Members phkrause Posted May 13, 2025 Author Members Posted May 13, 2025 May 13, 2025 Good morning. Trump landed in Saudi Arabia, his first stop on a four-day tour of the Gulf. Dozens of white South Africans arrived in the U.S. after being granted refugee status. And Sean Combs’s federal trial got underway in Manhattan. More news is below. But first, we look at Trump’s tariff promises. At the White House. Eric Lee/The New York Times Tariff turnabout By German Lopez I write for The Morning. President Trump made big promises with his China tariffs: China needs us more than we need it. America can outlast China in a trade war. Those advantages will let the administration get big concessions and rebalance global commerce. Trump’s actions, however, suggest the talk was bluster. Yesterday, his administration cut its China tariffs from 145 percent to 30 percent for at least a few months. China will reciprocate by lowering its retaliatory levies from 125 percent to 10 percent. Both sides will keep talking. Sources: White House; China’s Ministry of Finance | By The New York Times But China made no concessions. By now, most of us are familiar with this pattern: Trump makes big claims about what his tariffs can get, only for him to later back down without the other country giving up anything meaningful. It happened with Mexico, Canada and most of Trump’s “Liberation Day” levies. Despite his claims, America seems to need other countries’ trade as much as they need ours, diminishing Trump’s negotiating position. Today’s newsletter explains. Price hikes and shortages Here’s the problem: Trade is mutually beneficial. The buyer gets a good, and the seller makes a profit. The United States runs a trade deficit with China — it buys more than it sells — because Americans have the cash and want what China is selling. Trump’s tariffs on China were so high that they were effectively an embargo that threatened to end all of those mutually beneficial transactions. That would cover a lot of goods — more than 70 percent of smartphones, laptops and toys — as well as manufacturing materials, particularly rare earth metals used in modern electronics. Retailers warned that prices would rise and shelves would go empty. Markets tumbled. The hits to the economy weakened Trump’s negotiating position, and China knew it. Americans spent the last few years fuming about inflation and supply mishaps, and they would be furious if those problems continued. And unlike previous bouts of inflation that leaders could pin on the pandemic or the Ukraine war, this time it would clearly be Trump’s fault. So China took a patient approach. Let prices rise and markets fall, and eventually Trump would have to give in. That strategy worked, at least for now. What remains Trump still has time to get some concessions out of China, which does not want to lose its biggest global customer. The concessions could be small. In the past, countries have given Trump minor compromises in response to tariffs — enough for him to save face, essentially — as when Canada vaguely promised to step up border enforcement earlier this year. In the meantime, tariffs remain much higher than they were before Trump’s second term. When Trump ran for president, many economists warned that his promise of 10 percent tariffs on every other country would hurt the economy. Even after all of Trump’s backpedaling, a 10 percent universal tariff is still in place. Duties on specific goods, such as cars, are even higher. Prices on clothes, appliances, video game consoles and everything else made in other countries will likely rise as a result. For more The cut in tariffs on China is, for now, temporary. While some importers could rush to order Chinese goods, others may move more cautiously. Trade experts warned that 90 days may not be enough time to make substantial progress on the U.S. and China’s long list of trade disputes. America must reckon with two sides of China’s economy, Li Yuan writes: One is a technology superpower, and the other is struggling. INSIDE THE CONCLAVE In Rome, before the conclave. Murad Sezer/Reuters The most-clicked link in the newsletter yesterday was the remarkable inside story of how cardinals picked the new pope. It’s always a feat to get skittish officials to confide in reporters. Yet Times journalists persuaded many Vatican leaders (sworn to secrecy on pain of excommunication!) to share how they narrowed three front-runners down to a single obvious choice. I asked Jason Horowitz, our Rome bureau chief, how they reported it out. — Adam B. Kushner I thought deliberations inside the Sistine Chapel were sacrosanct! Nobody said, “I voted for X.” Nobody told us, “The tally was within 10 votes and then Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost crept up.” Nobody gave a level of granular detail that could get them in trouble. But we used a lot of shoe-leather reporting — tracking cardinals down, finding them on the phone, leaning on relationships built over years. Each gave us a small kernel of detail. The combination revealed a picture of what happened. We learned how Prevost avoided politicking at dinner on the conclave’s first night, how he held his head as the final votes were counted. What does the vow of secrecy cover, exactly? I think it’s like how Justice Potter Stewart described obscenity — you know it when you see it. I didn’t advise sources to cross an ethical line. One cardinal said it happened on the fourth vote, and maybe that stretches the rules. But it’s just that we spoke to so many people that we could piece it together. It was more the collective work than one revelatory interview. THE LATEST NEWS Trump in the Middle East Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Doug Mills/The New York Times Trump landed in Saudi Arabia this morning, his first stop in a four-day tour of the Gulf. He’s told advisers that he wants to sign deals worth more than $1 trillion on the trip. The president is expected in Qatar tomorrow. He plans to accept a jumbo jet from the country’s royal family, an example of how his second term is blowing through guardrails around public service, Charlie Savage writes. Government Overhaul The Energy Department is set to repeal efficiency rules for household appliances. That's likely to increase consumers’ energy costs, experts say. The Agriculture Department will restore climate change information that it had removed from its website, after farmers and environmental groups sued. Trump named Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, as acting librarian of Congress. But staff members refused access to two of his team, saying Congress must have input on the appointment. More on the Trump Administration The government asked the Supreme Court to let it deport nearly 200 Venezuelans it accuses of gang membership. The court blocked the deportations in an emergency ruling last month. The Trump family’s bitcoin company announced plans to go public. Elon Musk’s tunneling firm, the Boring Company, is in discussions with the government to help with a multibillion-dollar Amtrak project. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went swimming with his grandchildren in a Washington creek contaminated by sewer runoff. International Edan Alexander with his parents. Israeli Government, via Reuters Hamas released the last living American hostage it held in Gaza. Mediators brokered a deal between the group and the U.S. that largely circumvented the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority said it would lift a ban on Al Jazeera in the West Bank. It had accused the Qatar-funded broadcaster of inciting sedition. Dozens of white South Africans claiming discrimination arrived in the U.S. after the Trump administration granted them refugee status. India and Pakistan are in talks to extend their cease-fire. A Paris court found the movie star Gérard Depardieu guilty of sexual assault. Other Big Stories Near Santa Fe. Ramsay de Give for The New York Times Many people released from the Santa Fe jail must walk along a dangerous highway to get back to town. Five have died in the past decade. Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, asked hundreds of cities and towns to ban homeless encampments. Cities in Illinois are using crime-free housing programs to oust families for minor infractions, an investigation by The Times and The Illinois Answers Project found. BOY PROBLEMS Young men are struggling, and we wanted to figure out just how badly and why. Boys enter kindergarten lagging behind girls in both academic readiness and behavior. A majority of teenagers agree that boys are more disruptive. Large shares say girls get better grades, have more leadership roles and speak up more in class. Note: Survey conducted Sept. 18-Oct. 10. Home-schooled teens were not included. Shares of respondents who did not offer an answer are not shown. Source: Pew Research Center The New York Times In interviews, young men say that school never felt like a good fit for them, or that they got the sense that teachers didn’t like boys, and that this left them feeling discouraged or undervalued. By high school, girls are more likely to graduate on time — and more likely to go to college. Note: Individuals ages 16-24 are counted here if enrolled in a two- or four-year college by October in the year of their high school graduation or equivalent. Source: National Center for Education Statistics The New York Times Young men are struggling in their mental health and transitions to adulthood, too. What’s going on here? I’m reporting a series on boys, the first installment of which published today. I’d love to hear your experiences and insights about what’s going on with boys, and what might be driving it. Tell The Times what you think here. — Claire Cain Miller OPINIONS Trump’s attempt to defund a lecture on freedom in Denmark by Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia professor, shows that no program is safe, the professor writes. Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on Trump’s second nominee for surgeon general. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS Don Pettit/NASA Rivers, wildfires, lightning: A NASA astronaut recently spent 220 days at the International Space Station, where he captured the wonders visible from space. See his photos. TikTok stars: Oliver Widger quit his job, cashed in his 401(k) and bought a boat. Now he and his cat, Phoenix, are sailing around the world. Trending online yesterday: The rapper Tory Lanez was stabbed 14 times in a California prison. Lanez is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion. Lives Lived: Robert Shapiro was a law professor who became a brash corporate executive. He performed a marketing miracle by branding aspartame as the sugar substitute NutraSweet. Shapiro died at 86. SPORTS N.B.A. Draft: The Mavericks won the league lottery and could draft Cooper Flagg. N.B.A.: The Knicks and Timberwolves are up 3-1 after wins over the Celtics and Warriors. N.H.L.: Edmonton and Carolina are both one win away from the conference finals. ARTS AND IDEAS Untz untz untz. David Billet for The New York Times Electronic dance music is back. Festival lineups are filled with D.J.s, while the biggest names in pop — including Beyoncé and Charli XCX — have made albums inspired by dance. No one style of the genre has surged in popularity over the others: hard techno, drum and bass, Afro house and U.K. garage are all finding audiences. Read more about the renaissance — and the forces fueling it. Related: Want to get in on the scene? See where to club, which artists to follow and what songs to hear. More on culture “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” returns to Hulu this week. The Cannes Film Festival, in response to a sheer dress trend, has banned nudity on its red carpet, The A.P. reports. The football coach Bill Belichick, 73, cheered on Jordon Hudson, his 24-year-old girlfriend, at a beauty pageant in Maine. Sean Combs’s federal trial began. Prosecutors accused the mogul of a pattern of sexual coercion and of using his inner circle to facilitate abuse. Jon Stewart joked about Qatar giving Trump a plane: “He’s like the reverse Oprah: ‘I get a jet! And that’s it.’” THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich. Make Ina Garten’s perfect roast chicken. She calls it “the world’s easiest dinner.” Experience more joy. Here are three tips. Clean your suede jacket. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was unboxing. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Correction: Saturday’s newsletter misstated the streaming service that airs “Poker Face.” It is Peacock, not Netflix. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 15, 2025 Author Members Posted May 15, 2025 May 14, 2025 Good morning. Trump is visiting the Gulf. Some Israeli officers privately say Gaza is on the brink of starvation. And Harvard expanded its lawsuit against the government. More news is below. But first, we take a look at the Trump family’s business deals. Trump’s children at his inauguration. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Enrichment By Eric Lipton I’m an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau. Now that President Trump is back in office, his family is profiting from his brand: At least $2 billion has flowed to Trump companies in just the last month. The ventures include real estate, a cryptocurrency and a private club slated to open in Washington with a $500,000 membership fee. Now, Qatar may give him a new presidential airplane. The ethical mess is obvious. Trump is both the commander in chief and a business partner of foreign governments in Serbia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The White House says his sons run his companies, so there’s no conflict. Legally, that’s true. But Trump is still getting rich (or richer) from all of it. And that leaves incentives for the president to pay back his business partners with policy decisions designed to help them, which is how the law defines corruption. Today’s newsletter is a tour of the recent deals. Crypto $TRUMP is the family’s cryptocurrency, owned by the president and run by Donald Trump Jr. It has no inherent value beside what people will pay for it; the family describes it as a collectible — like a baseball card. But every time someone purchases a coin (currently worth about $13), the family gets a share. Recently, the president offered rewards. The top 220 buyers are invited to dinner with him next week at his Virginia golf club. The top 25 buyers also get a White House tour. The winners of the contest spent at least $174 million to buy $TRUMP coins. Through an investment firm, the United Arab Emirates put $2 billion into the Trump family’s new cryptocurrency outfit, World Liberty Financial. The company, whose leaders include Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., will make tens of millions of dollars per year from the investment. Real estate Eric Trump in Doha, Qatar. Bassam Masoud/Reuters Qatar chipped in to help finance a Trump-branded beachside golf and luxury villa project in the country worth $5.5 billion. (We don’t know how much it contributed.) The family will earn millions in licensing and management fees. A real estate firm in Saudi Arabia (with close ties to the country’s government) invested $1 billion in the Trump International Hotel and Tower project in Dubai. The same company is planning to build other new Trump hotels, golf courses and luxury towers in Saudi Arabia and Oman. These, too, are branding deals that will pay the Trumps millions of dollars for their name. During the Balkan wars, NATO bombed Yugoslavia’s Defense Ministry in Belgrade. Now Serbia’s president is leasing the land to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who will erect a Trump hotel on the site. Kushner’s private equity company — funded mostly by Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds — will help cover the $1 billion project. Other deals Plane: Qatar is planning to give a $400 million Boeing 747 aircraft to the president so he can use it as a temporary Air Force One. His presidential library will own the plane after his presidency, Trump says. Members’ club: Donald Trump Jr. and other investors say they will open the Executive Branch, a private social club, in Georgetown this summer. Its members will include lobbyists, tech industry bigwigs and a sprinkling of White House officials, such as David Sacks, who is Trump’s crypto czar. The cost to join: $500,000. Golf: LIV Golf, the new Saudi-backed golf league, hosted a professional tournament at Trump National Doral in Florida last month. The president arrived on a military helicopter to kick it off. The league is run by the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. It paid the Trump family an undisclosed fee to host the LIV tournament. The event also drove thousands of fans to the hotel resort, selling out its rooms and restaurants. Hotels: During Trump’s first term, dignitaries stayed at Trump properties and Republicans put on events there. These payments collectively were in the tens of millions of dollars. Payments like these have resumed. Groups like the Republican National Committee have put on events at the Doral resort and the Mar-a-Lago club, for instance. For more: Trump is pushing ethics guardrails. Republicans on Capitol Hill seem unlikely to challenge him. TRUMP VISITS THE GULF Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Doug Mills/The New York Times Below, Michael Shear, a Times correspondent, explores Trump’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Trump is visiting the Gulf and meeting with leaders across the region. It has so far been a friendly trip: Trump has shown a chumminess, even infatuation, with his counterparts in the Saudi royal family. Here are three reasons Trump seems to love Saudi Arabia: Gold, everywhere: I was in the group of reporters who traveled with Trump on his first trip to Saudi Arabia as president in 2017. The opulence was overwhelming. But it was clear that Trump, who has a famous preference for gilded architecture, loved it. This trip appears to be the same. As my colleagues wrote: “With its giant crystal chandeliers, polished marble, plush carpets and prominently displayed portraits of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi Royal Court had the feel of a Mar-a-Lago East.” Business deals: Trump’s trip to Riyadh is, essentially, one big boardroom meeting. The president has also proved over the years that he appreciates — maybe even envies — strong leaders who have few constraints on the exercise of power. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, certainly qualifies. Money: Finally, there is Saudi’s vast wealth, which comes largely from oil. In his speech yesterday, Trump bragged about the American economy, calling it the “hottest country” in the world. Then he stopped himself, looked at the crown prince, and laughed. “With the exception of your country,” he said. “You’re hotter. At least as long as I’m up here, you’re hotter.” For more On Trump’s agenda today is a summit in Saudi Arabia with leaders from six Arab countries. Follow our updates. Syria: Trump met with the Syrian president today, for the first time. It’s a remarkable rise for the leader of the rebel uprising that ousted Bashar al-Assad. Trump said the U.S. would lift sanctions on Syria. Iran: Trump said he wants a nuclear deal with Iran. Instead of dismantling its nuclear program, Iran has proposed a joint nuclear-enrichment venture involving Arab countries and U.S. investments. Israel: The president won’t meet with Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip, signaling a growing rift. Gaza: Some Israeli military officials have privately admitted that Gaza is facing widespread starvation. War in Ukraine: The president said he would also consider joining a potential meeting this week between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia. See photos of Trump’s tour so far. The late night hosts are also following the trip. THE LATEST NEWS Immigration Twenty states sued the Trump administration after it threatened to withhold billions of dollars unless they followed its immigration demands. A federal grand jury indicted a Wisconsin judge accused of helping an undocumented immigrant evade federal agents. The arrival of white South Africans in the U.S. as refugees highlights the contradictions of Trump’s immigration policies, Hamed Aleaziz and Michael Crowley write. Government Overhaul Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Eric Lee/The New York Times Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to defend Trump’s cuts to health agencies on Capitol Hill today. Rival nations hope to recruit researchers who have been cast aside by the U.S. The C.I.A.’s leaders once believed diversity programs would sharpen the agency’s competitive edge. Under Trump, it has moved to dismantle those programs. More on the Trump Administration Harvard expanded its lawsuit against the Trump administration, hours after the government cut another $450 million of its research funding. White House aides have discussed ideas to keep more parents at home with their children, including eliminating federal tax credits for day care. More on Politics A House hearing to consider Medicaid cuts turned raucous. Protesters shouted from the back of the room and lawmakers bickered. A federal judge took Rikers Island out of New York City’s control and ordered that an outside official be appointed to make major decisions about the dysfunctional jail. A new book from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, of Axios, offers an inside story of President Biden’s physical decline. The book reports that Biden did not recognize George Clooney, an old friend, and forgot the names of his advisers. Read six takeaways. Other Big Stories Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez in court in 1990. Nick Ut/Associated Press A judge resentenced Lyle and Erik Menendez to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, opening them a path for release. The brothers have spent over three decades in prison for killing their parents. Argentina found thousands of Nazi documents under its Supreme Court. The documents, impounded during World War II, could shed new light on Nazi activity in the country. Flooding in Maryland prompted the evacuation of an elementary school and dozens of water rescues. OPINIONS A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, defends a free and independent press. Three Yale professors who study fascism are fleeing the U.S. In this video, they explain why. Here’s a column by Jamelle Bouie on Trump and the rule of law. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS Introducing Guinea-Bissau’s biennale. Ricci Shryock for The New York Times Guinea-Bissau: This small West African country has virtually no art galleries, no art schools and little government funding for the arts. It just staged its first art biennale. Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s swim in a contaminated Washington creek. Trending online yesterday: Cassie, the singer who is an important witness in Sean Combs’s federal trial, gave her opening testimony. Read takeaways. Lives Lived: As president of Uruguay, José Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla fighter, was known for his brash charisma and his modest way of life. Mujica died at 89. SPORTS M.L.B.: The league removed Pete Rose from the sport’s permanently ineligible list. Many people welcomed the decision. N.B.A.: The Cavaliers’ magical season is over after they lost 114-105 to the Indiana Pacers in Game 5. Boston Celtics: Jayson Tatum is likely to miss most of next season after tearing his Achilles' tendon. It could alter the course of the franchise. ARTS AND IDEAS Graham Dickie/The New York Times In the last three years, Joe McCallen has traveled about 100,000 miles in a tricked-out Honda. McCallen, 63, works for Google Street View, and his travels have allowed him to see the northern lights and to strike up deep conversations with strangers in rural diners. He recently let a Times reporter join him for a ride. More on culture One man spent more than $12,000 to be Gene Simmons’s roadie. The Times followed his (very expensive) day of work. This week, Dwyane Wade will guest edit Players, a new magazine dedicated to athletes and style. “You can’t think about fashion without thinking of athletes now,” he told The Times. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop Stylist: Sophia Eleni Pappas. Make a French lentil salad for the days ahead. (Its flavor changes as it marinates.) Book a last-minute trip. Go plastic-free. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was zoological. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 17, 2025 Author Members Posted May 17, 2025 May 15, 2025 Good morning. Trump, on his tour of the Gulf, said the U.S. would stop giving the Middle East “lectures on how to live.” Satellite imagery reveals the damage in the fighting between India and Pakistan. Researchers have found a secret message in Barbie’s feet. More news is below. But first, we explain the tax bill in Congress. Tax and spending cuts Speaker Mike Johnson Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times By German Lopez I write for The Morning. Congressional Republicans are currently working on what President Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill.” House committees pulled all-nighters yesterday to advance several pieces of his agenda. The legislation takes on two of Trump’s priorities: tax cuts and immigration funding. But to pay for them, Republicans are looking for other programs to slash — most contentiously, those that help low-income Americans, particularly Medicaid and food stamps. The bill still needs to pass the House and the Senate, so it’s subject to change. For now, here’s what’s in it: Tax cuts: The legislation extends the parts of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire. This would cut nearly everyone’s taxes to some degree, but about half the cost of the extension is cuts for people who make $400,000 or more a year. The proposal also includes an expansion of the child tax credit and temporary tax breaks on tips and overtime pay. Medicaid: Changes to the health insurance program would leave around eight million Americans uninsured. The bill says that poor, childless adults must work at least 80 hours every month to qualify. It would also require beneficiaries to pay more fees and complete more paperwork to prove they are eligible for Medicaid. Supporters say these measures would help root out waste and fraud. Critics say the bill effectively cuts support for the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich. Immigration: The bill would increase funding to help build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and crack down on illegal immigration. Clean energy: Joe Biden enacted hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for electric vehicles and other clean energy initiatives. Republicans would phase out most of that money. And more: The bill would also make states pay more for food stamps, which could force them to cut benefits for poor Americans. It would create “MAGA” savings accounts for newborns, starting them out with $1,000 and letting parents contribute $5,000 per year tax-free until a child turns 31. It would raise taxes on colleges and universities. It would increase military spending. It would repeal Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. And those are only some of the biggest items. (The Washington Post broke down other elements of the bill.) One unanswered question: Will the bill pass? Republicans are divided. Fiscal conservatives say the legislation doesn’t cut enough spending; it would add trillions to the debt over 10 years. But moderates and populists on the right argue that the bill already cuts too much. They say the Medicaid changes, in particular, could hurt working-class Americans, many of whom have started voting Republican but could walk away from the party if it slashes their benefits. For more The cuts could give Americans cash back. But they would likely only last for a few years, until Trump is set to leave office. These charts show how Republicans can pass Trump’s fiscal agenda with no Democratic support. TRUMP’S CHOSEN REFUGEES White South Africans. Joao Silva/The New York Times On his first day in office, President Trump stopped the United States from taking in refugees. But he left a carve-out for South Africans, who he falsely says are the victims of genocide. This week, the first planeload of them arrived. Can Trump choose one population of refugees over others? I asked Hamed Aleaziz, who covers immigration in Washington. — Adam B. Kushner This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. Does the president decide who qualifies as a refugee? No. The law says applicants have to “fear persecution” in their home countries. And there’s a ceiling on how many the United States can admit every year. Trump merely directed the government to process would-be Afrikaner immigrants as refugees. He said on Monday that he had “essentially extended citizenship” to them. Is that true? Not yet, but they’re on a pathway that eventually leads to citizenship. Refugees can apply for a green card after a year. Then they have to wait for several years to naturalize. So it’s not automatic. And as we’ve learned in recent months, people can still be picked up by ICE and deported even if they have a green card. He also called them victims of “genocide.” Why? Is there even a genocide in South Africa? Our reporting hasn’t shown that, no. But Trump believes white South Africans have been persecuted by their government. So were the Afghans in the United States as refugees, yet Trump ended their protection from deportation. Administration officials say that’s because the Afghans weren’t properly vetted for national security. Related: The New Yorker reports that human-rights groups — and even other Afrikaners — have rejected Trump’s claims. “We are not victims, there is no genocide,” one man wrote. More on immigration Trump has been talking about granting asylum to white South African farmers for years. Read the inside story of how it happened. A federal judge ordered the release of a Georgetown academic, an Indian national, whom the government arrested in March over his support of Palestinians. Government lawyers want to deport a Harvard scientist to Russia. She fears being arrested there because she has a history of political protest. THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine Ukrainian and Russian delegations have arrived in Turkey before a possible round of talks to end the war between the countries. Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky and even Trump have all flirted with attending. It’s not clear if they will. It’s been a chaotic morning: Journalists are racing to figure out what is happening, our colleague Anton Troianovski said. Follow the latest updates. Trump’s Gulf Trip President Trump in Doha, Qatar. Doug Mills/The New York Times Qatar gave Trump a lavish welcome on the second day of his Middle East trip. He admired the marble used in the royal court, saying, “This is what they call perfecto.” During his visit, Trump announced that Qatar Airways planned to buy 210 Boeing jets for $96 billion. In Saudi Arabia, Trump denounced Western intervention and nation-building and said the U.S. would no longer give the Middle East “lectures on how to live.” Today, he’s expected in the United Arab Emirates. Politics In Congress. Eric Lee/The New York Times At a congressional hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clashed with Democrats who accused him of illegally cutting funding for medical research. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, will move control over the president’s daily intelligence brief from the C.I.A. to her office. Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, wants to reduce health care coverage for undocumented immigrants. The argument that the 14th Amendment does not grant birthright citizenship has moved from the fringes of academia to the White House. Today, the Supreme Court will consider it. Other Big Stories India and Pakistan talked a big game about their recent strikes on each other. But satellite images show limited damage. Overdose deaths in the U.S. plummeted last year. (They soared during the pandemic.) Casandra Ventura, the singer and model known as Cassie, testified that Sean Combs had beaten, raped and tried to blackmail her during their yearslong relationship. A masked man shot and killed a 23-year-old influencer in Mexico while she was livestreaming on TikTok, prosecutors said. NEW YORK’S QUIETER STREETS In January, New York City began charging drivers to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. The tolls — known as congestion pricing — have improved city life in just a few months. For one, car crashes are down: Source: N.Y.P.D. | Chart shows crashes from Jan. 1 through April 22 of each year. | By The New York Times And average driving speeds are up: Source: N.Y.C.D.O.T. | Chart includes data from January through April 19/20 for each year. | By The New York Times The Times analyzed more than a dozen other data points, including commute times, public transit ridership and traffic noise complaints, that show the effects of congesting pricing. Sign up for New York Today, The Times’s daily newsletter about life in New York City. OPINIONS Tensions between India and Pakistan show that the Trump administration’s isolationist stance is out of touch with the world’s nuclear reality, W.J. Hennigan writes. Here’s a column by Ross Douthat on right-wing art. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS hitandrun Mental load: Can a $700 calendar save your marriage? Classroom assistant: Some college professors use ChatGPT. Some students think they’re hypocrites. Art flop: When a bronze head by the master sculptor Alberto Giacometti failed to sell at Sotheby’s auction, the audience gasped. Read what happened. Social Q’s: “My husband and I separated. May I request different tables at a wedding?” Health: Your hearing can get worse as you age. Here’s how to protect it. Drink of the summer? A jalapeño sauvignon blanc, according to TikTok. Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked story yesterday was about Yale professors who study authoritarianism leaving the country. Lives Lived: Richard Garwin was a leading architect of America’s hydrogen bomb. He advised a dozen presidents, and his research also laid the groundwork for such computer and medical marvels as magnetic resonance imaging, high-speed laser printers and touch-screen monitors. He died at 97. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Celtics remain alive after trouncing the Knicks while facing elimination. The Warriors lost their Game 5 to the Timberwolves and are going home. Read a playoffs recap. Trending online: People were searching for Luke Kornet after his standout game for the Celtics. N.H.L.: Edmonton heads to the Western Conference final after beating Las Vegas in an overtime thriller. N.F.L.: The league released its 2025-26 schedule. See the biggest games. ARTS AND IDEAS Barbies for sale. Mario Tama/Getty Images In the Barbie movie, Margot Robbie frets over having flat feet. But were they actually a sign of her empowerment? In the early decades of Barbie, 100 percent of the dolls had arched feet. In the last four years, only 40 percent did. Researchers have found that dolls with jobs — like a doctor or a lawyer — were far more likely to have flat feet, while fashion-focused ones were more likely to have the extreme arch. Read more about the study. More on culture Max, the streaming service once known as HBO Max, is calling itself HBO Max again. Late night hosts joked about Trump’s potential jet from Qatar. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Mark Weinberg for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Michelle Gatton. Drizzle condensed milk over custardy Hong Kong-style French toast. Deal with a pimple emergency. Create your own multiday cooking course in Mexico City. Buy a thoughtful housewarming gift. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were headpin, pinhead and pinheaded. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. Has your company changed its D.E.I. policies? The Times wants to hear from you. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 19, 2025 Author Members Posted May 19, 2025 May 16, 2025 Good morning. A strike has halted New Jersey Transit trains, disrupting commutes into New York City. Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are expected to begin today. Pope Leo’s childhood house will be auctioned. More news is below. But first, we’re covering an argument over judicial power at the Supreme Court. Outside the Supreme Court. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times The courts’ power By German Lopez I’m a writer for The Morning. Yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing was ostensibly about whether President Trump can end birthright citizenship. But the arguments focused on a different issue: Can a single lower-court judge block the president’s policies across the whole country? Despite precedent, the administration says no. It wants to limit the judicial branch’s ability to check the president, even beyond immigration. This is not a partisan issue. Democratic politicians have also complained that lower courts have too much power. At yesterday’s hearing, the justices didn’t divide along ideological lines. Today’s newsletter walks through the arguments around universal injunctions. What’s this debate about? After Trump signed his order ending birthright citizenship, various groups sued to stop his policy. But courts can take years to go through filings, hearings and appeals. In the meantime, Trump could block tens of thousands of newborns from getting citizenship. Judges often deal with this situation by telling an administration: Don’t enforce your policy until the issue has worked through the courts. And, increasingly, lower courts have applied their pauses to the whole country, not just one jurisdiction. Federal District Court judges in Maryland, Washington state and Massachusetts each stopped Trump’s birthright citizenship ban nationwide. Presidents from both parties have said this process makes it too easy for random jurists to block their agendas. There are more than 600 District Court judges. With so many options, plaintiffs can almost always find a sympathetic ear. What’s the fix? This question doesn’t have an easy answer, and it consumed much of yesterday’s hearing. The administration said courts should apply injunctions only to the individual who brought the case. So if an undocumented mother sued to stop the birthright citizenship ban, a judge could grant her child — and only her child — citizenship. That would place a huge burden on the public and the courts. Potentially millions of people would all have to hire lawyers and file lawsuits to protect their rights. A group could come together in a class-action lawsuit, but forming a class can be a time-consuming, difficult legal process. These individuals could still appeal their case to the Supreme Court, which would retain the power to impose nationwide injunctions. But only losers can appeal a case. What if the plaintiffs never lose in lower courts? (So far, the birthright citizenship plaintiffs haven’t.) An administration could choose not to appeal — to avoid setting a precedent it doesn’t like and to keep the burden on individuals. The justices could compromise. One suggestion is to limit universal injunctions to specific circumstances, such as when a case involves constitutional questions (as opposed to, say, disputes about how to interpret a regulation). Some lawmakers called for letting only three-judge panels impose universal injunctions. What’s next? The Supreme Court will likely rule in a month or two. If the justices decide against Trump, the injunction on his birthright citizenship ban will remain. If the court rules in his favor, it could empower him to carry out his agenda, on immigration and other issues, with fewer obstacles. For more: The Times is tracking this year’s major Supreme Court decisions. RUSSIA VS. UKRAINE At Pope Francis’ funeral, in a handout photo from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Officials from Russia and Ukraine are expected to meet today to discuss the possibility of a cease-fire. Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, explains the stakes. Trump has not delivered the quick peace in Ukraine that he promised on the campaign trail. But neither has he sold the country out to Russia, as experts feared he might do after several warm chats with and about Vladimir Putin. Today, pushed by Trump, negotiators from Kyiv and Moscow are set to meet in Turkey — in what would be the first time they’ve faced each other publicly since the spring of 2022. Here’s what to know. What’s on the table? Ukraine wants a 30-day cease-fire and an exchange of prisoners. Russia wants concessions before it stops fighting. In 2022, the two sides drafted a peace agreement that would bar Ukraine from joining NATO. But Russia wanted more, such as making Russian an official language in Ukraine; Volodymyr Zelensky refused. His negotiating position is weaker now: Trump doesn’t see Ukraine’s fight as a core American interest, while Russia’s military has recovered from the disastrous early weeks of its invasion. How aligned are Trump and Putin? Trump repeats pro-Russian talking points, such as the falsehood that Ukraine started the war. But he hasn’t tipped the scales yet. Putin wants Ukraine to cede a large swath of territory it still controls — and to cap the future size of its military. The Trump administration has refused to go along. Still, it remains possible that Trump will cut a deal with Putin over Ukraine’s head; he predicted yesterday that “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together.” How do Trump and Zelensky stand now? In February, Trump berated Zelensky in front of the press during a meeting in the Oval Office. But the two men seem to have patched things up. They had a drama-free meeting at the funeral of Pope Francis in April. Days later, Ukraine signed a deal giving the United States control over a share of its future mining revenue. At the same time, Trump is losing patience with Putin. The Russian leader has talked to Trump twice on the phone since February and held four hourslong meetings with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy and close friend. Yet Russia hasn’t budged from demands that even Trump aides see as delusional. THE LATEST NEWS New Jersey Transit New Jersey is experiencing its first statewide transit strike in more than 40 years. Engineers are striking in a dispute over pay. The state’s rail network is shut down. The strike will leave tens of thousands of commuters scrambling for other ways to reach their jobs. Here are other ways to travel. Trump’s Middle East Trip Trump is finishing his tour and meeting with business leaders in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Trump has been making deals that could give Gulf nations A.I. computing power. Some say he’s trading away America’s advantage. Across his four-day trip, Trump has delivered a consistent message to Syria, Iran and other former foes: He’ll set the past aside in the interests of peace and profit. More on Politics Trump’s major policy bill is in peril: Two Republicans said they would not vote to advance it because it would add too much to the deficit. The U.S. continues to expand its military presence at the southwestern border. It has deployed spy planes, warships and thousands of troops. Trump is planning an extravagant military parade on his birthday, June 14, which is also the Army’s 250th anniversary. Top donors have been promised a “V.I.P. experience,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Attorney General Pam Bondi sold at least $1 million worth of shares in Trump’s media company on the same day that Trump announced expansive tariffs that sent markets plummeting. Lawmakers from both parties have pushed back on Trump’s attempt to install one of his loyalists as the acting head of the Library of Congress. The Trump administration fired hundreds of Voice of America employees. Israel-Hamas War Since March, the Israeli military has razed extensive parts of Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip where a million Palestinians sought refuge last year. Hamas cheered the fatal shooting in the West Bank of an Israeli woman who was on her way to give birth. Her baby survived. Ben Cohen, a founder of the ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s, interrupted a Senate committee hearing to protest the war in Gaza. More International News Mount Everest Lakpa Sherpa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Four men want to scale Everest in one week using a special gas. Their trip has started a controversy in the climbing community, The Washington Post reports. The British police charged a Ukrainian man with arson in connection with fires at properties linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Other Big Stories In the Chicago suburbs. Carlos Osorio/Reuters Pope Leo’s childhood home will be sold to the highest bidder in an online auction. A house flipper bought it before Leo became pope and is expected to make a windfall. Walmart warned that it might soon start raising prices because of Trump’s tariffs. Tiffany Slaton, 28, vanished for three weeks in the Sierra mountains in California. She was found at a cabin, waiting out a blizzard. When her mother got the call in a store, she said she “just grabbed somebody and said, ‘Can I hug you?’” A BREAKTHROUGH KJ Muldoon Muldoon Family Yesterday, the world learned about KJ Muldoon, an infant in Pennsylvania, the first patient to be saved by a new treatment: Doctors edited his DNA to correct a liver disorder. We’ve heard of gene therapy before — to fight sickle-cell anemia and cancer, for instance. How is this different? I asked Gina Kolata, the science reporter who broke the story. — Adam B. Kushner What’s new here? Other treatments don’t fix your broken DNA. We deal with sickle-cell anemia by adding good genes, but the mutated ones are still there. Same with hemophilia. We can coach your immune system to attack some cancers’ specific DNA. But doctors actually edited KJ’s genome to correct bad spelling. Now, his liver can process the ammonia that comes from digesting protein. Eating normal food won’t kill him. They injected a lipid that brought the molecular-editing machinery to his liver. Does that mean the gene mutation in each of his liver cells is now fixed? Probably not, though we don’t actually know! Doctors didn’t want to do an invasive biopsy to find out, but they can tell that he’s processing ammonia properly now, and that’s good enough. Anyway, you don’t have to fix every single cell — only enough to get the job done. OPINIONS Protecting public lands from urban development also protects America’s hiking trails, biological diversity and Indigenous inhabitants, Michelle Nijhuis writes. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on Joe Biden’s competence crisis and David Brooks on the difficulties of college students. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS In Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Giuseppe Cacace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Dazzled: People are obsessed with teamLab’s immersive art exhibitions. Travel: In the U.S., heightened immigration fears have made planning an international honeymoon unexpectedly complicated. Surprise: Harvard Law School paid $27 for what officials thought was a copy of Magna Carta. Turns out it was an original. Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was about an art auction at Sotheby’s that flopped. Trending online yesterday: People were searching for information about extreme weather in Michigan. Lives Lived: Charles Strouse was an accidental Broadway composer but one of the most prolific and honored, with hits like “Annie” and “Bye Bye Birdie,” earning him three Tony Awards. He also won a Grammy and an Emmy. He died at 96. SPORTS W.N.B.A.: An important season begins tonight. Caitlin Clark and other stars are set to break ratings records. N.B.A.: The Nuggets beat the Thunder to force a Game 7 in their second-round series. INTERNET DISPATCH Niklas Halle'n/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The internet can be weird and confusing. We asked readers what they wanted to know about strange things online. For each of the next few weeks, The Times’s internet culture reporter, Madison Malone Kircher, will answer one question. A reader from New Orleans asked: Is there any way to distinguish between authentic trends and those cooked up by companies or bots? A few years ago, an internet comedian named Sebastian Durfee started making videos to denounce the Porcelain Challenge, a phenomenon in which young people were supposedly grinding up fine china and snorting them like cocaine. Except nobody was actually doing that. Durfee was satirizing the way trends proliferate online with a fake challenge that he said was meant to be “easily debunked.” Sometimes it isn’t that easy. To spot a bogus trend, think about whether it is ridiculous or inflammatory. Then, see if you can locate the source: Has it been covered by a trusted personality or news organization? Can you find the first video ever posted about the trend? (On TikTok, you can click on a particular sound clip and the app will show you the first video to use the audio. This can help, though it’s not foolproof.) Does the source appear to be a regular person who just happened to go viral? When a catchy song about a little orange fish became inescapable earlier this spring, you could trace it back to a French duo. Brands participate in memes, but often ones that are falling out of vogue. Nothing sucks the fun out of a shared online experience like a company glomming onto it for profit. The same is true of reporters who explain online trends. I’m not innocent here! More on culture Saou Ichikawa is Japan’s first severely disabled author to win a top literary prize. Her novel “Hunchback” is an angry cry against ableism. She spoke with The Times. Late night hosts joked about Trump’s plans for a parade on his birthday. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Andrew Purcell for The New York Times Layer jammy strawberries over this unfussy cake. Spend 36 hours in Rome. Organize your chaotic Tupperware cabinet. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were checkmate and matchmake. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Note: Wednesday’s Spelling Bee was intended to have three pangrams. Because of a bug, only two, pinhead and pinheaded, made it into the live version. Headpin was omitted. Since a fix would erase players’ progress, New York Times Games has opted to leave the puzzle and grid as is. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 20, 2025 Author Members Posted May 20, 2025 May 17, 2025 Good morning. Spring cleaning clears out space in our homes and heads. How will we fill it? María Jesús Contreras Spring fling By Melissa Kirsch It’s the time of year when we become reacquainted with what’s been hiding out in the back of the closet. The weather’s turning, necessitating an unearthing, a rediscovery of clothes that have been hanging there silently, awaiting their turn. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, at the back end of May, there are gradually — almost begrudgingly — more warm days than cool ones. One day soon you’ll hang up your coat for the last time and won’t think about it again until fall. I’ve been taking bags of clothes to the thrift store, stuff that I’ve hung onto for too long, that’s been occupying hangers and drawer space and head space. It feels good to part with things, to get that real estate back in both my apartment and my brain. No longer must I have a conversation with that green jacket every time I open the hall closet, no longer is it part of the consideration set. Get rid of enough old things and you can almost see your life a little more clearly. You think those old polo shirts are just sitting there, not harming anyone, but once they’re gone, there’s just less to contemplate. My friend Minju told me she was cleaning out her closet recently and happened upon that big box of loose snapshots anyone who came of age before digital cameras has hiding in the recesses of their storage nook. She pulled the box down from the shelf and began going through them, photos of her as a child, in high school and college, old pictures of her family. She’d always planned to “do something” with the pictures, as we all do, but what? Put them in an album? Digitize them so they’ll be captured on our devices with the rest of our cloud-contained archives? Deciding she wanted to keep the photos close at hand so she’d actually look at them, Minju selected a bunch to put in a basket in her living room. Now, when she’s sitting on the couch, instead of scrolling on her phone, she might pick up the stack of photos. When visitors come over, they might flip through them. Spring cleaning airs things out, replaces stacks of rarely worn sweaters with room to maneuver. It feels good to get rid of things, but it also feels good to purposefully decide what to fill the space with. What else are we storing in closets and crawl spaces, out of sight and mind, that we’d like to have present in our everyday lives? The old pictures, the love letters, the postcards and birthday cards and childhood artwork and binders full of mix CDs, maybe shoeboxes full of mix tapes. All those things we saved to do something with someday. What might we do with them now? THE LATEST NEWS Trump Administration Eric Lee/The New York Times The Supreme Court extended the ban on the Trump administration’s use of a wartime law to deport Venezuelans while a lower court re-examines the case. After intelligence agencies undercut the White House’s justification for deporting Venezuelan migrants, a Trump appointee told an intelligence official to redo the assessment. The Department of Homeland Security is considering taking part in a reality TV show that would have immigrants go through a series of challenges to win American citizenship. Senate Democrats oppose more than $3 billion in proposed weapons sales to Qatar and the U.A.E., saying those countries have cultivated inappropriate financial ties to Trump. Several Republicans blocked their party’s megabill from advancing because they said it would add too much to the deficit. Other Big Stories At least four people were killed after a tornado struck St. Louis, leaving a trail of collapsed buildings, uprooted trees and downed power lines. Ten inmates escaped from a New Orleans jail after removing a toilet from the wall. Officials say they believe the inmates may have had help from jail workers. The ratings firm Moody’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating. The new rating could raise borrowing costs for consumers, though similar downgrades in the past proved mostly symbolic. A bronze statue of Melania Trump, erected near her hometown in Slovenia, was chopped off at the feet and stolen, the police said. Ed Smylie, who led the team of NASA engineers that devised a way to save the Apollo 13 crew with duct tape, died at 95. HARVARD AND THE GOVERNMENT Linda McMahon, the education secretary. Erin Schaff/The New York Times Linda McMahon, the education secretary, says she wants to end the Trump administration’s standoff with Harvard. The government accidentally sent the university an ultimatum last month: It had to make a raft of changes — enforcing political neutrality in its classrooms and syllabuses, for instance — or forfeit government support. Harvard sued, and the government has canceled billions in research grants. I sat down with McMahon in her office yesterday and asked how she could patch things up and what else she wants to achieve. Read about the interview here. Below is one exchange, condensed and edited for clarity. — Michael C. Bender Are we witnessing a divorce between Harvard and the federal government? No, that’s definitely not the goal. The goal is to … make sure [students] have the right skills that they need. The government has a half-dozen investigations of Harvard. Is there anything it could do to reopen negotiations? The first step would be: Let’s sit down and have a conversation. Let’s talk. Has the administration asked for that? It’s a little bit hard to have open negotiations when we’ve got a lawsuit pending. When you’re sitting and talking, do you have to have all your lawyers present? Has the push against Harvard been a success? Is the administration winning here? We did see the head of Middle Eastern Studies changed. … And I think that [Harvard President Alan Garber] is saying, We are moving in the directions that you want us to move in. He has made some changes around student discipline and managing protests. Yeah, and all that is good. And I think we have forced their hand to do that, because they weren’t doing it before. And so I think we have forced other universities to see that the president was serious with what he said. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Art Alberto Giacometti’s “Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego).” Succession Alberto Giacometti/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; via Sotheby's A bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti was supposed to be the star of New York’s spring art auctions. Instead, the sale was a failure. A show at the Museum of Modern Art features dozens of never-before-exhibited botanical watercolors by Hilma af Klint. Amy Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama brought her overnight fame. But, as a new exhibition at the Whitney proves, her usual style is not painting power, but rather one-frame stories of ordinary people. Film and TV “The Final Reckoning” might be the last installment of the Tom Cruise-led “Mission Impossible” films. One of the sustaining pleasures of the franchise, Manohla Dargis writes, “has been its commitment to its own outrageousness.” Robert Benton, an influential director and screenwriter, died at 92. Benton collaborated on the screenplay for “Bonnie and Clyde” and wrote and directed “Kramer vs. Kramer.” “Friendship,” starring Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson, is just one of several recent indie tragicomedies that offer a complicated take on male friendship. Music A jam session at the Essentially Ellington festival. Gus Aronson for The New York Times For the past 30 years, Essentially Ellington has brought the world’s best high school jazz musicians to New York City. See some of this year’s performances. Many Beyoncé fans paid a premium to buy tickets for her Cowboy Carter tour when they were first released. Some are dismayed to see that tickets are still available, often at far cheaper prices. During a concert in England, Bruce Springsteen blasted the Trump administration as “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous.” The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. CULTURE CALENDAR Claude, a singer from the Netherlands. Martin Meissner/Associated Press By Desiree Ibekwe ? Eurovision: Tonight, in living rooms and bars all over Europe, people will be settling down to witness one of the weirdest and campiest nights in music: the Eurovision Song Contest final. The contest can be chaotic, so to make things a little clearer, I asked Alex Marshall, The Times’s European culture reporter, for a primer: Is there a favorite to win? This year’s Eurovision feels wide open even if the bookmakers say Sweden’s act — a comedy trio singing about saunas, who perform the song while sitting in a fake sauna — is easily going to win. There just isn’t one juggernaut track that’s already topping Europe’s pop charts. Are there any acts readers should look out for? My favorite entry is Finland’s Erika Vikman with “Ich Komme,” a lascivious disco-rock song that I’ve listened to about 500 times since it appeared. Vikman’s performance involves her standing atop a huge flying microphone that shoots fireworks out of one end. It’s exactly what Eurovision’s about. For more: Alex, along with Miriam Quick, analyzed the music and performances of every Eurovision winner since 2000 to figure out the secrets to the perfect Eurovision entry. (One secret: liberal use of pyrotechnics.) RECIPE OF THE WEEK Christopher Testani for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Chicken Alfredo Perfect to accompany all the spinach, asparagus and other May vegetables reaching their peak, Naz Deravian’s chicken Alfredo is a hearty take on the creamy classic. Seared boneless, skinless chicken breasts round out the Parmesan-laced pasta and add protein and heft. One thing to note: Be sure to use freshly grated cheese here; the pre-grated stuff often has additives that make it hard to emulsify smoothly into the sauce. Serve this with something green and fresh for an elegant springtime meal. T MAGAZINE Andrew Moore Click the cover above to read this weekend’s edition of T, The Times Style Magazine. A TRAVEL SLUMP, BY THE NUMBERS By Ceylan Yeğinsu After months of political and economic confusion around the Trump administration’s “America First” agenda, both international and domestic tourists are reconsidering their U.S. travel plans. This has led airlines, hotels and analysts to revise their forecasts downward for the summer season, as my colleague Christine Chung and I explain in a new story. Here are a few numbers that stood out in our reporting: 15.2 percent: The amount that travel from Canada fell last month, compared to a year earlier. It was the third straight month of declining travel, as many Canadians boycott the U.S. because of Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats. $12.5 billion: How much the tourism industry expects the U.S. will lose in international travel spending this year because of a decline in foreign travelers. 5.3 percent: The amount that airline ticket prices fell in March, compared to a year earlier, because of softening demand. REAL ESTATE Brody Touchet and Elizabeth King Zack Wittman for The New York Times The Hunt: A young couple with a $500,000 budget sought a starter home on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Which did they choose? Play our game. What you get for $400,000: A condo in Washington, D.C.; a 19th-century house in Saint Charles, Mo.; or a midcentury ranch-style house in Clemson, S.C. LIVING Making it work: As cremation rates rise, funeral homes are being forced to innovate. (One home put a man’s ashes in shotgun shells and planned a hunt in his honor.) Still not a hotel: Your next Airbnb may include room service. Ask Vanessa: “Can I wear a sheath dress without looking like a MAGA woman?” ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER Give a graduation gift they’ll actually like There are graduation gifts that instantly delight and thrill the recipient. Then there are the ones that might not be as flashy, but prove themselves over time. My graduation gift fell squarely into the latter category: a vintage Montblanc pen that failed to dazzle me as a teenager, but which eight years later I cherish (and actually use). Beyond pens, consider other buy-it-for-life pieces that grads might appreciate in their next phase, like good luggage or a solid set of tools. Wirecutter’s experts have ideas for both high school and college grads. And if all else fails: You can’t go wrong with cash. — Brittney Ho GAME OF THE WEEK Nikola Jokic, center, is covered by Alex Caruso. Isaiah J. Downing/Imagn Images, via Reuters Connect Denver Nuggets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder, N.B.A. playoffs: It’s Game 7 of this fierce, back-and-forth series, which features the two leading M.V.P. candidates: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder and Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets. The Thunder had a historically good season, beating opponents by an average of 12.9 points per game, the widest margin in league history. But they’re also inexperienced; the core of this Thunder team has never been to the finals, while the Nuggets won the title two years ago. Sunday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was blowpipe. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, 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. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 20, 2025 Author Members Posted May 20, 2025 May 18, 2025 Good morning. Pope Leo celebrated his inaugural Mass in St. Peter’s Square. A Mexican Navy sailing ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge. And tornadoes have killed at 27 people across the central United States. More news is below. But first, an interview with the publisher of The Times, A.G. Sulzberger, about journalism and democracy. Will Matsuda for The New York Times Free press, free people By Jodi Rudoren I’m The Times’s director of newsletters. Every day, this newsletter brings you the best of New York Times journalism — scoops, investigations, reports from inside war zones or natural disasters, interviews with powerful people and quirky characters, stories that help explain our messy, complicated, frustrating and occasionally delightful world. Sometimes we take for granted what makes that possible. The freedom to ask tough questions. To go where news is happening. To tell the truth even when it makes people mad. Last week, our publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, gave an important speech at the University of Notre Dame about how these freedoms of the press underpin our freedoms as people — how journalism helps hold up democracy. You can — and should! — read the whole thing here, but I also asked the big boss a few questions about it. We usually think of threats to journalists and state control of the media as the scourge of authoritarian societies. How can this be happening here, home of the vaunted First Amendment? There are two very different types of journalistic repression. The more dangerous and dramatic occurs in places like China and Russia, where journalists have their work overtly censored, or are even jailed or killed over it. But there is a subtler, more insidious, playbook for going after journalists in democracies. Selectively using investigatory or regulatory powers to punish journalists and news organizations, for example. Filing frivolous lawsuits against them. Targeting their owners’ unrelated business interests. The goal is to make it harder for journalists to ask questions they don’t want to answer or to make public things they would rather keep secret. You’re right that the United States has long seemed uniquely insulated from such pressures. Our country played a bigger role than any other in establishing a free press. It’s actually the only profession explicitly protected in the Constitution. And presidents of both parties have consistently championed press freedoms at home and around the world. Now, that tradition is at risk. By now, do you mean since President Trump returned to office? In his first term, President Trump complained about coverage and called news organizations every name in the book. Already in his second term, we’ve seen a meaningful shift from words to action. You could see that shift coming. Last fall, I wrote an essay in The Washington Post about how the press had been undermined in so-called eroding democracies like Hungary, India, Brazil and Turkey. It became clear that there was an unofficial playbook — and that people in Trump’s circles were studying it. Now it is unmistakably here. You shared a powerful story about a student journalist at Notre Dame who was critical of the university president. When that same journalist was kidnapped by North Vietnamese soldiers, the president — a priest named Father Ted — appealed to the pope for help getting him out. What moved you about this story? Because things like press freedom can feel abstract, I was looking for a human way to talk about accountability journalism. This student journalist was a real headache to the university — reporting things the administration definitely did not want out in the world. But the president still recognized the importance of his role. Father Ted seemed to understand implicitly that powerful people like him needed to be asked tough questions, even if it’s no fun. “We’re not the resistance,” you wrote. “We’re also nobody’s cheerleader.” Good sound bites. What do they mean? We’re independent. Our loyalty is not to any team. Our loyalty is to the truth and a public that deserves to know it. As it relates to the president, our job is to cover him fully and fairly. That doesn’t change if he calls us the “enemy of the people” or, for that matter, “a great, great American jewel.” This is a position that’s getting harder and harder to maintain, no? Yes, absolutely. We live in a moment of growing tribalism and polarization. Sadly, most media today make these divisions worse by telling each group what they want to hear. If you look at cable news or the podcast or newsletter ecosystems, that’s mostly what you’ll find. People parroting their group’s conventional wisdom or partisan talking points. Hyping convenient facts and downplaying inconvenient ones. And look, there is obviously a giant audience for all that. But I believe there is also a giant audience of people who want the full story, people willing to be challenged with information they didn’t expect or even want to hear. Our commitment to this model of independent journalism is the anchor of my family’s long history with The Times. My great-great-grandfather Adolph Ochs pledged in 1896 “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interests involved.” You still hear those words around the office. After you became publisher in 2018, you had what you’ve described as a “civil meeting” with President Trump in the Oval Office — two, actually. What would you tell him if you were invited back now? I felt it was important to push the president to understand that his attacks on the American press were actually making the work of journalism harder and more dangerous all over the world. I was not naïve enough to expect to change his mind. But I did want it on the record that he was warned about the consequences of his actions. That means everything he’s done since, he did fully aware that his words are being used to justify repression of journalists in places like Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Israel and elsewhere. He’s proud of popularizing the term “fake news.” Well, it’s been used since to justify crackdowns on journalists in dozens of countries. As to your more specific question, I’m not interested in social visits with the president. I’d rather he sit for an on-the-record interview with our reporters. What scares you the most about the current environment? The news industry is facing several giant challenges all at the same time. The collapse of the business model. The dominance of the tech giants over how people engage with information. A fractured and distrustful public. Now, on top of those challenges, we’re facing the most direct assault on the rights and legitimacy of journalists that we’ve seen in at least a century. So it’s the sheer volume of pressures that worries me, especially when so many news organizations, particularly local ones, are vulnerable. As you wrote in the piece, a record number of journalists have been killed or jailed in recent years. In the U.S., a third of newsroom jobs have disappeared since 2010, and newspapers are closing at the rate of a couple a week. So what gives you hope for journalism in these dire times? More than anything, I am encouraged by all the great journalism my colleagues are doing. Our reporters are running every day at full sprint to keep up with the incredible fire hose of news. I think that really matters, because everything this administration does should be put on the record. To be shared with the public. Information is power, right? And these reporters are also circling back to the major stories in that fire hose, to tease out what happened and why it matters, to illuminate patterns and expose misconduct. We have more investigative reporters at The Times now than at any time in our history. Our Washington bureau is much bigger. And these reporters are asking the tough questions every day to make sure that people in power are telling the truth, acting legally and serving the public interest. That’s why press freedom matters. It’s less about the right of the press to find stuff. It’s about the public’s right to know it. THE LATEST NEWS Pope Leo XIV In St Peter’s Square. Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Pope Leo celebrated his inaugural Mass before a crowd in St. Peter’s Square. “I was chosen, without any merit of my own, and now, with fear and trembling, I come to you as a brother,” he said in his homily. Several world leaders attended the mass, including Vice President JD Vance. Leo’s papacy will be a test of the strained relationship between the bishop of Rome and the American right wing, Elizabeth Dias writes. Short homilies, long drives and Vatican leadership: Read about Leo’s road to the papacy, as seen by his old friends. Trump Administration Voters were more likely to approve of Trump’s job performance if they weren’t following some of the major news stories of his first 100 days in office, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll found. Trump scolded Walmart after it warned that his tariffs would force it to raise prices. On social media he called on the retailer to “EAT THE TARIFFS.” Trump’s visit to the Gulf was a vivid demonstration that in Middle East diplomacy, he has all but sidelined Israel, Michael Shear writes. More on Politics Before Trump’s re-election, the group behind Project 2025 created a plan to dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, along with its support at schools and universities. As president, Joe Biden repeatedly rebuffed concerns about his age. A recently released recording of his 2023 interviews with a special counsel shows him exactly as a majority of Americans believed him to be, Lisa Lerer writes. International Trump said he would speak with Vladimir Putin tomorrow in an attempt to secure a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. Here’s where talks stand. Trump’s America is reuniting Europe: Five years after Brexit, Britain and the E.U. will meet tomorrow for a summit where they are expected to announce a defense deal. In India, during the recent conflict with Pakistan, falsehoods were everywhere — even in long-trusted media outlets. Other Big Stories In the East River. Dave Sanders for The New York Times A Mexican Navy sailing ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge, killing two crew members. See video of the crash from CNN. Tornadoes have ripped across the central U.S., killing at least 27 people in Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia. At least one person died after a bomb exploded outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs. An official called the explosion an “intentional act of terrorism.” THE SUNDAY DEBATE The Supreme Court heard arguments last week on whether a federal judge in a single district has the power to block a policy nationwide. Should judges have that power? No. Nationwide injunctions strike at the heart of the U.S. constitutional order and create economic chaos. The system “transforms courts into de facto legislatures, issuing national policy through preliminary injunctions,” Brandon Smith writes for The Hill. Yes. Nationwide injunctions preserve constitutional rights and prevent multiple judges from setting conflicting rules. “It’s odd for anyone concerned with efficiency and conserving public funds to complain about a single judge having national injunction power,” David Carrillo and Brandon Stracener write for The Los Angeles & San Francisco Daily Journal. FROM OPINION Trump is not the first U.S. politician to sell the prospect of influence to foreign governments, but Congress can make him the last, Casey Michel writes. Here are columns by Ross Douthat on Trump’s deal making and Maureen Dowd on the tragedy of Biden. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS Iris Legendre Believing: A poet traveled to the world’s holiest places, searching for a faith. Vows: She wrote about the “36 Questions That Lead to Love.” Now, she’s married. Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was about a couple who sought a Florida starter home for $500,000. Trending online yesterday: Austria won the Eurovision Song Contest. The singer was JJ, 24, an operatic countertenor; his vocal range resembles that of a female mezzo-soprano. Lives Lived: Steve Kiner was an All-American linebacker at the University of Tennessee who played for three N.F.L. teams. He became well known for his candor about his drug use. He died at 77. BOOK OF THE WEEK By Elisabeth Egan “Original Sin,” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson: Halfway through their measured, occasionally scathing indictment of the inner circle that fortified Biden until the final days of his candidacy, Tapper and Thompson recall a moment from the first presidential debate. Biden was flubbing answers, struggling to articulate basic facts about Covid and Medicare, when Tapper, who was moderating along with his CNN colleague Dana Bash, jotted a note on an iPad they were using to communicate with the control room. It said, “Holy smokes.” Minutes later, Bash passed Tapper a slip of paper that said, “He just lost the election.” This book unfolds around that note, exploring the slow build of a protective wall around Biden and the forces that tore it down. “Original Sin” comes from the perspective of seasoned journalists — Thompson is a national political correspondent for Axios — who told the story of the showdown as they struggled to make sense of it themselves. More on books: The “American Dirt” backlash nearly stifled Jeanine Cummins. Now she has a new book. THE INTERVIEW Philip Montgomery for The New York Times By David Marchese This week’s subject for The Interview is the historian and writer Rutger Bregman, whose new book, “Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference,” is an attempt to entice elites to give up their lucrative jobs and instead dedicate themselves to improving the world. Materialism is real. A desire for status is real. So how do you incentivize someone who might be tempted to go into a line of work that you see as morally vacuous to instead pick a career that is morally ambitious? If people desperately want to work for McKinsey and their main goal in life is to go skiing and have that cottage on the beach, fine. People have the right to be boring. But I think there are quite a few people who work at Goldman Sachs or Boston Consulting Group who are looking for a way out. Your book has this implicit idea that there is a deficit of moral ambition in the United States. I want to press on that. One could say that the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade was morally motivated. Or one could argue that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, was morally driven. So what would account for the possibility that moral ambition on the right seems to be more ascendant than on the left? That’s a good question. Ralph Nader in the late ’60s and the ’70s built this incredible movement of young people who were like: We’re not going to go work for some boring corporate law firm. We’re going to Washington to lobby for a good cause. At some point a third of Harvard Law School applied to work for Ralph Nader because it was the coolest thing you could do. Right wingers looked at that model very carefully. They built this huge network of think tanks. They built a network of 5,000 clerks and lawyers and did so many strategic lawsuits, and that all culminated in the Dobbs decision. That’s what it takes. Read more of the interview here. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Katy Grannan for The New York Times Read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Rediscover the mango. Match these famous quotes to their novels. Hang string lights outdoors. MEAL PLAN Kerri Brewer for The New York Times. Food Stylist. Cyd Raftus McDowell. The end of spring can bring a flurry of activity for both children and parents. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Margaux Laskey offers recipes that can be prepped fast and ahead of time, including sheet-pan chicken and tomatoes with balsamic tahini, spinach yogurt dip, and slow-cooker butter chicken. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were initialize and tantalize. Can you put eight historical events — including the first air traffic controller, the development of calculus, and the coining of “hello” and “goodbye” — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, 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. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 20, 2025 Author Members Posted May 20, 2025 May 19, 2025 Good morning. Biden has been diagnosed with cancer. Trump and Putin are expected to have a high-stakes call today to discuss the war in Ukraine. We’re also covering the latest from the federal trial against Sean Combs. Joe Biden, in April. AJ Mast for The New York Times Biden’s cancer Former President Joe Biden has an aggressive form of prostate cancer. It is Stage 4, the most deadly stage for the illness, and it has spread to his bones. It cannot be cured. However, his doctors may be able to manage the disease and extend his life. Research backed by the National Institutes of Health has improved survival rates. Some men whose prostate cancer has spread “can live five, seven, 10 or more years,” a doctor at Duke said. Read more about the disease. Diagnosis: Doctors found the cancer late last week after Biden, 82, attended an appointment to check on urinary symptoms. They discovered a small nodule on his prostate. Treatment: Biden will likely take a drug or injections that limit his testosterone. Responses: President Trump said on social media that he was saddened to hear of the diagnosis. Kamala Harris called Biden a “fighter.” His state as president: More details have emerged recently about Biden’s declining health in office, in a new book and in audio that reveals how frail he sounded late in his presidency. Listen to the audio, which was The Morning’s most clicked link yesterday. Family health: This isn’t the first public diagnosis for Biden. In 1988, he battled two brain aneurysms that threatened to end his political career. His son Beau died in 2015 from an aggressive form of brain cancer. As vice president, Biden led a “moonshot” initiative to find a cure for cancer. Douglas Wigdor, the attorney for Cassie Ventura. Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times The trial of Sean Combs By Julia Jacobs I have been reporting from the courthouse in Manhattan for the past week. Sean Combs, the rapper and producer known as Diddy, will return to a courtroom in Manhattan this morning. The charges he faces, which include racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, could put him in prison for life. The trial this week will focus on the testimony of former employees and other witnesses who were privy to Combs’s violent outbursts. But its most dramatic revelations may have emerged last week during the testimony of Casandra Ventura, a singer also known as Cassie who dated Combs on and off for 11 years. At the core of the case are “freak-offs,” voyeuristic sex marathons with male prostitutes that prosecutors say Combs coerced Ventura and another woman to participate in. Combs’s lawyers have argued that the government has twisted consensual sex with long-term girlfriends into serious federal charges. Though the trial is expected to last about seven more weeks, several early moments are likely to stick with jurors. In today’s newsletter, I’ll tell you about them. A relationship on trial Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, took the stand over four grueling days. She recounted the heady beginnings of her relationship with Combs and read aloud affectionate and sometimes sexually explicit texts she wrote to him throughout their relationship. But she also described a pernicious pattern of beatings that she said left her in a state of fear, as well as drug-fueled sex marathons that she said she participated in to avoid his anger or retaliation. “I just felt like it was all I was good for to him,” Ventura testified. Cassie Ventura in March. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Paramount+ ‘Disgusting’ and ‘overwhelming’ In a particularly arresting moment on the stand, she described an episode in which Combs — who she said was the sole director of freak-off activity — told an escort to urinate on her. Ventura: It was disgusting. It was too much. It was overwhelming. I choked. There couldn’t have been anything on my face that was reading that I wanted to be doing that. I was kind of just laid on the floor in a position that I couldn’t easily get out of, so — Prosecutor: Were you able to tell the escort to stop? Ventura: I just kind of put my hands up and eventually Sean saw and he told them to stop. Reams of text messages The jury saw a mountain of communications between the couple, some of which the defense presented as evidence that Ventura was a willing participant in the freak-offs. Two text messages between the couple ahead of a freak-off in 2016 were parsed at length. “So what you gonna do so I can plan the rest of my night,” Combs wrote to Ventura. “Baby, I want to FO so bad,” Ventura replied, using an abbreviation for freak-off. She wrote that she was conflicted because she did not want to mess up her body before an important movie premiere. The prosecution hopes her testimony will convince jurors that her outward enthusiasm was something of a facade to maintain calm in a relationship plagued by violence and control. An engaged defendant Dressed in a revolving set of crew-neck sweaters, his hair graying, Combs has appeared actively engaged in his own defense, writing notes to his lawyers on green Post-its. His family — including his mother and six adult children — have come to support him. Janice Combs, Sean Combs’s mother, outside court in Manhattan. Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times When court adjourned on Friday, the judge declared to a weary group of lawyers, “We made it through the first week.” Combs raised his right fist and shook it from the defendant’s chair. What’s next With Ventura, their star witness, off the stand, prosecutors will now look to build their broader racketeering case, in which they allege that Combs acted as the kingpin of a criminal enterprise that helped him commit kidnapping, arson, drug violations, bribery and other crimes. Prosecutors say that an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees conspired to abet Combs’s crimes over a 20-year period. The defense denies the existence of any criminal conspiracy. We’ll also hear from at least two other witnesses whom the government says Combs had coerced into sex. That could mean more emotional testimony about how the music mogul treated women. THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine Russia targeted Ukraine with one of its largest drone attacks of the war. Trump is expected to talk with Vladimir Putin at 10 a.m. Eastern about a cease-fire. Trump said he would speak to Volodymyr Zelensky afterward. Satellite images show that Russia is strengthening bases and building military infrastructure near its border with Finland. More International News An Israeli military vehicle near the border with Gaza. Ariel Schalit/Associated Press Israel said its forces have expanded ground operations in Gaza. It also said it would allow a basic amount of food into the enclave, weeks after halting aid deliveries. A centrist won Romania’s presidential election, defeating a Trump-aligned nationalist. The victory is an upset for surging nationalist forces in Europe. Britain and the E.U. struck a deal to lower trade barriers and increase military cooperation, a British official said. Trump Administration The House Budget Committee approved Trump’s stalled bill to cut taxes and spending. Republican hard-liners wanted deeper cuts, but relented — for now. Financial markets looked shaky early today. They’ve been calm since Trump paused his tariffs, but the U.S. has lost its last triple-A credit rating and investors worry about government debt. South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is expected to visit the White House this week, where he will try to improve his relationship with both Trump and Elon Musk. Other Big Stories On George Floyd Square in Minneapolis. Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times A makeshift shrine remains on the corner where a police officer murdered George Floyd. Here’s what officials, residents and his relatives believe the site should become. New Jersey’s first statewide transit strike in more than 40 years ended with a deal. Full service resumes tomorrow. Parts of the Midwest face strong winds and large hail today, as a result of a storm system that produced more than 20 tornadoes in the Great Plains yesterday. Surgeons in California performed the first human bladder transplant, a potentially life-changing procedure. The suspect in a bombing outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic died in the explosion, officials said. The authorities described him as having “nihilistic ideations.” OPINIONS Hiring federal workers across the United States, not just in Washington, is a good idea. But Trump is doing it wrong, David Fontana writes. Porn has a negative effect on society. Progressives should be allowed to admit it without being seen as right-leaning, Christine Emba writes. Here’s a column by Tressie McMillan Cottom on the tension at the heart of country music. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS In the Bronx. Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Grit and pride: The Bronx is a haven for high school girls’ wrestling. For some students, the sport offers class mobility. Fashion history: In the 1960s, Khadejha McCall dressed stars like Nina Simone. Now, her legacy sits in a storage unit. The A.I. future: Schools are embracing chatbots. So many meals: A Times restaurant critic wanted to know what her job had done to her gut. So she consulted some scientists. Metropolitan Diary: Formal attire on the Q train. Trending online yesterday: People were interested in the Mexican ship that crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge. Read about what went wrong. Lives Lived: The makeup artist Greg Cannom pulled off some of the most striking movie magic in recent decades — helping Christian Bale to turn into Dick Cheney in “Vice,” and Brad Pitt to age backward in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Cannom died at 73. SPORTS N.H.L.: The Panthers routed the Maple Leafs, 6-1, in Game 7. N.B.A.: Oklahoma City advanced to the conference finals with a surprising blowout win over Denver, thanks to a swarming defense. W.N.B.A.: The league is investigating allegations of hateful comments from the stands against the Sky center Angel Reese during her game against the Fever. ARTS AND IDEAS The New York Times The Times asked several creative people, including actors, comedians and musicians, about how they warm up before their gigs. The Emmy-winning actor Jeff Daniels says “budda-gudda” a lot. Sarah Sherman of “Saturday Night Live” listens to some David Bowie. And Gene Simmons of Kiss enjoys the sounds of 1960s girl groups to get into his “Demon” alter ego. Read about more rituals here. More on culture Jesse Green, The Times’s chief theater critic, saw all 42 Broadway productions eligible for Tonys this year. Here are the plays he thinks should win. Harvey Weinstein’s retrial on sex charges resumes today. See takeaways from proceedings so far and a look ahead at the week to come. Martha Stewart has formed an unlikely friendship with a Gen-Z breeder of show chickens, The Washington Post reports. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Judy Kim. Broil crispy, chewy halloumi with creamy white beans and cherry tomatoes. Find peace in an anxious world. Travel without your phone. Give your pet their pills. Here are some tricks. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were gainful, unfailing and unflagging. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 21, 2025 Author Members Posted May 21, 2025 May 20, 2025 Good morning. Trump is backing off his demand that Russia declare an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine. The president of CBS News was forced from her post. And we have the inside story of Trump’s search for a new Air Force One. More news is below. But first, a look at the Republican factions that could sink Trump’s megabill. Speaker Mike Johnson Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times Getting votes By Catie Edmondson I cover Congress. Speaker Mike Johnson has a math problem. He wants to pass a megabill before Memorial Day to deliver President Trump’s legislative agenda. But with a tiny margin of control in the House, he can afford to lose only three Republican votes (assuming Democrats uniformly oppose it). The problem is that there are way more than three G.O.P. dissenters, and they don’t agree on what the problem is. Some think the cuts to Medicaid are too large. Others think they’re too small. Some want to purge clean-energy tax breaks. Others want to preserve them because their constituents have used them. For every bloc with one demand that must be met before its members will support the measure, there is another demanding the opposite. Here are some of the combatants. Deficit hawks: About three dozen Republicans have been strategizing in a group text and at the Capitol Hill home of one of the members. Most of them signed a letter earlier this year saying they would not vote for a bill that adds to the federal deficit. The bill’s current version would add $3.3 trillion over the next decade. Swing-district survivors: The Republican Party owes its House majority partly to victories in politically competitive districts in California and New York, states where many constituents rely on Medicaid. At the behest of vulnerable members from those places, G.O.P. leaders dropped two of the most aggressive options they were considering to cut Medicaid costs. The Congressional Budget Office says that the legislation, as written, would cause 8.6 million more Americans to be uninsured and reduce spending by more than $700 billion over a decade. Clean-energy advocates: The tax breaks in the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act have been a boon to many Republican-held districts. That includes Juan Ciscomani’s Arizona seat, where Lucid Motors, an electric vehicle company, expanded its factory expecting to reap the law’s rewards. Ciscomani and his allies want to preserve those incentives, which are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. State-tax deductors: The tax law Republicans passed in 2017 imposed a $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes Americans can write off on their federal returns. The bill now under discussion would triple that. But Republicans from high-tax states like New Jersey want to lift that cap substantially higher — and say they will take down the bill if it doesn’t. Conservatives say it’s an expensive handout to wealthy residents of blue states. Even a modest change, like doubling the cap for married couples, would cost about $230 billion over a decade. The megabill advanced out of the Budget Committee on Sunday only because leaders told the dissenters that a later version would address their concerns. But Johnson may have a tough time passing this one. And then it would go to the Senate, where Republicans say they, too, have several objections. Sign up for the On Politics newsletter. Trump's Washington: How the president is changing the government, the country and the conversation. Get it in your inbox ISRAEL’S GAZA DIVIDE In Gaza. Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Aid trucks are entering Gaza for the first time in months. Airstrikes have intensified there, killing hundreds of people. Patrick Kingsley, The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, explains the latest from the war in Gaza. For months, Israel has tried to pressure Hamas by both threatening a new ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and cutting off aid. Yesterday, Israel made a U-turn on aid, allowing a few trucks of food to enter Gaza. And despite escalating its rhetoric and its airstrikes in recent days, Israel’s infantry has yet to begin a major advance. The lack of strategic clarity reflects disagreements within Israel’s leadership about the country’s national priorities. On aid: Benjamin Netanyahu must balance right-wing political allies who oppose sending food to Gaza, and foreign allies — including the Trump administration — who fear a famine. On the invasion, Netanyahu needs to satisfy cabinet ministers, who want a full reoccupation of Gaza, and Israel’s top generals, who believe it will be hard to staff and may endanger the hostages. On a full ground offensive: Israel is waiting to see how Hamas responds to new negotiations over a cease-fire pushed by the Trump administration. Israel would trade several hostages for a temporary truce; Hamas is holding out for a permanent deal. But Israel hopes that the fear of losing more territory may prompt Hamas to settle for less. Just as the delay of the ground operation gives negotiators more time to find a compromise, the U-turn on aid gives Israel more time to continue its bombardment of Gaza. Since March, Israel had prevented food and fuel from reaching Gaza. Trump, along with many foreign leaders, recently warned about starvation there. Israel had previously dismissed those claims, but Netanyahu acknowledged yesterday that Israel might forfeit some international support if it allowed a famine to take hold. So Israel asked the United Nations to resume its aid operation. THE LATEST NEWS Trump-Putin Call Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone for two hours about the war in Ukraine, but neither leader reported much progress. Putin is resisting an immediate cease-fire unless Russia gets concessions. Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with Trump before and after the Putin call. He said Ukraine was ready to negotiate but would never yield to Russia’s ultimatums. Trump appears prepared to step back from the peace process, urging Russia and Ukraine to talk directly. After the call, Trump said he would consider opening trade with Russia when the war ended. Immigration The Supreme Court said the Trump administration could revoke protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants, at least for now. It was an emergency ruling while lower courts hear a challenge to the move. The Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil remains in detention, though other protesters have been freed. The judge in his case is taking a meticulous approach. See a new video of his arrest from CNN. The Justice Department charged a New Jersey congresswoman with assaulting federal agents during a clash outside a Newark ICE detention center. More on the Trump Administration Qatar tried unsuccessfully for years to sell a luxury jet. Then Trump’s team set its sights on it. Read the inside story of the president’s search for a new Air Force One. Elon Musk also benefited from Trump’s tour of the Gulf last week: SpaceX and Neuralink made deals in the region. Trump signed a bill, the Take It Down Act, that requires social media platforms to remove revenge porn and explicit A.I. deepfakes. A federal judge said the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent nonprofit, was unlawful. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into Chicago to see if its mayor had engaged in discrimination by hiring Black people to senior positions. Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis Before Joe Biden announced that he had prostate cancer, Democrats had been criticizing his 2024 campaign. They are now expressing well-wishes and concern. Trump, without offering evidence, appeared to suggest that Biden’s cancer was not newly discovered and had been covered up. For the second day in a row, The Morning’s most-clicked link was about what the recording of Biden’s special counsel interview revealed about his health. International Britain’s recent trade deals with the E.U. and U.S. were limited. This reflects the nation’s diminished position after Brexit, Mark Landler writes. Spain, seeking to alleviate a housing crisis, ordered Airbnb to delete nearly 66,000 listings. India’s government is taking legal action against academics and journalists it sees as critical of its recent military campaign against Pakistan. Other Big Stories The president of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, was forced out. McMahon spoke in support of a “60 Minutes” producer who resigned because of tensions over Trump coverage. The Mexican ship that hit the Brooklyn Bridge, killing two of its crew, accelerated suddenly in the wrong direction before the crash. KEEP YOUR DISTANCE Loren Elliot for The New York Times Loren Elliot, a freelance photographer, wanted to capture the coyotes that prowl the streets of San Francisco. His images are discordant — wild predators roaming concrete canyons. The Morning’s photo editor, Brent Lewis, asked him how he got so close. How do you make pictures like this? There’s a way to photograph wildlife ethically. For up-close images, it’s one of two techniques. I’m using a remote camera on a ground plate to keep it still. It’s silent — no clicking shutter, no strobe. But coyotes are super intelligent and super curious. When they see a foreign object, they often come and just inspect it. That’s how I got the picture of the coyote eyes. I was standing about 100 yards away. Loren Elliott for The New York Times The other technique is to put a camera into a waterproof housing with an infrared sensor that triggers the shutter when something comes near. With the supervision of a wildlife ecologist, I left it for eight weeks, and that’s how I captured the coyote crawling out of the den. How long did this take? I first started making pictures for this project in October 2023 and spent at least 40 days shooting — plus all the days where I didn’t even get to see a coyote. I live in San Francisco, so everything was within 30 minutes of my apartment. OPINIONS The ratings agency Moody’s downgraded American credit. It shows that Congress’s failure to handle the budget deficit is leading the country to financial crisis, Rebecca Patterson writes. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on Christians accusing Jews of antisemitism and Carlos Lozada on Biden’s health and the Democrats. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson. Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images Power couple: Despite being almost 50 years his junior, Jordon Hudson has put herself at the center of Bill Belichick’s empire. She’s told at least one person that they’re engaged. Ask Well: Is there a least bad alcohol? Trending: People were searching for Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind “Dilbert.” Adams announced that he has the same aggressive form of prostate cancer as Biden, The Washington Post reports. Lives Lived: Four decades ago, Jonnie Boer started as a cook at a restaurant in Zwolle, the Netherlands. He never left, and he steered the restaurant, De Librije, to wide acclaim with humble ingredients plucked from nearby streams and fields. Boer died at 60. SPORTS N.B.A.: Minnesota is traveling to Oklahoma City for the opening game of the conference finals, powered by Anthony Edwards. N.F.L.: The Eagles are lobbying teams to protect the “tush push,” sources told The Athletic. The play could be outlawed this week. ARTS AND IDEAS Clayton Patterson John Taggart for The New York Times The street photographer Clayton Patterson has spent more than 40 years on the Lower East Side of Manhattan accumulating photos, paintings and other paraphernalia from his beloved neighborhood. He owns — among thousands of other things — portraits of RuPaul and gangs like Satan’s Sinners Nomads; empty cocaine and heroin bags; and footage of the 1988 riots in Tompkins Square. Now, his apartment is falling apart, and its contents are in danger. More on culture What does it take to write a commencement speech? The Times shadowed the singer Usher for a month as he prepared to address Emory University. In 1988, thieves stole a 300-pound marble bust of Jim Morrison from his grave in Paris. Last week, the police got it back. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Craig Lee for The New York Times Have a scoop of ice cream with a classic rhubarb crisp. Store your winter clothes safely. Use these tools to grill your veggies. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was potency. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 22, 2025 Author Members Posted May 22, 2025 May 21, 2025 Good morning. Speaker Mike Johnson has made some progress to unify House Republicans around Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Britain, France and Canada publicly condemned Israel’s plans to escalate the war in Gaza. And The Times investigated Russian spycraft. More news is below. But first, what we know about Biden’s illness. Joe Biden Yuri Gripas for The New York Times Biden’s cancer By Adam B. Kushner I’m the editor of The Morning. Questions about Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis have been among the most searched on the internet since he announced his illness Sunday morning. How could the disease have gone undetected in the former commander in chief, a man with access to the best medical care? Why does the government advise men over 69 not to get annual prostate scans? Does the diagnosis explain Biden’s occasionally doddering affect? Did the White House hide it when he was running for re-election? We have (some) answers. For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Gina Kolata, a science reporter who writes about diseases and treatments. What do we know about Biden’s form of cancer? It’s aggressive. The cells have an ugly, disordered appearance under a microscope. Pathologists gave them a Gleason score of 9 (out of 10) for their likelihood to advance quickly. The cancer has already moved from Biden’s prostate to his bones, which means it cannot be cured — only controlled with drugs. What about his prognosis? Patients with a Stage 4 diagnosis typically live five to 10 years. That’s much better than it would have been just a few years ago. Doctors will likely give him a drug that stops his testes from making testosterone, which fuels the cancer, plus another drug that mops up any testosterone in his bloodstream. He might also get chemotherapy, radiation or other drugs that are specific for his cancer. President Trump and others have suggested (without evidence) that there might have been a cover-up. I don’t have reporting about that. But Biden aides told our colleague Tyler Pager yesterday that physicians stopped testing Biden’s P.S.A. — his prostate-specific antigen, which surges with cancer — after 2014. The president’s doctors likely didn’t know there was a problem. Why didn’t they test him? Isn’t the president one of the most medically scrutinized humans on the planet? Guidelines advise that men ages 55 to 69 consider being checked yearly. Biden was already 78 when he entered office. In Maryland last year. Erin Schaff/The New York Times What happens after 70? About half of men over that age have some cancer in their prostates but no symptoms. Cancer there grows slowly and usually causes no harm if it’s left alone. If all of these men were screened, the theory goes, many would then be treated with surgery or radiation that wouldn’t prevent their deaths from prostate cancer — and could have devastating side effects. But plenty of men over 70 — including Trump — continue to get regular P.S.A. tests. Which might be reasonable, some doctors say, especially if they are healthy and have a life expectancy of at least 10 more years. Biden isn’t just some guy over 70. He was the leader of the free world, and his health was a matter of national interest. Should he have been tested? If he had been, could the cancer have been caught before it metastasized? Not necessarily. Dr. Otis Brawley of Johns Hopkins University tells me he has treated about half a dozen men in the last year who had routine P.S.A. results — and then suddenly found metastatic prostate cancer. “How the hell did I get metastatic disease?” he said they ask him. “Whose fault is this?” Some cancers go from nonexistent to metastatic in the year between screening tests. Others don’t even show up on a P.S.A. test. Must presidents disclose their health records? No. They can tell us — or keep from us — whatever they want to. Trump, for instance, has never released extensive medical files. Biden did, but the paperwork never mentioned a P.S.A. score. My grandfather lived for 11 years after a Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis. And that was more than 40 years ago. I assume the therapies have come a long way since then. Is Biden likely to die from prostate cancer? Therapies are totally different now. In the old days, men would have their testicles removed to deprive their tumors of testosterone. Now meds do the trick. Other therapies teach the immune system to fight the cancer or target specific cancer mutations. They don’t just add months to a patient’s life. “We are talking years,” Dr. Judd Moul of Duke University told me. But metastatic cancer remains a fatal disease. Biden will die of prostate cancer unless another condition kills him first. Could his cancer explain anything about his speech or cognition during the campaign last year? No. The cancer is not in his brain. THE LATEST NEWS Trump’s Megabill Speaker Mike Johnson is closer to unifying House Republicans around a bill to deliver Trump’s agenda. Trump met with House Republicans and portrayed the bill as a loyalty test. Chip Roy, a representative from Texas, is leading the conservative revolt against the legislation. He could determine its fate. The bill looks likely to cause record U.S. debt. See the debt in charts. The late night hosts discussed what Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill.” Trump Administration An aide to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, ordered intelligence analysts to edit a report so that it could not be “used against” her or Trump. It contradicted Trump’s claim that a criminal gang was working for Venezuela’s government. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation of Andrew Cuomo over his testimony about the pandemic. A judge declined to turn around a deportation flight that lawyers said was headed for South Sudan, but ordered the U.S. to keep the migrants on board in its custody. Trump unveiled plans for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system, promising it would be completed by the end of his term. Environmentalists and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. both want to ban a pesticide linked to cancer. They have become unlikely allies. More on Politics Democratic strategists want donors to spend millions on left-leaning influencers. They hope to counter Trump’s hold on online culture. Elon Musk, in the latest sign of a retreat from politics, said he would spend less on future elections. War in Ukraine Trump appears to be walking away from negotiations on the war in Ukraine, which he once promised to end in 24 hours. That shift looks helpful for Vladimir Putin. “We have to rely on ourselves”: Ukrainians are now bracing for a longer war. The E.U. approved more sanctions on Russia to target ships it uses for secret oil sales. Other Big Stories Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip this month. Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In a rare public rebuke, Britain, France and Canada condemned Israel’s expansion of the war in Gaza as “wholly disproportionate.” Louisiana authorities charged a maintenance worker at a New Orleans jail with helping 10 inmates escape. Five have since been captured. See video of the jail break. Do you have questions about the news? Ask them here and The Morning team will answer some in a future newsletter. SPYCRAFT Lucy Jones Times journalists got wind last year of one of the biggest Russian spy operations ever to be unraveled. Jane Bradley, an investigative reporter, sums up the story: The Kremlin had turned Brazil into a spy factory. It was sending novices to Brazil to build their cover identities — to become Brazilian — before deploying them elsewhere. Then, after the Ukraine invasion, more countries began sharing intelligence about Russian agents. That’s when Brazil noticed what was happening. My colleague Michael Schwirtz and I got wind of the scheme last year as Brazilian authorities quietly unraveled the operation. Federal agents painstakingly peeled back fake identities, unmasking nine deep-cover Russian spies pretending to be locals. And they turned to Interpol, the international police body, to broadcast details about those operatives — effectively burning them, making it all but impossible for them to work abroad again. The Times published our investigation this morning. When we landed in Brazil in search of people who had known the spies, we found that they had started businesses, built relationships and fallen in love. When they fled or were arrested, they left behind friends who knew them as completely different people. Brazil found them by searching for what they called “ghosts”: people with Brazilian birth certificates who spent their lives without any footprint in the country. They appeared suddenly as adults and began hastily collecting identity documents. One spy had started a jewelry business. Another was a blond, blue-eyed model. A third was admitted into an American university. One, a researcher, had landed work in Norway. It’s an odd thing as a reporter, telling people the true identity of their friends. We spent hours with Felipe Martinez, talking about the man he knew as his friend Daniel Wittich. Martinez said Wittich loved 3-D printing and CrossFit. The friends had a joint birthday party, and Martinez showed us a video of Wittich awkwardly blowing out candles. The spy hated having his picture taken. When we told Martinez that Wittich was actually a Russian named Artem Shmyrev, he paused, sounded out the unfamiliar syllables a couple of times and shrugged. To him, the spy was just Daniel. OPINIONS As president, Biden had a duty to face the realities of his age, illness and cognitive decline. Instead, he denied them, Dr. Rachael Bedard writes. JD Vance sat down with Ross Douthat to discuss his faith and Trump’s most controversial policies. Here are columns by Jamelle Bouie on MAGA’s empty vision of the future and Thomas Edsall on Trump’s destructive agenda. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS Richard Garwin, center, in 1984. James J. MacKenzie Bomb father: Richard Garwin designed the first hydrogen bomb. He dedicated the rest of his life to stopping his creation being used. Luck of the Irish: She bought her cottage near Sligo for $150,000. She’s selling it for about $7 per raffle ticket. Your pick: The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday asked: Is there a least bad alcohol? Pollution: Perrier markets its water as “natural.” But humans are making clean freshwater scarce. Trending: TikTok users are listing things they don’t like in videos and labeling them as “propaganda.” Lives Lived: The actor George Wendt was best known as Norm Peterson, the bearish Everyman on “Cheers.” The role won him six consecutive Emmy nominations. Wendt died at 76. SLOP LIFE Whether you’re scrolling online, eating lunch or shopping, you can’t avoid slop these days. Emma Goldberg, a reporter in our Styles section, breaks it down. Slop refers to the uncanny stream of words, photos and videos generated by A.I. Sometimes, the images look real at first glance, but something is a little off, Emma writes. Other times, they just look insane. Slop is easy to produce and may be bad for our brains, according to a study from the M.I.T. Media Lab. And slop isn’t just online — it’s what’s for lunch. “Slop bowl” is the term many use for the nebulous mash of ingredients served up at fast-casual spots like Sweetgreen and Chopt. “The classic slop bowl is not bad, but it’s not good,” observed Julia Hava, a podcast host. “It’s fuel.” There’s fast-fashion slop, too. Shein, Temu and other companies sell clothing so cheap that shoppers treat the sites like clothes pouring from a tap. And, yes, your kids are consuming slop. The YouTube show “Cocomelon” is engineered to make sure toddlers do not turn away. “There is something at first comforting and then disquieting about their limitlessness,” Emma writes about slop trends. “The idea that you can keep being fed videos, packages of sundresses and mushy lunch forever.” Go deeper. SPORTS N.B.A.: Oklahoma City took a 1-0 lead over Minnesota in its conference finals. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 31 points. N.H.L.: The Panthers beat Carolina 5-2. They are three wins away from a return to the Stanley Cup Final. N.F.L.: League owners voted 32-0 to allow players to try out for 2028 Olympic flag football teams. Stakeholders envision it as a new frontier for the game. ARTS AND IDEAS Vincent Tullo for The New York Times Planning “Van Gogh’s Flowers,” the latest show at New York Botanical Garden, was complicated. The organizers had everything they needed for an exhibition of real and sculptural sunflowers — except sunflowers. They naturally bloom in late June, and the show opens this weekend. Read how they met that challenge and see photos of the flowers that will be on display. More on culture Timothée Chalamet and Spike Lee. Elsa/Getty Images As an unknown teenager, Timothée Chalamet stuck with the Knicks through hard times. As a famous actor, he’s loving every moment of the team’s playoff run. Netflix’s “Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney” is the most ambitious, most anything-goes TV talk show in years. Whether it works is an evolving question, Jason Zinoman writes. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Joel Goldberg for The New York Times Add pickle brine to lemonade for a tangy treat. Manage blood sugar with exercise. Feel safer with a smart security device. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were atonality, nationality, nationally, notionally, notionality and tonality. