Members phkrause Posted Sunday at 12:41 AM Author Members Posted Sunday at 12:41 AM November 7, 2026 Good morning. Susie Wiles is out as White House chief of staff. Stephen Miller is in. We’ll catch you up on that and all the latest news below. But first: As the days get shorter, resist the urge to hibernate. María Jesús Contreras Hunkering down By Melissa Kirsch Despite this week’s unseasonably warm weather, turning the clocks back is like shifting into winter gear. The sun peaces out at 4:45 p.m. as if saying, You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. And go home we do, helpless to disobey the darkness. Why are we eating dinner at 6 p.m.? Why this sudden urge to make soup? Where are my slippers? The urge comes on strong to hibernate, to melt into layers of fleece and quilts. Here comes the cozy season — what will we watch and read, what about a hot cider or a hot buttered rum or something, anything, steaming in a mug? Warmblooded animals hibernate. Their body temperatures, heart rates, metabolism, all drop. Posted up in the burrow or the cave or the hollow tree — winter quarters known as the hibernaculum — they stay unconscious for weeks or months. It’s a tempting model, but I’ve come to be skeptical of it for humans. Hibernating feels like comfort for those of us who see cold and dark as things to endure. But hibernation is missing an essential energy. Hunker too long and it can tip over into lethargy, detachment, a seasonal case of the blues. If we want to indulge in the pleasure of indoor coziness without totally going to sleep, we might take inspiration from the wintertime behavior of coldblooded animals. Where woodchucks and bats hibernate, reptiles and amphibians brumate. Brumation also involves bodily functions’ slowing down to conserve energy. But brumating animals don’t go totally unconscious: A lizard might emerge on warm days to bask in the sun. A snake might have a drink of water. “The most important distinction between brumation and hibernation is awareness,” is how a website that sells enclosures for reptiles explains it. “A hibernating animal is in a deep, continuous sleep and generally doesn’t wake until the season changes. A brumating reptile remains somewhat aware and responsive to their surroundings.” What does it look like to remain aware and responsive as fall seeps into winter? It’s questioning the cues: Do I feel like staying in because it’s restorative, or am I shutting down early just because the sun did? It’s continuing to participate in the splendor of the world even if it’s icy outside. If you have a tendency to go dark in the colder months, might I suggest acting a little more reptilian this year? We might slow down when winter comes, we might feel most comfortable in our own tree hollows, but we remain aware — aware of the way our energy and appetites shift as the light does; aware of the world inside and outside our hibernacula; aware that this winter, like all winters, is still a season of our lives that we don’t want to miss. I’ll be on vacation for the next two Saturdays. See you after Thanksgiving. (I can’t believe it either.) TRUMP’S NEW CHIEF OF STAFF Doug Mills/The New York Times; Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times Days after the Republican rout in the midterm elections, President Trump ousted his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and replaced her with Stephen Miller, his policy adviser and architect of his controversial immigration crackdown. Miller had been pitching himself for the job for weeks, saying he would advocate winding down the war in Iran. There had been signs Wiles was on shaky ground with the president. He cut her out of some decisions, like picking a television pundit as his press secretary (which turned out to be a disaster). He also blamed her for Tuesday’s losses. On Friday, Trump told reporters that Wiles had done a “great job” but that “sometimes in life you have to make moves.” Wiles, one of the most powerful figures in Trump’s orbit for years, is the latest in a wave of powerful women to leave his administration. THE LATEST NEWS Midterm Elections Scott Colom meeting with content creators in Jackson, Miss., on Thursday. Rory Doyle for The New York Times Scott Colom, the Democratic Senate nominee in Mississippi, held a slim but growing lead as the ballot counting continued. Young voters, alienated by Trump’s policies and an older generation of politicians, powered many of the Democratic victories this year. Prediction markets tout their accuracy. Did they pick the right midterm winners? After Texas flipped blue, Houston’s mayor told the city’s police officers to limit their cooperation with ICE. Voters in four states chose to bar transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams. The U.S. attorney who helped oversee Trump’s retribution campaign has resigned, adding to a list of abrupt departures from the Justice Department since Election Day. Around the World Saudi-led forces bombed a home in northern Yemen, killing nine family members, five of them children, their relatives said. A Tanzania court sentenced the country’s main opposition leader to four years in prison. Human rights groups say the case is part of a pattern of repression. What was once a popular nightclub in Haiti is now a makeshift shelter for families fleeing gang violence. Click to watch. The New York Times Other Big Stories Employers in the United States added 165,000 jobs in October, and the overall unemployment rate fell. (Is A.I. boosting the job market?) The Cornell faculty senate passed a resolution of no confidence in the school’s administration, urging