The New York Times

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November 5, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Last night was a big one for Democrats.

From left, Mikie Sherrill, Zohran Mamdani and Abigail Spanberger.

A rebuke

Zohran Mamdani, 34, will be the next mayor of New York City, the youngest in more than a century. The democratic socialist will also be the city’s first Muslim mayor. Abigail Spanberger will be Virginia’s first female governor. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill cruised to victory in a governor’s race that polls had projected would be neck and neck.

And in California, voters passed a ballot measure to redraw the state’s maps in Democrats’ favor, which is likely to yield as many as five House seats for the party next year.

Turnout was extraordinary: The New York mayor’s race drew more than two million voters, almost double the 1.1 million people who voted for mayor four years ago. The New Jersey governor’s race topped three million votes for the first time.

As my colleague Lisa Lerer wrote, the results showed that Democrats — beaten soundly in all seven presidential battleground states just a year ago, losing control of the Senate and failing to win the House — can still accomplish the most important goal in politics: “They can win. And win big.”

The results amounted to a loud rebuke of President Trump’s first year back in office. A year ago, he won the White House on promises to fix the economy. Yesterday, his party’s losses showed the high political price that a party in power can pay when voters are still feeling squeezed.

New York’s moment

During Mamdani’s victory speech. Amir Hamja for The New York Times

Mamdani wasted no time celebrating voters’ rejection of establishment politics and the dawn of a new era. He’d toppled New York’s elite. “This city belongs to you,” he told supporters in his victory speech at the Brooklyn Paramount theater. He all but dared Trump to challenge him. “To get to any of us,” he said, “you will have to get through all of us.” The crowd roared.

And he took a shot at Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who lost to Mamdani in the Democratic primary and then ran in the general election as an independent. “I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life,” Mamdani said. “But let tonight be the final time I utter his name.”

The line to get into Mamdani’s victory party stretched over a quarter mile around the venue. Emiliano Gomez, 21, traveled in from New Haven, Conn., with four pals. “We’re just excited by the energy,” he said. “It feels like being part of something. It’s a cool feeling.”

Gomez isn’t alone. That’s something my colleagues Emma Goldberg and Benjamin Oreskes wrote about yesterday: The Mamdani campaign gave a lonely generation something to bond over. “Addicted to their screens, strapped for cash, spiritually unmoored and socially stunted by the pandemic, young New Yorkers needed a reason to get out of the house. They found it in Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral run,” they wrote.

Mamdani supporters celebrate. Todd Heisler/The New York Times, Vincent Alban/The New York Times, Amir Hamja for The New York Times

“Hope is alive,” Mamdani said in his speech. Voters, he said, chose “hope over tyranny” and “hope over despair.”

Religion was a defining theme of the race — sometimes by design, as Mamdani spoke proudly of his Muslim heritage, and sometimes against his will, as he faced accusations of antisemitism over his stance on Israel. Now that he will be mayor, my colleague Elizabeth Dias wrote, “the most prominent face of progressive religion in the Democratic Party is not a liberal Christian but a Muslim.”

A California road map

The California redistricting measure, which voters supported by a nearly two-to-one margin, according to the latest count, gave Democrats a road map for the gerrymandering battle to come. And it further elevated the man behind the plan, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is considering a run for president in 2028.

People waited in long lines to vote — in some cases, after the outcome of the only question on the ballot had already been called.

“What a night for the Democratic Party,” Newsom said after the victory, “a party that is in its ascendancy, a party that is on its toes, no longer on its heels.”

The governors

The two new governors are not on Mamdani’s end of the Democratic spectrum. But they also found success taking aim at Trump’s policies.

In New Jersey, Sherrill’s campaign railed against Trump’s demand that a major transportation project be “terminated.” She labeled her opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, the “Trump of Trenton.” And she energized Democratic strongholds in the state, Nick Corasaniti and Tracey Tully wrote, turning what was expected to be a close race into a blowout. (Get to know her.)

Sherrill waves to supporters. Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

Spanberger won in Virginia by focusing on Trump’s firing of federal workers and the impact of the government shutdown on her state. But in her victory speech, she strove for bipartisanship. She praised her opponent in the race and pledged to be a governor for the voters who opposed her. “My goal and my intent is to serve all Virginians,” she said, drawing a contrast with Trump’s with-me-or-against-me ethos.

Late last night, when nearly all of the state’s votes had been accounted for, Spanberger had improved on Kamala Harris’s 2024 margins in 119 of 124 counties and cities in Virginia. (Get to know her, too.)

Spanberger addresses a crowd. Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

The Times’s newsroom buzzed through all of it, fueled by Mexican food and many, many coffees. Top editors walked the room. The election analytics editor smiled through the glass pane of an office where he had quarantined himself with a cold. A managing editor vibrated with intensity. She loves an election: “This is my high holy day,” she said.

More results

In Maine, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have added voting restrictions, and they approved a measure that enables families to try to get a troubled relative’s guns taken away. In Pennsylvania, voters granted new 10-year terms to three Democratic justices on the state’s supreme court. In Detroit, Mary Sheffield became the city’s first female mayor and the first new mayor in a dozen years. The big night for Democrats extended beyond the highlight races: In an upset, Democrats ousted two Republican members of Georgia’s utility board, a statewide commission that hasn’t had a Democratic member since 2007. Hear a recap of the night on “The Daily.”

Commentary

The Times’s editorial board congratulated Mamdani on a “stunningly effective” campaign. “This board did not support his primary campaign, owing to our concerns about his policy proposals and his inexperience. But we are rooting for his success.” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote about Democrats’ wins in New Jersey and Virginia: “Each was a cagey candidate with a centrist affect,” then added, “Will Democratic primary voters next year elevate similar figures? Or will the party base be seduced by radicals like New York City’s Zohran Mamdani?” “America gave Donald Trump a bloody nose,” David Smith writes for The Guardian.

Now, let’s get you caught up on the rest of the news.

THE LATEST NEWS

Around the U.S.

The government shutdown is now the longest in American history. Trump indicated the fallout could intensify in the coming days, even as he has kept himself at a remove from the crisis. A UPS cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Louisville, Ky., killing at least seven people. Here’s what we know. The Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, suggested that some parts of the economy were already in a recession. His comments put pressure on the Fed to lower rates again.

