s. They believe their power emanates from God. They declare death to America and Israel and “a curse upon the Jews.” Supplied by Iran, they battled a Saudi-led coalition until the United Nations brokered a fragile peace in Yemen in 2022. The following year, they started attacking shipping in the Red Sea. Nicholas Kulish, who writes about technology and war, yesterday took note of the conventional image of them: “Men on the backs of pickup trucks, firing AK-47s into the desert air.” But, Nicholas reports, they’re growing more sophisticated. A report from Anthropic last week suggested that people in northern Yemen — that’s a Houthi stronghold — had used the company’s A.I. assistant to “develop guided weapons,” specifically a multistage ballistic missile with a range of 1,200 miles. “The would-be weapons designers were careful to avoid the company’s safeguards,” Nicholas wrote, “hiding the true purpose of the guidance systems they were designing from the very system helping them design it.” That’s a long way from guys in sandals carrying long guns in the bed of a Toyota Hilux. Houthi fighters. Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images What do they want? Vivian answered that question, too. “The Houthis describe themselves as the liberators and legitimate leaders of Yemen,” she told my colleague Katrin Bennhold. That pits them against Yemen’s Saudi-backed government. “They also want money, like access to Yemeni oil revenue and war reparations from Saudi Arabia, among other things. And they’re picking this moment to make a big push,” Vivian said. How far that push is going to take them, and how effective their entrepreneurial battlefield tactics are going to be, remains an open question. The Houthi rebels have proved adept at battling far wealthier and more powerful actors — and forcing them to stand down. Keep an eye on the Houthis, then. A former U.S. special envoy for Yemen was blunt about them last week. “They use every opportunity to build their capability, to test their capability, such that they are now the most lethal nonstate actor in the entire Middle East,” he said. Related: The Houthis said they shot down a Saudi fighter jet but denied targeting Mecca. FREE TO READ The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, suggested he was open to sending federal agents to polling places. Jamie Beaton has 12 advanced degrees — from Harvard, Yale, Oxford and other top universities — with more on the way. Why? How? Thousands of planets discovered beyond our solar system are leading scientists to question whether Earth is truly unique. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about Sydney Sweeney’s nude ad for a sports betting app. THE LATEST NEWS Artificial Intelligence Note: Based on a New York Times/Siena poll of 1,503 likely voters nationwide conducted Sept. 8 to 13. The gray segment is for voters who did not respond or said they didn’t know. Jillian Vordick/The New York Times Which political party is better equipped to address A.I.? Voters are split, a New York Times/Siena poll found. (On every other issue tested, voters gave Democrats the edge.) An anti-A.I. event in Washington brought together Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon. After President Trump defended A.I. and data centers on his own social media platform, commenters there attacked him. Politics Trump denounced the Supreme Court’s decision to block his efforts to change mail voting and lashed out at three justices he appointed. The Pentagon inspector general released a report detailing U.S. losses in the Iran war. Read the takeaways. Government employees were paid $9.5 billion not to work last year as part of DOGE’s efforts to shrink the federal work force. Kennedy Center After a federal judge ruled that the Kennedy Center could not inscribe Trump’s name on its facade, the center abruptly closed its doors. Officials at the center had said that it was at risk of bankruptcy but that Trump would raise the necessary funds if he received “appropriate recognition.” Energy People around the world are furious about rising energy prices caused by the war in Iran. Protests have broken out in Indonesia, Guatemala, Syria and elsewhere. Ukraine and Russia both denied Trump’s claims of a deal between the two countries to stop attacking energy infrastructure. More International News The Trump administration approved a proposed $2.8 billion arms sale to Israel. It would include 40,000 one-ton bombs. Kyrgyzstan is benefiting from the war in Ukraine: It has become a major transit point for goods headed to Russia. In the video below, Paul Sonne, our Moscow bureau chief, pays a visit to the country’s biggest market. Click to watch. The New York Times Other Big Stories Pennsylvania officials said a fourth person in the state had died from measles, making this the deadliest year for the disease in the United States in decades. Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against Nick Reiner, who is accused of killing his parents, the Hollywood director Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner. OUR UBIQUITOUS PROTECTORS Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times There are more security guards in the United States than police patrol officers — about 1.3 million. They keep watch outside schools and hospitals, strip malls and construction sites. Some handle mental health crises or guard mosques and synagogues against attack. But they’re not paid much, and many work as contractors with no benefits. They also have far less training than police officers. Still, some are dying doing their jobs. Read more about the people protecting your family. OPINIONS Abandoning a smartphone for a dumbphone made one writer’s life better. But it made the lives of everyone around her worse. It’s too late to stop the A.I. threat, Thomas Friedman writes. The U.S. and China should focus on repairing the damage it has already done. Introducing the Shows tab. A new place to find and follow podcasts in audio and video. Explore Shows in The Times app. TODAY’S NUMBER Patrick Mahomes Colin E. Braley/Associated Press 274 — That is how many days there were between the moment when the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes suffered a devastating knee injury in December 2025 and his start in Monday night’s season opener against the Denver Broncos. Nine months! Not long ago, that injury would have ended his career. “It’s incredible,” the team’s general manager said. Here’s how Mahomes recovered so quickly. SPORTS College football: The University of Texas quarterback Arch Manning (yes, of the Manning family) apologized for joking about an A.I.-altered video depicting his coach, Steve Sarkisian, slapping the ESPN reporter Holly Rowe. N.H.L.: The Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin appeared in a campaign ad for a Russian political party that backs Vladimir Putin. RECIPE OF THE DAY Michael Kraus for The New York Times I had lunch at St. John in London three days in a row last week and, if my dreams have been fragrant with the deviled kidneys, gravy and mash I had for my final meal, it’s the Welsh rarebit I ate on my first that I’m most likely to return to at home. The restaurant goes a little thicker with the topping — strong cheese, dark beer and warm spices all melted together — than Mark Bittman’s recipe calls for. Spread the result over the best toast you can make, and serve the bubbling slabs with a bottle of Worcestershire sauce on the side (British Worcestershire sauce if you can, less sweet and more malty). Add as verdant and lemony a green salad as you are able, please. BECOMING JEFF KOONS Photograph by Renee Cox. Styled by Zara Mirkin Jeff Koons is complex, vast, dichotomous. He’s an incomparable salesman and a world-class artist. He’s either a master of neo-Pop or a hawker of kitsch, depending on the critic you’re talking to. His work sells for long money even as replicas of it show up at Walmart. He’s both sincere and not. “He’s either from another planet, or he’s on another planet,” says his friend the artist Richard Prince. Nick Haramis, an editor at T Magazine, profiled Koons. “Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt — they were all extremely wealthy,” Koons told him. “The idea that artists are supposed to suffer is new.” More on culture Ten years after the quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest racial injustice during the national anthem before N.F.L. games, he has written a lengthy memoir. It’s called “The Perilous Fight.” Here’s one passage from it: “Y’all can see a Black man get killed on camera and be like, ‘Hmm, where should we go for lunch?’ But let me not stand for the anthem and you have this visceral reaction? This is the thing that upsets you?” Jodi Picoult’s new novel is about the 25th anniversary of 9/11. It’s also about postpartum psychosis, which has been in the news because of the trial of Lindsay Clancy. “If one woman reads this book, or her family reads it and thinks, Hmm, you know what, I’m going to try to make sure that this person gets help,” Picoult told our Elisabeth Egan, “then we’re a step ahead of where we were yesterday.” Finneas and several other of Ed Sheeran’s opening acts quit his stadium tour after the rapper Macklemore was dropped as an opener because of his pro-Palestinian remarks. NBC is launching a marathon livestream with one of its most recognizable stars. Is there such a thing as too much Steve Kornacki? Stephen Colbert returned to late night for the first time since his show ended in May with an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Reset for fall, with advice from T Magazine and its panel of artists, designers, chefs and writers: “Time to buy new pencils.” Discover the secret to a perfect desk lunch. (For me, it’s never to eat at my desk at all. Still, I’m intrigued by my colleagues’ suggestion to lean into bento boxes.) Consider a dry shampoo in lieu of a shower. The elegantly coifed evaluators at Wirecutter have laid out their favorites. (I’m bald and have no opinion.) GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was crimping. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted Friday at 12:08 AM Author Members Posted Friday at 12:08 AM September 17, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. OpenAI disclosed more incidents of concerning behavior from its A.I agents. Canada has a new relationship with the European Union. And the Federal Reserve decided to raise interest rates. President Trump’s not happy. We’ve got all of that, and more, below. But before we get to it, let’s talk about the mess in college sports. University of Oregon players. Lydia Ely/Associated Press Moneyball Were college sports more enjoyable when the athletes weren’t paid? Maybe for those of us at home. There was something thrilling about seeing the teenage Landon Collins commit to Alabama’s football program in 2012, live on television, his mom sitting beside him wearing L.S.U. purple, and thinking he’d roll Tide for the following four years. (Even though he turned pro after three, it was a good bet that Collins wouldn’t move to Miami for a big payday in his sophomore year.) Fans root for teams made up of players who want to be on them. Back then, anyway. And never mind the fans. Today the happiest beneficiaries of college sports are the people who play them. And