change in how the university handles sexual assault. The U.S. experienced the largest drop in homelessness last year since an annual count began nearly two decades ago. Tesla will stop making Cybertrucks. GAME OF THE WEEK Brendan Mullin/Imagn Images, via Imagn Images via Reuters Connect College football rivalry: Can Michigan State football find its way out of its deepest hole ever? The Spartans are rocking an embarrassing 2-6 record. In their home conference, where the team has played its worst stretch of football in almost 75 years, it’s 0-5. Tonight at 7:30 p.m., Michigan State faces off against its rival, the University of Michigan Wolverines, who are 5-3 (2-3 in their conference). There will be a parallel competition on the sidelines that scientific researchers are calling “The Piss Off.” For a project across both campuses, researchers will collect urine from tailgaters, pasteurize it and isolate nutrients for use in fertilizer pellets. So fans should feel free to have another beer! — Evan Gorelick THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV A24 Close-up shots of Elizabeth Holmes, Nathan Fielder and Billy Evans give “You Can See Everything” its signature look. Our film critic asks: What do their faces say? Jordan Firstman, known as an Instagram troublemaker, becomes a sentimental filmmaker with his debut feature, “Club Kid.” The Canadian sketch show “SCTV,” whose archives are now available on Netflix, featured a murderer’s row of comedians like John Candy and Catherine O’Hara. Our critic explains what made it so funny. Music Sometimes, Dominic Fike sounds like Weezer, or like John Mayer and Jack Johnson. Other times, he raps. Is the mess part of his appeal? Listen to his interview on “Popcast.” The composer John Luther Adams, long attracted to extreme environments, left the U.S. for inspiration in the arid heart of Australia. More Culture “The Nutcracker” has entered virtual reality: Audience members in Detroit watched the ballet on a borderless, 87-foot-diameter LED dome. The Booker Prize will be announced on Monday. See the nominated novels, and vote for your favorite. Lucien Smith, the young artist who skyrocketed to fame before his death this year, died from an accidental drug overdose, the New York City medical examiner’s office said. Morning readers, don’t miss The Midterms Sale on election coverage and more. What effect will the results have on the country? And on you? Stay informed with our best offer on The Times in full. Subscribe now. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Armando Rafael for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Crispy Tofu Tacos Alexa Weibel’s deeply spiced crispy tofu tacos are a masterpiece — fragrant and savory, with heft and crunch. The tofu crumbles are versatile, too. You can skip the tacos and spoon them over rice or sprinkle them onto salads. The key is to really let the grated tofu bits roast until the sizzle is audible. That’s when you know the crunch will be, too. REAL ESTATE Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times The Hunt: She loved her Brooklyn apartment, but there wasn’t much nature nearby. What did she find for $500,000 in the Catskills? What you get for $1.5 million around Cuernavaca, Mexico: A four-bedroom in Palmira, a contemporary home in Chapultepec or a Mexican colonial in Acapantzingo. Calculator: How old will I be before I own a home? Source: U.S. Census Bureau. The New York Times LIVING A skier last winter at Mount Bachelor in Bend, Ore. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times Snowfall effect: A super El Niño is here. What does that mean for skiing? First-lady-worthy: Whom did Rama Duwaji, Zohran Mamdani’s wife, DM for a haircut? Never left: Long after the pandemic, people are still using weekend and seasonal homes year-round. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER Order your Thanksgiving turkey in the mail Yes, you can outsource your holiday bird. My advice, in fact, is that you do. A good smoked turkey — we found several in our taste-testing — can be a delightfully tender and wonderfully juicy centerpiece. All of the Rockwellian vibes, close to zero work. You’re not babysitting a bird all day, which frees up more time to go all out on sides and desserts. Because it arrives fully cooked, this turkey won’t hog oven space, nor require you to maneuver around a raw bird brining in the fridge. Maybe best of all, it gives you scrumptious, smoky leftovers for gumbo, my family’s favorite tradition. Just make sure you give yourself plenty of time for shipping, plus an additional day or two to let it thaw. Another shortcut? One of these actually good store-bought pie crusts. — Abigail Bailey NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were linocut and locution. 