International

In Lagos, Nigeria. Sunday Alamba/Associated Press

Trump is fueling claims that there is a Christian genocide happening in Nigeria. Violence has killed thousands, but there’s no clear evidence that Christians are attacked more often than other religious groups in the country. The U.S. military killed two people in its latest strike on boats suspected of smuggling drugs from South America, the Trump administration said. An Israeli military officer resigned and was arrested after she leaked footage of Israeli soldiers allegedly abusing a Palestinian detainee. The scandal has reignited a debate over military accountability. TikTok and optimism: Meet the 38-year-old who could become the next prime minister of the Netherlands.

DICK CHENEY, 1941-2025

Dick Cheney, through the years. The New York Times

The news of Dick Cheney’s death broke just as we were about to send you yesterday’s newsletter, and we got to include the obituary of the most powerful vice president in American history. In the hours since, we’ve published a trove of fascinating material about Cheney, who also served as defense secretary, White House chief of staff and Wyoming’s congressman.

Peter Baker, who covered the George W. Bush administration in which Cheney served, wrote about how the vice president, once seen as the embodiment of the unpopular and bloody war in Iraq, became “an unlikely voice of resistance” in the Trump era. Late in life, Peter wrote, Cheney became allies not just with those who soured on him during the war, but even with those who used to call him a war criminal. In 2024, he said he would vote for Kamala Harris. Charlie Savage wrote about how the former vice president paved the way for Trump’s bid to expand his executive power.

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MORNING READS

On Alaska’s west coast. Katie Basile for The New York Times

Recovered history: A terrible storm slammed into western Alaska last month, killing at least one person and displacing hundreds. It also swept away thousands of artifacts from an archaeological site along the Bering Sea, depositing them on local beaches. Now the Native community there is struggling to save as many of the objects as residents can find.

Chasing waterfalls: The island of Madeira is only 35 miles long, but its mountains are full of scenic trails and inviting villages. And it’s beautiful.

Ghostly work: The photographer Sara Terry died at 70. She captured images of the aftermath of war in the faces of those who survived it and in the haunted places where the fighting had passed.

TODAY’S NUMBER

Two

— That’s the number of identical dogs Tom Brady has had. He announced this week that he had cloned a pet, as Barbra Streisand and Paris Hilton have also done.

SPORTS

N.F.L. trade deadline: Teams including the New York Jets and the Indianapolis Colts made big moves.

College basketball: As the season kicks off, Loyola Chicago won its first game without Sister Jean, who died last month at 106.

ARI’S WILD RIDE

Ariana Grande. Georgie Wood for The New York Times

Ariana Grande was a teenager starring in Nickelodeon sitcoms, a pop princess with a string of chart-topping hits and then a big-screen star whose first major film role, in “Wicked,” earned her an Oscar nomination. On the eve of the release of the “Wicked” sequel this month, our Hollywood envoy Kyle Buchanan says her work in the film is even more intense. “She was not hiding anything from this camera,” the director Jon M. Chu told him.

More on culture

Fifty years ago, Marty and Darryl walked onto the set of ABC’s “Barney Miller,” a sitcom about seen-it-all cops and kitchen-sink criminals at a precinct in Manhattan. They made history as one of the first openly gay couples in mainstream American television. There had been gay characters on television before, of course, but mostly on flops and often in a villain’s role. Ray Stewart, now 93, played Darryl. “We really were the Wright Brothers in a sense,” he told The Times. Benjamin Wood’s new novel, “Seascraper,” made our critic Leah Greenblatt think of a terrific 2024 novel by Elizabeth O’Connor, “Whale Fall” — a slim, muscular tale of life on one of Britain’s more barren coastlines. That’s high praise! Wood, Leah writes, “is a precise and pungent writer who conjures the briny, locked-in atmosphere of his setting so completely that one half-expects the pages to be stiff with sea salt.” I’m off to the library. The Times’s chief fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, went to the 2025 Council of Fashion Designers of America awards — basically the Oscars of the fashion world. Click the video below to hear her explain them.

The New York Times

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Bryan Gardner for The New York Times

I was slow to warm to everything-bagel spice blend — equal measures of sesame and poppy seeds, loads of onion and garlic granules. But it’s superb in this recipe for everything salmon with a creamy caper sauce, crusting the flesh of the fish and keeping it moist. The cream-cheesy sauce along with a side salad of tomatoes and sliced red onions helps keep up the bagel-and-lox theme. It’s a fantastic weeknight meal — a meditation on brunch at dinner.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Read one of these crime thrillers larded with intrigue and sorcery.

Rearrange your rug and create the illusion of a bigger space.

Stream these films starring Laura Dern and her mother, Diane Ladd, who died this week at 89.

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were effectual and fluctuate.

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

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

Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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

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November 6, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Since I last wrote, the Trump administration announced it would cut 10 percent of air traffic at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports if the longest government shutdown in American history continues. That could cancel thousands of flights this week.

And Democrats delivered a commanding performance on Election Day. The nation and the world spent yesterday processing it.

There’s the certainty of a progressive Muslim mayor in New York City — and questions about what he’ll do now. There’s the fact that President Trump will likely use him as a foil. There’s the reckoning Republicans will face about their setbacks in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And there’s the quest by Democrats to translate their victories into momentum for next year’s midterms.

We’ll unpack all the important news. But before we do, I’d like to take a beat on what happened in California, where voters approved a plan to flip as many as five House seats for Democrats next year. The ramifications of that are important.

A Texas map. Eric Gay/Associated Press

An all-out war

Lawmakers realized in the 19th century that they could increase their party’s political power by redrawing legislative districts. The term of art is gerrymandering, named after the map for the Massachusetts State Senate drawn under Gov. Elbridge Gerry. (One district looked like a salamander. Get it?) Typically, legislators gerrymander once a decade, after the census.

Today, gerrymandering is a weapon of constant political warfare. State legislators, both red and blue, are furiously redrawing congressional maps in a quest to control the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections.

The skirmishing began in August, when Trump persuaded Texas lawmakers to redraw congressional districts, which will probably let them send five more Republicans to Congress. California fought back on Tuesday and will probably deliver five seats to the Democrats. Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina have also drawn new maps. A dozen or more other states are considering it.

Each side believes it is at an unfair disadvantage unless it rejiggers its maps.