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 23, 2025 Author Members Posted May 23, 2025 May 22, 2025 Good morning. Two Israeli embassy aides were shot and killed outside an event in Washington. Trump criticized South Africa’s leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, in the Oval Office. And the government continues to deport migrants to countries they’re not from. A DEADLY SHOOTING IN D.C. Two young Israeli Embassy staff members were shot and killed at close range in downtown Washington last night. They were leaving a reception for diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum. Here’s what we know about the shooting. The suspect: A 30-year-old man is in custody. He approached four people, shot the two victims, then walked into the museum, where security detained him and he shouted “Free, free Palestine.” The victims: Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were about to be engaged. “The young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem,” the Israeli ambassador said. The response: Benjamin Netanyahu called the shooting a “horrifying antisemitic murder.” President Trump wrote on social media that the killings were based in antisemitism, adding: “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.” Deported migrants arriving in Guatemala, in January. Daniele Volpe for The New York Times Final destination By German Lopez The Trump administration keeps sending migrants to countries they are not from. Yesterday, a federal judge held a contentious hearing about migrants reportedly heading to South Sudan and declared that the administration had violated a previous order. The administration has sent people who weren’t natives to El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica. It is also asking other countries, such as Libya and Rwanda, to accept deportees. Today’s newsletter explains how and why the Trump administration is doing this. Is it legal? Yes, with some safeguards. Federal law allows deportations to third countries. Presidents of both parties have used this power when an immigrant’s nation of origin is “recalcitrant,” meaning officials there won’t take him or her back. Venezuela, for instance, accepts deportees only sporadically. So if an administration wants to deport Venezuelans, it often needs to send them somewhere else. The policy comes with two protections: First, migrants can challenge their deportation in court. And second, the destination must not be dangerous for them. Yesterday’s hearing touched on both issues. The judge, Brian Murphy, had ordered the administration not to deport migrants to third countries without giving them at least 15 days’ notice to raise concerns about potential dangers. Murphy said he might hold officials in criminal contempt for violating that order. The Trump administration has used creative legal arguments to carry out third-country deportations, such as invoking the Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador. That’s not always necessary. The plaintiffs in Murphy’s court already had a “final order of removal,” so they had gone through the typical immigration court process. Why South Sudan? We don’t yet know if South Sudan is where the migrants are headed. The administration said it had sent eight migrants to a third country, but it hasn’t confirmed which. Their plane last stopped in the east African nation of Djibouti, my colleagues reported. If South Sudan is the final destination, it’s likely the result of an agreement between the United States and South Sudan. Not many places want to take foreigners who the U.S. government says are criminals. But President Trump has offered economic incentives to entice third countries to play along. For example, the administration is paying El Salvador millions of dollars to hold deportees in its prisons. Another thing that sets South Sudan apart is that it’s dangerous. The State Department advises Americans not to travel there because it’s so violent. For Trump, that may be part of the goal: It sends a message that people who come to the United States illegally could end up in the world’s most dangerous places. That perception could scare away future migrants. In other words, fear is the point. More on immigration: “Keep him where he is”: After the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, Trump officials fiercely debated strategies for influencing news coverage, according to documents obtained by The Times. Read the inside story. WHITE HOUSE CONFRONTATION President Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa Eric Lee/The New York Times At a televised meeting in the Oval Office, Trump surprised the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, with a video and printouts that he said were evidence of persecution against white South African farmers. Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent, explains what the scene tells us about Trump’s views on race. In the Oval Office yesterday, Trump positioned himself as the savior of white South Africans. Sitting alongside Ramaphosa, Trump said white people were “being executed.” He referred over and over again to “dead white people.” He dressed down Ramaphosa, who helped his country cast off the racist policies of apartheid, and questioned why he was not doing more when white people were being killed. “I don’t know how you explain that,” Trump said. “How do you explain that?” The American president was not much interested in the answer, which is that police statistics do not show that white people are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people in South Africa. The confrontation provided a vivid demonstration of Trump’s views on race. After rising to power in part by framing himself as a protector of white America, Trump has used his platform to elevate claims of white grievance. For Trump, white people are the true victims; Black people and other minorities have received an unfair advantage in the United States. And when Trump looks to South Africa, a majority-Black country emerging from a legacy of apartheid and colonialism, he sees white people who need sanctuary. Read the rest of Zolan’s analysis here. For more: Ramaphosa wanted to hit the reset button, to discuss tariffs and trade. Instead, his efforts backfired spectacularly, John Eligon writes. THE LATEST NEWS House Republicans’ Bill The House is debating the Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill. Follow our coverage here. Speaker Mike Johnson, in an effort to win over holdouts, agreed to a number of changes, including speeding up the date for Medicaid work requirements. The concessions may not be enough to flip Republican opponents of the bill. The House looks like it will vote on the bill soon. The bill would give newborns $1,000 in “Trump accounts.” Qatari Jet The Boeing 747-8 from Qatar, in Florida. Al Drago for The New York Times The U.S. officially accepted the luxury Boeing 747 that Qatar promised to Trump. The Air Force will outfit it to serve as the new Air Force One. Senate Democrats argued that the Constitution prohibits the acceptance of such a gift without congressional approval. Senator Chuck Schumer called the jet “the largest foreign bribe in modern history.” More on the Trump Administration Trump will release the “Make America Healthy Again” report today. It is expected to identify what Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes are the drivers of chronic disease in children, including ultra-processed foods and vaccination. Trump has cut science funding to its lowest level in decades. That means less support for early-stage research needed for future technological advancements. A Justice Department official said the department will use its authority to discredit and shame Trump’s enemies if it can’t prosecute them. War in Gaza Displaced children at a charity food kitchen in Gaza City. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times Days after it said it would ease its blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israel has allowed little food, if any, to reach Gazans. Israeli soldiers fired warning shots to disperse a group of senior Western diplomats, Palestinian officials and journalists as they toured a West Bank city. Protests The Trump administration is fighting to prevent Mahmoud Khalil, a detained Columbia University graduate who protested the war in Gaza, from holding his newborn son. Graduating students at Columbia booed the university’s acting president at the school’s main commencement ceremony. Alzheimer’s A blood test that can help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. Some people online believe Alzheimer’s can be reversed with dietary supplements. Doctors are outraged and say there is no proof of that. Policing The U.S. will end federal oversight of police departments in several cities, including Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., where officers have been accused of civil rights abuses. A New York police inspector allowed people who failed a psychological exam to join the force. Other Big Stories Representative Gerald Connolly, a Democrat who represented the suburbs of Northern Virginia for nine terms, died at 75. He announced last year that he had esophageal cancer. Jony Ive, a former Apple designer who helped create the iPhone and the iPod, has signed a deal to design hardware for OpenAI. Pope Leo’s doctoral dissertation examined what it meant to be a wise and effective leader in the Catholic Church. Read excerpts here. A COMING STORM? The Trump administration has fired people and slashed budgets at the agencies that forecast and respond to weather disasters. With the Atlantic hurricane season set to begin, Judson Jones, a meteorologist who has covered those cuts, explains the potential impact at three agencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has lost about one-quarter of its full-time staff. That includes half of the experts who led teams to get aid to those who have been affected by emergencies. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been preparing to lose as much as a fifth of its staff. It now has fewer workers to build the next generation of computer forecast models, which would provide the U.S. with quicker, more accurate hurricane forecasts. The National Weather Service has reduced its work force in local offices. Now, some locations, including offices along the coasts where hurricanes can strike, are severely short staffed. Some no longer monitor the weather overnight. Others have stopped launching weather balloons, which means they will have less data from the atmosphere about temperature, humidity and wind direction to feed into forecast models. For more about what the cuts could mean this hurricane season, read our full story here. OPINIONS Trump sees Benjamin Netanyahu for what he is: a weak leader with nothing to offer, Mairav Zonszein writes. Nicholas Kristof shares three ways to resist authoritarianism. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year. MORNING READS In a suburb of Melbourne, Australia Anu Kumar Our favorite gardens: See pictures from England to Australia. Ask the Therapist: “My husband had an affair, and I divorced him. Should our kids know why?” Optimizing: Is using tech to self-monitor our health making us paranoid? Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning asked whether there is a least bad alchohol for your body. Trending: Apartment-hunting videos on YouTube have become popular. They try to give a realistic view of New York City’s difficult housing market. Lives Lived: Jim Irsay was the outspoken owner of the Indianapolis Colts. He spent his life in football, from witnessing his father’s controversial team relocation to leading the Colts through a Super Bowl victory. He died at 65. SPORTS N.B.A.: A clutch shot by Tyrese Haliburton sent Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals into overtime, where the Indiana Pacers secured a come-from-behind win over the New York Knicks. Here’s how it happened. Most Valuable Player: Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the award after leading the league in average points per game. Indy 500: IndyCar powerhouse Team Penske fired its senior leadership team just five days before the Indianapolis 500, after a cheating scandal. ARTS AND IDEAS In Orlando, Fla. Zack Wittman for The New York Times In recent years, Stitch, the fuzzy blue alien from Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch,” has quietly become one of the company’s most merchandised characters. Stitch appears on neck pillows and power banks, on yogurt and slime. Stitch figurines are even sold at Graceland. His cultural permeation is belated: When the film was released in 2002, it failed to generate the immediate cultural cachet of predecessors like “The Lion King.” But consumers have become obsessed over the years, enough so that Disney has made a live-action version of the film, which hits theaters this weekend. “Honestly, I think about him all the time,” Elle Bauerlein said of Stitch. “Like, 10 hours every day.” More on culture Tom Hanks will star in an Off Broadway play, “This World of Tomorrow,” which he wrote based on a short-story collection he published in 2017. Salt-N-Pepa, the first female hip-hop group to win a Grammy, has sued Universal Music Group for the rights to the master recordings of its earliest music. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … David Malosh for The New York Times Toss a simple but delicious tomato-feta salad. Get lost in a small-town romance. Avoid a huge customs bill on a cheap online order. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was unkempt. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 25, 2025 Author Members Posted May 25, 2025 May 23, 2025 Good morning. Trump hosted an “exclusive” crypto dinner. The government said it would halt Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, causing confusion. Some aid deliveries have started to reach Gazans. More news is below. But first, German Lopez looks at what has changed in the five years since George Floyd’s murder. The site where George Floyd was murdered. Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times George Floyd’s legacy By German Lopez I write for The Morning. Five years ago this Sunday, Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd. His murder set off protests and riots across the country. Demonstrators called for sweeping changes to policing and remedies for what they described as systemic racism in law enforcement. How much has changed? Nationwide, surprisingly little. States and cities enacted new policies aimed at improving policing, but the data suggests that these changes have had little impact on accountability or the number of killings by police officers. The changes After Floyd’s murder, states and police departments banned chokeholds and no-knock warrants. They mandated body cameras. They rewrote guidelines about how to de-escalate a confrontation with a suspect. They educated officers about racial profiling. And more. The changes weren’t universal, and some places did more than others. But every state passed at least some changes. In a few cities, the federal government intervened. It investigated and publicized police abuses, pressuring local governments into court-enforced consent decrees. These pacts forced police departments to make specific changes and let federal officials and court monitors track how the policies worked over time. Freddie Gray died in 2015 after a “rough ride” while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department; a consent decree mandated that the city’s police drivers follow the speed limit and provide functioning seatbelts when transporting detainees. At least, that’s how consent decrees used to function. This week, the Trump administration dropped efforts to investigate or oversee nearly two dozen police departments. Meanwhile, killings by police officers rose from just over 1,000 in 2019 to around 1,200 in 2024. Based on an analysis of data compiled by The Washington Post and data from Mapping Police Violence | By The New York Times Officers killed Black Americans at nearly three times the rate that they killed white Americans, roughly the same proportion as before. And the number of prosecutions for police shootings has not changed since Floyd’s death, said Philip Stinson, a criminologist who tracks such cases. In 2015, prosecutors charged 18 officers with murder or manslaughter after an on-duty shooting. Last year, they charged 16 officers. In both years, less than 2 percent of fatal police shootings led to indictments. Waning interest So why didn’t much change? Experts cite two reasons. First, lawmakers did not embrace all the proposed changes. Ohio, Minnesota and Missouri, for example, rejected more than 98 percent of the proposals that came before their legislatures, according to the Brookings Institution. A bipartisan effort in Congress also collapsed. Second, to the extent lawmakers acted, the changes didn’t go far enough to transform the nature of American policing. Then the murder rate rose in 2020 and 2021, and public sentiment shifted. Voters wanted the police to focus on crime. Attention to reform faded. Some experts point to deeper problems. Racial disparities in police killings are partly caused by officers’ prejudices, but higher crime rates in poorer minority communities also mean these places are more likely to get police attention, both good and bad. Addressing those levels of crime and its root causes, such as poverty, will require more than tweaking department guidelines and training. Related: Once tranquil communities like Lynden, Wash., continue to struggle with the racial fault lines exposed by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. THE LATEST NEWS The Trump Administration Trump joined hundreds of the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, many of them from overseas, for a private gala at his golf club in Virginia. Late-night hosts talked about the dinner. A federal judge blocked Trump’s order to dismantle the Education Department and directed officials to reinstate thousands of fired employees. In firing watchdogs, Trump is moving to expand his power. These charts show how. Trump vs. Harvard The Trump administration said that it would not allow Harvard to enroll international students, halting a big source of income for the university. Can Trump do that? Education reporter Michael Bender tells The Morning: Immigration and Customs Enforcement oversees student visas. It vets international students and certifies universities that participate in the student visa program. Federal regulations allow the agency to revoke a school’s certification for a range of reasons, including a failure to comply with reporting requirements. And that’s what the government now alleges: that Harvard has not answered its request for student data. Harvard says it’s illegal to hand over the information that government officials seek. Hours later, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from arresting international students or revoking their visas without clear justification. ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ House Speaker Mike Johnson. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times House Republicans passed their party’s sweeping domestic agenda bill by the thinnest of margins, 215-214. The bill would slash taxes and add to federal deficits. It would also impose strict work requirements for Medicaid. Millions of low-income Americans could lose access to food stamps, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill now faces substantial obstacles in the Senate, where Republicans have different ideas about what should be in the legislation. Supreme Court The Supreme Court rejected Oklahoma’s effort to use government money to run the nation’s first religious charter school. The vote was 4 to 4, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself. She didn’t say why. In a separate, emergency ruling, the court said Trump was allowed to temporarily remove the leaders of two independent agencies while the courts consider their cases. D.C. Shooting A vigil in Washington D.C. Caroline Gutman for The New York Times A 31-year-old Chicago man was charged with two counts of murder in the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy workers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The suspect told police officers, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.” The victims, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, met while working at the Israeli Embassy. Lischinsky planned to propose to Milgrim on an upcoming trip to Jerusalem. Children’s Health In a sweeping new report, the White House outlined what it sees as the drivers of disease in American children, including ultraprocessed foods and synthetic chemicals. Read the report takeaways. It presents today’s children as stressed, sleep-deprived and addicted to their screens. “Today’s children are the sickest generation in American history,” the report says. It also criticizes vaccines, based on what many scientists say is an incorrect understanding of immunology. Gaza Aid Some aid trucks have entered Gaza, according to the U.N. It is the first major influx of food that Israel has allowed after a two-month blockade led to widespread hunger. Israel justified the ban as an attempt to force Hamas to surrender and release the remaining hostages. Other Big Stories A small jet crashed in a residential San Diego neighborhood, damaging 10 homes. Officials believe all six people on board were likely killed. (The crash was a top search on Google yesterday.) The Treasury Department is winding down the production of pennies. It argues they are too expensive to make. A DIPLOMATIC GAMBLE Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s leader. Eric Lee/The New York Times John Eligon, who covers South Africa for The Times, was in the Oval Office during Wednesday’s confrontation between Trump and the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. He looks at what the meeting revealed about the state of diplomacy: Meeting with the president of the United States used to be a triumph for world leaders — a chance to win opportunities from the world’s largest economy and protection from its mightiest military. But in the Trump era, it has become a gamble. Keir Starmer of Britain played it well, praising the president, staying on his good side and inching toward trade deals he signed this month. Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, on the other hand, got a tongue lashing from Trump on live TV. When Ramaphosa of South Africa took his turn in the hot seat on Wednesday, he hoped to defuse tensions between the two nations. Trump had repeatedly accused Ramaphosa’s government of supporting “white genocide” because he believed, without evidence, that white farmers were being killed en masse. In the days leading up to the encounter, South African officials predicted that Ramaphosa would be able to change the subject. He’d focus on trade and entice Trump with an economic offer — involving South Africa’s minerals — that the president could not refuse. Trump had other ideas. He dimmed the lights in the Oval Office and played a video montage he said supported his claims. He presented newspaper articles that he said were about killings. He left Ramaphosa and his delegation squirming in a made-for-TV spectacle. It was also a message for other world leaders: Trump is in control. It’s his show. Come at your own risk. IN ONE CHART Sources: Customs and Border Protection; Congressional Research Service; Department of Homeland Security | Undocumented immigrants can have overlapping protections from deportation. | By The New York Times In an effort to increase deportations, the Trump administration has moved to end Biden-era programs that shielded undocumented immigrants. It wants to remove those who entered the country with an appointment they made on a government app; those from four troubled countries who were permitted to enter and work for up to two years; and some with Temporary Protected Status, a designation for people from certain countries going through extreme conditions. Read more about who is affected. OPINIONS Republicans’ big domestic policy bill is a Medicaid cut that denies health care to millions of Americans, the Editorial Board writes. Vice President JD Vance sat for an interview with The Times’s Ross Douthat. They discussed Trump’s deportations, the tariff backlash and how Vance’s faith influences his politics. Click video below to see their discussion. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS Ciril Jazbec for The New York Times Blast away: Enthusiasts have made the 1993 video game Doom playable on almost any screen, including ones on treadmills and pregnancy tests. You can even play it in this article. Leaving America: Some U.S. students are changing their plans for college and graduate school. Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday asked: “My husband had an affair, and I divorced him. Should our kids know why?” Lives Lived: Judith Hope Blau turned bagels — lots of them — into works of art. And her accidental detour into bagel necklaces, napkin rings, wreaths and candleholders led to a long and successful career as a children’s book author and illustrator and a toy designer. She died at 87. SPORTS N.B.A.: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 118-103 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The team took a 2-0 series lead in the Western Conference finals. Hockey: In a major upset, Denmark beat Canada 2-1 in a comeback victory in the men’s hockey World Championship. M.L.B.: It’s official. The Colorado Rockies have MLB’s worst record through 50 games since 1901 after losing to the Phillies yesterday. Their record drops to 8-42. ARTS AND IDEAS Timo Lenzen People are worried about what tiny particles of plastic are doing to our bodies. The bits are in our air, soil, water and food, where we consume them. Read what you can do to avoid exposure: Stop drinking from plastic water bottles, especially if they’ve been sitting out in the sun. Avoid heating food in plastic containers. Use glass or steel for food storage. Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables — highly processed foods contain more microplastics. Regularly vacuum your house and use an air purifier. More on culture James Corden and Neil Patrick Harris are returning to Broadway this summer for a revival of “Art,” a Tony-winning play about an argument over a painting. At Sean Combs’s federal trial, the rapper Kid Cudi said he believed Combs was responsible for a Molotov cocktail that exploded inside his Porsche. Combs’s lawyers deny it. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Kelly Marshall for The New York Times Bake a crispy-edged pizza al taglio in a sheet pan. Look at these Memorial Day sales. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was potlatch. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. P.S. Have you heard of our newsletter Easy Mode? In it, Christina Iverson, a Times puzzle editor, offers easy clues for one of the hardest crosswords of the week. Today, for the 100th edition of the newsletter, she highlights some of her favorite puzzles (all of which are free to solve). Read it here. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 25, 2025 Author Members Posted May 25, 2025 May 24, 2025 Good morning. Reorganizing your week just might make it possible to reorient your relationship with time. María Jesús Contreras Working out By Melissa Kirsch I generally work three days in the office, two days from home. Recently, I was working on things that necessitated my being there in person, so I worked Monday through Friday, all five days in the office. The week felt long, unending. I kept thinking, “Tomorrow’s Friday,” but there was always another day. I had expected to feel spent at the end of the week, ready to return to the hybrid schedule, but instead I felt sort of delighted. Yes, the week was long, and wasn’t that great? We’re always complaining that life goes by so quickly, that we don’t have enough time; look, it’s summer again, how can that be? I found myself amazed at the way time seemed to elongate during my week in the office. Yes, the days seemed to be moving more slowly, but isn’t that what we want? Isn’t that the point? Hybrid work, for many of us, emerged from Covid lockdowns. It’s been several years that I’ve been working this split schedule, and while it felt novel back in 2020, lately it’s felt humdrum. I’ve become so accustomed to the tempo of the week — Monday work from home, three days in the office, work from home Friday — that changing it up made the days feel strange, like new countries to explore. You might say, sure, I want my life to feel longer, but I want more leisure time, not an interminable workweek. I get it. Maybe part of my satisfaction with this schedule came from not having to squeeze all my office-specific work into three days. But it’s intriguing to think that reorganizing your week can reorient your relationship with time. Maybe the week felt longer because there was so much sameness to the daily routine. This is what people complain about! Monotony! We want to mix things up! But I think the real reason the office week felt longer, in a good way, is that it felt richer, more textured. On the two days a week I normally work from home, I see a very limited number of people. I have fewer social interactions. I’m less likely to go out after work. There’s less information to process, less excitement, and that makes the days, in a way, seem less significant. I spend less time thinking about the work-from-home days, so they make up less of my larger life narrative. Five days in the office, by contrast, was five days of commuting with the fascinating (if occasionally maddening) characters on mass transit, seeing colleagues, coffee and lunch dates, happy hours. There was more content, more surprise, more to think about. Sure, there were days when I wished I could sleep a little later and not rush out the door to catch a train. But mostly the days felt like generous canvases to fill with the interesting activity of just living. I realize I may sound like a corporate stooge, advocating that people buckle down and get back to the office. But I think you can achieve this kind of time elongation without giving up remote work. If you feel, as I did, that those home workdays were becoming sort of boring, suboptimal entries in the logbook of how you’re spending your time, you can try varying your schedule. Work from the library, or a cafe. Make a concerted effort to meet a friend for lunch, or to get dressed and go out after working in your pajamas all day. Mess with the format of your days. Make them feel larger. I’m sure after enough time working five days a week in the office, I’d get used to the rhythm and start to feel as if time was going by too quickly again. When I told a colleague I’d been in every day of the week, he said it sounded “absolutely grueling.” And I’ll admit I’m not sure I’ll do it every week. But I’m definitely going to continue to fiddle with my schedule, to keep things interesting, to keep trying to slow time down. THE LATEST NEWS Trump Administration Sophie Park for The New York Times A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s effort to bar international students from attending Harvard. Harvard had filed a lawsuit challenging the effort earlier in the day. Trump threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on imports from Europe, after he said that trade negotiations with the E.U. were “going nowhere.” Trump also threatened 25 percent tariffs on iPhones unless Apple starts making the devices in the U.S. The Trump administration tapped Andy Byford, who recently ran the New York City subway, to lead its effort to rebuild Penn Station in Manhattan. Other Big Stories Ukraine and Russia have begun the largest exchange of prisoners since the war began. Each country has committed to exchanging 1,000 captured soldiers and civilians. Boeing reached a deal with the Justice Department that would spare the company from criminal responsibility for two deadly crashes of its 737 Max jets. A record number of Americans applied for British citizenship in the first three months of this year. Eight people were convicted in connection with the brazen robbery of Kim Kardashian in Paris nearly a decade ago. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV George Wendt on “Cheers.” NBCUniversal, via Getty Images Greatness in a sitcom is doing one simple thing, over and over, and making it feel fresh. George Wendt, who died this week, did just that with Norm’s entrances on “Cheers,” James Poniewozik writes. Our critic says the live-action remake of Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” has “just enough to make for a moderately fun, mostly serviceable and often adorable revamp.” Tom Cruise is one of Hollywood’s most enthusiastic evangelists. He’s hoping that pays off for the eighth “Mission: Impossible” movie. A new documentary peers into the life of Paul Reubens, examining how he found mainstream fame with his wonderfully weird Pee-wee Herman. Three-dimensional gowns and thigh-high men’s boots: See 15 unforgettable looks from the Cannes Film Festival. Music Jeff Goldblum’s public persona is offbeat, but the actor and musician insists it’s not a performance — it’s his lifeblood. Listen to a wide-ranging interview on Popcast. Billy Joel canceled his upcoming tour and announced that he had a brain disorder that affected his hearing, vision and balance. On his fourth album, “I’m the Problem,” Morgan Wallen is almost unrelentingly despondent. It’s tragic and effective stuff, our critic writes. Curious about jam bands? The Amplifier newsletter has a primer on some of the biggest acts, from the Grateful Dead to Goose. More Culture Kermit the Frog took the podium in a muppet-size cap and gown to deliver a commencement speech at the University of Maryland. Read what he told the graduates. The manga artist Junji Ito is a master of the macabre. See how he creates his terrifying art. A Dutch artist constructed a model of a grocery store to ask spectators: Can shoplifting be justified? The estate of the poet Mary Oliver has opened an online store. A writer in The Cut knows Oliver would have hated it. A new Frida Kahlo museum will open in Mexico City later this year, adjacent to the famed Casa Azul. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. CULTURE CALENDAR By Alexis Soloski ? “Adults” (Wednesday): A “Friends” for an extremely online generation, this new FX series finds five recent college graduates crashing at a borrowed house in Queens. An ode to the adventure and general incompetence of young adulthood, the single-camera sitcom stars an ensemble of emerging actors. (Downtown luminary Julia Fox drops in midseason for a nicely madcap cameo.) Will this be the first great Gen Z comedy or simply a chance to see what happens when people stop being polite and start sharing a single bathroom? RECIPE OF THE WEEK Christopher Simpson for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Jalapeño Grilled Pork Chops It’s Memorial Day weekend! Which means it’s time to uncover that grill, give those grates a good cleaning and make Eric Kim’s jalapeño grilled pork chops. Marinated in a vibrant green purée of jalapeños, garlic, cilantro stems and rice vinegar, the pork takes on a tangy, spicy character that’s amplified by a relish of jalapeño and red onion spooned on top. Eric’s recipe is flexible; you can marinate the meat for as little as 30 minutes or leave it in the fridge overnight. And for those who don’t have a grill, the pork is just as good cooked under your broiler until the edges turn brown and crisp. Serve it with tortillas or flatbread, and a big crunchy vegetable salad. Then put it on repeat all summer long. REAL ESTATE Olivia Page-Pollard with her foster dog Vinny. Graham Dickie/The New York Times The Hunt: An immigration lawyer traded Brooklyn for Jackson Heights, Queens, with $300,000 to spend. Which apartment did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $500,000: A chalet-style house in Bartlett, N.H.; a condo in Royal Oak, Mich.; or a 1939 brick house in Minneapolis. LIVING Passengers on the Woodwind, a 74-foot schooner. Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times Travel: Spend 36 hours in Annapolis, Md. Which sunscreen is best? Whichever one you will apply, and reapply, often. Health and grooming experts answer seven questions about protecting your skin. A slice of Americana: Drive-in movie theaters are still thriving in some places. A photographer visited some to find whether they matched her memories. Smart kitchen: Unsure how to store your condiments? Read an A-to-Z guide. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER How to keep food from sticking to your grill As you kick off the season of grilling this weekend, our experts have a few quick care and maintenance tips to keep your beloved grill in shape. You can check for gas leaks by spritzing a soap-water mixture and looking for bubbles. Then, get the grates super hot, and scrape them down with a grill brush. Follow that with another wipe-down with a wet rag to get rid of any remaining soot or debris. Lastly, give the clean grates a good oiling with a paper towel and some vegetable oil. (And if you’re in need of a new grill entirely, we have recommendations for that, too, including a brand-new guide to griddles.) — Brittney Ho GAME OF THE WEEK Michael Conroy/Associated Press Indianapolis 500: The most famous race in American motorsports is back. Here are a few names to follow as you watch the drivers speed around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 200 times: Robert Shwartzman, a one-time Formula 1 prospect, is in pole position. He’s the first rookie to clinch the top spot since 1983. Pato O’Ward is IndyCar’s biggest star, The Athletic writes, and lost last year’s race by just a third of a second. Winning his first Indy 500 could help propel him to even greater fame. Josef Newgarden has won this race twice in a row. But his chances for a third win took a big hit when his team, Penske, was penalized for illegally modifying cars before last weekend’s qualifying race. He’ll start in the back of the pack. Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on FOX NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was ideology. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa P.S. Our colleague Lauren Jackson wrote about the story behind Believing, her yearlong project reporting on the ways that belief shapes American life. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 26, 2025 Author Members Posted May 26, 2025 May 25, 2025 Good morning. Russia hit Ukraine with a major, nationwide attack. Vietnam is fast-tracking a Trump golf course. And an Iranian movie shot in secret won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. But first, Shawn Hubler, our Los Angeles bureau chief, writes about the fringe ideology behind a recent attack in California. Palm Springs, Calif. Kyle Grillot for The New York Times Meet a movement By Shawn Hubler I’m the Los Angeles bureau chief. The attack on a Palm Springs, Calif., fertility clinic last week surfaced some unsettling ideas. Guy Edward Bartkus, the 25-year-old suspect, had posted an audio clip explaining why he wanted to blow up a place that makes babies. “I would be considered a pro-mortalist,” he said before detonating his Ford Fusion, killing himself and injuring four others. “Let’s make the death thing happen sooner rather than later in life.” Investigators called it “terrorism” and “nihilistic ideation.” Trump administration officials called it “anti-pro-life.” Bartkus was indeed espousing an extreme ideology. But it belongs to a larger intellectual movement, still fringe for now, that is slowly gaining adherents. My colleagues Jill Cowan, Aric Toler, Jesus Jiménez and I have spent the past week reporting on what experts call “anti-natalism.” Hundreds of thousands follow accounts and podcasts about it. It holds that procreation is immoral because the inevitability of death and suffering outweighs the odds of happiness. Today’s newsletter explains. The idea The calculus is ancient — to be or not to be? A South African philosopher’s 2006 treatise, “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence,” popularized the idea in its modern form. “You’re stuck between having been born, which was a harm, but also not being able to end the harm by taking your own life, because that is another kind of harm,” the author, David Benatar, told us. This perspective draws partly on utilitarianism, a discipline of philosophy that asks how to achieve the most good for the greatest number. But even there, anti-natalism is seen as marginal. Besides Benatar, “I don’t know any other philosophers who share it,” said Peter Singer, an influential utilitarian. Online, however, anxieties including climate change and artificial intelligence have given it traction — as has the yearning for connection, even among people with antisocial tendencies. Scores of anti-natalist discussion boards, influencers and podcasts now debate whether all creatures should stop reproducing, or just humans. The concepts have bled into pop culture. Thanos, the supervillain in two films from Marvel’s “Avengers” franchise, wants to eradicate half of the universe’s living beings because there are “too many mouths to feed.” The number of Americans who don’t want kids is rising, with many young people saying they don’t want to hurt the environment. A few variants are even more extreme. An offshoot known as “efilists” — that’s “life” spelled backward — argues that DNA should also be destroyed. Pro-mortalism, the position Bartkus staked out, is less well defined. But it suggests that birth should be followed as soon as possible by a quick, consensual death. Bartkus was a vegan from a small town in the California desert whose estranged father called him “a follower, not a leader.” As a child, the father said, he loved rockets and once nearly burned the house down. As an adult, he set off explosions in the barren wilderness. Online, he had grown close to a woman who died last month in an apparent assisted suicide. Taking action That woman, Sophie Tinney, 27, was shot three times in the head on Easter Sunday near Seattle, according to court records. Officials have charged her roommate with second-degree murder. But Bartkus’s manifesto says she was a suicidal anti-natalist — and may have persuaded the roommate, an Eagle Scout who liked to play Dungeons & Dragons, to shoot her in her sleep. (He has pleaded not guilty.) Bartkus said online that Tinney’s death might have prompted the clinic bombing. “I don’t think I really knew how much it was going to affect me,” said a manifesto posted with the audio on a pro-mortalism website. Social media posts tied to him indicate that he had attempted suicide at least twice since she died. Then he videotaped a dry run for the bombing, mixing chemicals in the desert that could blow up his car. An F.A.Q. appended to his manifesto includes a list of pro-mortalist and efilist figures; at least two of them have killed themselves in recent years. This week, the moderator of an anti-natalism Reddit forum with nearly a quarter-million members called the bombing “unjustifiable, incoherent, immoral and disgusting.” Benatar, the author, said that his philosophy explicitly abhors violence, the restriction of reproductive rights and, in almost all cases, suicide. But ideas have a way of twisting and transforming online. One such adaptation seems to have found a young man who loved pyrotechnics and hated life. THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine Russia bombarded Ukraine overnight with one of its largest drone and missile barrages of the war. The strikes killed at least 12 people and injured dozens in hourslong attacks on cities and villages across the country. Democrats Discarded Harris-Walz campaign signs. Emily Elconin for The New York Times Six months after the election, the Democrats are still searching for a path forward. Much of the country shifted right in 2024. These charts show how Donald Trump remade the political landscape as a candidate. Trump Administration At West Point. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Trump, wearing a MAGA hat, told West Point cadets in a commencement address they would serve in a “golden age” of the country, in a military no longer subject to “absurd ideological experiments” or “nation-building crusades.” The president and his family have monetized the White House more than any other occupant. Vietnam ignored its own laws to fast-track a Trump family golf complex. The E.U. has been following a standard diplomatic playbook in negotiating on tariffs. Trump is ripping that playbook up. Universities are worried Trump will target their own international student enrollment, as he has at Harvard. Five Years Since Floyd Since George Floyd’s murder, police killings keep rising. See the charts. The Black Lives Matter movement has given way to a politics of “white grievance” championed by Trump. Other Big Stories In Gaza City. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times Israel is turning to new, private organizations, not aid groups or the U.N., to distribute food in Gaza. A 37-year-old crypto investor was charged with kidnapping a man and torturing him for weeks inside a luxury townhouse in downtown Manhattan to get the man’s Bitcoin password, the authorities said. An Iranian movie, “Un Simple Accident,” that was shot clandestinely won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The film festival was widely seen as the strongest in years. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Republicans want to add work requirements to Medicaid. Is that a good idea? No. Work requirements bury eligible people under paperwork to prove that they meet the new requirements. “The most vulnerable will be made worse off, all to fund a tax cut that most benefits the rich,” Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan write for The Times. Yes. Work requirements improved the economy in the Clinton years, when people left welfare and went back to work. “More workers in the economy will mean more people paying into Social Security and Medicare, preserving those programs for years to come,” Stewart Whitson writes for U.S. News & World Report. FROM OPINION Zombie apocalypses are appealing because there’s no better distraction from whatever currently ails you than something worse, Rachel Feintzeig writes. Here are columns by Maureen Dowd on Trump’s crypto gala and Lydia Polgreen on the Oval Office meeting with South Africa’s president. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS Iris Legendre Believing: After childbirth put a woman into a coma, she forgot her husband and her faith. Read how she recovered. Wrecked: With an underwater drone, archaeologists are capturing images of sunken vessels in the Great Lakes. Roommate tales: Stories of New Yorkers living alongside slobs, witches and eventual lifelong friends. Summer vacation: Staffing cuts could make national parks a mess this summer. Here are five great state parks to visit instead. Divorcing? There’s a coach for that. The Gecko Gallery: A tiny Brooklyn zoo is host to dozens of species from across the globe. See inside. Vows: Their friend rigged the gala seating chart. It worked. Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday showed 15 looks from the Cannes red carpet. Trending: The soccer team Real Madrid. The coach Carlo Ancelotti is leaving the club this weekend to become head coach of Brazil, the BBC reports. Lives Lived: Susan Brownmiller was a feminist author and activist who helped define the modern view of rape, debunking it as an act of passion and reframing it as a crime of power and violence. She died at 90. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Try a soul-nourishing Filipino chicken soup. Workout in 20 minutes. Watch these comedy specials over the long weekend. Know your charcoal before you start grilling this summer. MEAL PLAN Christopher Testani for The New York Times In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests making a recipe she will have on repeat this spring: Melissa Clark’s miso-chile asparagus with tofu. She also recommends lemon-pepper chicken breasts, a Somali coconut fish curry, and salmon and couscous salad. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was expunging. Can you put eight historical events — including the creation of the laser, Mickey Mouse and Godzilla — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. P.S. The Interview is off this weekend. It will be back next weekend. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 27, 2025 Author Members Posted May 27, 2025 May 26, 2025 Good morning. It’s Memorial Day. As summer (unofficially) begins, Elisabeth Egan of the Book Review presents a few great reads. Read more about the history of the holiday. But first, some news: Trump delayed 50 percent tariffs on the E.U. until July. He also criticized Putin for this weekend’s attacks on Ukraine, calling him “absolutely crazy.” And Venezuela’s governing party claimed victory in disputed elections. At Christopher Street Pier, Manhattan. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times Dive in By Elisabeth Egan I’m a writer and editor at the Book Review. Readers, get ready: Summer books are here. These are the novels destined to grow plump with pool water. They’re the memoirs, biographies, histories and mysteries to lose yourself in while slathered with sunscreen or sitting strategically downwind of an air conditioning vent. They’ll whisk you away if you can’t escape and ground you when you’re far from home. They’re best served with Popsicles, peaches, soft-serve, ice water and lemonade. Cold beer, too. For some of us at the Book Review, summer reading is our Super Bowl and Oscars Night. We search for new and clever ways to wax rhapsodic about the joy of turning pages in the sun — or during a July thunderstorm or in a hammock or by the light of a campfire. (To be honest, hammocks make me queasy, and I’ve only slept in a tent once.) Beach reads are my bailiwick, and I’ve written about them so many times I now have to cross-reference previous dispatches to find out if I’ve already opined about my favorite chair (Adirondack), sunglasses (cat eye) and soundtrack (seagulls). But when Memorial Day weekend rolls around, I’m grateful all over again to toil in the realm of Slip ‘n Slides rather than stadiums or red carpets. There’s that stillness and lull, that sweaty, sandy, chlorinated, blueberry-scented sense of a break, even for those of us who are long out of school. Life’s requirements loosen, the box fan gets lugged down from the attic, books beckon. The Book Review has lists of 31 new novels and 21 nonfiction books to carry you through the summer. Here are a few I’m excited about: Romance and thrills On the fiction front, I predict that Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Atmosphere” will catch a big wave this summer, with its clandestine love story set in a 1980s space mission. Amy Bloom’s novel, “I’ll Be Right Here” is as comfortingly titled as her debut story collection, “Come to Me,” and follows a group of friends over decades and generations, beginning in postwar Paris. (Speaking of interesting jobs, one character works as a masseuse to the writer Colette.) Finally, I have my eye on “Our Last Resort” by Clémence Michallon, whose last thriller, “The Quiet Tenant,” stoked my insomnia at a lakeside rental with a shed not unlike the one where her protagonist was chained to a radiator. This time Michallon follows two cult escapees to a luxury hotel in the Utah desert. What can go wrong in a place with high thread-count sheets? A lot, apparently. Moms and classic rock On the nonfiction side, “How to Lose Your Mother” by Molly Jong-Fast, is funnier than it sounds, and a tender, honest account of caring for an aging parent who happens to be famous. (Jong-Fast’s mother is Erica Jong, author of “Fear of Flying,” among other trailblazing and autobiographical works.) I’m also looking forward to Sophie Elmhirst’s “A Marriage at Sea,” about a married couple who, in the 1970s, were stranded on a tiny rubber raft in the ocean for 117 days, and Peter Ames Carlin’s “Tonight in Jungleland,” about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album. And because it too has a Jersey Shore angle, I’m curious about “Baddest Man” by Mark Kriegel, which follows Mike Tyson’s complicated, often troubling journey from Brooklyn to Atlantic City and beyond. It sounds like an intriguing accompaniment for my “Rocky”-style workout, a leisurely stroll on the beach with occasional lunges for pretty shells. For more: Looking for a new book to read? Let us help you find one. THE LATEST NEWS Tariffs President Trump Kenny Holston/The New York Times President Trump said he would delay imposing 50 percent tariffs on European Union imports until July 9. Trump’s new tariff threats against Apple show that the company’s chief executive, Tim Cook, may no longer have much influence over the president. Foreign Policy Trump rebuked Vladimir Putin over escalating attacks in Ukraine and said that he was considering further sanctions on Russia. Trump wrote on social media, “He has gone absolutely CRAZY!” The head of NATO wants little drama next month’s annual summit. That may not be possible with Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in attendance. Trump’s recent statements about China and Russia suggest a vision for a world in which each of the three so-called great powers dominate their own sphere of influence. Immigration Migrants going from Panama to Colombia. Federico Rios for The New York Times Thousands of Venezuelans migrants, targeted by the Trump administration, are choosing to self-deport. They face a perilous journey home. The Republicans’ domestic agenda faces a difficult path in the Senate after two fiscal conservatives said they would seek significant changes. Trump has expressed hostility toward civil rights protections — unless those measures are used to remedy what he sees as the disenfranchisement of white men, Erica Green writes. Middle East In northern Gaza. Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images An Israeli airstrike killed at least seven of a Palestinian doctor’s children. In Israel, Yaron Lischinsky, the 30-year-old man killed in a shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, had a quiet funeral. After Israel said that a private organization would deliver aid to Gaza instead of the usual aid groups, the head of the organization resigned. He said it wouldn’t be possible to deliver the aid neutrally and independently. An American was charged with trying to firebomb a U.S. Embassy office in Tel Aviv. More International News Venezuela’s government claimed an overwhelming victory in regional and legislative elections. Critics called the election a sham orchestrated by President Nicolás Maduro. Young women in South Korea are disappointed that the upcoming presidential election is largely ignoring gender-equality issues. Other Big Stories A Florida fishing guide was sentenced to 30 days in prison for poisoning and shooting dolphins that were taking fish from his clients’ lines. A Texas doctor was sentenced to 10 years in prison for falsely diagnosing patients, administering unnecessary treatments, then filing fraudulent health insurance claims to fund his lavish lifestyle. OPINIONS Peter Orszag, a budget director under President Obama, argues it’s time to worry about the national debt. We need to stop being weird about people eating alone at a restaurant, Callie Hitchcock writes. Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on a new movie from the creator of “Succession” and Nicholas Kristof on how to counter Trump. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. ONE GREAT READ Illustration by Paul Sahre American men are getting worse at friendship. Only 26 percent of men reported having six or more close friends, a 2024 survey found. Polling for a similar question in 1990 put the figure at 55 percent. “Your dad has no friends,” John Mulaney said during an opening monologue on “Saturday Night Live.” “If you think your dad has friends, you’re wrong. Your mom has friends, and they have husbands. Those are not your dad’s friends.” A writer feels this in his own life. He once had a rich world of male friendship, but he now has a more isolated adulthood. He uses his personal experience to explore a broader phenomenon. Read the story here. MORE MORNING READS Snow Canyon State Park, near St. George, Utah. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Your pick: Staffing cuts could make national parks a mess this summer. The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday lists five state parks to visit instead. One writing class: 35 years, 113 deals and 95 books. Ask Vanessa: How can I help my children make dress appropriately? Parenting: The Cut asks, “Should we give our kids fewer choices?” Trending: People are talking about the season finale of HBO’s “The Last of Us.” For those unafraid of spoilers, here’s a recap. Metropolitan Diary: A whiff of glamour at LaGuardia. Lives Lived: Nino Benvenuti was an Italian boxer who was named the outstanding fighter of the 1960 Rome Olympics. He died at 87. SPORTS N.B.A.: The New York Knicks overcame a 20-point deficit to take Game 3 and narrow the Indiana Pacers’ series lead to 2-1. Indy 500: Alex Palou won the race for the first time, beating Marcus Ericsson. Hockey: The U.S. won its first men’s World Championship since 1933 in dramatic fashion, beating Switzerland 1-0 in overtime. ARTS AND IDEAS Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston. Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated, via Getty Images Sixty years ago, when Muhammad Ali caught Sonny Liston with a sharp right 1 minute and 44 seconds into their title bout on May 25, 1965, a few things happened in quick succession. Liston hit the mat. Ali hovered over him, shouting, “Get up and fight, sucker!” And, Neil Leifer, a 22-year-old freelance photographer, tripped the shutter of his camera. Read about what many say is the best sports photo ever taken. More on culture Phil Robertson Scott Olson/Getty Images Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the hit show “Duck Dynasty,” died at 79. The box office seems to be making a comeback with movies like the latest “Mission: Impossible” and “Lilo & Stitch.” “The Handmaid’s Tale” wraps up its sixth and final season tomorrow. See what else to watch this week. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times Mix Prosecco, Aperol and sparkling water to make an Aperol spritz. Shop the best Memorial Day sales. Protect yourself from ticks. Stop being so judgy. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were beanpole and openable. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 May 29, 2025 Author Members Posted May 29, 2025 May 28, 2025 Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day: The U.S. is negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, but there’s a snag: Israel is threatening to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. Volodymyr Zelensky is traveling to Germany to ask for more money for weapons. The U.S. government halted student visa interviews. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that healthy children and pregnant women don’t need a Covid vaccine. More news is below. But first, we look at Trump’s battle with Harvard. Harvard banners in Boston. Sophie Park for The New York Times School ties By Michael C. Bender I’m tracking the administration’s battle with Harvard. The Trump administration urged federal agencies this week to find other universities to fill government contracts now held by Harvard. Every week seems to bring another escalation in the conflict between the school and the government, which says Harvard’s professors are biased, its Jewish students are unsafe and its officials use “diversity” to admit “woke” applicants. Americans have fought for centuries over what students are taught. But the Trump administration has a new approach: It is using the government’s power to compel compliance with its views. Can a president determine what universities teach, whom they employ, how they admit people and what government largess they deserve as a result? More than 2,600 four-year colleges are watching closely to find out. For them, the implications are clear. Harvard has sued the administration, but if the government wins in court, the commander in chief can impose a political agenda on colleges and universities. He or she could use roughly $60 billion in research money to ensure that administrators do what they’re told. The White House says it wants to send a message. It cites concerns from Jews on campus who said they were harassed during protests over the Gaza war. It says Harvard’s hiring and admissions discriminate against conservatives, especially white men with traditional views about gender. It says it wants to protect civil rights and free speech. But university officials say the administration’s approach is a threat to academic freedom — and an attack on some of the longest-held tenets of American culture. College campuses incubate new ideas because they welcome experimentation and novelty. Attracting high-caliber students from all over the world has been one of the greatest sources of the nation’s academic, economic and scientific strength for more than a century. What levers has the Trump administration pulled to bring Harvard into line? I’ve been tracking them. In April, the administration sent a demand letter telling the school to meet 10 requirements that went far beyond concerns about antisemitism or diversity policies. The government wanted curriculum changes; a ban on admitting students “hostile to the American values”; and an audit to verify the school had “viewpoint diversity.” Harvard said it wouldn’t comply. Funding cuts and freezes The administration cut $2.2 billion in multiyear research grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard, mostly from the National Institutes of Health. It froze roughly 500 N.I.H. grants for Harvard-affiliated institutions, such as Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. It disqualified Harvard from future federal grants. The administration terminated grants worth $450 million from eight federal agencies, saying the school was a “breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination.” It did not identify the agencies involved. The Centers for Disease Control ended $60 million in grants. The White House urged all federal agencies to cancel any remaining contracts with Harvard — worth an estimated $100 million. Investigations After medical school graduates wore buttons or scarves in support of Palestine, the Health and Human Services Department said it would investigate. Later, the agency said it would expand its inquiry to include all activities at Harvard since Oct. 7, 2023, the date of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, requested detailed records about the student body. When Harvard resisted, she ended Harvard’s ability to enroll international students. The university quickly sued, and a judge blocked the action. The Education Department said the college had submitted “incomplete and inaccurate disclosures” of large foreign donations. It is legal for colleges to take such money, and Harvard says it has submitted accurate disclosures required by law. Separate agencies are reviewing the use of racial preferences at the student-run Harvard Law Review and in Harvard’s hiring. The government noted a rise in faculty who are scholars of color, women and those identifying as nonbinary. It also pointed to the decrease of white men in tenure-track jobs. The Education Department is investigating whether Harvard uses racial discrimination against undergraduate applicants. A letter informing the school did not refer to any specific concern about its admissions process but asked for a lot of data. The Justice Department opened an investigation under the False Claims Act, a law designed to punish those who swindle the government. It did not cite any particular wrongdoing, but the government has said Harvard was not complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that struck down race-conscious admissions. Threats from Trump In a meeting with his aides, President Trump has asked, “What if we never pay them?” The idea would be to withhold all federal funding from Harvard. About one-third has already been halted. Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said in an interview this month that canceling the rest was a possibility. Trump posted online that his administration would revoke the university’s tax-exempt status. “It’s what they deserve!” he added. It’s unclear whether the I.R.S. will try to do so. INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS Secretary of State Marco Rubio Eric Lee/The New York Times Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, sent an order yesterday to all U.S. embassies and consulates: They should halt new interviews for student and exchange visas until further notice. The temporary pause is intended to allow the State Department to scrutinize of applicants’ social media posts. It’s unclear what could flag applicants for rejection. But losing international students, who usually pay higher tuition, would be a major financial problem for schools. META ON TRIAL Mark Zuckerberg in Washington. Tom Brenner for The New York Times The government has concluded its antitrust case against Facebook’s parent company, Meta. Mike Isaac, a Times tech reporter who covered the trial, sends this update: The federal government has spent the past five years telling big tech companies they’ve overreached. Antitrust lawsuits have argued that they quash up-and-coming competitors that could challenge their dominance online. In a case against Google this year, that worked. But the case against Meta hasn’t gone as well. Arguments concluded yesterday, and the social-media company seems likely to survive intact. Here’s why. One challenge for the Federal Trade Commission is its definition of the market that Facebook has supposedly cornered. It points to Mark Zuckerberg’s description nearly 20 years ago: “Facebook is about real connections to actual friends.” Under that definition, Meta’s only significant competitor may be Snap, the photo- and video-sharing app that relies on friend connections. When Meta bought Instagram, it cloned Snapchat’s ephemeral posts called “stories” and stymied Snap’s growth. The F.T.C. says that was anticompetitive. But the government’s definition of the market ignores the reality, Meta argues. It spent the seven-week trial showcasing the rapid rise of TikTok, the video app that caught Zuckerberg off guard. By 2020, TikTok’s video product was taking user time and attention away from Facebook and Instagram, along with billions of dollars in advertising revenue. Social media has changed from the early days when digital friendships and strong, close ties mattered. Today, people pledge their time to apps powered by algorithms that predict what you will enjoy. That means Meta is now competing with all sorts of other players, not just Snap. One sign of Meta’s confidence in this argument: It had planned to drag its defense into the summer, calling dozens of witnesses. Instead, lawyers for the company rested after just two weeks. They figured the government had not proved its case. THE LATEST NEWS International At the White House last month. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times As Trump pushes for a nuclear deal with Tehran, Benjamin Netanyahu has been threatening to upend the talks with strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Large crowds and gunfire created panic at the opening of an Israeli-backed aid distribution site in Gaza. The enclave had been without aid for months. Volodymyr Zelensky will visit the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in Berlin today to ask for war funding. It will be the Ukrainian president’s third meeting with Merz in three weeks. Immigration ICE agents arrested a 20-year-old Venezuelan man enrolled in high school in New York City after he arrived at court for what he thought was a routine hearing. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let it deport eight migrants to South Sudan, even though most of them are not from the country. Presidential Pardons Trump pardoned a nursing home executive who admitted to tax crimes. The executive’s mother attended a million-dollar fund-raising dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Trump also plans to pardon two reality TV stars, Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted of evading taxes and defrauding banks of more than $30 million. More on the Trump Administration For the third time, a federal judge struck down one of Trump’s executive orders seeking to punish an elite law firm. NPR sued Trump over his executive order to halt federal funding for public broadcasting. Other Big Stories Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, announced that the C.D.C. would no longer recommend Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. The New York authorities charged another suspect in the kidnap and three-week torture of a man over his Bitcoin fortune. IN ONE CHART Source: N.S.F. | Chart shows the intended funding amount for new grants awarded by the N.S.F. this year through May 21, compared with the average funding for the same period from 2015 to 2024, and is in 2025 dollars. Trump has cut science funding to its lowest level in decades. The National Science Foundation’s funding for basic math, physics, chemistry and material sciences research has dropped by two-thirds so far this year — research that, in the past, led to the development of bladeless LASIK eye surgery and radar technology that revolutionized weather forecasts. See more detailed charts, with breakdowns for different types of science and the possible effects of the cuts. THE MORNING QUIZ Here’s a game we run from time to time. The question comes from a recent edition of The Morning. Click your answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) A former police chief in Arkansas, Grant Hardin, is in the news because: He was caught driving a truck with 180 pounds of cocaine. He escaped form a high-security prison. He erased a decade’s worth of body-camera footage. He denounced racist policing in a speech that went viral. OPINIONS Syria’s Constitution should be modeled after that of its autonomous Kurdish region, which protects minority groups and women, Ilham Ahmed writes. Here’s a column by Thomas Friedman on Netanyahu’s bad allies. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS “Are the bricks evil?”: In a Berlin neighborhood built for Nazis, darkness lingers. Your pick: The most-clicked article in The Morning yesterday was about four ways to keep your marriage fun. Trending: HBO’s coming “Harry Potter” series has finally found its Harry, Ron and Hermione. It just took tens of thousands of auditions. Lives Lived: Ronnie Dugger was the founding editor, the publisher and an owner of The Texas Observer, a publication with few resources that took on powerful interests and exposed injustices. Dugger died at 95. SPORTS N.B.A.: Tyrese Haliburton’s dazzling performance led the Indiana Pacers to a 130-121 win and a 3-1 series lead over the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals. Even more impressive? His zero turnovers. Hockey: The Edmonton Oilers are one game from the Stanley Cup Final after defeating the Dallas Stars in Game 4 of the Western Conference final. A LIFE OF PHOTOS Workers in a gold mine in Brazil in 1986. Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman Gallery Sebastião Salgado, a renowned Brazilian photographer, died last week at 81. In the days since, people around the world have posted his images — which documented the plight of workers and the grandeur and fragility of nature — in tribute to a singular career. The photographer Lynsey Addario shared how Salgado’s work inspired her at an exhibition she saw in her early 20s: “The enormous prints of impoverished workers toiling under harrowing conditions left me speechless. They were an enigma to me — how had he managed to capture his subjects’ dignity in the midst of so much hardship?” she wrote on Instagram. “I was overcome by his images — the passion, the detail, the texture. I saw the marriage of travel and foreign cultures, curiosity and photography. It was there I understood what photojournalism truly was. And it was then I decided to dedicate my life to the craft.” See his life’s work, compiled by The Times. More on culture Pulp, the beloved Britpop group, is back with its first album in over 20 years. Stephen King’s new novel, “Never Flinch,” has stalkers, serial killers and a dash of social critique. Read our review. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Joel Goldberg for The New York Times Slow cook this garlic butter chicken. Watch tonight’s Manhattanhenge. Back up your digital life. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was nightly. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 1, 2025 Author Members Posted June 1, 2025 May 29, 2025 Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day: Tariffs: A panel of federal judges blocked Trump’s tariffs. Elon Musk: The billionaire confirmed that he’s leaving Washington. Higher education: The U.S. said it would “aggressively” revoke visas of Chinese students. Clemency: Trump granted pardons and commutations to more than two dozen people yesterday. More news is below. But first, we look at how the filibuster is changing. John Thune, the Senate majority leader. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times The end of the filibuster? By Carl Hulse I’m The Times’s chief Washington correspondent. The filibuster is on life support. Both parties have vowed to protect it, but both have chipped away at it. The latest blow came last week, when the parliamentarian, Senate’s independent rules referee, said a measure to strike down a California air pollution law was not exempt from the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold — and Republicans found a way to maneuver around her, pushing the bill through with a simple majority. The next test for the filibuster is coming soon, when members consider a sprawling bill that carries much of President Trump’s domestic agenda. Republicans are moving it through Congress using special rules that shield fiscal legislation from a filibuster and that strictly limit what may be included in such bills. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, says he’ll safeguard the filibuster. Today’s newsletter explains how this parliamentary maneuver, made famous by windy speeches given for TV in the middle of the night, is changing. Defining filibuster downward Republicans can hardly be accused of delivering the blow that sent the filibuster reeling. That punch came from Democrats a dozen years ago, in November 2013. The G.O.P. was blocking Barack Obama’s judicial nominees, so Harry Reid, then the majority leader, orchestrated a series of votes to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for most confirmations. Four years later, Republicans extended that filibuster exemption to Supreme Court nominees. Two years later, they shortened the time it takes to consider any lower-level nominee, a change that allowed both parties to speed the seating of judges. The moves had monumental consequences. They enabled Trump to place three justices of his choosing on the Supreme Court. He didn’t need to make selections palatable to Democrats, since they could no longer influence the outcome. Most current members of Trump’s cabinet probably wouldn’t have been confirmed if a 60-vote threshold remained. What’s next In 2021, Democrats included a minimum wage hike in their own domestic policy bill, which was being considered under those same budget reconciliation rules that Republicans are using today. The parliamentarian nixed the minimum wage proposal, saying it would not directly affect federal revenue. Progressives complained. They said they’d been thwarted by an unelected official and urged Democrats to forge ahead regardless. They did not. Now, as Senate Republicans prepare to consider a sweeping spending- and tax-cut package, they will face similar pressure from inside their party to include major policy moves that do not qualify for reconciliation bills. They, too, may want to dismiss or ignore the parliamentarian if decisions go against them. Thune says he won’t do this. He dismissed complaints that the move on the California pollution law did anything to weaken the filibuster. He also offered a prediction: “I suspect Democrats are trying to use this situation as cover to justify abolishing the filibuster the next time they’re in charge,” he said. “I think they think that they can make dismantling the Senate filibuster a lot more palatable by claiming, however mendaciously, that Republicans attacked it first.” He may be right. In the grand tradition of the Senate, the minority party will want to get even at its first opportunity back in the majority. PUTIN’S CHOICE Vladimir Putin and President Trump in 2019. Erin Schaff/The New York Times When Trump became president, Vladimir Putin seemed to think he had gained a friend in the White House. Trump pulled back support for Ukraine and echoed Kremlin talking points, claiming that Ukraine had started the war. Then, on Sunday, Trump wrote on social media that Putin “has gone absolutely CRAZY!” He said yesterday that he was “very disappointed” that Russia had continued to bomb Ukraine during peace negotiations. Trump wants peace, and he increasingly views Putin as an obstacle. Russia’s leader now faces two conflicting options: Total victory in Ukraine: Putin thinks he can outlast Western support for Ukraine and eventually break Ukraine’s defensive lines. He wants to force his maximalist demands: a demilitarized Ukraine that doesn’t join NATO — eliminating any potential threat to Russia. But it will take time to wear down Ukraine’s defenses. Compromising with the Americans: Putin has given little in peace talks, and Trump has grown impatient. Trump’s allies in Congress want more sanctions on Russia. He said yesterday that he first wants to see another two weeks of negotiations. If Putin doesn’t give in, he may face a revitalized American effort against him. What will Putin do? He could try to find a middle option, offering small concessions to Trump to buy time. He could accept Trump’s peace terms, which are, after all, favorable to Russia. Or he could discard Trump’s overtures and go for total victory. He apparently has two weeks to decide. — German Lopez ELON’S GOODBYE Elon Musk at a cabinet meeting last month. Eric Lee/The New York Times Elon Musk is leaving Washington. In a post on X last night, he confirmed for the first time what has become increasingly clear for weeks — that his work with the Trump administration and DOGE is coming to an end. He thanked Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.” Musk said in recent days that he had spent too much time on politics, and he has lamented the reputational damage his work with the administration has caused to him and his companies. Related: Musk criticized the Republicans’ domestic agenda bill, which he said would undermine White House efforts to reduce federal spending. THE LATEST NEWS Tariffs A panel of federal judges blocked some of Trump’s tariffs, ruling that he did not have the “unbounded authority” to tax imports from nearly every country in the world. The ruling gave the administration up to 10 days to complete the process of halting the tariffs. The government immediately filed plans to appeal the decision. Global markets jumped after the court’s decision, Reuters reports. International Students Marco Rubio Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said that the U.S. would aggressively revoke visas of Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese government or who are studying in “critical fields.” The move is likely to cause anxiety among universities: Chinese students are the second-largest group of international students in the U.S. Harvard and government lawyers will today make their first in-person arguments over the Trump administration’s attempt to bar the university from enrolling international students. Immigration A federal judge ordered immigration officials to release Kseniia Petrova, a Russian scientist employed by Harvard who has been detained since February. Another federal judge temporarily blocked the government from revoking legal protections for thousands of people who entered the U.S. through Biden-era entry programs. The Trump administration said it would comply with a court order to facilitate the return of a deported Guatemalan man. Federal agents are showing up unannounced at schools, homes and migrant shelters to interview unaccompanied migrant children. Critics say the visits are a pretext to deport the children. International The U.N. denounced a new Israeli-backed operation to distribute aid in Gaza, a day after a chaotic start. The operation, which bypasses the U.N., is run by private U.S. contractors and secured by Israeli soldiers. A French court sentenced a surgeon who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 299 people, most of them children, to the maximum 20 years in prison. The Chinese government has sent thousands of Uyghurs to work in factories that supply brands like Tesla, McDonald’s and Samsung. Click the video below to see David Pierson, a Times reporter, explain the findings of an investigation. The New York Times Other Big Stories Nvidia, the A.I. chipmaker, announced that its revenue jumped 69 percent to $44 billion in its most recent quarter. A former Ohio divorce lawyer has been charged with the kidnap and murder of a client. Prosecutors say he wanted to delay the start of her divorce trial. IN ONE CHART Sources: Associated Press (2024 results); Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (historical results); American Community Survey (income) | Circle size indicates county population. | By The New York Times Trump’s 2024 victory was not an outlier: Close to half the counties in the United States — 1,433 in all — shifted toward Republicans in each of the past three elections. Only 57 counties shifted toward Democrats in all three. The chart above arranges these “triple-trending” counties by income. Our analysis finds that Democrats have improved almost exclusively in wealthier areas, while Republicans are making gains in working-class areas. See more charts and maps that break down both parties’ gains by race and education. OPINIONS An Israeli-backed effort to distribute aid in Gaza will only make food shortages there worse. The U.N. should take its place, Catherine Russell, the head of UNICEF, writes. Here is a column by David French on Democrats’ spending on influencers. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS Mormon undergarments: The faithful can wear tank tops now. Many are “stoked.” Big promises, little regulation: A driverless semi-truck company is testing its vehicles on a Texas highway. Some experts worry the technology isn’t ready yet for the road. Your pick: The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday was about a manhunt for an escaped prisoner in Arkansas. Trending: E.l.f. Beauty bought the model Hailey Bieber’s cosmetics brand, Rhode, in a $1 billion deal, The Wall Street Journal reports. Lives Lived: Bruce Logan helped detonate the Death Star in “Star Wars,” oversaw the creation of the title sequence in “2001: A Space Odyssey” and helped integrate the live-action photography and computer-generated imagery in “Tron.” He died at 78. ‘THIS IS CAROL’ In Kennett, Mo. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times The rural Missouri town of Kennett sits in a county where four out of five people voted for Trump last fall. But its 10,000 residents are divided now over his immigration crackdown. That’s because one of its targets, Carol Hui, is a beloved waitress at John’s Waffle and Pancake House. Her lawn is dotted with “Student of the Month” signs earned by the three kids she has had since she came to the U.S., illegally, from Hong Kong 20 years ago. Hui, 45, was arrested on April 30 and is now in jail, awaiting deportation, reports The Times’s Jack Healy. At the waffle house, her bosses threw a “Carol Day” fund-raiser, which netted nearly $20,000. Petitions protesting her detention sit on the tables amid the jelly packets and the ketchup bottles. But some residents understood her detention as part of the change America needs. What they’re saying “I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here. But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves. … This is Carol.” — Vanessa Cowart, a friend from Hui’s church “They vote for Trump, and then they get mad because the stuff starts happening. We’ve got to get rid of all the illegals. This is just a start.” — Adam Squires, former mayoral candidate SPORTS N.B.A.: The Oklahoma City Thunder are headed to the league finals after beating the Minnesota Timberwolves, 124-94, in Game 5. Hockey: The defending champion Panthers will advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the third straight year. Read how they staved off a Carolina comeback. ARTS AND IDEAS Onosato Daiki, center, celebrates his promotion. Kyodo, via Reuters Onosato Daiki, a Japanese sumo wrestler, yesterday was named a yokozuna, the highest title in the sport. It was a bit of surprise: While sumo is Japan’s national sport, steeped in centuries of tradition, Japanese wrestlers no longer dominate. Onosato is the first Japanese man in eight years to win the title. More on culture A stunt performer who worked on the western “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2” sued its director, Kevin Costner, and producers over an unscripted rape scene. See a list of novels coming out next month, including a new thriller by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini. Cover roasted chicken thighs and potatoes in a Roman cacciatore sauce. Take a perfect photo of Manhattanhenge. Sleep better with blackout shades. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were outboard and troubadour. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 2, 2025 Author Members Posted June 2, 2025 May 30, 2025 Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day: Harvard: A federal judge said she would extend an order that blocked Trump’s effort to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students. Tariffs: An appeals court temporarily halted a ruling that invalidated Trump’s tariffs. Liverpool: The British police filed seven charges against a 53-year-old man after a car crash at a soccer parade. Spelling Bee: There’s a new national champion. More news is below. But first, we explore tariffs and presidential power. In New Jersey. Kenny Holston/The New York Times Tax man By German Lopez Just how much power does the president have? That was the question in front of the federal courts that ruled against President Trump’s tariffs in the last couple days. The judges weren’t deciding whether the tariffs are good for the country but whether the president has the power to impose them all by himself. Maybe that sounds like a technical question. It’s not. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this question defines America. The framers rebelled against Britain because they felt that the king had too much power and that they didn’t have enough say in the politics that shaped their lives. They wrote the Constitution to avoid crowning another monarch. Through that lens, a little-known trade court in New York blocked most of Trump’s tariffs, including those that remained from “Liberation Day.” Yesterday, an appeals court agreed to preserve the tariffs while it considers the case. The markets rose — cautiously — on the news. America’s trading partners also reacted skeptically because the rulings could lead to more chaos as legal battles play out. Today, I want to focus on the question that the courts face. At a joint session of Congress. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Checks and balances At face value, the Constitution seems clear on this topic. It says Congress, not the president, has the power to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.” And tariffs are taxes. But Congress can delegate some powers to the president. It has passed several laws that allow the president to levy tariffs in case of emergency — say, if another country undermines a U.S. industry that’s important to national security. Trump used one of these laws, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose his “reciprocal” tariffs on other countries. (Madeleine Ngo, who covers economic policy, explained the law.) The president’s powers, however, are limited. In fact, the law Trump invoked originally intended to restrict the president’s tariff powers. The courts ruled that Trump had breached the law’s limits. His allies described the decisions as a “judicial coup.” But in some sense the courts found that Trump was the one who tried to seize power that rightfully belongs to another branch, Congress. A solution For Trump, the rulings are frustrating. Tariffs are the centerpiece of his trade strategy, Tony Romm, who covers economic policy, wrote. Trump believes that he needs the levies to land trade deals and bring back jobs. The same Constitution that limits Trump also offers a remedy to his problem: Congress could pass a law establishing his tariffs. His party controls the House and the Senate, and it’s even working on a tax bill. If Republican members of Congress believe in Trump’s agenda, they can simply formalize it. For more: As the administration’s court losses pile up, so have its attacks on the judiciary. CHINESE STUDENTS Agnes Chang The administration says it wants fewer Chinese students in the United States. What will revoking many of their visas mean? Here are a few figures and facts to put the move into context: Of the 1.1 million international students in the U.S. during the 2023-24 academic year, some 277,000 were from China. (Only India sent more, 331,000. The number of Chinese had dropped 4 percent from the prior year, while the number from India surged 23 percent. The share of students from abroad at 193 U.S. colleges and universities has doubled since the start of the 21st century, to 15 percent from about 7 percent. Illinois Tech had the highest share: 51 percent. Overall, international students contributed about $43 billion to the economy in 2023-24, mostly through tuition and housing fees, according to NAFSA, an education group. New York University, Northeastern and Columbia had the most international students, according to a report by Open Doors, a research organization. At N.Y.U., their enrollment has increased nearly 250 percent over a decade. The most educated Chinese students stay in the U.S. after graduation. One study found that 90 percent of Chinese graduates of Ph.D. programs in science and tech fields from 2000 to 2015 were still in the country in 2017. Related: The administration’s threats to revoke student visas are part of a broader effort to decouple the United States from China, Edward Wong writes. THE LATEST NEWS Health The Trump administration canceled a nearly $600 million contract with Moderna to develop a bird flu vaccine for humans. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has repeatedly questioned the safety of mRNA, the technology behind the vaccines. A report on children’s health, released last week by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited scientific studies that did not exist. More on the Trump Administration In Williamson, N.Y. Hilary Swift for The New York Times “I feel outraged”: Migrant workers on rural New York’s fruit and dairy farms have sequestered themselves, fearful of Trump’s deportations. DOGE says the government has saved people billions by reversing rules on credit card fees and appliance standards. Data show that those reversals will actually increase costs. By pardoning those accused of white-collar crimes, Trump appears to be using his power to redefine criminality to suit his needs, Glenn Thrush writes. Israel-Hamas War The U.S. sent an Israeli-backed cease-fire proposal to Hamas. Hamas suggested that it didn’t contain strong-enough guarantees on ending the war. A contentious Israeli-backed aid distribution system has begun operating in Gaza. Patrick Kingsley, the Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, explains its chaotic rollout. Click the video below. The New York Times Other Big Stories Summer heat arrives in the Western U.S. today: Temperatures could top 100 in Boise, Idaho, and 106 in Las Vegas. A judge in South Africa sentenced a woman to life in prison after she was convicted of selling her 6-year-old daughter. The child is still missing. The N.Y.P.D. is investigating two detectives who provided security at the Manhattan townhouse where two cryptocurrency investors are accused of torturing a man for three weeks. MUSK’S DRUGS Elon Musk at a Trump rally last year in Butler, Pa. Doug Mills/The New York Times As Elon Musk departs Washington, Kirsten Grind, an investigative journalist who has been reporting on his personal life, shares some findings from her latest story. I have reported on Elon Musk’s drug use for years. Today, my colleague Megan Twohey and I published an article showing that, as he joined Donald Trump on the campaign trail, Musk was using drugs much more than the public knew. Musk has said that he doesn’t like illegal drugs, and he told an interviewer that he took ketamine only with a prescription — a small amount every couple of weeks. But we found that he had a serious ketamine habit and had used the drug sometimes on a near daily basis. Last year, he privately told people he was taking so much ketamine that it was affecting his bladder. He also took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. Our story looks at other details from his personal life, too, including his overlapping romantic relationships and the legal battles involving his brood of children. Read it here. OPINIONS In 1950, the U.S. deported a Chinese scientist who went on to build China’s space program. Americans should be worried that Trump might repeat history, Kathleen Kingsbury writes. Here are columns by David Brooks on fighting wars for ideals and Michelle Goldberg on Musk’s legacy. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS In Overbrook, Okla. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times ‘Russian’ troops in Oklahoma: Re-enactments of historical battles are common. But pretending to fight in a fake modern war is a new phenomenon. Toto: The company’s toilet won Japan’s heart. Can it conquer America? Entry-level workers: For some recent graduates, the A.I. job apocalypse may already be here. A bit of grace: When people go through challenges or scary situations, those who display more self-compassion are also more resilient, research shows. Your pick: The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday was about a redesign of Mormon undergarments. Trending: The actress Sydney Sweeney is selling a bar of soap infused with her bath water, The Cut reports. (The soap costs $8.) Lives Lived: Bernard Kerik was New York’s police commissioner on 9/11. He later fell from grace after pleading guilty to federal corruption and tax crimes. He died at 69. SPORTS N.B.A: The New York Knicks lived to play another game after defeating the Indiana Pacers, 111-94, to force a Game 6. The Pacers still lead the series, 3-2. N.H.L.: The Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers are set for a Stanley Cup rematch after the Oilers defeated the Dallas Stars. ARTS AND IDEAS Faizan Zaki Ting Shen for The New York Times Faizan Zaki, a 13-year-old from Plano, Texas, was crowned this year’s National Spelling Bee champion last night. His winning word: éclaircissement. Yesterday’s final marked the close of the competition’s 100th anniversary. A lot has changed in a century. The Bee is now televised and attracts spellers from around the world. See a timeline of memorable moments from the contest’s history. For more: Feeling inspired? Take a spelling quiz. More on culture Could you make a podcast with your ex-husband? CNN’s Christiane Amanpour is doing just that. A Times culture editor has made a playlist based on the best music festival he ever attended: Lollapalooza 1995. Listen to it here. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Craig Lee for The New York Times Bake Chez Panisse’s not-too-sweet blueberry cobbler. Spend 36 hours in Marseille. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was peacetime. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 3, 2025 Author Members Posted June 3, 2025 May 31, 2025 Good morning. Establishing a streak is a low-pressure way to generate feelings of pride and self-respect around the things you’re already doing in your everyday life. María Jesús Contreras Best practices By Melissa Kirsch Every app I use is trying to get me to start a streak. My Kindle praises me when I read a few days in a row. The New York Times Games app gives me gold stars if I do the crossword puzzle every morning. The clothing resale site Poshmark offers me a vague promise of “rewards” if I keep listing my old pants at a regular cadence. I like to think of myself as a person who can’t be swayed by shallow blandishments, but I am attracted to these incentives. I’m a pleaser. If there’s a good grade to be gotten, I want the A. In her recent Times story about the benefits of streaks, Nell McShane Wulfhart humbly admits that she has run at least a mile a day for seven years and counting. I read this with a combination of awe and self-recrimination. She even ran her mile when she had Covid! She once ran it naked in a hotel room! This commitment to consistency and fitness seems noble, almost heroic. What am I doing with my life (besides selling my old pants)? Well, I am flossing my teeth. I haven’t flossed every single day for seven years, but I have flossed every day since the last time I went to the dentist, which was several months ago, and the pride I feel in this streak is completely out of proportion with the size of the achievement. I wouldn’t dare miss a day at this point, not because I’m worried about tartar buildup, but because of how wildly good it feels, at the end of even the worst day, to be able to say, “Well, at least I have my flossing streak.” I’m aware this sounds pathetic, but it works for me. Once you’re on a roll, each day that you add to your streak feels like a prize, an economist told Wulfhart. Of course you want to continue — there’s so little in life that offers regular, guaranteed wins. Then there’s the loss-aversion motivator: “Research shows that once you’re on a streak, the fear of losing it is stronger than the motivating power of just gaining another day,” Wulfhart writes. Yes, it feels good to tick off another day of flossing, but the idea of losing my months of perfect performance, the disappointment I’d feel in myself if I went back to being a mere mortal with no special dental regimen, keeps me at it. We learn to love streaks as children, when good habits are gamified and there’s no feeling so pleasurable as seeing the accumulation of metallic star stickers on a chart. Do we ever outgrow this? It’s tempting to observe the patterns of one’s life and think, Where might I start a streak? You’re looking for things you’re already doing that you could continue to do regularly. You’re actively identifying things you can do that will make you proud of you. Streaks are really just rituals dressed up in the language of self-optimization. A meditation streak is the same as a meditation practice, only with different framing. Whether we call the activity a streak or a practice, a ritual or a ceremony, it’s serving a similar purpose: adding structure, purpose, predictability, meaning to our days. THE LATEST NEWS Politics President Trump gave Elon Musk a golden key emblazoned with the White House insignia. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times President Trump invited Elon Musk into the Oval Office for a formal send-off and heaped praise on his work in slashing the government. Musk was sporting a black eye, which he said he got from his 5-year-old son. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to revoke, for now, a Biden-era program that gave temporary residency to more than 500,000 people who faced humanitarian crises in their home countries. Trump accused China of violating its trade truce with the U.S., which involved both countries’ temporarily rolling back their steep tariffs on each other. New C.D.C. advice keeps Covid vaccines on the immunization schedule for healthy children, contradicting an announcement this week by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. PBS sued Trump to block an executive order that would cut federal funding for public television and radio. Middle East Israel’s military issued a sweeping evacuation order for much of northern Gaza, warning that a new operation was coming. International pressure is growing on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. Images of emaciated children have brought attention to the enclave’s dire hunger problem. Other Big Stories Unexpectedly severe floods flattened the town of Mokwa, Nigeria, killing at least 56 people. A New Hampshire businessman was indicted on charges that he orchestrated attacks on public radio journalists who had investigated claims of sexual misconduct against him. A tractor-trailer carrying about 250 million honeybees rolled over in Washington State. GAME OF THE WEEK A Knicks watch party in Central Park. Kent J. Edwards/Getty Images The New York Knicks play the Indiana Pacers tonight at 8 p.m. in Game 6 of the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference finals. It’s do-or-die for the Knicks, with the Pacers leading the best-of-seven series 3-2 after New York’s 111-94 victory Thursday night. Sam Dolnick, our deputy managing editor and a die-hard fan, has some feelings. When the Knicks are winning, New York feels different. Strangers high-five at the bodega; Manhattan avenues transform into St. Peter’s Square. And if the Knicks win tonight, they will somehow, shockingly, sit one victory away from the N.B.A. finals for the first time since 1999. And if they lose, well, that will be the end of another heartbreaking season. It’s that double helix — joy and despair, woven together — that characterizes the Knicks right now. That there’s any joy at all is a glorious change, since the Knicks have overdosed on despair for the last 25 years. (I happen to have moved to New York 26 years ago. You can send me condolence baskets.) The Knicks have been on an intoxicating run for weeks now, and blue-and-orange caps are sprouting on city sidewalks like spring flowers. Through six weeks of playoffs, the city has rejoiced in the team’s stunning comebacks and did-you-see-that?!! heroics. But this Knicks team is also deeply maddening. We’ll be groaning for years about that fourth quarter when they fell asleep on the court and gave up a 14-point lead in three minutes. Intoxicating and maddening, both. Doesn’t that characterize life in New York, too? There is no place more electric; there is no place more grueling. It wouldn’t make sense for New York basketball fans to back a team that makes winning look easy because nothing is easy here. Watching these Knicks can feel like taking a long, hard look in the mirror. Sometimes you like what you see. Sometimes you don’t. If the Knicks manage to beat the Pacers, it will almost certainly be thanks to their everyman superstar, Jalen Brunson. If most N.B.A. heroes look like Hercules in a tank top, Brunson, at 6-foot-2, could be just another commuter on the A train. His herky-jerky style of play is maddening for opponents. And it’s intoxicating for us. Go Knicks. Read The Athletic’s N.B.A. coverage. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Art Christopher Gregory-Rivera for The New York Times The Met’s redesigned Rockefeller wing — filled with works from Africa, the Americas and Oceania — reopens today. See inside. Koyo Kouoh had spent months preparing the Venice Biennale’s main exhibition before she died this month. Her team will complete the work and open the show next May. Some of the richest people in the world descended on New York’s auction houses this month and spent more than $1 billion on art. Can you guess which works received top dollar? Take the quiz. Film and TV Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the acclaimed TV series “M*A*S*H,” died at 87. A new film by Wes Anderson, “The Phoenician Scheme,” explores the meaning of goodness. The movie has a lot of big names, which highlights what our critic says is its biggest problem: “It’s overstuffed, and thus skims and skitters across the surface of everything it touches.” “That finale was wild”: Times critics discussed the latest season of “The Rehearsal,” in which Nathan Fielder explored the link between plane crashes and social discomfort. “Duck Dynasty” will soon return to TV. The show’s original run was a precursor to our modern conservative identity politics, James Poniewozik writes. “The Last of Us” ended last Sunday. For those craving more postapocalyptic action, The Times put together a reading list. More Culture Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters Taylor Swift announced that she had bought back the rights to her first six albums. “The best things that have ever been mine … finally actually are,” she said in her statement. The video game Bloodborne turns 10 this year. Like the art of Munch and Duchamp, it confused and outraged some before its greatness was fully understood. A new generation has fallen in love with the shoe designer Steve Madden after his blunt answers on a fashion podcast. “It’s nice to be appreciated,” he told The Times. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. CULTURE CALENDAR By Tom Wright-Piersanti ?? “Pavements” (in theaters nationwide on Friday): Even the movies about musicians tend to be hagiographies. “Pavements” is the antidote. It is, centrally, a documentary about Pavement, a band that made some of the best rock music of the 1990s. But it’s so much more, and so much stranger. Part of the movie is a jukebox musical, like Green Day’s “American Idiot.” Another part is a glossy, melodramatic Hollywood biopic. And another is a feature on a pop-up museum exhibition about the band. All three of these elements are parodies, spoofing the silly ways we mythologize the music of our youth; all three also evoke genuine emotion. Pavement’s music is a tangle of irony and sincerity, of incredible effort and cool detachment. It’s fitting that the movie about them is the very same. Here is our review of the film and an interview with its director. And if you want to listen to some Pavement, here’s a primer with a few of the band’s best songs. RECIPE OF THE WEEK Con Poulos for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Skillet Greens With Runny Eggs Looking for a colorful dish that can be both a laid-back dinner and a hearty, healthful brunch? Try my skillet greens with runny eggs, peas and pancetta. It’s a bit like shakshuka, but in place of the usual saucy mix of tomatoes and peppers, I use a verdant combination of scallions (or young spring onions) and a big leafy bunch of chard — including its succulent, often overlooked stems. Be sure to serve this with buttered toast (brunch) or a torn-up baguette (dinner) to catch all the runny bits of yolk. REAL ESTATE Sara Sugihara Katherine Marks for The New York Times The Hunt: After 50 years in the same rental, an Upper West Sider looked for a place to buy with up to $600,000. Which home did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $650,000: A Streamline Moderne-style house in Denver, a condo in a former cotton mill in Atlanta, or a bungalow in St. Petersburg, Fla. LIVING Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times Fake My Run: A man built a website that lets users trick Strava with fake workouts. He’s trying to make a point. High desert beauty: An insider’s guide to visiting Taos, N.M., which remains a beacon for artists. He does it all: Homes, hotels, candles and caviar sets: If you can build it, Ken Fulk wants to design it. Celibacy: A memoirist swore off sex for a year. Here’s what she learned about love. Stressors: As the government tries to persuade women to have more babies, a new study finds that the mental health of mothers is in decline. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER How to find a swimsuit you really love Lounging poolside and frolicking in the surf are among life’s greatest pleasures. Swimsuit shopping? That one’s not so high on the list. To find a suit you actually love, Wirecutter’s experts have some tips. A great fit is essential for looking and feeling your best (and for preventing wardrobe malfunctions). Swimsuits that offer more customization — such as adjustable straps and bra bands — can be a good place to start. To find suits with staying power, rather than one-season wonders, look for substantial fabrics and neat, well-executed construction. If you’re in need of some inspiration, we tested more than 50 one-pieces, bikini sets and rash guards to find our 19 favorite swimsuits. — Zoe Vanderweide NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was obedience. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, 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. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 3, 2025 Author Members Posted June 3, 2025 June 1, 2025 Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day: Gaza: More than 20 people were killed near an American-Israeli aid distribution site in southern Gaza this morning, according to Palestinian health officials. Judiciary: Mexicans are about to vote for their judges for the first time. Weather: It’s the official start of hurricane season in the Atlantic. More news is below. But first, a chat about a new Times project that wants us to get in touch with our creative sides. Erik Winkowski Creative spark By Tom Wright-Piersanti I’m an editor on The Morning. Last May, my father-in-law showed up at my house with a child-size drum set in his trunk. That might make some parents shudder, but I was thrilled. I was a drummer when I was younger, with a set just like this one, and now my 7-year-old son could follow in my footsteps. I’ve learned two things in the year since. First, you can’t force your kids to like the things you like; my son has probably played those drums for 15 minutes total. More important, though, I learned that I wasn’t a former drummer. I’m still a drummer. Even though I hadn’t engaged that part of my brain in years, my trips downstairs to do laundry now usually include a few minutes bashing on that little drum set. I’m not making beautiful music — just ask my neighbors — but I’m having a great time. Every little session leaves me feeling energized. That spark of creativity is something my colleagues at Well, The Times’s personal health and wellness section, think everyone could use more of. Starting tomorrow, they’ve got a five-day challenge that aims to help readers nurture their creative side. I spoke with Elizabeth Passarella, the writer behind the project, to learn more. After years away from the drums, I’ve been shocked by how good it feels to make music. Why is that? What you feel is what many of us feel when we do something creative: giddy and inspired. Whether you do something more traditionally creative, like draw or play music, or riff on a recipe because you were out of an ingredient, it gives you a little boost. And there is plenty of research that links creativity to happiness and better moods. Some people reading this are gifted painters and musicians, I’m sure. But others would probably say that they don’t have much artistic talent. What would you say to them? You are all creative in some way. There’s a definition of creativity that researchers use: generating something novel that is also useful. That could be the score to a movie. It could also be, as one expert told me, a brilliant solution to keeping your dog out of a certain area of your house. Or making up a weird game to play with your toddler. Basically, anybody can be creative at any time. Yes. And it might come more naturally to some of us. But it’s a skill you can practice and grow. Several researchers I spoke to emphasized how curiosity — just being open to something new or asking questions — is a hallmark of being creative. We can all nurture that. Part of the goal here, I know, is to help people actually get over the hump and do a creative new thing. How does that happen? Every day, we give you a short exercise that’s a warm-up for your brain. Kind of like a stretch. And we tell you the aspect of creative thinking that it’s demonstrating, some of which you probably already do but just don’t realize. For example, having constraints when you are problem-solving can improve your solutions. It’s why I write snappier articles when my editors give me word counts (which they always do). On the day we talk about constraints, we’ll ask you to write a poem using only certain words we provide. I love that challenge. You’ll see one of my poems as an example. Be nice. I’m sure your poetry is just as good as my drumming. Before this project, did you consider yourself a creative person? Absolutely. I’m a journalist, I write books and I have no other employable skills. Writing is the only job I’ve ever had, so honestly, learning techniques to get out of a rut and knowing I can grow my own creativity feels like I’ve gained a little job security. (Haha, just kidding. There’s no job security in writing.) But in all seriousness, before reporting this story, I would have said that creativity always alights on you, like a muse. I learned that, no, you can work at it. That makes me excited and hopeful. Sign up for the Well newsletter. You'll receive our 5-Day Creativity Challenge, starting on June 2, as well as essential news and guidance to live your healthiest life. Get it in your inbox THE LATEST NEWS Middle East In Tehran. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times The U.S. presented its first formal proposal to Iran for elements of a nuclear deal. Hours earlier, U.N. inspectors reported that Tehran has increased its uranium stockpile in recent months. The U.S. denounced Hamas’s response to a new American cease-fire proposal, blaming the group for the current impasse in negotiations. Hamas sought firmer guarantees for a permanent end to the war. Israel said it had killed Muhammad Sinwar, a top Hamas military leader and the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, during airstrikes. The Israeli government barred a group of Arab foreign ministers from visiting the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders, according to the Jordanian government. Trump Administration Unease is growing at the F.B.I. Kash Patel, the agency’s director, has pushed out top agents and is more freely using polygraph tests on employees. President Trump plans to withdraw his nomination of Jared Isaacman, a close associate of Elon Musk, to be the next NASA administrator. “There are no good options”: Migrants who entered the U.S. under a Biden-era program are scrambling after the Supreme Court allowed the government to revoke their legal protections. More on Politics Tim Walz is on a tour of atonement and explanation. His aides say there is no grand strategy to his appearances. Candidates in New York’s mayoral race have ambitious and sprawling proposals to fix the city’s housing crisis. See the plans here. Mexico Morena, a leftist political party, has accomplished a remarkable takeover of Mexican politics. Today’s judicial elections could be an important step in its consolidation of power. Voters will elect more than 2,600 judges and magistrates, including those who will sit on the Supreme Court. Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, a Times reporter in Mexico City, explains the ambitious experiment. Click the video below. The New York Times More International News North Korea has helped Russia in its war with Ukraine. In return, Moscow is helping to modernize Pyongyang’s military. Wildfires in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba have forced thousands to evacuate. Smoke from the blazes has spread to the upper Midwest. Other Big Stories The 2025 M.I.T. class president was barred from a graduation ceremony on Friday after delivering a pro-Palestinian speech during a commencement event the day before. Scientists are expecting this year’s hurricane season to be more active than usual. Here’s what to know. THE SUNDAY DEBATE Does having fewer international students at U.S. universities help Americans? No. Kicking out international students effectively kicks out future high-skill workers, prompting them to work instead for our trade partners. “If the administration is truly worried about China, it makes little sense to lock their smartest students in a communist dictatorship during a trade war,” Alex Nowrasteh writes for MSNBC. Yes. International students tend to enroll at the most elite schools, taking away spots and taxpayer money from American students. “They don’t have to eliminate foreign students altogether, but they need to better balance all their constituencies and place limits on admission,” David D’Alessandro writes for The Boston Globe. FROM OPINION Cities should adopt alternative response teams for noise complaints and mental health crises to free up the police to handle serious crimes, Barry Friedman, Max Markham and Scarlet Neath write. Some young people today don’t want to be parents because they fear failing their children, in the same way they believe their own parents failed them, Michal Leibowitz argues. Here are columns by Maureen Dowd on Elon Musk, and Ross Douthat on the secret to Trump’s resilience. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS Camille Farrah Lenain for The New York Times Road trip to the past: A writer took a journey along the Gulf Coast to meet a cousin he never knew — and confront an uncomfortable family history. Work Friend: “Should I feel bad about running errands during work hours?” Vows: They found love in a crowd of strangers — twice. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a longtime Upper West Side denizen’s search for a home. Trending: It’s Pride month. Here’s where to celebrate. Lives Lived: Valerie Mahaffey was a character actress with a knack for playing eccentric women who sometimes revealed themselves to be sinister on television shows such as “Desperate Housewives.” Mahaffey died at 71. SPORTS Victoire! Martin Meissner/Associated Press Soccer: Paris St.