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 Sunday at 04:51 PM Author Members Posted Sunday at 04:51 PM November 8, 2026 Good morning. Today, we’re going to the dark side of K-pop. The New York Times Star pop by Sarah Hurtes and Jin Yu Young We talked to dozens of former K-pop idols, producers and lawyers about what really happens behind the glitter. Child stardom has always had a dark side. The studio pressured a teenage Judy Garland to follow a strict diet to keep her thin, and her mom plied her with pills to keep her working. The Nickelodeon star Drake Bell was abused by a dialogue coach who was later convicted. We tend to think of stories like those as tragic anachronisms. But in some parts of the world, they are not. Last week we published an investigation into NewJeans, the blockbuster K-pop girl group that left its label after years of mistreatment. We obtained their contracts, which controlled almost every aspect of their lives, including their sleep, their romances, their public statements and even their “attitude.” Nevertheless, a court said in March 2025 that they couldn’t strike out on their own and ordered them back to Hybe, the entertainment company behind the supergroup BTS. Around the world, young people (and their parents) still chase fame and fortune as they always have. Social media has made it feel within reach: A girl in Australia can audition for a Korean show, perform for fans in real time and reshape herself with filters, surgery or artificial intelligence — until fantasy and reality blur. The dream now starts younger, and it can come at a physical, mental and financial cost. For NewJeans, it was all three. Signed away at 14 The New York Times Here’s a look at how Hybe’s contracts treated the young stars. Child welfare protections. The contract stripped out standard South Korean government clauses guaranteeing rest, mental health and education for minors. The teenage members rehearsed until 2 a.m. under constant camera surveillance. Four of the five dropped out of school. Take-it-or-leave-it signings. Instead of going to school, the teens had spent years living in dorms and training for a shot at fame with the label. When one parent worried about the onerous contract terms, the label said it would accept no meaningful alterations. She signed. Morality clauses. The agreements barred subjective offenses like an “insincere attitude,” “neglect of self-management” or “inappropriate romantic relationships.” That gave the label license to claim breach — and potentially sue — whenever a member did something the bosses didn’t like. Silence. The deals banned public statements containing “true or false facts” that could tarnish the company’s reputation. This made it more difficult for the girls to blow the whistle on mistreatment. A leaden parachute. The contract let the label charge exit fees even when it terminated the deal itself. It booted one member over what it described as unauthorized solo projects and photo shoots — and sued her for roughly $22 million. Her lawyer called it a warning shot to the rest of the roster. Perpetual ownership. The label keeps indefinite post-deal rights to the members’ names, likenesses and A.I.-reproduced voices while slashing future earnings. Even after they leave the company, it can build chatbots based on their personalities and avatars based on their faces. The trade-off NewJeans last year in Hong Kong. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times In the United States, performers are exempt from federal child labor laws, so states have stepped in. California, for instance, requires that 15 percent of a minor’s gross earnings go into a trust until adulthood. Many states cap work hours and require on-set tutors. Illinois and a few other states now require family influencers to set aside earnings for children who appear in their videos. But abuses still happen. The former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy says that when her show ended, the network offered her $300,000 to keep quiet about her memories of forced underage drinking and unsolicited touching from a boss. (When her memoir came out, Nickelodeon declined to comment to The Times.) And even when employers follow the rules, addiction and other psychological troubles can haunt teen stars for years. Actresses like Amanda Bynes and Lindsay Lohan have spoken publicly about their difficult transition to adulthood. In Korea, people greeted our report about the NewJeans contracts with shock. Some fans called it a “slave contract,” reviving the label critics pinned on K-pop deals in the late 2000s. But the idol pipeline is known to be grueling. Hybe says that its contracts are lawful and that it negotiated in good faith. And while some of the provisions — particularly the ones about intellectual property and A.I. — may come in for scrutiny, a Korean court has upheld NewJeans’ deal. For aspiring K-pop stars, as you can read in our investigation, this is the price of entry. THE LATEST NEWS Politics In the days since his party’s defeat, President Trump has sounded like a man in denial. The rest of his presidency is uncertain, Peter Baker writes. Chuck Schumer is on track to become Senate majority leader. The average age of the Senate is falling. Trump’s new chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has already demonstrated his intention to forge ahead with an agenda that many voters rejected. In Texas, Senator-elect James Talarico’s progressive interpretation of Christianity is ascendant. Israel Gadi Eisenkot last month. Shir Torem/Reuters Israel’s president selected Gadi Eisenkot, the leading rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to try to form a new government. The task of forging a parliamentary coalition after an indecisive national election last month is daunting. Read more here. Around the World The African National Congress in South Africa had its worst election showing since the end of apartheid, signaling a major political shift. A top American astrophysicist relocated to Europe, joining a brain drain of scientists fleeing federal funding cuts. Other Big Stories At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Kenny Holston/The New York Times NASA is recruiting its next class of astronauts for moon missions. It has expanded eligibility to include nursing degrees, an astronaut said. “i think i’m done talking to you. i know you lied.” Read the text messages at the center of the Cornell rape inquiry. For a year, The Times followed four people as they tried to get a handle on their debt. See what happened. FROM OPINION The midterm results show that voters are rejecting Trump’s corruption and demanding a government that actually works, writes Jacob Weisberg, the former editor of Slate. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will likely face an impeachment effort. It’s time for Trump to let him go, W.J. Hennigan argues. Zohran Mamdani wasn’t on the ballot in the midterms, but he helped lead Democrats to victory anyway, Lydia Polgreen writes. Morning readers, don’t miss The Midterms Sale on election coverage and more. What effect will the results have on the country? And on you? Stay informed with our best offer on The Times in full. Subscribe now. MORNING READS On the Lower East Side in the late 1930s. Educational Alliance A century-old sewing circle in Manhattan has become a vital social hub for older New Yorkers. See photos of its history. The greatest flex for a celebrity? A photo with the pope. Giant roadside attractions: They once put communities on the map. Now, some face closure as small towns struggle to afford their rising maintenance costs. Your pick: The most clicked story last week — aside from election stories — was about the brain injury that made one man a musical genius. SPORTS College football: The biggest game yesterday featured Miami, the No. 1 team in the country, falling to Notre Dame. Ohio State, the preseason No. 1, was crushed at home, probably ending its hopes of making the College Football Playoff. Oklahoma high school football: A midnight coin flip in the parking lot of a catfish restaurant decided two spots for the playoffs. National Women’s Soccer League: Kansas City advanced to the semifinals after a late penalty that Angel City’s interim head coach called “tremendously cheap.” BOOK OF THE WEEK By Elisabeth Egan “Abandoning a Cat,” by Haruki Murakami This slim best seller packs a wallop of family history and tension into 80 pages. Murakami, the global literary icon known for his dreamlike fiction, delves into his very real relationship with his father in an essay that opens with a trip to the beach to get rid of an older female cat. When the pair returned to their house, Murakami writes, the beast they’d just abandoned was at the front door, “greeting us with a friendly meow, its tail standing tall. It had beaten us home.” He continues, “The two of us stood there for a while, at a total loss for words.” With his trademark restraint, Murakami considers the circumstances that led to this strange experience and a rare moment of solidarity between father and son. For more on Murakami, go here. For the latest and greatest in science fiction, go here. THE INTERVIEW The New York Times “I wake up as a Black woman every day, so I didn’t feel the need to lead with that. It speaks for itself.” — Keisha Lance Bottoms, whose election on Tuesday in Georgia will make her the first Black female governor in the United States. Watch her conversation with Lulu Garcia-Navarro on “The Interview.” THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Take our photo quiz. We chose five pictures from the millions in our archives. Can you guess when they were shot? Brighten your room with a beautifully designed floor lamp. Pour a glass of Costco wine. We tried them with a sommelier, and they’re actually great. MEAL PLAN Kelly Marshall for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks. Yewande Komolafe uses sherry vinegar and honey to elevate an already delicious combination of chicken thighs, sweet bell peppers and tangy tomatoes in this skillet chicken dish. A shower of fresh herbs is optional, but go with basil if you’d like a more assertive aroma. Or try Ali Slagle’s spinach and feta quesadillas with pickled jalapeños, which add gooey Monterey Jack to a Greek flavor combo. Find more recipes here. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was medieval. Can you put eight historical events — including the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the publishing of “Les Misérables” and the origins of “Here Comes the Bride” — 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 11 hours ago Author Members Posted 11 hours ago November 9, 2026 Good morning. Nvidia, the computer chip company, opened an investigation into Jensen Huang, its chief executive, after he admitted that he’d had a relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. Russia and Ukraine are restarting peace talks after nine months. And Nicolás Maduro, the jailed Venezuelan leader, is said to be studying religious texts and meeting with clergy as he awaits trial in the United States. Speaking of clergy … let’s look at the next Congress. Adam Hamilton, a senator-elect from Kansas, at a worship service in September. Christopher (KS) Smith for The New York Times Congressional clergy By Lauren Jackson I write the “Believing” newsletter for The Times. Democrats swept the midterms by promising to make America more affordable. But some winners also won with a surprisingly sentimental pitch: to make it more loving. It’s an unlikely suggestion in 2026. The midterms got ugly — with dirty tactics that pulled in a candidate’s estranged mother, peddled Islamophobia and plotted to split votes. A few religious Democrats insisted that a biblical commandment was the solution. “My faith teaches me that love is the strongest force in the universe,” James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian in Texas, said in his Senate election victory speech — which included the word love 27 times. “Love can heal what’s broken in America.” Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor who won a Senate seat in Kansas, and Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister who won an Iowa congressional seat, also cited biblical calls to “love your neighbor” on election night. A wave of religious Democrats will enter Congress next year, and the party will more than triple its number of clergy members in the chambers. They weave scripture into their stump speeches, read progressive policies into the Bible — and offer an alternative to the Christian nationalism that has dominated Republican politics. Their victories have made the religious left more prominent and more powerful — and have given their party, grappling with an identity crisis, one strategy to consider as it maps a path to 2028. Who they are, how they ran Lindsay James, Senator Raphael Warnock, Sarah Trone Garriott and Frederick Haynes III. There will now be at least seven ordained Democratic clergy members in Congress, including Frederick Haynes III of Texas and Lindsay James of Iowa. Two Black pastors already in Congress, Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia — who calls himself a “Matthew 25 Christian” after the Gospel chapter that says we’ll be judged by how we treat the vulnerable — fuse their faith with their politics. At least three other Democrats have attended seminary or divinity school. And many more Democrats ran faith-forward campaigns, including Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, who will be the first Muslim senator. (He released an ad about prayer in the final days of his campaign and spliced “Alhamdulillah!” — Arabic for “Praise be to God” — into his victory speech.) All of the incoming clergy members, though, are Christian, mostly from shrinking Protestant denominations. They’ll be outliers in a Congress where evangelical Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have been the most prominent religious voices in recent years. This class of Democrats makes a scriptural argument for progressive policies. Talarico cited Matthew 25 in his pitch for expanding access to health care. Hamilton referenced it to make the case for a more welcoming approach to immigration. “‘I was a stranger’ — and the Greek word is immigrant — ‘and you welcomed me,’” he said during his campaign, quoting the Bible chapter. The approach may have earned the trust of some moderate religious conservatives and independents. In Texas, Talarico helped swing every single county toward the left. At a town hall last month, an audience member asked him: “Do you believe that the Bible is the absolute source of truth and God’s final authoritative word, even when our culture says otherwise?” “Yes,” Talarico said. (My colleague Ruth Graham reports on Talarico’s ability to sway the faithful in this great piece.) A strategy for 2028? Did these religious Democrats flip their seats because voters (including white evangelicals) are broadly frustrated with President Trump, or was it a response to their specific religious pitches? “That’s almost impossible to disentangle,” says Joshua Blank, a polling expert at the University of Texas at Austin. Still, as their party seeks to compete in more swing states after a disastrous 2024 race, their wins suggest one possible path. Any Democratic presidential candidate will need to hold on to young, Black and Latino voters, who have shown they are willing to switch parties. And that candidate will need to win over moderate Republicans, many of them religious, who want to know whether Democrats can be trusted. These candidates did that. They won in red or purple states. They pulled some evangelicals left. And they proved nonreligious Democrats would still turn out for them. In the process, they offered a vision for the party rooted not in individualism or identity politics but in a much older idea. It’s a theology that calls for collectivism and speaks of virtues like love, duty and sacrifice. That’s a sharp contrast to the language of “spiritual warfare” espoused by the vice president, the defense secretary and other top Trump administration officials. For now, the new approach on the left is not widely used. “There were many, many Democrats who won who didn’t have a faith-forward message,” David Campbell, a political scientist at Notre Dame, said. But it is a message that matters to many Americans, about 70 percent of whom are religiously affiliated. Sign up for the Believing newsletter. I explore modern belief — religious, spiritual and secular — each week. Get it in your inbox. For more One Bible chapter helps explain the new Christian left. Here’s how to understand the Matthew 25 Democrats. These voters in Texas didn’t support Democrats. But they’ll pray for them. Watch the video below. The New York Times THE LATEST NEWS Nvidia Jensen Huang Eric Lee for The New York Times Huang, the Nvidia chief executive, has become the maestro of the artificial intelligence boom. Is he too powerful to get fired? Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned top Trump administration officials that Huang was in a relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. The company’s stock is set to drop. Politics Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who is poised to become speaker of the House, joined growing calls to remove Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Stephen Miller starts today as White House chief of staff. He’s the architect of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. He said he was “only kidding” when he offered the press secretary job to the U.F.C. chief Dana White. Joe Biden said his prostate cancer would limit his public appearances to promote his upcoming memoir. Midterms On “60 Minutes,” Trump acknowledged his immigration policies were “too tough” and probably hurt Republicans in the midterm elections. Rob Sand was a Prada runway model. Now he’s going to be Iowa’s governor. Climate Change World leaders are gathering for the annual U.N. climate conference — COP31 — in Turkey this week. The United States won’t be there. The world is on track for 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming, according to scientists. That's almost double the target of 1.5 degrees that world leaders had set. Around the World A Catholic Church social justice march in Buenos Aires Province. Sarah Pabst for The New York Times Pope Leo’s visit to Argentina highlights a growing rift between the nation’s Catholic Church and its libertarian president, Javier Milei. Poland is reeling after a rare mass shooting in which officials say a 24-year-old gunman killed his parents and sister and six other people in Krakow. OPINIONS Republicans lost young men in the midterms for the same reason that Democrats once did, a Harvard polling professor argues: taking them for granted. John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” mainly focused on fathers and sons. The new Netflix adaptation centers on feminine rage — a timely update, a Hofstra professor writes. Morning readers, don’t miss The Midterms Sale on election coverage and more. What effect will the results have on the country? And on you? Stay informed with our best offer on The Times in full. Subscribe now. MORNING READS Annautaq the walrus. United States Geological Survey Saving an orphan: A baby walrus rescued from a remote Alaskan beach has found a new home — and a companion — in Orlando. Voice clones and deepfakes: Three men were arrested on suspicion of using A.I. to mimic corporate executives and steal more than $129 million. Your pick: The most clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the text messages at the center of the Cornell rape inquiry. Read them here. TODAY’S NUMBER 3,000 — That’s how many tarantulas the authorities seized in Peru. They were hidden inside socks at a Lima airport. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Miami Heat superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo expressed surprise and shock at criticism from his former Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers on a recent podcast. Golf: A 19-year-old, Blades Brown, just became the youngest player to win a P.G.A. Tour event in 95 years. RECIPE OF THE DAY Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Anna Billingskog. This dish has everything you want from a hearty sausage and kale pasta, but made in a faster, low-effort way that doesn’t require chopping or boiling a big pot of water. Instead, frozen tortellini simmer with garlic, lemon zest, chicken broth and browned sausage, which all thickens into a rich sauce — no draining! Baby kale adds a hit of green (you don’t have to strip the stems like you would mature kale). Give it a final stir with Parmesan and lemon juice to make the sauce glossy. HIS OWN SECRETS Bob Woodward Andrew Cutraro/Redux The journalist Bob Woodward spent his career trying to expose secrets. In a new memoir, he’s sharing some of his own. On the first page alone, we read about his mother’s nervous breakdowns and the afternoon, at age 11, when he came home and caught her kissing his father’s best friend. The book goes on to reveal two sides of Woodward. One is the dogged investigator who helped uncover the Watergate scandal and bring down President Richard Nixon. The other is what Christopher Hitchens called “a stenographer to the rich and powerful,” our critic writes. Read more here. More on culture “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County.” Maya Dehlin/Disney There’s a new, California-based spinoff of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” It’s on top of our list of six shows to watch this week. James Talarico, the senator-elect from Texas, appeared on “S.N.L.” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Cristobal Olivares for The New York Times Visit the Chilean wilderness (worth it for the vistas alone). Browse our best picks for luxury gifts. This is window shopping in 2026. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was applejack. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands. Sam will be back soon. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. 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 1 hour ago Author Members Posted 1 hour ago November 10, 2026 By Sam Sifton Good morning. It’s good to be back. Have you been following the Nvidia news? It sounds like a Ken Follett novel. Jensen Huang I-Hwa Cheng/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Chips down Imagine this for a moment: An alleged Chinese spy seduces the leader of the world’s second-biggest company in order to help her country beat the U.S. in a contest to master the future’s most important technology. The president of the United States is aware of the relationship. I’d read that thriller on a long-haul flight, absolutely. Except U.S. intelligence officials say it’s not a fiction. Over the weekend, Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, the company that dominates the market for A.I. computer chips, admitted that he had an affair with a Chinese businesswoman, Alice Huang, who U.S. spy agencies said was a cutout for Beijing. (They’re not related. This isn’t a George R.R. Martin novel.) The company’s board is investigating the affair. It said it had “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised,” and that its chief executive would remain chief executive during the review. Yesterday, Beijing called the allegations “nothing but a smear against China.” The stakes There’s more to all this than romantic scandal and corporate espionage. The United States and China are in a race to control the future of artificial intelligence. Nvidia makes the chips that have for now put the United States ahead. To keep it that way, Washington bars Nvidia from selling chips to China. A screengrab from CTI video footage shows a woman identified by Reuters as Alice Huang. CTI/Reuters Enter Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen who is an executive at a Singapore-based data-center company called Megaspeed. It’s unclear when she first met Huang from Nvidia, but in 2024 they were photographed together at a bar in Taipei as Megaspeed prepared to spend $2 billion on Nvidia chips. Investigators from the U.S. Commerce Department were interested in that: Was Megaspeed helping China sidestep American export restrictions? Whom did she really work for? (Alice Huang has not responded to multiple attempts to reach her for comment in recent days.) U.S. officials concluded she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security to gather information on the American C.E.O. and potentially to influence his company to funnel chips to China. That’s not how America wins the global competition for dominance of A.I. The markets sure didn’t like it. Huang doesn’t sit on top of a pyramid at Nvidia. He has 60 executives reporting directly to him. Should the board decide to punish him, there’s no obvious candidate to take his place. That has consequences. Until recently, Nvidia was the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. On Monday, its stock fell more than 4 percent, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars in market value. There could be political fallout as well. Huang is a close ally of President Trump. He is also friendly with the Chinese, whom he told Bloomberg are “not our enemies.” Last year, he persuaded the president to roll back some of the ban on chip sales to China, after which Nvidia sold its second-most valuable chip there. (The U.S. government took a 25 percent cut of the sales.) And Nvidia has given at least $20 million to Trump’s ballroom fund. What’s next? Nvidia’s board will investigate, though as my colleagues report, Huang’s grip on the company is so firm that it will be a challenge to discipline him. The board itself is thick with early investors and business partners. Those are long, financially fruitful relationships. The Republican leaders of three House committees have asked Huang to brief them in private this month. The Justice Department took over a federal investigation into Megaspeed after Commerce Department investigators working on the case received an email from Nvidia’s general counsel seeking information about the inquiry and saying that a top official at the department had given the company permission to reach out. Trump, at the moment, appears sanguine. He told reporters yesterday that he had asked Huang if he knew the woman he was seeing was a spy. “He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy,’ and I really believe him.” More on A.I. Voter measures to rein in data center construction threaten to slow down the A.I. boom. Some economists think that could be helpful. The Senate took an initial vote in favor of a sweeping, contentious plan to streamline permitting for power plants, gas pipelines and other energy infrastructure to meet soaring electricity demand, especially for A.I. data centers. FREE TO READ Nicholas J.R. White for The New York Times Unfinished quest: Henry Worsley died trying to cross Antarctica. Now his son is making his own attempt on the South Pole. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about Rob Sands, Iowa’s governor-elect, a former Prada model. Metropolitan Diary: Taking the bartender by surprise. ICE pushback: Watch the video below to learn how immigration raids helped turn Kansas blue. The New York Times THE LATEST NEWS Politics Thomas Massie Kenny Holston/The New York Times A Republican congressman reintroduced articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, accusing him of endangering troops and waging war without congressional approval. Lawmakers could vote on the articles as soon as this week. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to keep building a border wall in the Big Bend region of southwestern Texas, including within a national park. A federal judge ordered the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, to comply with a federal subpoena to help ICE identify immigrants with a serious criminal history. Midterm Elections California voters rejected a proposed tax on billionaires. Trump, who initially said he would accept the midterm election results, renewed his unsubstantiated claims that voting was rigged. Senfronia Thompson, an 87-year-old known as Miss T, is poised to become the first woman, and the first Black lawmaker, to lead the Texas House of Representatives. With so much new blood, the average age of U.S. senators is falling, a little: The data assumes Democratic victories in Alaska and Mississippi. For the top chart, numbers are based on senators’ ages as of January 2027. For the bottom chart, ages are calculated based on the day that a particular Senate convened. The New York Times Around the World A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a domestic worker from Kenya to 100 lashes for giving birth outside marriage. She has tried for more than a