Why it matters

This is a crisis with few parallels in American history, election lawyers told my colleagues Richard Fausset and Nick Corasaniti. “The wheels are coming off the car right now,” Nathaniel Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School who has studied gerrymandering, told them. “There’s a sense in which the system is rapidly spiraling downward, and there’s no end in sight.”

Here’s what he means: If the cycle continues, gerrymandering could happen before every midterm election, in any state, to the benefit of whatever party’s in charge. The turnabout could confuse voters, deepen their cynicism and create a situation in which House delegations from some states don’t reflect the political diversity of their residents.

All this spells trouble for representative democracy. It lets politicians with Sharpies pick their voters, instead of the other way around. New districts that are considered “safe” for one party are more likely to elect a partisan warrior. Incumbents are less likely to be voted out of office. That’s great news if you’re in power. Less so if you’re not.

“I don’t think this is pearl-clutching,” Nick said when we spoke yesterday. “It’s pretty dark.”

These problems are already evident across the country. Earlier this year, The Times looked at the nearly 6,000 congressional and state legislative races in November 2024. Very few were true contests. “Nearly all either were dominated by an incumbent or played out in a district drawn to favor one party overwhelmingly,” my colleagues wrote. “The result was a blizzard of blowouts, even in a country that is narrowly divided on politics.”

Now, let’s get you caught up on everything else.

More on the election

The Nation

Republicans blamed a lot of things — the shutdown, the economy and the candidates — for their weak showing on Election Day. But they didn’t blame Trump. Trump has privately described Zohran Mamdani as a good talker and talented politician. But publicly, the two men appear to be headed for a showdown. Two Democrats — Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey — won governor’s races by flipping Trump supporters.

New York City

Sources: New York City Board of Elections; Dept. of City Planning. As of 2:26 p.m. E.T. Wednesday. Martín González Gómez, Saurabh Datar, Jeff Adelson, Andrew Fischer, Matthew Bloch, Jon Huang and Urvashi Uberoy/The New York Times

In an interview with The Times, Mamdani said he had a mandate to push his ambitious progressive agenda. He abandoned a conciliatory tone and affirmed his intention to raise taxes on the rich. Billionaires in New York City, including Jamie Dimon and Bill Ackman, said they would be willing to work with Mamdani. (The city’s richest people spent millions to keep him from getting elected.) See Dimon’s interview with CNN. Israeli officials aren’t happy about his win. “The Big Apple has fallen,” one right-wing lawmaker said.

Zohran Mamdani Vincent Alban/The New York Times

THE LATEST NEWS

Government Shutdown

The Trump administration’s announcement that it would limit air traffic could affect 40 of the nation’s busiest airports, in an effort to pressure Democrats in Congress. The move could force hundreds of thousands of travelers to change plans. The flight cuts would start tomorrow. Millions of low-income Americans will suffer staggering cuts and delays to their food stamps this month. Click the video below to see Tony Romm, an economic policy reporter, explain the chaos.

The New York Times

More on Politics

In oral arguments, most Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical about Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs. A decision invalidating his tariffs could be a major blow to his power.

A federal judge blasted the Justice Department for taking an “indict first, investigate second” approach to the case of James Comey, the former F.B.I. director.

Violence Against Women

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico Henry Romero/Reuters

A man groped and tried to kiss Mexico’s president on the street. (She was walking between meetings to save time, with one aide and no security detail.) She’s pressing charges. “If I don’t file a complaint, then what message does that send to all Mexican women?” she said yesterday. “Keep it in the family”: In China, women are often still told not to report domestic violence.

More International News

Morning mist in Carajás National Forest, Brazil. Jorge Silva/Reuters

This year’s U.N. climate conference begins today in Brazil. The U.S. is skipping it. For some attendees, that’s just fine.

Measles is spreading in Canada. At critical points in the outbreak, politicians stopped some public health officials from speaking about the value of vaccinations. Russia is on the verge of capturing its biggest prize since 2023, a Ukrainian city that is a gateway to a region that Vladimir Putin covets. Hamas returned the remains of the last American hostage held in Gaza to Israel.

Other Big Stories

Tesla’s board wants to give Elon Musk a trillion-dollar pay package. That may not actually encourage him to work harder, economists say. Many breast cancer patients can skip radiation, according to a new study.

VENEZUELA CHOICES

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times

In the past two months, the Trump administration has killed dozens of people it claims were drug smugglers on boats off the coasts of Latin America. (We’ve tracked the 16 strikes here, with aerial images of the vessels at sea.) Now, the U.S. is mulling whether to take its military campaign a step further — onto land, in Venezuela, The Times reports.

The Trump administration has considered seizing the country’s oil fields or striking President Nicolás Maduro’s protection detail. Trump hasn’t yet decided how to proceed. He worries, aides say, about imperiling American troops and possibly failing. But many of his advisers are pushing to oust Maduro from power.

The Justice Department is already mocking up a legal rationale for the administration to expand its military campaign without congressional approval. That guidance could include a justification for targeting Maduro. (The two countries are not in a military conflict, so this would be unusual.) America’s biggest aircraft carrier is on its way to the Caribbean and will arrive by mid-November. Read more about Trump’s options and what’s at stake.

Could Venezuela fight back against a direct U.S. attack? The country has Iranian, Russian and Chinese weapons, according to this look at its military, but they’re all overmatched by American firepower. Still, Venezuela’s leaders have prepared for what they call asymmetric warfare, drawing up insurgency plans. Street-level paramilitary cells called colectivos could, for example, wage guerrilla warfare in Caracas.

OPINIONS

Maddie McGarvey

Maddie McGarvey is a photographer who documented 15 years of an Appalachian child’s life. Her role as a documentarian often blended with that of a confidante, Emi Nietfeld writes.

Emily Bazelon and David French discuss Trump and the Constitution.

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

The Florentine Diamond Nasuna Stuart-Ulin for The New York Times

The Florentine Diamond: A legendary jewel of the Hapsburg dynasty was thought to be lost for over a century. Its heirs have admitted it was in a bank vault in Canada.

Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Unsafe sleep? A slew of headlines this week linked melatonin with heart failure. But scientists say the underlying study has issues.

TODAY’S NUMBER

40

— That’s the median age of first-time home buyers in the U.S. in 2025. Five years ago, it was 33.

SPORTS

N.H.L.: Alex Ovechkin became the league’s first player to score 900 career goals.