-Germain thrashed Inter Milan, 5-0, to win the European Champions League for the first time. N.B.A.: The Indiana Pacers are headed to the league finals after defeating the New York Knicks, 125-108, in Game 6. For the Knicks, it’s been an imperfect yet history-making season. THE INTERVIEW Philip Montgomery for The New York Times By Lulu Garcia-Navarro This week’s subject is Miley Cyrus, whose new album, “Something Beautiful,” was just released. In a very candid and wide-ranging conversation, we talked about repairing her relationship with her dad, her love for Dolly Parton and the tumultuous period a decade ago when she left Disney behind to become an adult pop star. When you look back at that period, 2013, when you were onstage with Robin Thicke and getting a lot of criticism for twerking at the V.M.A.s — All you have to say is “2013,” and I know where we’re going. Yeah. You were shedding your Disney persona and becoming an adult in the public eye. When you look back at that period, what do you see? I see adults not acting like it. I would never look at someone that’s 18, 19, 20, 21 years old and judge them as an adult, because they’re not yet. At one point, there was even a petition. It was like “Millions of Moms against Miley” or something. Sinead O’Connor wrote an open letter to you after the “Wrecking Ball” video was released. She wrote: “The music business doesn’t give a [expletive] about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think it’s what you wanted.” That feels like her experience being reflected on to me, but that’s not my experience. My experience was not that the music industry didn’t care about me. That’s what I was wondering. Looking back, do those words have a different resonance now? No, I still don’t feel that way. But I also came from a very different upbringing, where I’ve known fame since the moment that I was born, so I was really well prepared. It’s hard to train yourself to know what to expect, everything that fame can bring, but I already had the handbook, because they did the same thing to my dad, and to Dolly, to everyone around me. You know what I think it is? I understand the business I’m in. I’m in the record business. When I sign a contract, they’re buying records that they wish to sell, so I understand that I am setting myself up to become merchandise. I’ve committed to them that I want to not only bring success for myself but also to them. So I understand the music industry. At one point in my life, I look forward to just being an artist, untied, untethered. At some point I’ll get to do that. Read more of the interview here. And you can now watch a longer version of this interview on YouTube. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Click here to read this week’s magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Take a walk. Learn to play the piano on an affordable keyboard. Keep your bedroom cool. MEAL PLAN Christopher Testani for The New York Times In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests making quick and easy chicken tacos, a peppery beef and shishito stir-fry, and cheesy baked gnocchi with spicy tomato sauce. NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were loveably and volleyball. Can you put eight historical events — including the creation of the filibuster, the first drive-in theater, and the building of the Berlin Wall — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, 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. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 4, 2025 Author Members Posted June 4, 2025 June 2, 2025 Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day: Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian delegations are expected to meet in Istanbul today for a second round of peace talks. Poland: A nationalist won the Polish presidential election. He won’t set policy, but he can veto legislation from the centrist government. Weather: A giant cloud of Saharan dust is headed for Florida. More news is below. But first, we have the latest on an attack in Colorado. AN ATTACK IN COLORADO At the scene of the attack. Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times Eight people have been hospitalized with burns and other injuries after a man used what officials described as a “makeshift flamethrower” in Boulder, Colo., yesterday to attack demonstrators honoring Israeli hostages. Here’s what to know about the attack: Suspect: A 45-year-old man, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was taken into custody. Witnesses said the assailant yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack. The F.B.I. is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism, though there was no immediate indication that Soliman was linked to any particular group. Victims: The injured, who range in age from 52 to 88, were participating in a weekly event called Run for Their Lives, a demonstration held in cities around the world to call attention to the Israeli hostages in Gaza. Two are in serious condition, officials said. Response: This attack, less than two weeks after a gunman killed two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, is likely to intensify deep unease in the Jewish community in the U.S. “It is unfathomable that the Jewish community is facing another terror attack,” Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, said. “I condemn this vicious act of terrorism, and pray for the recovery of the victims.” Paula Ritchie on the morning of her death. Oliver Farshi for The New York Times A merciful death By Adam B. Kushner I’m the editor of The Morning. I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s and remember being fascinated by the controversy around Jack Kevorkian. He was a Michigan doctor who argued that sick people should be allowed to die on their own terms rather than suffer through a grueling illness. Was he a traitor to his oath to “do no harm”? Or was he an angel of mercy, letting victims of disease exercise one last bit of agency over their failing bodies? Kevorkian, who went to prison for helping dozens of people with “physician-assisted suicides,” seemed so radical at the time. Now his ideas are commonplace. Ten states and lots of Western nations have assisted-dying laws. But they’re mostly built for people with a life-ending diagnosis. Canada is trying something more. There, a patient can have a state-sanctioned death if she is suffering — but not necessarily dying — from an illness. For the cover story of yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, Katie Engelhart followed one woman’s journey to die. It’s a nuanced portrait of a person racked with pain and a tour of some controversial bioethics. I spoke with Katie about the difficulty in knowing what’s right and what’s wrong when people suffer. Your story has so much intimate detail about the struggles of the main character, Paula Ritchie. How did you get her to confide in you? Paula was, in her own words, “an open book.” The first time I called her, we talked for nearly three hours. She had applied for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, after suffering a concussion, which led to dizziness and insomnia and pain that never went away. I knew that Paula would be an interesting case study, in large part because of the complexity — the messiness, really — of her life. She was the kind of patient whom opponents of MAID worry about. Paula had a mix of physical and psychiatric conditions: chronic pain, chronic fatigue, bipolar disorder, depression. She had a history of childhood trauma. She lived below the poverty line. She was very lonely. You watched Paula die. I was moved, reading about her last moments. What was it like to see that? I was trying to be as small a presence as possible in the room. I sat in a folding chair at the foot of her bed. As a reporter, the experience was doubly intense: I was there to do a job — to gather information — but I was also experiencing the moment as a human being, sitting in a room full of suffering. I said very little to Paula and she said very little to me, although she did briefly reach for my hand as she was getting ready for her injections. Wow, that’s intense. Aside from witnessing a person’s death, you also talked to a lot of doctors and lawyers about Canada’s law, which says a patient can qualify for MAID if she’s suffering. What constitutes suffering? Patients must have a serious disease or disability; be in an advanced state of decline; and have intolerable “physical or psychological suffering.” The law doesn’t define exactly what it means to suffer or how a clinician should judge it. MAID assessors are instructed to “respect the subjectivity of suffering.” So Canada’s law is not just for people who are imminently dying. In the United States, patients need a “terminal” diagnosis — and a prognosis of six months or less. In Canada, they don’t have to be dying at all. People can qualify with, say, multiple sclerosis or chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia. This is tricky terrain! One cancer psychiatrist told you, “If you want to allow people to end their lives when they want to, then put suicide kits in hardware stores.” Yeah, it’s not really “aid in dying” if the patient isn’t dying. It’s something different. Someone in pain today might feel better tomorrow. You talk about how patients with spinal cord injuries adjust and often become glad to be alive. Right. Opponents of MAID say it should be a last resort, something that is allowed only after a patient has tried everything to get better. But the Canadian law doesn’t require this. As one MAID assessor told Paula: “It’s not my role to force you to do anything, even if I genuinely think it would really help you.” Some worry that poor and disabled people might pick MAID because it’s easier than living. Is there any truth to that? I spent a lot of time looking into this. It’s not as straightforward as saying marginalized people are being forced into it. But of course money and social factors influence people’s health — and the choices they make about it. How many Canadians end their lives each year through the state’s program? The latest data is from 2023. That year, nearly 15,000 patients whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable,” and 622 patients whose deaths were not, chose MAID. Overall, about one in 20 Canadians died this way. Read Katie’s story here. THE LATEST NEWS War in Ukraine Near the front line in eastern Ukraine. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Expectations are low for today’s peace talks in Istanbul, and the fighting has intensified: Ukraine launched a large-scale drone attack against air bases across Russia yesterday, one of its broadest assaults of the war. The attack targeted airfields in five regions, Russian officials said, reaching thousands of miles beyond the border. Ukrainian officials said the drones had launched from trucks smuggled inside Russia. The drone attack followed a Russian strike on an Ukrainian military training base that killed at least 12 soldiers. Tariffs President Trump is expected to double his levies on foreign steel and aluminum this week, even as U.S. courts question his tariffs’ legitimacy. Prominent conservative lawyers contributed to a brief that helped imperil Trump’s tariffs. It was another sign of a deepening rift between the president and the conservative legal movement, Adam Liptak writes. Decades ago, the U.S. allowed the factories that turn rare earth metals into magnets to move to China. Now, China is limiting supplies. When Trump imposes tariffs, the likely effects aren’t always clear. The Times compiled a list of the imports the U.S. relies on most from 140 countries. More on the Trump Administration Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, has no qualms about pushing back against Trump. Trump and his allies have used inaccurate claims to answer lawmakers’ concerns about the cost and impact of his “big, beautiful bill.” Read a fact check. The government’s battle with Harvard is escalating. Michael Bender, a Times correspondent in Washington, explains why the Trump administration has zeroed in on the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. Click the video below. The New York Times International Poland’s next president, Karol Nawrocki, won election narrowly after Trump endorsed him. His victory will complicate Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s efforts to advance a liberal agenda. South Koreans vote for their next president tomorrow. Whoever wins the election will lead a polarized nation, reeling from months of turmoil. Other Big Stories Kamala Harris Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times Kamala Harris is considering a run for California governor. Some party activists in the state aren’t convinced that she should. Wheat Thins vs. Thin Wheat: Mondelez, which makes Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies, sued Aldi over look-alike products. Economists expected the United States to break free of its housing slump this year. Instead, partly because of Trump’s tariffs, the market is struggling. OPINIONS American democracy is failing because too many Americans believe in the myth that strongmen get things done, Jonathan Sumption writes. Wonder Bread, Nesquik and doughnuts: Here’s how a U.S. cabinet secretary inspired Peter Mehlman’s sudden craving for the foods of his childhood. Here are columns by Margaret Renkl on fences and M. Gessen on a man Vladimir Putin couldn’t kill. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS Tonje Thilesen for The New York Times Slippery science: A team of middle schoolers is helping researchers count tiny, almost invisible baby eels. Cockney campaign: Inside the effort to protect pie and mash, a working-class British dish with deep roots. Vacation inspiration: Test your travel knowledge with this quiz. Metropolitan Diary: That car is going to hit us. Your pick: The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday was about Tim Walz’s atonement-and-explanation tour. Trending: The live-action remake of “Lilo & Stitch” has become one of the most profitable movies in years. Lives Lived: Guy Klucevsek was a masterly accordion player who helped expand the instrument’s repertoire well beyond polkas and other traditional fare. He died at 78. SPORTS Golf: Scottie Scheffler protected his lead at the Memorial, a win that almost felt predetermined. His victory is again drawing comparisons to some of the greats. Tennis: American men are no longer a joke at the French Open. Read how they’ve found their Grand Slam footing on clay. ARTS AND IDEAS Roger Kisby for The New York Times It was a Comic Con for the Jane Austen set. The production company Focus Features recently held a party in Pasadena to celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of its most beloved films: Joe Wright’s 2005 adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice.” Attendees dressed in their Regency era-inspired finest and heard the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet perform the movie’s soundtrack. (There were tears.) See inside. More on culture In New Orleans. Brandon Holland for The New York Times To the dismay of bartenders, Gen Z prefer to close out and pay after every drink, no matter how many they might order. See a list of comic books and graphic novels to read this Pride month. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. Steam miso-turmeric salmon over coconut rice. Avoid tennis injuries. Organize a small entryway. 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, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 5, 2025 Author Members Posted June 5, 2025 June 3, 2025 Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day: Gaza: This morning, Israeli soldiers opened fire near crowds of Palestinians walking toward a food distribution site, Israel said. At least 27 people were killed and dozens were wounded, the Gaza health ministry said. Climate: President Trump plans to open Alaskan wilderness for drilling and mining. Justice Department: An official threatened to sue California public schools if they continued to allow trans athletes to compete in high school sports. More news is below. But first, we explore antisemitism in America. In Boulder, Colo. Michael Ciaglo for The New York Times American antisemitism By Jonathan Weisman I’m an editor based in Chicago and the author of a book about being Jewish in the age of Trump. Three times in as many months, people who claim to fight for Palestinian rights have attacked Jews on American soil. Sunday’s Molotov cocktail assault in Boulder followed the killing in May of two young Israeli embassy aides in Washington, D.C., and the April firebombing of the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg, Pa., where Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family were celebrating Passover. This is what a resurgence of violent antisemitism looks like. The attacks were also acts of anti-Zionism — a clear response to the war in Gaza. There is a useful distinction between the clear bigotry of Jew hatred and the political and historical debate over Zionism — the support for a Jewish state. But, partly in response to the Oct. 7 war, the categories are collapsing. Salvos against Israel are colliding with longstanding prejudice, sometimes with deadly effect. Today’s newsletter is about that collision. The collapse It is a moment of despair for advocates for Palestinian rights. Many are desperate: More than 50,000 have died in Gaza, and much of the territory has been razed. The Trump administration appears to believe any defense of Palestinian lives is evidence of Jew hatred. (As my colleague Tyler Pager put it last night, the president has lots to say about antisemitism and little to say about Jews.) It has used pro-Palestinian speech as a pretext for assaults on higher education, science funding, foreign students and immigrants. But attacks on Jews for the actions of an Israeli government a world away are collective punishment, and collective punishment is bigotry. This was not even a question when Muslims in America were attacked as retribution for the murderous actions of Al Qaeda on 9/11. What resistance, though, is permissible? For a story I wrote last year about when garden-variety criticism of Israel spills into antisemitism, I had fraught conversations with non-Jews and Jews, many of whom have felt frightened since Oct. 7, 2023. On campus and at protests, they hear the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” for instance. Intifada is the Arabic word for “uprising,” and the term used to describe the often violent Palestinian resistance movements of the early 2000s and late 1980s. Meanwhile, Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, which for a century has been patrolling the dark worlds of bigotry, told me “there is no debate”: In his view, opposition to a Jewish State in the land of Jewish ancestry is antisemitism. A protest against Benjamin Netanyahu outside the U.S. Capitol last year. Eric Lee/The New York Times But there is debate. Zionism has always been a political idea, debated fiercely by Jews from the start. Increasingly, young Jews on the left say they are skeptical. Are they antisemites? That debate aside, the violent antisemitism of the right, which manifested six and a half years ago in the slaughter at a Pittsburgh synagogue, has now been joined by antisemitic violence on the left. In 2018, while I was on tour to promote my book about being Jewish in America, a woman in Orlando who identified herself as a “threat analyst” told me I was right to focus on the antisemitism of the right. Bigots on that end of the political spectrum were armed and already killing people. But, she said, I had given the antisemitism of the left short shrift, isolating it largely to Europe, in distinct pockets where Islamic extremism was thriving along with anti-Israel sentiment. Such antisemites were on the periphery of the “threat matrix” in the United States, she allowed, but they were moving to the center. Many acts of extremism since then — including the attacks this year — show they have now arrived. What’s next The man accused of Sunday’s assault is Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian immigrant who arrived on a tourist visa before applying for asylum. Most likely, the Trump administration will supercharge its search for would-be terrorists among those carrying the cause of Palestinian rights, especially among the foreign-born. Yesterday, Trump called the attack “yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.” Trump’s focus on antisemitism is also not without merit. American Jews watch attacks like those in recent months with alarm — and say they no longer feel safe in a nation where they have found freedom and acceptance for centuries. At the same time, antisemitic incidents and civil debate over Israel’s conduct in Gaza can be two different things. Anti-Zionist arguments are not, as some Jewish civil rights groups have argued, inherently bigoted positions promoted only by supporters of Hamas. Sometimes, that’s just politics. The Colorado attack Officials said the attack injured 12 people. At least two remained hospitalized yesterday. Federal officials charged Soliman with a hate crime. They said he had planned for a year. Visa overstays like Soliman’s are common: More than 40 percent of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. arrived with a visa and then stayed unlawfully, according to one estimate. THE LATEST NEWS Gaza In Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Israel said its troops shot near the food distribution site because people had strayed from a designated route. It’s the second shooting near the aid site in a few days. Today’s death toll was at least 27, and the previous shooting killed at least 23, Gazan officials said. The enclave is still struggling for food after Israel eased its blockade and rolled out a new aid system. See photos from The A.P. War in Ukraine Ukraine says its attack on Russian airfields this weekend, using drones hidden inside Russia, took 18 months to plan. Times analysis of video and satellite imagery shows the extent of the attack. It’s an example of how war tactics are changing, analysts say. At peace talks in Istanbul, Ukraine and Russia agreed to exchange prisoners but not to end the fighting. More International News The Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders quit the country’s government, toppling it less than a year after elections. Nearly 90 percent of voters sat out Mexico’s first judicial elections, one of the lowest turnouts in a federal election since the country became a democracy. Tourists and hikers were forced to flee after Mount Etna, in Sicily, erupted. It’s one of Europe’s most active volcanoes. See video. Climate and Weather In Alaska. Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management The area of Alaska where the Trump administration plans to allow drilling and mining is a 23 million-acre plot of untouched wilderness, which the Biden administration tried to protect. Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Forest Service has clashed with the agency for years. His confirmation hearing is today. The National Weather Service, which lost nearly 600 employees in DOGE’s cuts, is hiring. The acting head of FEMA told employees he wasn’t aware that the U.S. had a hurricane season. It’s unclear whether he was serious, but the agency said he was joking. More on the Trump Administration The Justice Department, which is investigating the Harvard Law Review for discrimination against white men, said it had a “cooperating witness” inside the student-run journal. That person now works in the White House. In deportation cases, Trump officials have violated orders or used evasive tactics to avoid scrutiny from federal judges. Read more about their approach. The U.S. has been a beacon for science for decades. Under Trump, scientists worry that researchers will go elsewhere. Business and Economy Americans are using “buy now, pay later” companies like Klarna to pay for groceries and cover bills. Some think it’s simply a shift in consumer habits, others say it’s a warning of financial distress. Some economists are warning that Republicans’ flagship legislation — the “big, beautiful bill,” which will move to the Senate later this week — may set off a spiral of rising debt and interest payments. Do you have questions about how the administration’s policies are affecting the economy? Ask them here, and we’ll answer some in an upcoming newsletter. Other Big Stories The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Maryland’s ban on semiautomatic rifles. As a result, the law — which prohibits the AR-15 — remains in place. Forecasts predicted that the northern lights would be visible across much of the U.S., but many places missed out. Here’s why. OPINIONS For better or for worse, Elon Musk is a visionary in space exploration, Louise Perry argues. Here’s a column by David French on Trump and conservative lawyers. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS At Butterworth’s. Alexander Coggin for The New York Times Butterworth’s: Inside the Capitol Hill restaurant where Trump acolytes go to see and be seen. Survivor and campaigner: She endured genital cutting in Somalia. Then she crowd-funded her reconstructive surgery on TikTok. Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was a video about Trump’s battle with Harvard. Watch it here. Trending: The actor Jonathan Joss, known for his voice work in “King of the Hill,” was shot and killed by a neighbor in San Antonio. Lives Lived: Long before the era of A.I., the composer David Cope developed a computer program for writing music in the style of Bach, Mozart and other Classical masters. He died at 83. SPORTS Tennis: Coco Gauff defeated Ekaterina Alexandrova to secure a spot in the French Open quarterfinals. Softball: No. 12 Texas Tech advanced to its first Women’s College World Series championship after beating No. 2 Oklahoma in a thrilling 3-2 semifinal. ARTS AND IDEAS The New York Times Today, the Times published its annual list of the 100 best restaurants in New York City. Our guides this year are Priya Krishna and Melissa Clark, plus their editor, Brian Gallagher, who broke some ties and got to a few remote spots. I talked to Brian about the project. — Adam B. Kushner How’d you know what restaurants to try? We started with the 100 picks on Pete Wells’s list last year. Then we looked at what had opened and places that looked great but didn’t make Pete’s list. That added about another 100. That’s a lot. It took about three months. Priya and Melissa ate out almost every day during the project. We rode a lot of subways — and, in my case, the Staten Island Ferry. And how’d you winnow? We wanted the list to reflect the diversity of the city. Different cuisines. Different price points (we didn’t want 30 tasting menus that cost $250). Different neighborhoods. So you have to make choices. If you have five great Italian restaurants and one great Sri Lankan kitchen and another terrific Albanian one, how do you choose? We didn’t even necessarily agree on which Italian spots to include; we had to talk out how to judge the fresh pasta at one against the ambience of another. Everyone is still friends, though. How much money did y’all spend? We haven’t calculated in the aggregate, but our most expensive meal was Sushi Sho, at more than $1,400 for two. The least expensive was White Bear, at about $25. More on culture Marc Maron announced that his podcast, “WTF,” would end this fall after nearly 16 years. The Whitney Museum suspended its Independent Study Program, known for cultivating the biggest names in contemporary art, after a dispute over a Gaza event. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Christopher Testani for The New York Times Top lentils and rice with fried onions to make mujadara. Save on groceries with these reader tips. Invest in a good cookware set. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were compile and polemic. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 6, 2025 Author Members Posted June 6, 2025 June 4, 2025 Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day: Trade: President Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum went into effect. Nuclear talks: The U.S. proposed allowing Iran to enrich some uranium as part of a deal. South Korea: After months of turmoil, the country has a new, center-left president. Congress: Republicans are cooling on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” More news is below. But first, we explain the context behind two recent shootings near Gaza aid sites. In Jabaliya, Gaza. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times A food crisis By Lauren Jackson I’m an editor on The Morning. Israel’s decision to change how food is distributed in Gaza hasn’t just been disruptive — it has been deadly. Last week, the military empowered private, mostly American contractors to deliver aid. They began getting food to some Gazans after an Israeli blockade stopped supplies for nearly three months. The war has decimated farmland that once grew wheat and olives, and without crops or food shipments, Gaza has become the “hungriest place on Earth,” according to the U.N. As the first cardboard boxes of food arrived, people sprinted, scaled barriers and joined surging crowds to get them. And Israeli troops stationed near the aid sites have repeatedly opened fire. Nearly 50 people have been killed and dozens wounded, according to Red Cross officials. All of the new sites suspended operations today, and Gazans are desperate for food and water. Below, I explain what is happening and why. A new program For most of the war, experienced groups like the United Nations have distributed aid. It has been contentious. Aid groups say their work has been unsafe and constrained: Israel has targeted aid convoys and facilities that it erroneously determined to be a threat and repeatedly blocked deliveries. At the same time, Israel said some aid workers had ties to Hamas. And it claimed that Hamas had diverted many of the supplies. (That couldn’t be verified by The Times, and the U.N. said it was exaggerated.) So last week, Israel implemented a new system. It transferred the responsibility to a private group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which pays American contractors to deliver food. Israel conceived of the plan and said the process would be “neutral” and “independent,” but the group’s leader said he didn’t think that was possible, so he resigned. A chaotic rollout In southern Gaza. Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press The group began operating last week after Israel lifted an 80-day blockade on aid deliveries. The contractors were quickly overwhelmed. Hungry Palestinians have walked for miles and gathered before dawn at the distribution sites. The crowds have panicked and shoved in the dark for a chance to get one of the limited cardboard boxes of food. Israeli soldiers stationed near the sites have repeatedly opened fire. The circumstances are contested, but the Red Cross reported that at least 27 people were killed yesterday morning and at least 21 people were killed in a shooting on Sunday. In response to one shooting, the military said the troops had fired near “a few” people who it said had strayed from the designated route to a food site and who did not respond to warning shots. The statement said these people had “posed a threat” to soldiers, though a military spokeswoman declined to explain the nature of the threat. Israel has blocked international correspondents from reporting on the ground in Gaza, and Hamas restricts what journalists can report on within the territory. Given the conflicting accounts, “it’s hard to say with certainty how these incidents have unraveled,” Patrick Kingsley, The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, told me. “Our interviews left us with the impression that those sudden surges have alarmed Israeli soldiers, prompting them to open fire.” Abdulrahman Odeh, 21, said he saw several bodies carted away after the shooting, but was eventually able to get a carton of aid. “There’s no system or order to receive it,” he said. “It’s survival of the fittest.” Others weren’t able to get a box: “We go, we see dead and injured people in front of us, and we leave empty-handed,” Rasha al-Nahal, a displaced Palestinian, said. “The only thing we get from going is humiliation.” The context Hussein Hajjaj, 6, suffers from severe malnutrition. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times The chaos has several causes: Widespread hunger: Israel’s recent blockade left all of Gaza on the brink of famine, according to the U.N. “There’s enormous desperation and need,” my colleague Aaron Boxerman, a reporter in Jerusalem, said. “Finding enough food and clean water is often a daily struggle for many Gazans.” People have dug holes to get unsanitary water and ground animal feed into makeshift flour to survive. (These photos show how emaciated many children have become.) Scarcity: There are few places to get food. The new program has announced only four distribution points; the previous, U.N.-coordinated system had 400. It’s rare that all four sites are open, and there isn’t enough food for everyone. Military strategy: Israel says the new system is needed to stop Hamas stealing, stockpiling and selling food, all of which could help the group, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, sustain its power. The U.N. claims Israel may have another goal — displacing people from northern Gaza by concentrating aid sites in the south. The response The shootings come at a particularly bad time for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even Israel’s allies have condemned its approach to delivering food. Britain, Canada and France also denounced his plans to expand the war as “disproportionate” and “egregious.” “The bloodshed heightens international scrutiny on Prime Minister Netanyahu at a time when he faces growing foreign demands, including from President Trump, to reach a truce with Hamas,” Patrick said. “The bigger the global outcry, the greater pressure he will face to compromise in the cease-fire negotiations.” For more: “People were stepping on dead bodies”: See a video of witnesses recounting yesterday’s shooting. THE BILL DIVIDING REPUBLICANS Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene Nicole Craine for The New York Times Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump’s signature tax-and-spending legislation, which he has named the “big, beautiful bill.” Congressional Republicans have assented to Trump’s appointments, backed his immigration moves and even expressed support for his tariff agenda. But Trump’s megabill has opened a rare rift between the party and its leader. Elon Musk called the measure a “disgusting abomination” that would swell the “already gigantic budget deficit.” His retreat from Washington has introduced cracks in his relationship with the president. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, has warned that the bill would increase the federal deficit. “I agree with Elon,” he said on social media. Trump denounced Paul yesterday, writing: “His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him.” Some House Republicans who voted for the proposal have buyer’s remorse — and say they didn’t know about certain controversial portions. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, wrote online that she hadn’t seen a provision that bars states from regulating A.I. “Full transparency, I did not know about this section,” she said. THE LATEST NEWS Trade Companies that rely on steel and aluminum — including makers of food cans — say Trump’s tariff increase will raise prices for American consumers. Trump says his tariffs will revive American manufacturing. Some business leaders are skeptical. More on the Trump Administration The Trump administration proposed an interim nuclear deal with Iran while it works out a more permanent plan to block the country’s path to an atomic bomb. The National Institutes of Health has ended or delayed nearly 2,500 grants for medical research under Trump, a Times analysis found. The administration revoked a Biden-era requirement that hospitals provide emergency abortions to women whose health is in peril, including in states where abortion is restricted or banned. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, ordered the Navy to review ship names that honor civil rights leaders including Harvey Milk and Thurgood Marshall. Deportation flights have reached their highest level under Trump so far. South Korea Election Lee Jae-myung survived a near-fatal stabbing to become South Korea’s new president. He rode a wave of anger against the former president, who was ousted after trying to impose martial law last year. In his inauguration speech, Lee called for dialogue with North Korea. Choe Sang-Hun, The Times’s Seoul bureau chief, explains the challenges Lee overcame, and the ones he faces now. Click the video to watch. More International News The war in Ukraine has killed or wounded nearly 1.4 million people, according to a new estimate: a million Russians and 400,000 Ukrainians. The hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, starts today. Rising temperatures and safety challenges make it a test of endurance for both pilgrims and Saudi Arabia. Other Big Stories ICE detained the family of the Egyptian man accused of throwing Molotov cocktails into a Colorado demonstration honoring Israeli hostages. An experimental treatment seems to stamp out multiple myeloma, a deadly blood cancer, in some patients. Doctors say it may be a cure for a disease long thought incurable. The Washington Post is changing its opinion section to include articles published in other newspapers, writers on Substack and, eventually, A.I.-assisted nonprofessional writers. HOW TO A.I. ChatGPT’s proposal for Kevin Roose’s backyard. We asked for your questions about the news. Robin Callow of Kennewick, Wash., wrote in: “How should I be using artificial intelligence in my day-to-day life?” Our tech columnist, Kevin Roose, answers: I use A.I. as an all-purpose research assistant, tutor and helper around the house. Last weekend, I had ChatGPT walk me through filling some cracks in my patio pavers. I asked another chatbot, Claude, for help in potty training my kid. It also built me a new website and briefed me on trade policy. My new favorite use, though, is interior design. I have horrible taste, so I drop in a photo from our house and tell ChatGPT, “Give this room a glow-up, add whatever furniture and décor you want, generate an image of the result and tell me where to buy everything you suggest.” OPINIONS Republicans should update their 2017 tax cuts to give bigger business tax breaks for left-behind communities, Kevin Corinth and Naomi Feldman write. Here’s a column by Thomas Friedman on running government as a business. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS In Brooklyn. Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times Bacon, egg and cheese: Here’s how inflation hits a New York City breakfast staple. “Hope this helps lol”: A TikTok user asked Kylie Jenner about her plastic surgery. Jenner responded in detail, Harper’s Bazaar reports. Your pick: The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday was about the shooting of Jonathan Joss, a voice actor on “King of the Hill.” Lives Lived: From the moment he signed with the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, Shigeo Nagashima was baseball royalty. He led his team to nine consecutive championships in a decade-spanning postwar dynasty that made him Japan’s “Mr. Baseball.” Nagashima died at 89. SPORTS Trending: The Knicks fired their coach, Tom Thibodeau, three days after losing in the Eastern Conference finals. It had been their most successful season in 25 years. See who might replace him. Tennis: Iga Świątek and Aryna Sabalenka are set for an epic showdown in the French Open semis, only their second meeting in a Grand Slam. IN THE COMMENTS Erik Winkowski Our colleagues at Well are running a challenge this week to help readers nurture their creative sides. Yesterday’s activity involved creating a poem using a brief list of words, to show how constraints can spark imagination. (You can create your own here.) Below are two poems that readers posted in the comment section: home is where devotion aches to see, to bear, to hold, where overnight our candle wakes, for all might turn to gold. — Julian, Bloomington, Ind. I couldn’t hold it oh it was impossible but I would bear it — Ashley, Brooklyn More on culture TikTok banned the hashtag #SkinnyTok after the E.U. opened an investigation into whether the app was glamorizing eating disorders. Late night hosts focused on Musk’s fight with Trump. “Don’t make me choose who I love more!” said Michael Kosta. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times Bake Rice Krispies treats with pistachio halvah. Play this Scandinavian yard game. Cook with the most planet-friendly oil. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were mauling and mulligan. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 7, 2025 Author Members Posted June 7, 2025 June 5, 2025 Good morning. There’s a lot of news from the Trump administration today. That’s first. Then we have a deep dive on Tesla’s troubles as Elon Musk leaves Washington — and more news from around the world. A travel ban The New York Times President Trump signed a travel ban for citizens of 12 countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa. Those countries are: Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. He also imposed visa restrictions on other countries. See the full list here. When it starts: The ban goes into effect on Monday. Will it last? A travel ban in Trump’s first term led to chaos and court battles. This time, the ban appears more likely to withstand legal challenges: “They seem to have learned some lessons,” Stephen Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown, said of the administration. “But a lot will depend upon how it’s actually enforced.” The rationale: In announcing the ban, Trump claimed foreigners who were not properly vetted posed a risk. “We don’t want them,” he said. He cited the recent arrest of an Egyptian man who overstayed a tourist visa and was charged with attacking Jewish protesters in Colorado. (The restrictions don’t cover Egypt.) There’s also a list of exceptions, including green card holders, dual citizens, athletes traveling to the U.S. for the World Cup or the Olympics, and others. See who’s exempted. More immigration news Harvard: Trump said he would prevent Harvard’s international students from entering the country. The university said that was illegal. Read more about their fight here. Asylum claims: For people in war-torn nations like Afghanistan and Myanmar, the travel ban dims hopes for sanctuary. Deportations: The administration obeyed a judge’s order and brought back a Guatemalan man whom it wrongly deported to Mexico. A Biden investigation Joe Biden, in 2024. Eric Lee/The New York Times Trump ordered the White House counsel and the attorney general to investigate Joe Biden and his staff. The government will examine if some of Biden’s presidential actions were legally invalid because his aides enacted those policies without his knowledge. It’s Trump’s latest attempt to stoke outlandish conspiracy theories about his predecessor: Trump recently shared a claim on social media that Biden was killed in 2020 and replaced by a robotic clone. Chaos at Tesla In the Oval Office last week. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times By Ryan Mac I cover Elon Musk. Elon Musk says he is stepping away from politics to care for his businesses, particularly Tesla. It needs the help. Tesla drove the electric-car revolution, and Musk spent nearly two decades making his image inseparable from the company. For years, Tesla seemed like a window into the future as it grew larger than the Big Three automakers in Detroit. But during — and partly because of — Musk’s stint slashing government programs and laying off workers, Tesla has withered. Its stock has tumbled since President Trump’s inauguration. Global sales have cratered. One blue state is nixing contracts. In Los Angeles, where I live, sheepish Tesla owners place “Bought Before the Plot Twist” stickers on their bumpers. Today’s newsletter is about how one of America’s great avatars of futurism broke. A decline Tesla had a few troubles before Musk jumped into politics. The company was losing market share around the world to Chinese electric automakers like BYD, and it had abandoned plans to manufacture a completely new and cheaper model. Instead, Musk was hyping humanoid robots and self-driving taxis, technologies that seem a long way off from mainstream use. But Musk’s sojourn in politics extracted a steep cost, partly by polarizing Tesla’s clients. Source: LSEG Data & Analytics | Data is through June 4. | By The New York Times The stock price is down more than 17 percent since the start of the year, and profit fell 71 percent in the first three months of 2025. Protesters have picketed Tesla showrooms around the world. They say they intend to expand their demonstrations. People have vandalized Tesla vehicles and charging stations. A Colorado resident spray-painted “Nazi” onto a dealership sign. In Germany (where Musk backed a far-right party) and Britain (where he said a civil war driven by migration was “inevitable”), registrations in April of new Teslas fell to their lowest points in more than two years. Elsewhere in Europe, the story is the same. Last Friday, the agency that runs the New Jersey Turnpike said it would replace more than 60 Tesla-made electric vehicle chargers with another company’s chargers. Signs of distraction abound: Musk waited for months after the Trump administration imposed tariffs to ask for a briefing at Tesla about their impact on the firm, worrying some executives. In recent months, a board member has stepped in to fill him in on day-to-day operations. Back to business Musk says he’s entering a new phase. He posted on X last month that he’s back to “spending 24/7 at work.” One sign of distance from Trump: He flayed the Republicans’ deficit-fattening policy bill as a “disgusting abomination” this week. (The current proposal would end financial perks for people who buy electric cars.) Musk, who has a Forbes-estimated net worth of $415 billion, is arguably the most successful businessman of his generation. He has spent his career overcoming obstacles (few took Tesla seriously as a competitor for the Big Three when he first invested in the company in 2004) and proving doubters wrong (SpaceX invented reusable rockets). But Tesla is now the only publicly traded company in Musk’s empire, and during his season in politics he wiped out about $220 billion from the company’s market valuation. Related: Republicans are scrambling to appease Musk, who is furious at them for voting for a bill to deliver Trump’s domestic policy agenda. THE LATEST NEWS War in Gaza Gad Haggai and his wife, Judi Weinstein-Haggai, in an undated photograph. Iris Weinstein Haggai, via Associated Press Israel said its forces had recovered the bodies of two Israeli Americans who were killed in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. The U.S. vetoed a U.N. resolution that demanded an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. Video of a Palestinian girl escaping a burning building after an Israeli airstrike went viral online. We found her in a hospital in Gaza and pieced together what had happened. Immigration The authorities released an immigrant waitress from Hong Kong, known to her community in Kennett, Mo., as Carol, from detention. Her arrest had rattled the small Missouri town. A federal judge in Washington ordered the government to take steps to give due process to the nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants who were deported to El Salvador in March. Another judge temporarily blocked the administration from deporting the family of the man charged in the Colorado attack. A Texas judge blocked a two-decade-old law that offered undocumented residents the same discounted tuition as other in-state college students. More on the Trump Administration A steel plant in Pirna, Germany. Lena Mucha for The New York Times Britain received an exemption from Trump’s 50 percent steel tariff, but it still faces a 25 percent rate as it works out a fuller U.S. trade deal. A budget proposal that Trump submitted to Congress last week would eliminate funding for programs that provide polio and measles vaccines around the world. The White House promised to sign 90 trade deals in 90 days. So far, it’s announced one. New York Mayor Andrew Cuomo, Whitney Tilson and Zohran Mamdani at the mayoral debate. Pool photo by Yuki Iwamura In the first debate of the New York City mayoral primary, the eight other Democrats onstage made Andrew Cuomo the focal point of their attacks. Read takeaways. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Zohran Mamdani for mayor. Mamdani, an upstart socialist assembly member, has galvanized young voters. Other Big Stories Vladimir Putin told Trump that he plans to retaliate for the Ukrainian drone attack that damaged air bases deep inside Russia. Karine Jean-Pierre, a White House press secretary under Biden, is leaving the Democratic Party and becoming an independent. TAXES ON TIPS Illustrations by Lauren Tamaki Trump promised to end taxes on tips, and his proposal is now part of the “big, beautiful bill” that the House recently passed. Evan Gorelick explains what we know about the plan. Who would benefit from Trump’s “no tax on tips” policy? My colleagues at The Upshot examined it. Among their findings: Roughly 3 percent of U.S. employees work for tips: They include bartenders and blackjack dealers, waiters and delivery drivers. But the policy would create a huge incentive for workers like cashiers and retail salespeople to start earning tips. How much will tipped employees gain? It depends on how much they earn in tips. Though most would see some benefit, many — about a third — wouldn’t. Those who make enough to receive the break might typically pay around $1,800 less in taxes. More tips, more benefits: Workers who earn more in tips — at expensive restaurants or Vegas casino tables — stand to save more. This fits a broader theme of the bill: Higher earners have the most to gain. That has a limit, though: The legislation would halt the exemption for tipped workers who make more than $160,000. It’s a hard cutoff: A tipped worker making $160,001 would receive nothing and pay thousands in additional taxes. The tip policy would add $40 billion to the federal debt over four years, experts estimate. The Senate has taken up Trump’s legislation and aims to vote on it before the July 4 holiday. Republicans have a narrow margin in the chamber, and several members have criticized the size of the bill. Still, party leadership has deftly flipped holdouts in the past. Related: Late night hosts joked about the bill. IN ONE CHART Source: New York Times analysis of data compiled by @unitedstates project on GitHub | By The New York Times Congress is getting older. Forty years ago, only 18 House members were 70 or over. Today’s House has 86 members in that group. See more charts on how gerontocracy has come to rule both chambers of Congress. OPINIONS In this era of misinformation, trivia game shows are a place where facts still matter, writes Ken Jennings, the host of “Jeopardy!” Here’s a column by Jamelle Bouie on Trump and art. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS At St. Paul Baptist church in Brooklyn. Jordan Macy for The New York Times Brooklyn: A clergyman is building affordable housing for his congregants to stop New York’s Black exodus. Musk-like: A student at Brown asked DOGE-style questions about the work of university staff. He got in trouble. Lives Lived: Alf Clausen was a composer and arranger who created songs, interludes and closing credits for hundreds of episodes of “The Simpsons.” The show’s creator, Matt Groening, often called him its “secret weapon.” Clausen died at 84. SPORTS N.H.L.: The Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. N.B.A.: The finals begin tomorrow, as the Pacers travel to face the Thunder. NINTENDO’S NEW CONSOLE Lisa Fischer/NYT Wirecutter A new video game console from Nintendo hits stores today. German Lopez explains. Even if you don’t play video games, you have probably heard of the Nintendo Switch. It can be played on a TV screen or as a portable device, and it is the third most popular console of all time, with 150 million units sold. That’s enough for every person in Britain, France and Belgium to own one. Today, Nintendo released a sequel, the Switch 2. It has not gone as planned. Demand for the system is greater than supply, and gamers say retailers abruptly canceled their orders in the past few days. Nintendo also had to delay pre-orders in the United States after Trump’s announcement of global tariffs led the company to reassess how much it would cost. (Prices eventually rose on Switch 2 accessories but not on the Switch 2 itself.) Despite the problems, fans are excited and expectations are high. In the video below, my colleague Zachary Small shows how Nintendo’s marketing has evolved since its first console in the 1980s. Click to watch. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Kelly Marshall for The New York Times Grill beef kebabs marinated in papaya, yogurt and spices for Eid al-Adha. Fall in love with the music of Ella Fitzgerald in five minutes. Save suitcase space with compression bags. GAMES The New York Times Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were deathly and heatedly. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 8, 2025 Author Members Posted June 8, 2025 June 6, 2025 Good morning. Trump and Musk are fighting, and it’s ugly. Plus, we have a new podcast about health care for trans youth — and the latest news from the Supreme Court, Harvard and Ukraine. Also, FYI: Draco Malfoy is back. Trump vs. Musk Elon Musk and President Trump in the Oval Office last week. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times By Tom Wright-Piersanti I’m an editor on The Morning. Together, President Trump and Elon Musk retook the White House, slashed the federal government and reshaped U.S. alliances. They professed to be the best of friends along the way. Yesterday, that relationship imploded in public. Perhaps, for two mercurial billionaires with large personalities and little tolerance for dissent, it was inevitable. Musk has spent the last few days lamenting the size and cost of Trump’s domestic policy bill in Congress. During a televised Oval Office meeting yesterday, Trump said, “I’m very disappointed in Elon.” Then each man brought the brawl to his own personal social media site. On Truth Social, Trump threatened Musk’s businesses, including SpaceX. “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” he wrote. Musk said, “ “Without me, Trump would have lost the election.” He spent a quarter-billion dollars last year to help get Trump into office, and he issued a warning on X to lawmakers weighing whether to back Trump’s budget-busting proposal: “Trump has 3.5 years left as president, but I will be around for 40+ years.” Trump said he had asked Musk, who was “wearing thin,” to leave the White House. “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” he wrote. Musk claimed that Trump was “in the Epstein files,” a reference to government documents on Jeffrey Epstein, adding, “That is the real reason they have not been made public.” As the two fought, Tesla’s stock price plummeted. Shares ended the day down more than 14 percent, which erased about $150 billion from the company’s market valuation. The stock of Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, fell by 8 percent. Just a few weeks ago, noted Maggie Haberman, who covers Trump for The Times, “Musk giggled and told a story about sleeping over at the White House residence and eating a tub of caramel ice cream.” Yesterday, she added, he and the president showed they’d had “a relationship of convenience.” Read all of the insults. More on the feud “It was every bit as lowdown, vindictive, personal, petty, operatic, childish, consequential, messy and public as many had always expected it would be,” writes Shawn McCreesh, a White House correspondent for The Times. Musk’s friends and colleagues said they were shocked by the fight, and they spent yesterday refreshing their phones. Some conservatives in Silicon Valley are worried that Trump will lash out on their industry. Read eight ways Musk and Trump could hurt each other. Late night hosts had a lot of material to work with. See the best jokes. Photo illustrations by Cristiana Couceiro ‘The Protocol’ by Azeen Ghorayshi and Jodi Rudoren Health care for transgender youths is deeply personal and important to thousands of American families. It’s also one of the most divisive cultural and political issues of our time. Twenty-seven states have banned surgery, hormone treatments or puberty blockers for minors. The Supreme Court will decide soon whether those bans are constitutional. The Times just published a special six-part podcast on the history of these treatments and the contentious debate. It reflects two years of work by Azeen Ghorayshi, who has reported on the intersection of gender and science for a decade, and Austin Mitchell, a senior audio producer. Jodi, who oversees Times newsletters, spoke to Azeen about the project’s ambition, how she got people to open up, the biggest surprises in the reporting and how her own work has been weaponized. How was this project different from your prior work on this beat? What were the big unanswered questions you set out to explore? With this audio series, the interviews are more like long, in-depth conversations. People can connect more easily when they hear others in this way, and it can help challenge assumptions. The big question we were trying to answer was, How did we get here? The science and the politics have gotten so entangled, but something this reporting made clear is that politics has been baked in all along. The show is titled “The Protocol,” after the Dutch Protocol, which grew out of the pioneering treatments in the Netherlands in the 1990s and 2000s. Why start there? Before people can understand the complex issues being raised about this care, they need to understand why the treatment was developed in the first place. I’m incredibly grateful that we were able to hear about that from both the doctors who led the first treatments and the kids — now adults — who received the care. We spoke with the very first patient to receive puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria — he’s now 51 — and to another patient involved in the early Dutch research who is now 31. Both described in vivid detail what the care meant to them at the time and how it has shaped their lives. I think listeners will really benefit from hearing their accounts of these events far in the rearview mirror, away from the noise of the current moment. The Dutch Protocol became the basis for all pediatric gender care worldwide. And, now, it has become the subject of criticism, too. You talked to a lot of trans people and their families for this project. What did you learn that you didn’t know before? It’s really striking how much has changed. The early patients described not even knowing that there was a word, “transgender,” for what they’d experienced as long as they could remember. They stumbled across the treatment almost by chance — a family member reading something in a magazine or seeing a TV segment. Young people today are so fluent in these ideas, and also more likely to have nonbinary or fluid gender identities. How did you get these folks to share such personal stories? Just genuinely being curious about their lives goes a long way. I think particularly when the public narratives don’t match people’s experiences, they feel very compelled to share. Back in 2023, after you wrote about a Missouri clinic where a whistle-blower claimed youths were being harmed, you were criticized by trans-rights advocates and some parents whose children received care at the clinic. There was an article headlined “You betrayed us, Azeen.” How have you dealt with such intense, often personal, attacks? It’s hard, of course. It’s my job to report the truth as best I can. I also understand that people have so much at stake. I care deeply about what the critics of our coverage have to say, and I have had many direct conversations with them about it. I also frequently hear from readers, including trans and nonbinary people, who thank me for our coverage of what is a complex and nuanced issue. This community is not a monolith. I try to take all of this in and reflect on it. The Supreme Court could rule any day now. Tell us a little bit about the case and what’s at stake. The justices will decide whether states can ban this care for people under 18. The case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, hinges on the question of whether trans people qualify for special status under the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Adam Liptak, who has covered the court for The Times for decades, told me that he expected the justices to say no. He also said that the “blast radius” of this ruling could be large — perhaps affecting how sex and gender are defined and protected in the United States. What motivates you? How did you first start covering trans health care, and why have you stuck with it so long? Back in 2015, when I was at BuzzFeed News, I wrote a story about intersex people and the surgeries often performed on them as infants. That led me to the issue of this new field of medicine to treat trans kids. There was a lot of new research, a galvanized group of advocates and big unanswered questions about the long-term outcomes. At the core was a really compelling human story about how people understand themselves and how medicine can play a role in shaping that. Now, America is at a turning point. So I feel a responsibility to tell the story of what this care actually is — where it came from, whom it was meant to help, what it means to people and what the problems in the field are. One surgeon who has helped hundreds of people transition tells you in Episode 5, “There’s not two sides to this story.” How does that sit with you? I think she was reacting to the black-and-white politics of the moment. We have a president saying there are men and women, and nothing else. Advocates say this care is lifesaving; opponents condemn it as abuse. Another doctor I interviewed in the show said that the politics were backing everyone into a corner and shrinking what people feel able or willing to say. This show is about breaking through the whole idea of “sides.” Click below for the first episode and here for the rest of the show. LISTEN TO THIS 1: The Beginning 43:07 min THE LATEST NEWS Travel Ban Trump’s new travel ban appears written to avoid legal challenges. It’s unclear what criteria he used to pick the countries, including seven in Africa. Read more about the ban. Immigrants from the targeted countries said the ban would upend their lives. “I don’t understand why the president has to target us nonstop,” one Haitian asylum seeker said. Below, Hamed Aleaziz explains what we know about the travel ban. Click the video to watch. The New York Times Harvard A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s latest effort to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students. Yonas Nuguse is a student in Ethiopia who endured a war in the country’s Tigray region before gaining admission to Harvard. He’s waiting to hear if he can come, The Washington Post reports. Supreme Court The justices ruled unanimously in favor of a straight woman who twice missed out on jobs given to her gay co-workers. The court issued two other unanimous decisions: One cleared gunmakers of responsibility for cartel violence, and the other backed a Catholic charity’s tax-exempt status. War in Ukraine Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones across Ukraine, killing at least four people and damaging buildings in Kyiv. Trump compared Russia and Ukraine to kids in a meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany. “Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” he said, adding, “You’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.” War in Gaza Israel has been collaborating with a Palestinian militia in Gaza as part of a broader effort to fight Hamas in the enclave. The State Department announced that the U.S. would impose sanctions on four judges on the International Criminal Court as retaliation for investigations of the U.S. military and arrest warrants for top Israeli officials. Other Big Stories Trump and Xi Jinping spoke on the phone. Trump called it a “very positive” conversation, and the U.S. and China agreed to hold more trade talks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, said he wanted to expand access to “experimental,” unproven medical treatments like stem-cell and chelation therapies. But he conceded that the industry was rife with fraud. OPINIONS Ping Zhu “For too long, our society has been running at Silicon Valley tempo — move quicker, scale faster, break through or get left behind. It’s the rhythm we’ve absorbed: endless acceleration.” The racehorse Journalism has demonstrated a different, more patient way of winning, Mark Robichaux writes. Here is a column by David Brooks on the Democrats’ party identity. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. MORNING READS The D-Day invasion U.S. Coast Guard, via Associated Press D-Day anniversary: Eighty-one years ago, a single meteorologist gave the go-ahead for the Allied invasion of Normandy. By doing so, he may have saved the world as we know it. Birkin bonanza: The original Hermès prototype is going up for auction this summer. Lives Lived: Marina von Neumann Whitman was an expert in international trade who in 1972 became the first woman to be appointed to the White House Council of Economic Advisers. She died at 90. SPORTS N.B.A.: In Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals, Tyrese Haliburton hit a last-second jumper to lead the Pacers to a 111-110 win over the Thunder. French Open: Aryna Sabalenka beat defending champion Iga Świątek in the semifinals to set up a meeting with Coco Gauff in Saturday’s final. CULTURE NEWS Tom Felton Franck Robichon/EPA, via Shutterstock Tom Felton, who rose to fame playing Draco Malfoy in the “Harry Potter” film franchise, is set to reprise his role for a limited time on Broadway. Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s former prime minister, argues in a new memoir that leaders should act with more empathy. “I think it would be wrong to say that people don’t want to see kindness and compassion in their politics,” she told The Times. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Linda Xiao for The New York Times Bake a rhubarb upside-down cake. Take our news quiz. GAMES Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were calculator and coloratura. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter misstated the date of Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals. It was June 5, not June 6. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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 June 9, 2025 Author Members Posted June 9, 2025 June 7, 2025 Good morning. When products we love are discontinued, sometimes the absence feels personal. María Jesús Contreras Out of stock By Melissa Kirsch The Wirecutter editor Alexander Aciman stalks eBay for bottles of a discontinued lavender-scented aftershave once made by Crabtree & Evelyn because it was a favorite of his father in the 1990s. “I mainly try to find it so as not to lose the scent and preserve some kind of access to it,” he told my colleague Steven Kurutz recently. I haven’t been able to get Steven’s story, “When They Stop Selling Your Favorite Thing,” out of my head. I understand the motivations of the slightly demented enthusiasts he spoke with: the woman who compared her ardor for Pantene Nutrient Blends Miracle Moisture Boost Rose Water Petal Soft Hair Treatment — last manufactured in 2023 — to a heroin addiction, the die-hards who stockpile Tab cola in their basements. They’re resale-site paleontologists, hunting down the final incarnations of vanishing species. They’ve found the perfect manifestation of a face cream or a laptop bag, and they’re not about to let a little thing like that product’s discontinuation keep them from obtaining the object of their desire. Every style of underwear I have ever loved has been discontinued, occasioning yearslong searches for any remaining pair I can sweet-talk a kindly Dillard’s department store salesperson into unearthing from cold storage. I once wrote so desperate a love letter to the manufacturer of a discontinued lip balm that the company sent me the last remaining dregs of the product from the lab, scraped into a jar. There are many good reasons for a company to stop making a product. Just because you love it doesn’t mean it’s selling well. But still, when you find the perfect specimen — what on beauty-product discussion boards they call your “holy grail” or “HG” — the manufacturer discontinuing it feels like a personal betrayal. You’ve been unfailingly loyal to a hand soap or a style of wool crew socks and have been repaid with, well, it’s probably melodramatic to call it “abandonment,” but it’s definitely inconvenient, if not a little rude. How dare they mess with your carefully calibrated skin care routine! We have a lot of decisions to make each day. It’s a relief to lock in on a makeup shade or moisturizer or style of underwear that just works: Here’s one thing I don’t have to decide, here’s a problem that’s already been solved, some friction eased. We expect that we’ll change before the product does, that we’ll outgrow it and only then turn our attention to the wilds of the marketplace to find a new brand, a new HG. I wrote a few months ago about holding onto things less tightly, about being more OK with losing things. I think love of the hunt for the discontinued item can be reconciled with acceptance that the hunt will eventually dead-end. I know people who buy multiples of a thing that they love the moment they discover it, planning ahead for the day when that thing’s no longer available. While I understand the impulse, I think this might be too extreme for me. I currently have an underwear style I like, and I have enough pairs to last one laundry cycle. Yes, it’s nice and convenient to have your thing, but it’s also nice to not have a thing at all. When the style’s discontinued, which I know from experience should happen pretty soon, I’ll scour the internet for it and then, hopefully, gracefully move on to the next. THE LATEST NEWS Immigration The Trump administration retrieved the man it had wrongly deported to El Salvador, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. His return to the U.S. could end the administration’s most prominent court battle over its deportations. As part of the return, federal prosecutors charged Abrego Garcia with transporting undocumented immigrants. “Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said. Federal agents in Los Angeles used military-style force, including flash-bang grenades, to disperse an angry crowd that had formed as the agents conducted an immigration raid. More Politics President Trump and Elon Musk during the presidential campaign last year. Doug Mills/The New York Times Elon Musk and President Trump, whose relationship goes back nearly a decade, had a falling out this week. Here’s what the two have said about each other over the years — both the praises and the jabs. After this week’s blowup, Trump decided to sell his personal Tesla. The Supreme Court granted DOGE access to millions of sensitive records held by the Social Security Administration. A man with ties to the Chinese Communist Party was among the V.I.P. guests at Trump’s crypto dinner, the Times found, which included an exclusive tour of the White House. Coal-fired power plants were scheduled to shut down in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but Trump ordered them to keep running. OTHER BIG STORIES Colleges and universities will be allowed to pay their athletes directly for the first time, after a judge finalized a legal settlement. Despite a chaotic economy, U.S. job growth remained steady in May. But it’s showing signs of drag from tariffs, high interest rates and government downsizing. A former Arkansas police chief and convicted murderer was captured less than two miles from the high-security prison he escaped from last month. OpenAI is trying to embed its chatbot in every facet of college life. First up: the more than 460,000 students in the California State University system. THE WEEK IN CULTURE Film and TV Ana de Armas in “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.” Lionsgate Ana de Armas stars as a dancer-assassin in “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,” a movie that expands the John Wick cinematic universe. Our critic calls it a by-the-numbers cash grab. Real masterpieces feature in “The Phoenician Scheme,” the latest film from Wes Anderson. Safeguarding them from the chaos of a film set was a challenge. The documentary “And So It Goes” traces Billy Joel’s dramatic early years. Read takeaways. Art Adrien Brody and his mother, Sylvia Plachy, at his solo exhibition in Manhattan. Sam Hellmann for The New York Times The Oscar winner Adrien Brody is also a painter, and he is putting on his first exhibition in a decade. Why now? “I’m an unemployed actor at the moment,” he said. The art of rediscovery: Dealers are increasingly turning to history’s forgotten talent to discover blue-chip stars. More Culture Nintendo released the Switch 2 this week. Its arrival reminded one writer of how getting back into Nintendo games helped heal his inner child. It goes down in the DMs: For celebrities, Instagram has become an unexpectedly successful dating tool. Taylor Swift didn’t get around to rerecording “Reputation” before buying back her masters. Thank goodness: Remaking that album could only make it worse, our critic writes. After The Times published its annual picks for the 100 best restaurants in New York City, readers shared their own favorites. See them here. Lonely Planet released its first L.G.B.T.Q. travel guide. The Times spoke with the guide’s author. Subscribe Today The Morning highlights a small portion of the journalism that The New York Times offers. To access all of it, become a subscriber with this introductory offer. CULTURE CALENDAR By Desiree Ibekwe ? “Addison” (Out now): I am fascinated by Addison Rae. I first heard about her around 2020, when I was still glued to the TikTok algorithm. At that time she was a target of ridicule, a purveyor of those swishy-hipped dances that littered “For You” pages. No longer — Addison Rae is a singer now, and she’s cool. That transformation is thanks to her rebrand from an All-American influencer to a cigarette-wielding, “Brat”-adjacent “it” girl. (In fact, Charli XCX tapped Rae last year to appear on her remix album, “Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat.”) Rae’s debut, “Addison,” is breathy, poppy and, in the words of our critic Jon Caramanica, filled with “doe-eyed carnality.” Many have leveled accusations of inauthenticity at Rae, which she has of course rejected. Even so, whatever she’s doing, it appears to be working — I’m intrigued. RECIPE OF THE WEEK David Malosh for The New York Times By Melissa Clark Turmeric and Black Pepper Chicken Have you eaten enough asparagus this season? In her turmeric and black pepper chicken with asparagus, Ali Slagle zips up a speedy stir-fry with black pepper and turmeric, which add complex, spicy notes. Then she rounds everything out with dashes of honey and rice vinegar. You could swap in other green vegetables (broccoli, snow peas, bok choy), but now is the best time to make this easy, on-the-cusp-of-summer stunner exactly as written. REAL ESTATE Doug Hirn and Peter Kostmayer. Stefano Ukmar for The New York Times The Hunt: A couple with a budget of $700,000 searched Connecticut for more privacy and outdoor space. Which home did they choose? Play our game. What you get for $2.6 million: A 111-acre farm in Rapidan, Va.; a 1780 stone and clapboard house in Palisades, N.Y.; or a two-story condo in Chicago. LIVING Janice Bremis Carolyn Fong for The New York Times Health: More older women are seeking treatment for eating disorders. Many have struggled without help for decades. Proactive peeing: Maybe don’t go to the bathroom “just in case.” Oh, Canada: Budget cuts to the U.S. National Park Service may lead to long lines and closed campgrounds. These Canadian parks have you covered. Nicole Kidman: The actress shares her five favorite places in Sydney, Australia. Look of the Week: Dressed like Beyoncé to celebrate a birthday. ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER A packing hack for overpackers I have just one wardrobe, yet there are two versions of me. New York Alex wears more or less the same uniform every day. But Vacation Alex yearns for novelty and often winds up packing eight days’ worth of clothes for a three-day trip. This would not be possible without the discovery of what has become my favorite space-saving device ever: compression bags. They gave me the power to shrink all the clothes in my suitcase to one-third of their original size. (And they don’t require a pump to seal the bags.) Now, my vacation dreams are bigger and more unfettered than ever before. — Alexander Aciman GAME OF THE WEEK Coco Gauff, top, and Aryna Sabalenka. Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP — Getty Images French Open, women’s singles final: The world’s top two players meet on the red clay of Roland Garros. No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka knocked out Iga Swiatek, the best clay-court player of her generation, en route to the finals. Sabalenka has been a force over the past few years, winning three Grand Slam titles. But all of those have come on hard courts. To win her first French Open title, she will have to beat No. 2 Coco Gauff — the sport’s biggest star and, as Matthew Futterman noted in The Athletic, the world’s highest-paid female athlete. In his preview, Futterman predicted that the match would be a contest of two very different styles: Sabalenka’s aggressive attack, which seeks to end points quickly, against Gauff’s tireless defense, which aims to extend points until her opponent makes a mistake. This morning at 9 a.m. Eastern on TNT and truTV (streaming on Max) NOW TIME TO PLAY Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were allowing and wallowing. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, 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. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch 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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