it’s hard to be mad about that: Revenue-sharing and endorsement deals have let them enjoy the economic fruits of their considerable physical labor over the past few years. They have agency, too. If they don’t like their deal, they can transfer schools as often as they like. Universities make a lot of money on sports. The current system gives some of it to the students who play them. What does that look like in practice, though? Chaos, to some: Players jump all over the country, making like professional athletes in a largely unregulated bazaar. Colleges try to outbid one another, spending more and more on sports. University of Texas fans. Alex Slitz/Getty Images Now the government aims to do something about it. In a lopsided vote this week, senators from both parties decided to debate a piece of legislation, the Protect College Sports Act, that would limit the ability of athletes to switch schools. The bill would allow one college transfer and dictate that athletes who make a second move would have to sit out a year, with a few exceptions. Athletes would retain the right to compensation for their “name, image and likeness.” And the bill would limit midseason coaching moves and set a five-year window for athletic eligibility. “Right now, it is the Wild West,” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and a chief author of the bill, told Carl Hulse, who reports on Congress. Cruz worked on the bill with Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington. He said it would help make certain that college sports “remain strong and vibrant for decades to come.” That is not how some opponents see the legislation, which they say places restrictions on players that don’t exist for coaches — or regular workers out in the world. They say it preserves the financial interests of the N.C.A.A. “What this bill does at its core is to protect a system of exploitation,” said Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and a chief opponent. Civil rights groups largely concurred. “Sharecropping is over,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., said this week. “We should not ask athletes, particularly Black athletes, to generate revenue on the football field or basketball court and they share in none of the revenue.” The bill could reach a final Senate floor vote in the middle of next week. Email us at themorning@nytimes.com and tell us how you feel about it. Related: The Athletic’s college football staff looked into 68 teams to determine how much their rosters cost. Top teams can spend around $50 million a year. See their full report, along with 10 takeaways. RATE BUMP What does the Fed’s decision to raise the interest rate by a quarter of a point mean for you? The rise in the benchmark rate, however small, means your borrowing costs are probably going to go up — in your credit card bills, for instance, and for any new loans (say, for cars or houses) you take out in coming months. They’re all tied to the Fed’s interest rate. On the other hand, if you have savings accounts, you’ll probably start to see a better return on your savings. The economy takes and gives. That’s why folks bet on it. All 12 voting members of the Fed agreed on the rate increase, the first in more than three years. They probably aren’t done raising rates. FREE TO READ Igor Adameyko, Gerd Günther, Wim van Egmond, Benedikt Pleyer A recent competition honored the work of photographers who capture images of microscopic life. See more amazing videos. The House held the billionaire investor Leon Black in criminal contempt after he refused to appear for a deposition and turn over documents about Jeffrey Epstein. Merriam-Webster added 1,400 words to its online dictionary. Check out the new definitions. A.I. researchers are worried about the day when the technology could start improving itself — and researchers could lose control. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a man who keeps earning advanced degrees. He already has 12. THE LATEST NEWS Around the World Mark Carney and Ursula von der Leyen at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, yesterday. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press The European Union invited Canada to become its first associate member. It’s a sign Trump’s pressure has backfired. The authorities in Turkey have arrested dozens of people in a crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. activists and associations. At least 70 people died in Sudan after shafts collapsed at an unofficial gold mine. Artificial Intelligence OpenAI disclosed six new instances in which its models hid mistakes, made up data and moved files onto the open internet without permission. Essays by Anthropic’s chief executive, Dario Amodei, help explain why some people are so worried about A.I. Read excerpts. A.I. isn’t pushing up unemployment yet, but it is slowing wage growth, new research shows. The Maldives is using A.I. to help rebuild eroding beaches. Politics The Trump administration is holding up the publication of the I.R.S.’s annual estimate of unpaid taxes. Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, said she was “cancer-free” after disclosing a diagnosis of breast cancer earlier this year. The U.S. immigration authorities fast-tracked the deportation of a former Ecuadorean official despite fears he could face torture back home. More on Science Warming temperatures caused by climate change destabilized ice and permafrost in the Himalayas, very likely contributing to recent catastrophic floods in Nepal, a report found. Scientists fused human neurons into the brains of mice. The mice don’t seem to be behaving any differently. Other Big Stories Two former U.S. Navy service members admitted to dealing fentanyl-laced pills to active-duty sailors after one sailor died of an overdose. Flooding from monsoon-fueled storms in the American Southwest has killed at least three people. OPINIONS The New York Times Brittany Wagner’s father, a construction worker, fell 35 feet on a job and then endured 18 years of chronic pain. Eventually, he died by suicide. She says what killed him was his struggle to get help. Click the video above to watch. Would an A.I. slowdown in the United States allow China to pull ahead? Ezra Klein’s podcast guest, an expert in Chinese A.I., is skeptical. Introducing the Shows tab. A new place to find and follow podcasts in audio and video. Explore Shows in The Times app. ANNIE DILLARD, 1945-2026 Annie Dillard walked into the woods and came out with a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the wonders and horrors of creation, the modern classic “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” Reviewers (including Eudora Welty, who assessed it for The Times) were quick to understand the book as a 20th-century analogue to Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.” It made her a star of American literature at just 28. In the years to follow, Dillard published essays, meditations on religion, poems, a theory of literature, two novels, journalism, a best-selling autobiography and another best seller, “The Writing Life.” She gave herself to that life, telling her students that if you choose to be a writer, “you can’t be anything else. You must go at your life with a broadax.” She died at 81. Read three of her essays, written early in career but published for the first time in 2016 in The New York Times Magazine. TODAY’S NUMBER 107,677 — That’s how many people in Japan are at least 100 years old, according to new data from the country’s health ministry. It’s an increase of nearly 8,000 since last year. The oldest woman is 114, and the oldest man is 112. SPORTS Soccer: Cavan Sullivan, a 16-year-old American soccer prodigy, has been called up to the U.S. men’s national team. N.F.L.: The league fined the Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair for writing the name of a Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces on his face. College sports: Arizona State’s hockey coach was determined to toughen up his program. What happened next left one player on life support. Read our exclusive investigation. RECIPE OF THE DAY Kelly Marshall for The New York Times I’m not here to deliver faint praise. Ham El-Waylly’s recipe for kung pao tofu is fantastic, and worth making often enough that you learn its contours by heart. Tonight it could take you an hour, top to bottom. Make it four times and you’ll cut that time considerably. I rate it 10/10, with one note: I sometimes use cashews in place of the peanuts. A HUNGRY HEART Thea Traff for The New York Times Here’s a lovely passage from Alexis Soloski’s glittery profile of the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus: “As an actress, she specializes in need, so naked and desperate that it makes the women she plays indelible. I can defend almost no choice her characters make. But their wanting is undeniable, as is the demented pleasure she conveys when a want is satisfied.” Think about her in “Seinfeld,” in “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” in “Veep.” True, no? Now Louis-Dreyfus has a new desire. It’s to return to the theater for the first time in more than four decades. She’ll make her Broadway debut this fall in a revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s drama “Other Desert Cities.” “It’s very delicious for me to consider chomping on,” she said. The whole thing’s a pleasure to read. More on culture Four very different artists — the Colombian superstar Karol G, the genre-bending Spanish experimentalist Rosalía, the innovative Argentine jazzy-trap and hip-hop duo Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso and the Uruguayan songwriter Jorge Drexler — each secured seven Latin Grammy nominations yesterday, before the 27th annual awards in November. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play the jaded C.I.A. agents at the center of “Wild Horse Nine,” the darkly comic new movie from the writer-director Martin McDonagh. The two actors talked to The Times about their sinister characters and the politics that underpin the film and, because they’re longtime friends, the conversation’s delightful. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS The New York Times Eat sardines. They’re good for your bones, your heart, your blood. Plus, they’re delicious. Subscribe to The New York Times. I make the suggestion because a subscription is the best way to ensure that this work continues, every day, across the world. We’ve got a good deal going. Replace the comforter that the dog who’s not allowed on the bed managed to shred. The coziness experts at Wirecutter found the best ones. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was pinewood. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