N.F.L.: Drew Brees is joining Fox as a football analyst. He might be replacing Mark Sanchez, who was arrested last month.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Christopher Testani for The New York Times

Here’s the chef Jamie Oliver’s recipe for pappardelle with beef ragu, though he’d call it that only in conversation with an American journalist. In Essex, England, where Oliver grew up in his family’s pub and restaurant, it would be “spag bol,” a variation on the dish people outside Britain call spaghetti Bolognese. What I enjoy most about his take on the dish is the finish: You shower a mixture of grated orange rind and chopped rosemary over the top. It’s like a psychedelic take on gremolata (lemon zest with garlic and chopped parsley). “The idea is that when you add it,” he told us, “the orange and rosemary go, ‘Whaa!’” You’ll see!

SHE KEEPS LYING!

E. Lockhart  Lila Barth for The New York Times

Adolescence is “that amazing time of life where your friendships are filled with inside jokes and rituals and places that become your places,” says the young adult novelist E. Lockhart. “We Fell Apart,” her third book in the best-selling “We Were Liars” universe, came out this week with a fresh cast of dissembling teens on Martha’s Vineyard.

Lockhart loves writing about them, she told my colleague Elisabeth Egan. “It’s not just, ‘Will he kiss me?’ or ‘Will we get in trouble?’” she said. “It’s ‘Who am I in the world?’”

More on culture

How well do you know the “Toy Story” films? Take our quiz and find out! Michael Kimmelman, our architecture critic, has a terrific review of Sotheby’s new headquarters in Manhattan, in what was once the Whitney Museum of American Art. (If you’re in the city, you can now see art there for free.) I really liked Alissa Wilkinson’s review of the new Jennifer Lawrence movie, “Die My Love,” out this week. Alissa’s so good at conveying excitement — about Lawrence’s performance, about the film itself. “This is the role I’ve been wanting to see Lawrence play since I first saw her in ‘Winter’s Bone’ all those years ago,” she wrote. “Watching someone go for broke and actually make it is exhilarating.”

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Try these eight exercises to improve your grip strength.

Get a bar cart. They’re fun!

Spend 36 hours in Kauai? Yes, please.

GAMES

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

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

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

Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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

[phkrause]

November 7, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Hundreds of flights across the U.S. have been canceled today because of the government shutdown. Tesla shareholders yesterday approved the world’s first trillion-dollar pay package, for Elon Musk. (That’s a big number!)

And I have two stories to share from the world of health care. Trump announced a deal with drugmakers to lower the cost of anti-obesity drugs, and my colleagues have a story explaining why emergency C-sections may not always be necessary.

Let’s dive in.

A plane lands in Los Angeles. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Expect delays

This morning, the Transportation Department is reducing the number of flights at 40 airports across the country. About 4 percent of flights will be cut today, officials estimated. That could rise to 10 percent by next Friday. The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said on Wednesday that the reductions in flights were meant to “alleviate the pressure” on air traffic controllers, some of whom have taken second jobs because they aren’t being paid.

Yesterday, the department was silent about details of where the pain points will be. But travelers are going to feel them today. Administration officials told Times reporters yesterday to expect cuts across the country.

Source: Transportation Department. The New York Times

Airlines are scrambling to figure out what to do. Delta Air Lines will cancel about 170 flights scheduled for today; American Airlines will cancel about 220 flights. In total, more than 815 flights have been canceled.

And the Thanksgiving travel season is coming! How are you supposed to deal with these rebookings, refunds, delays, lines and travel insurance? My colleagues on the Travel desk have tips:

Remember that even if your flight is not canceled, you may still feel a sting. Almost 70 percent of domestic flights leave from or arrive at the 40 affected airports. Do some work before you go to the airport. Check your seat map on the airline’s website. If there are a bunch of empties, your flight might be canceled. Going to a small city? You’re vulnerable. And check websites like FlightAware and Flightradar24, too — they can help you discover whether your airport or airline is experiencing delays. Above all, experts cautioned, be patient. That’s excellent advice. However bad your situation is, it’s probably worse for someone else.

Of course, travel isn’t the only part of American life snarled by the shutdown. It is affecting many, many people. (And online, it’s clear who Americans think is responsible: the other side.)

Hundreds of thousands of government employees are working without pay. Others have been furloughed. Some have been laid off. More than 40 million people dependent on federal food benefits are waiting to see whether the administration complies with yesterday’s order from a federal judge in Rhode Island to make the payments in full — today. Obamacare premiums have soared.

Here’s what else is happening with the shutdown:

Some moderate Democrats and Republicans quietly drafted a bill to reopen the government. Senate Republicans plan to call a vote today, daring Democrats to oppose a plan that their colleagues helped craft. A woman looking for food in a Walmart dumpster, a homeless man collecting change outside the grocery store: These are the Americans affected by food stamp cuts.

A fetal heartbeat monitor. Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Risky surgeries

The second story that grabbed my lapels yesterday was about the rise in the number of cesarean sections performed in America and what they owe to a scientifically dubious test.

Nearly every woman who gives birth in an American hospital wears a belt of sensors that monitor the baby’s heartbeat, Sarah Kliff, who covers health care, reported. If a pattern in that heartbeat appears to be abnormal — it’s too slow, for instance — doctors may declare the baby in “fetal distress” and call for an emergency C-section.

It happens a lot. As Sarah notes, one in three deliveries now happens in an operating room, “a figure that far exceeds public health recommendations.”

Fetal monitoring is “the worst test in medicine,” a professor of obstetrics told her. Doctors used to check the heart rates of babies in the womb using stethoscopes. In the 1970s, they embraced electronic monitoring as a more objective measure of how things were going.

Yet the hearts of healthy babies beat in all sorts of ways. The widespread use of the monitors means that doctors have many more opportunities, as Sarah puts it, “to mistakenly interpret these ambiguous signals.”

C-sections that arise from the monitoring can bring their own complications. One is a condition called placenta accreta, where a mother’s placenta attaches to scar tissue left by a previous surgery.

When that woman gives birth, she can hemorrhage, sometimes so badly and so quickly that she can bleed to death within minutes.

Placenta accreta used to be rare: In the 1970s, it affected one in 4,000 pregnancies. As C-sections have become more common, it has soared as high as one in 272 deliveries.