year to return to Kenya with her child. (A Times investigation last year revealed how African women like her end up trapped in Saudi Arabia after becoming pregnant.) Russell Brand, the former comedy star, was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison in Britain for rape and sexual assault. The C.I.A. is expanding operations in Mexico, a Times investigation found. Other Big Stories The judge presiding over Lindsay Clancy’s murder case denied a request to dismiss the charges against her, clearing the way for a second trial. Fishermen spotted someone treading water about 20 miles off the coast of California. He had fallen off a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, where he worked as a pianist, his rescuers said. Demonstrators came to protest Philadelphia restaurants said to support Israel. Then a flood of counterprotesters arrived to buy food. FLOATERS Turkey is the top importer of plastic waste from Europe. The plastic is supposed to get recycled, but The Times found that much of it ends up in the ocean. Our reporters visited Adana, a recycling capital, and followed the pollution through canals (in one, the level of microplastics rose more than 130-fold) and out to the sea, where it travels for hundreds of miles. These pictures capture the broken waste economy. Samuel Granados/The New York Times OPINIONS JD Vance identified four issues that Republicans must address to win back support. He’s ignoring a key problem, a commentator who supports the party writes: old-fashioned corruption. The 2026 election might represent the moment the “red wall” of Southern states finally fell, E.J. Dionne Jr. argues. Morning readers, don’t miss The Midterms Sale on election coverage and more. What effect will the results have on the country? And on you? Stay informed with our best offer on The Times in full. Subscribe now. TODAY’S NUMBER 110 — That is at least how many immigrants with court-ordered protections have been handed over to foreign governments by the United States, only to then be sent to home countries where they risked torture, sexual abuse or persecution. The number is likely to grow. Read the Times investigation about Mustapha Camara, who ended up back in Gambia. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Golden State Warriors routed the New Orleans Pelicans by 51 points, their eighth consecutive victory. The injured star Jimmy Butler helped coach. College football: The playoff has 24 teams now. Here’s how the expanded version works. Women’s hockey: The world championships are underway but instead of focusing on the games, people are talking about ugly jerseys. RECIPE OF THE DAY Yossy Arefi for The New York Times I was out sick last week — out way sick, is how we used to put it — and didn’t eat food for the better part of a week. This Polish borscht helped bring me back to nutrition, sweet beet-and-beef broth run through with allium pungency and a splash of lemon. It’s not just for the bedridden. Chunk some of the cooked beets in with the strained broth, add sour cream and eat alongside a plate of pan-fried pierogi with applesauce and sauerkraut. Either way, you’ll be soaring like a white eagle. SUSSUDIO! Phil Collins Dana Scruggs for The New York Times Phil Collins, 75, has sold 100 million albums on his own, and 100 million more with Genesis. In advance of his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, The Times caught up with the hitmaker. The conversation’s fascinating, but stay for the details: Among other things, at 13, Collins played the Artful Dodger in the West End production of “Oliver!” Read more. More on culture M. John Harrison’s “The End of Everything,” a novel that imagines aliens occupying Britain, won the Booker Prize. It is the first science-fiction novel to have won this laurel. It beat out five high-profile titles, including Marlon James’s “The Disappearers” and Douglas Stuart’s “John of John.” Meet Henry Onesemo, a Samoan former luau dancer who has become one of New Zealand’s most prominent chefs. At Tala, his Auckland restaurant, Onesemo brings the tastes of his island youth to a broader audience. “My job is to tell the Samoan food story and put it in a place where it is respected,” he told The Times. You can practically smell the delicious smoke. Gary Fisketjon discovered and cultivated an army of literary talents, including Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt and Cormac McCarthy, earning him a reputation as one of the greatest literary editors of his generation. He died at 72. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS Cristina Spanò Avoid getting your co-workers sick after you’ve recovered from a nasty illness. (This has been on my mind.) Follow these protocols from our Well desk. Listen to “Talafreako,” Lil Texxan’s off-the-dome rap track, which went viral last week. Jon Caramanica, our pop music critic, talked to the artist. Prepare your kitchen in advance of Thanksgiving. You can do it this weekend, but you may want to order a few essential tools in advance. The pantry coordinators at Wirecutter have nine in mind. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was bathroom. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. And thanks, too, for the good wishes while I was out. See you tomorrow. — Sam Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter misstated who was “only kidding” about offering the White House press secretary job to the U.F.C. chief executive Dana White. Trump said that, not his chief of staff, Stephen Miller. 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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