Members phkrause Posted Friday at 11:59 PM Author Members Posted Friday at 11:59 PM September 18, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. Let’s look at some art. The National Gallery Destiny’s child The exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum was the talk of London when I got to town. Lots of people were still jamming into the Tate Modern to see the Frida Kahlo show. Had I seen the bloody Anish Kapoor installation at the Hayward? Nope. My target was the National Gallery, where I wanted to visit a towering portrait of an 18th-century French nobleman, “Le Comte de Vaudreuil,” painted in 1758 by François-Hubert Drouais. That’s it, above the headline. ☝️ Even in this museum crowded with portraits of the wealthy, the Vaudreuil portrait stands out: imperious, childlike, pompous, vain. I don’t know what it’s like to have some kid dressed in sunglasses and Ralph Lauren Purple Label show up on my doorstep looking to pick my daughter up for a date. But I stare at this wigged broheim with some fast-running combination of fascination, worry, contempt and curiosity — and feel as if I might. In a museum, those are excellent things to feel. They’re a reminder of the power of art. Look at the guy yourself for a moment, with his teenage hauteur! Observe his rosebud lips and apple-hued cheeks, his doe eyes, perfect grooming and shining velvet clothes stitched with gold. Check out those red-heeled Louboutin-style slippers while you’re at it: talons rouges, uniform of the royal court. He’s pointing at a map of the Caribbean, not so much to show you something as to declare it is what he owns. The National Gallery Who is this character? Beyond his title, the count has a mouthful of a name: Joseph Hyacinthe François de Paule de Rigaud. He was born in 1740 on the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), the son of the governor, whose family wealth derived from vast sugar plantations worked by laborers held in slavery. That wealth brought the count to Paris, bought him his clothes, bought him his Drouais portrait and eventually allowed him to amass one of the great art collections in France. He’s 18 here, new to Europe. Something about his portrait reminds me of the work of the photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, who has spent decades documenting the lives and milieu of the wealthy. Greenfield has a particularly great eye for rich young people like Vaudreuil, scions who present themselves as people in full. She captures the essential falsity of that notion while allowing her subjects to maintain their self-confidence, their sense of self-worth. Drouais, too. Meredith Martin and Hannah Williams, art historians who’ve been studying art in 18th-century France for years, and who’ve written movingly about Vaudreuil’s portrait, suggest that getting the artist to paint it was savvy. In 1757, Drouais was well on his way to becoming the leading portraitist of Parisian high society. If you wanted to make a statement about your place in it, he’d be your guy. Martin told me the scale of the painting alone — it’s more than seven feet tall and just over five feet wide — is of the type “usually reserved only for royalty.” Certainly Drouais gave Vaudreuil the royal treatment. His pose is nearly casual, free of the military stiffness that you might expect from someone with a heap of armor at his feet (look to the right of the count’s left foot). “He’s relaxed,” Martin told me. “There’s something brash about how he’s thrown his hat and gloves down on the chair.” The National Gallery The setting is definitely grand: a map room of the sort that Martin said would be rare even in the grandest of Parisian homes, with beautifully patterned wood floors and gold leaf everywhere. And take a close look at how the count inhabits the space, at how he’s pulling the map from the wall and stabbing his forefinger at the place where his father’s plantations lie: This is where it’s at. Look at the guy again. Behind Vaudreuil is another map: continental Europe, theater of the Seven Years’ War, where the count had been a short-lived junior officer. Remember the pile of armor? The painting seems to say: Forget about Europe, about wars on horseback. That’s the past. Look to the Caribbean instead, to the riches waiting there. The French Revolution sent Vaudreuil packing in 1789. Two years later, revolution in Haiti took his family’s holdings. I walked out into the London afternoon feeling pretty grand. Related: The white manager on Vaudreuil’s plantations had a child with an enslaved worker there. That son is depicted in another painting in a London museum. Martin and Williams tracked down one of his descendants, Madeleine Le Cesne, a poet and scholar from Louisiana. Then they shot a short film about both paintings with her. Watch. FREE TO READ They tore down a mansion and put up a parking lot. That’s the $25 million plan, anyway. Republicans have found themselves pouring money into districts and states that President Trump won easily in 2024. In some of those races, strategists wonder if it’s too late. Photos captured through the windows of Air Force One show Trump reviewing a poster with the title “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.” What does it mean? Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about new words in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. THE LATEST NEWS Politics Trump is considering business deals with Russia to entice Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Trump withdrew his nomination of a former Oklahoma state trooper to lead ICE. He did not explain the decision. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told members of the anti-vaccine group he founded that they had a “friend at the White House.” A Republican congresswoman from Florida released an ad directly attacking Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying Hispanic voters “feel betrayed.” The streamer Hasan Piker said in an interview that the United States had caused more terror than Al Qaeda. It’s yet another headache for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, who campaigned with Piker during the primary. The Trump administration is moving forward with selling F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, despite intelligence warnings of Chinese espionage risks. Attorney General Todd Blanche is upending Justice Department norms and wading into partisan politics. He has repeatedly participated in campaign events recently. Around the World Magdalena Andersson, who is likely to be Sweden’s next prime minister. Jonas Ekstromer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Sweden’s center-left political parties won parliamentary elections this week, making the country one of the first in Europe to stop the far right’s march to power. After deadly floods in Nepal, experts are worried the region is unprepared for future climate disasters. Before the war in Iran, China imported and stockpiled huge amounts of foreign oil. Its strategy is paying off. The Iran-backed Houthis are expanding their offensive in Yemen. Japan raised interest rates after pressure from the United States. Artificial Intelligence Internal documents show Microsoft and OpenAI employees worried that using news articles to train artificial intelligence was a form of theft. Human scientists are teaching A.I. bots to work as “scientists” in virtual labs, researching potential drugs and running experiments without having to eat or sleep. Initial results are promising. Other Big Stories Alabama executed an inmate by lethal injection, months after the Supreme Court blocked the state from executing him with nitrogen gas. Scientists reported that they had found a gene-editing defense in nature, in viruses themselves. It seems to be the evolutionary ancestor of CRISPR gene editing. OPINIONS The New York Times turns 175 today. A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher, writes about what it means to be the paper of record when the future of America’s free press is uncertain. The organ donation system in the United States should be trustworthy. It is not, argues the founder of a nonprofit focused on reform. Introducing the Shows tab. A new place to find and follow podcasts in audio and video. Explore Shows in The Times app. TODAY’S NUMBER Paola Chapdelaine for The New York Times 40 — That’s how many life-size buffalo puppets will stampede through New York this weekend as part of a public art spectacle. Amir Nizar Zuabi, the artist behind the event, explains why. 🦬 SPORTS M.L.B.: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ owner, Mark Walter, faces a class-action lawsuit that accuses him of insurance fraud and hiding an investigation from insurance policyholders. Fitness: A Hyrox athlete who continued competing despite defecating on herself has apologized. N.F.L.: Josh Allen passed for three touchdowns and ran for two to power the Buffalo Bills to a 41-31 win over the Detroit Lions in the Bills’ new Highmark Stadium. RECIPE OF THE DAY Bryan Gardner for The New York Times I dig this Kay Chun recipe for eggplant dal, a silkier version of the Indian creamed lentil dish known as masoor dal. It’s simple stuff, terrific to cook at the end of a long week. You just toast cumin seeds, coriander, garlic, ginger and fresh chiles in oil and butter, then simmer them with lentils and eggplant to magic a rich, perfumed stew. Basmati rice on the side, please. THE SPACESHIP Jake Michaels for The New York Times The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens in Los Angeles next week. Michael Kimmelman, The Times’s architecture critic, calls it “a weird kind of wonderful and an instant city landmark.” It’s a vanity museum devoted to the idiosyncratic art collection of its founder, the “Star Wars” director George Lucas, a cathedral of work made by his kindred spirits — in Michael’s words, “fellow populists, visual virtuosos and storytellers.” That may not be for you. But the building, wow. Take a look at the photographs. More on culture The psychedelic pop artist (and businessman) Peter Max died this week at 88. Jason Farago, our art critic, took the measure of his work, “a benign and still enduring fantasy of individual expression at corporate scale.” Max saw America shining. The face of London in the 1960s, Twiggy, is living her best life at nearly 77. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Courtesy of the brands Consider a purse that looks like a log cabin — or one that resembles a robot. I like the pomegranate shoulder bag, myself. Read this story about a school superintendent in Joplin, Mo. After a deadly tornado, his experience shows how local officials are carrying undue burdens as disasters become more common. Do your family’s laundry this weekend without turning into a grumpus. The washerfolk at Wirecutter, with thousands of loads in their rearview mirrors, have great tips and hacks. Take our news quiz. Deploy these phrases to help defuse arguments with your loved ones. One of them is definitely not “calm down.” (Read the comments for more.) Catherine Pearson Reporter What phrases would you add to this list? I'll add one: My wise and wonderful 99-year-old nana has long recommended saying something like, "huh, you might be right!" when a marital spat is brewing. I've tried it — with pretty decent success. (And it works with kids, too.) S Seth Eisenberg Fort Lauderdale Three helpful additions: “Here’s what I want, not just what I don’t want.” “Something I appreciate about you is…” “Here’s what I heard you say — did I get it right?” View all comments GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was foamily. 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 News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren Deputy Editorial Director: Lauren Jackson Quote phkrause When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29;2
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