Sarah found some heartbreaking stories. One woman was diagnosed with accreta during her third pregnancy. Despite being referred to a specialist, she hemorrhaged at seven months and delivered two days later. Doctors could not control the bleeding, and she died at age 31. Her newborn daughter spent two months in intensive care.

I encourage you to click through and read about both the use of fetal monitoring and the rise of placenta accreta, along with the comments readers have left on both articles. The responses are raw, emotional, questioning, wise.

Now, let’s get you caught up.

THE LATEST NEWS

A Trillionaire?

Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire with his new pay package from Tesla if he meets ambitious goals, including vastly expanding the company’s stock valuation. The week has been a split screen of America’s different attitudes toward wealth: In New York, voters elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor after he pledged to raise taxes on the country’s richest.

Gun Violence

A house cleaner in Indiana went to the wrong address. The residents shot and killed her. She was the mother of four young children. A jury awarded $10 million to a Virginia teacher shot by her 6-year-old student.

Politics

Federal prosecutors are investigating Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., for corruption because she took a trip that Qatar paid for in 2023. The Supreme Court said the Trump administration could stop issuing passports that include gender identity markings chosen by applicants.

More than 100 countries were working on a major effort to slash pollution. Trump officials, including the secretary of state, bullied and threatened foreign leaders to kill it. Several U.S. military aircraft have been flying missions out of El Salvador. It’s part of an extraordinary U.S. troop buildup in the Caribbean, a Times visual investigation found.

International

The New York Times

Why is Trump threatening to send troops into Nigeria? Click the video above to watch Katrin Bennhold, the host of The World newsletter, explain. Saudi Arabia has executed hundreds of people this year, many of them foreigners convicted of low-level smuggling. Iran sentenced an Iranian American Jewish man to prison for traveling to Israel 13 years ago to celebrate his son’s bar mitzvah, his family said.

Other Big Stories

Dairy farm in Corban, Switzerland. Lea Meienberg for The New York Times

Swiss farmers facing Trump’s tariffs now find themselves with too much milk. They’re considering slaughtering cows to cut back. A Washington sandwich thrower who went viral was found not guilty of assault. The verdict ends a nearly three-month effort by the government to penalize him.

MADAM SPEAKER

Nancy Pelosi The New York Times

Nancy Pelosi was not just the first woman to serve as speaker of the House of Representatives. She was the most prominent one to stand up to Trump — and she did so visibly, consistently and often internet-virally. Yesterday, after Pelosi, 85, announced that she would retire rather than run for re-election next year, Annie Karni, who covers Congress, pulled together a few of their most memorable interactions.

There was that time when Pelosi, wearing suffragist white on the rostrum of the House chamber for the State of the Union, offered Trump the most patronizing of claps. There was that meeting, at a huge conference table filled with graying white men in dark suits, when she stood up and wagged a disappointed finger at him. And there was that unforgettable moment in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his State of the Union speech as soon as he finished giving it, which Annie said “drew as much attention as anything he had said that night.”

“In every public interaction between the two,” Annie said, “Pelosi seemed not only unintimidated, but also permanently appalled and deeply unimpressed.”

For more: Pelosi has been the target of millions of dollars of Republican attack ads for more than a decade. Republicans might have already moved on to their next boogeyman: Mamdani.

OPINIONS

Democrats’ wins on Election Day show that there are multiple paths forward for the party, Michelle Cottle writes.

Here is a column by Michelle Goldberg on Pelosi’s retirement.

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MORNING READS

An iguana. Daniel Mulcahy

Vindicated: Iguanas on Clarion Island in Mexico were considered an invasive species, but DNA evidence proves they beat humans to the island by hundreds of thousands of years.

Michael Scott: Internet memes had to come from somewhere. Turns out, a lot came from “The Office.”

Sweet! Are some kinds of sugar “less bad” than others?

TODAY’S NUMBER

6,907

— That’s how many nautical miles two British women traveled as the first female crew to row across the Pacific Ocean without stopping.

SPORTS

N.F.L.: The Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland, 24, died by suicide after crashing his vehicle following a police chase.

A monthslong search: The former star receiver Antonio Brown was captured in Dubai by U.S. marshals on an attempted murder charge.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

David Malosh for The New York Times

Generally, I like to cook like a Parisian person, heading to the markets on the way home from work to see what looks good at the butcher’s, the fishmonger’s, the greengrocer’s. But this time of year, with darkness falling earlier and the temperature dropping, I look to the pantry instead. Melissa Clark’s recipe for chickpea stew with orzo and mustard greens makes the most of it, using canned garbanzos and a box of orzo, along with whatever vegetables are in the refrigerator crisper. The combination delivers a satisfying dinner that you can doctor however you like. In my case, that means using a little more chicken stock than she does, so the dish is almost a soup.

LOUDER THAN WORDS

Meg White Rowen Lawrence/WireImage, via Getty Images

The White Stripes will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this weekend. Meg White, the band’s untrained, instinctual, muscular drummer, is unlikely to appear at the ceremony. Eighteen years ago, after a decade playing with the band, White quit and disappeared from public view. She hasn’t played drums onstage since.

Our critic Lindsay Zoladz is great on her drumming and legacy. “Just as a highly technical jazz drummer would have knocked the Beatles out of balance,” she writes, “Meg’s primal technique was perfect for the exhilarating cacophony of the White Stripes.”

Just listen to the band’s 2001 breakout hit “Fell in Love With a Girl,” she encourages: “A single, unchanging groove courses through the two-minute track, giving the song a careening intensity and making it feel like it’s in an unbroken state of free-fall.” That’s rock ’n’ roll.

More on culture

The critic A.O. Scott is back with another delightful close read of a poem, “Monet’s ‘Waterlilies,’” by Robert Hayden. The poem was written more than 50 years ago, but Tony (that’s what we call A.O.) says it couldn’t be more timely. It’s about looking at a painting in a museum during a tumultuous time — during Selma, during Saigon — but it could have been written in our deafening present, he says. Look at art and see what happens! You may find your focus shifts away from the world’s problems. What replaces them? “A state of calm, awe and ardor, “ Tony writes. That’s what I’m looking for. The Swedish rapper and internet star Yung Lean is on “Popcast,” The Times’s music show, this week. He’s a Zelig-like figure in contemporary music, the hosts say, “your favorite artist’s favorite artist’s favorite artist.” Early fame almost killed him. Now, he has new music, a new film and a new perspective. “You can be swaggy without being drunk all the time or doing pills,” he told us.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Stream Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” this weekend on Netflix.

Replace that too long, too orange extension cord powering your bedside lamp with an “outlet extender.”

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

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

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

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

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

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

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November 8, 2025

Good morning. It can be challenging to discover new music on streaming platforms. Today, some ideas to help you out of a listening rut.

María Jesús Contreras

Sound system

	By Melissa Kirsch

Several years ago, in a misguided effort to reclaim closet space, I threw out all my CDs. Yes, all of them. I figured I’d uploaded most to my computer, and the rest I’d overlistened to anyway. I should have known I’d come to regret this move — I am, after all, the same person who, in a madcap period of college “reinvention,” threw all her childhood diaries into the dumpster behind the dorm.

There were, of course, dozens of homemade mixes in those bursting plastic-paged binders of discs: the road trip mix that soundtracked a drive from Seattle to Los Angeles in the summer of 2002. (I remember it included Nick Drake’s cover of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”) One was made up entirely of songs about houses and home. (Besides “This World Is Not My Home” by His Name Is Alive, what else was on it?) Oh, and an old friend had compiled the music he’d loved on Nigerian AM radio as a child. (I discovered so many musicians from that CD.) All those personally curated playlists, all beyond retrieval now.

In my defense, I did not know when I tossed those CDs that, in the future, my musical life would be governed by a cruel robot DJ who would care nothing for expanding my horizons. A maddening algorithm that would, despite all my best attempts to find new stuff, keep feeding me the same songs I already knew.

I have, according to my notes, been complaining about the algorithm’s refusal to introduce me to new music since mid-2024, when I first wrote in my notebook of ideas for this newsletter, “Streaming is starting to ruin my relationship with music.” I wanted to write about this, but I didn’t want to come to you with a problem and no solution. (It’s Saturday morning. You’re trying to unwind, you don’t need another thing to be upset about.)

So for the past year and a half, I’ve been trying to figure out the easiest way to uncover new music. Not new releases, not new songs like the ones I already like, but music that’s new to me, by artists I haven’t encountered before. I haven’t steered out of the rut completely, but I’m getting some traction. (My hacks for music discovery are by no means the only ones — there are zillions of sites, podcasts, publications and podcasts devoted to this — but it can be hard to find a way in.) Here’s what works for me:

Ask people you know to make you playlists. What else do they have to do today? It’s also a good way to get to know people better. And flattering! It says, “You have good taste.”

Excavate your old MP3 library. Mine’s on an old auxiliary hard drive, but there were some forgotten gems and albums I’d never fully explored on there.

Try La Blogothèque’s Take-Away Shows. Since 2006, this French collective has made videos of musicians performing outside traditional concert spaces. Some are well known (e.g., Bon Iver on the streets of Paris) and many are less so. They make playlists of each year’s concerts. Think Tiny Desk Concerts, without the desk.

Go to concerts early and see the opening bands. This is a suggestion from the music critic Lindsay Zoladz. “I’m off social media entirely these days, so I am into more analog ways of finding things I like,” she told me. She also advises Shazaming that song that sounds interesting in a restaurant or store. Of course, Lindsay’s newsletter, The Amplifier, is one of the best sources for recommendations.

Listen to the radio. What a concept! I always forget I can listen to most any radio station, anywhere in the world. There are a lot of sites that collect interesting feeds: Indie music. Music for working. Choose your decade + country.

Mine other people’s Spotify playlists. Search for friends, musicians, stores, brands, publications (Aquarium Drunkard has eclectic lists), radio stations (a weird ouroboros, but your college radio station might very well be on there), celebrities (I’ve enjoyed the writer Michael Chabon’s archive), exes with good taste, record labels (Numero Group is wonderful), people you met once and found interesting — they might have troves of playlists on their public profiles.

I’ve long since fallen out of touch with the friend who cataloged Nigerian tunes. But I searched him on Spotify and found that not only has he continued to make incredible playlists, but the very playlist I loved from 20 years ago is in his library. I’ve been making my way through his latest creations. Writing this newsletter was an excuse to get back in touch and thank him.

THE LATEST NEWS

Los Angeles was among the affected airports. Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

Government Shutdown

Flight cancellations ordered by President Trump began to hit airports. Up to 10 percent of flights may be affected by next week. A Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, paused a lower court order that would have forced the administration to fund food stamps. Missed meals and paychecks: Explore this timeline of the shutdown’s impact.

Politics

A federal judge in Oregon said Trump had failed to prove that protesters were blocking his policies in Portland — and permanently forbade him to send in the National Guard.

Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, is purging military leaders with little explanation. Here’s what to know about the new gender rules for U.S. passports.

Democrats may eventually beat Republicans in the redistricting arms race, writes The Times’s chief political analyst, Nate Cohn.

Other Big Stories

A Kentucky county clerk who was once jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its 2015 decision legalizing those unions. Canada killed hundreds of ostriches exposed to avian flu. As lawyers ask A.I. to write their briefs, bogus A.I.-generated citations are cropping up in court. A network of legal vigilantes is publicizing the errors.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Film and TV

Meet the poster designers who help bring to life movies like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Back to the Future” and “Rambo.” The latest “Knives Out” movie pulls together a laundry list of stars. This is how the producer made it happen. (It’s “literally the definition of herding cats,” said Daniel Craig, one of the stars.) Nine Inch Nails, the pioneering industrial rock band, has gotten into film scoring. They wrote the soundtrack for the neon-streaked Disney extravaganza “Tron: Ares.” “South Park” has doubled its viewership by skewering Trump. It depicts him in a romantic relationship with Satan, who is carrying the president’s baby.

Music

Tame Impala’s catchy psychedelic rock and dance music is drawing more and more listeners. But the arena stage poses new challenges for its awkward frontman. Rosalía, the Spanish pop star, takes an avant-garde swerve on her latest album: singing in 13 languages. The violinist Itzhak Perlman wasn’t sure about playing the music for “Schindler’s List.” He spoke about the film, his violin, his dog and his Vitamix blender in a new interview with The Times. The latest class of musicians will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame today. Meet the inductees.

Political Culture

Ticket sales are down. Dozens of employees are gone. Read about the crackup at the Kennedy Center in Washington after Trump took over. Zohran Mamdani is New York City’s first millennial mayor. You can tell by the softly trendy suits he wears. On the campaign trail, Mamdani seemed fun and funny. Can he keep it up when he gets to City Hall?

Norman Rockwell’s family denounced the Department of Homeland Security’s use of the artist’s work in social media posts promoting an anti-immigration agenda.

In a new book, Michelle Obama unpacks the complexities of dressing and hairstyling during her eight years as first lady.

More Culture

A new series of souped-up Harry Potter audiobooks features a voice cast of more than 200 actors, a 60-piece orchestra and an immersive soundscape. A polarizing San Francisco fountain will be dismantled after the city’s Arts Commission voted to remove it because of safety concerns.

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CULTURE CALENDAR

	By Alexis Soloski

? ? “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (Friday): In the 2013 movie “Now You See me,” a quartet of magicians pull off an impossible heist. That the movie — an entirely unlikely illusionist-comedy-action-thriller with a Robin Hood angle — succeeded was perhaps the bigger feat. Nine years after its first sequel appeared, the magicians have returned with new tricks, new targets, new locales and a fresh invitation to suspend your disbelief. And why not? As Dave Franco’s prestidigitator says, between card flourishes: “Wars. Pandemics. Climate Change. A.I. Let’s face it — y’all need magic more than ever.”

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Beatriz Da Costa for The New York Times.

By Melissa Clark

Mushroom Pasta Stir-Fry

For an easy, meatless meal, try Hetty Lui McKinnon’s mushroom pasta stir-fry. She uses the high heat technique to make a simple but deeply flavored sauce out of mushrooms that are seared and tossed with crisp broccolini and your favorite long pasta. Perfect for chilly November evenings, five-spice powder gives this dish a warm, autumnal aroma, while maple syrup lends sweetness and a dash of chile adds a bright note of heat.

REAL ESTATE

Katherine Marks for The New York Times

The Hunt: Unsure how she could afford her own apartment in the city, a young renter scoured government programs and found one that might help her. Where would she land? Play our game.

75½ Bedford Street: The narrow building has been home to Margaret Mead, Cary Grant and other celebrities. It’s for sale for nearly $4.2 million.

Flat Iron’s condo era: The famously triangular tower gets a new lease on life, but don’t expect cookie-cutter layouts.

LIVING

Vicky Szuflita filled an empty house with clothing. Audra Melton for The New York Times

Side hustle: A beloved vintage store closed. One devoted customer took home all 4,500 items — and started selling them herself.

36 Hours: The island of Kauai has few modern intrusions (but a lot of charm).

Sleep supplement: Headlines this week raised alarm about the link between melatonin and heart failure. Here’s what you need to know.

Lower your cholesterol: Have you heard of the portfolio diet?

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter; illustration by Con McHugh for NYT Wirecutter

A sweater is a classic gift

A really, really good sweater? Well, it’s sartorial magic — the stuff dreams and rom-coms are made of. But get a shoddy, poorly made one, and you might be subjecting your giftee (or yourself) to shrunken armpit holes, lifeless fabric, a stretched fit and pilling galore. There are two ways to avoid this fate. First, invest in an heirloom-quality sweater. The best ones are pricey, yes, but they should last for life. Second, treat them with care. The right laundry aids, like a good drying rack and a de-pilling comb, can help clothes look better and last longer. — Sofia Sokolove

GAME OF THE WEEK

Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield. Ella Hall/Associated Press

New England Patriots vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, N.F.L.: Halfway through the N.F.L. season, there are a few familiar names at the top of the M.V.P. race: Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Matthew Stafford. But two other quarterbacks in the Top 5 stand out: Baker Mayfield of the Buccaneers and Drake Maye of the Patriots.

Mayfield, who made the Pro Bowl in the past two seasons, has taken a step forward. Maye, in just his second year in the league, has made a giant leap. Behind Maye’s breakout, Chad Graff of The Athletic wrote recently, a Patriots season that began as a rebuilding year has swiftly turned into a race for the No. 1 seed in the A.F.C.

Tomorrow at 1 p.m. Eastern on CBS

NOW TIME TO PLAY

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

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.

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

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November 9, 2025

Good morning. More schools and governments are turning to tech bans to try to keep kids off screens. Do they work?

A student handing over a cellphone at a school in Brazil. Bruna Prado/Associated Press

Social media bans

By Natasha Singer I cover tech, teens and schools.

Bullying. Sextortion. Body-shaming. Self-harm. Viral student-fight videos. Never-ending newsfeeds. Unhealthy relationships with A.I. chatbots. Teenagers who can’t seem to put down their phones.

Parents and teachers are understandably concerned about social media. For all of the community, creativity and just plain fun kids enjoy online, hazards remain all too frequent, some children’s advocates say.

Over the past few years, as public concern over youth mental health has mounted, government and education leaders have been searching for ways to reduce online risks. Lawmakers have rushed to curb young people’s access to social networks. Schools have banned phones. Instagram, TikTok and Snap have introduced new teen safeguards. Now, Australia is poised to go even further with a sweeping social media ban for teenagers.

Can these bans actually help? Below, I explain what we know so far.

What is happening?

Young people regularly report having bad experiences with social media.

In 2021, a former Facebook employee warned executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, that a company survey found more than 20 percent of 13- to 15-year-olds said they had been bullied on Instagram — just within the previous week. Many of the teens surveyed, the former employee noted, also reported receiving “unwanted advances.”

Instagram has since bolstered safeguards for teens, including some intended to stop adult strangers from directly messaging teenagers who don’t follow them. Last year, Instagram also introduced a new safeguard to automatically blur nude images in direct messages sent to teenagers under 18.

But researchers and government officials have found flaws in some of the safeguards. Last year, New Mexico arrested three men who were accused of targeting children for sex, the state’s attorney general said, alleging that the men solicited state investigators who had posed as children on fake Instagram and Facebook accounts.

How are people responding?

Some lawmakers and schools are resorting to tech bans.

One of the most sweeping is in Australia, where the government is trying to keep most kids off social media. Starting in December, the country will require platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to take “reasonable steps” to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from having accounts. As my colleague Victoria Kim in Sydney has reported, the country also wants social apps to deactivate existing accounts belonging to more than one million young Australians.

The Australian ban could address a vexing problem. Regulators complain that social networks have enabled millions of young children under the age of 13 to sign up for accounts, without sufficiently enforcing the companies’ own age restrictions. But the ban could affect social media benefits like friendships, UNICEF Australia has said, without fixing the problems young people face online. “Social media has a lot of good things, like education and staying in touch with friends,” the organization said in a statement on its website.

Britain has taken a different approach — by promoting increased privacy and time management controls, rather than banishing young people from apps. In 2020, Britain began prohibiting services like social networks and video game apps from using “nudging techniques” to steer young people to give up more data. Online services must also turn on the highest privacy settings by default for kids under 18. In 2022, California enacted a similar law. But a lawsuit by NetChoice, an industry trade group, has halted it, at least for now.

Schools are also trying to curb tech distractions. Today, 40 percent of countries bar or restrict student cellphone use, as do more than 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

We have limited research on whether the bans work. After surveying more than 1,200 students in 30 schools across England, researchers at the University of Birmingham recently reported that cellphone bans did not improve students’ mental well-being.

Bans have drawbacks

Blanket tech bans can be crude instruments. They may make it harder for many young people to have social media accounts. But they often don’t change the underlying app features that many parents are worried about.

Many popular apps use powerful attention-hacking techniques that can hook young people, said Julia Powles, an Australian researcher who is the executive director of the U.C.L.A. Institute for Technology, Law and Policy. This keeps users online longer, she notes, and makes the companies more money from advertising.

“The root cause is the monetary incentive that drives these platforms,” Powles said. “It creates manipulative practices,” she added, “and it can be exploited by harmful industries like gambling and unhealthy food.”

Lawmakers may be missing the point, she said. Australia’s new social media ban, she noted, instructs companies to “disregard” the ads they run as well as ad revenue.

If she is right, the tech bans may be treating the symptoms — while doing little to tackle the root causes of the online risks for kids and teens.

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

Distributing groceries. Marco Postigo Storel for The New York Times

Millions of low-income families faced new delays and disruptions to their food stamp benefits. The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the Supreme Court letting the Trump administration temporarily withhold funding for those benefits. What’s next for the Democratic Party? In Maine, Michigan and other states, primary candidates will choose between a center-left and a left-wing vision. Far-right influencers have been pushing charges of a grand conspiracy against President Trump’s adversaries. Their case, whose theory is unsupported by evidence, is finally taking shape. Someone fired shots at Border Patrol agents in Chicago, an official said, the latest in a series of clashes during an immigration crackdown that has lasted two months. No agents were injured.

Business

Yachts for sale. Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

Yacht owners are younger and wealthier than they were a decade ago. And they’re increasingly American, enriched by a roaring stock market and deep tax cuts. The Trump administration is handing out hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to some of the country’s most profitable companies and wealthiest investors. The Justice Department opened an investigation into possible collusion among big meatpacking companies. The effort may mollify ranchers, who complain of rising beef prices.

International

The Times interviewed 40 men deported by the U.S. to a prison in El Salvador. They say they were shackled, beaten and sexually assaulted. Trump insists that U.S. strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program this summer. But regional officials have become less convinced in the months since and now fear another war between Israel and Iran. China is on a scientifically shaky mission to conquer aging. That includes longevity labs, “immortality islands” and grapeseed pills. Hurricane Melissa ravaged Jamaica’s power grid. But people with rooftop solar panels, increasingly popular on the island, got their power back almost immediately.

Other Big Stories

Kim Kardashian and Joe Rogan want to know whether an interstellar object was sent by aliens. Almost all astronomers say it’s just a comet. Psychologists consider chatbots the future of therapy. The F.D.A. is exploring whether to regulate them. Are they safe?

THE SUNDAY DEBATE

Should Democrats’ path to the 2026 midterms be progressive or moderate?

Moderate. Moving to the left will only continue to alienate working-class Democrats, who decidedly prefer capitalism to socialism. “In politics, as in life, moderation is key,” Douglas Schoen and Carly Cooperman write for The Hill.

Progressive. Centrism has allowed the Democratic Party to appear listless, unprincipled and beholden to the ultrawealthy; Mamdani's politics are the opposite. “This, too, might scare the Democratic establishment: not because Mamdani could fail, but because he could succeed,” The Guardian’s Moira Donegan writes.

FROM OPINION

A.I. is on its way to becoming conscious. But that doesn’t mean it deserves our moral consideration, Barbara Gail Montero argues.

Here are columns by M. Gessen on gender and passports and Nicholas Kristof on Trump’s aid cuts to Nigeria.

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MORNING READS

A tiled facade. Atif Aryan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Countless cracks: The Blue Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, shed turquoise, indigo and lapis tiles in a strong earthquake last week. But, like Afghanistan, it has endured for centuries.

News tool: A.I. is sweeping through newsrooms, transforming the way journalists gather and disseminate information.

Redecorator in chief: Trump’s vision of a Mar-a-Lago on the Potomac upends an American ideal, our architecture critic writes.

“Wow factor”: Couples are adding live saxophones to their wedding receptions. Some guests can’t stand the sound. (If that’s you, these five minutes of sax might change your mind.)

DNA discoverer: James Watson decoded the blueprint for life with Francis Crick, making him one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. He wrote a celebrated memoir and later ignited an uproar with racist views. He died at 97.

SPORTS

N.F.L.: The Washington Commanders could name a new team stadium after Trump. The president plans to attend the Commanders’ game against the Detroit Lions today.

Sports business: YouTube TV will offer a $20 credit to subscribers if it cannot negotiate a new deal with ESPN/Disney networks.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

.

	By Elisabeth Egan

“Finding My Way,” by Malala Yousafzai: Yousafzai became a household name at 15, when she was shot by the Taliban for speaking out against its brutal regime in Pakistan. “She gave an indelible speech at the United Nations, wrote a best-selling memoir, became the youngest-ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and transitioned into a kind of living sainthood, all before finishing high school,” Reggie Ugwu wrote in a recent profile. In her new memoir, Yousafzai, now 28, tells a different story — a human, refreshingly down-to-earth one about her struggles to fit in during college and her determination to forge her own path, separate from the one prescribed for her when she was a teenager.

For more: The winner of the Booker Prize will be announced in London tomorrow. Which novel should win? Have your say.

THE INTERVIEW

Phillip Montgomery for The New York Times

	By David Marchese

This week’s subject for The Interview is the pugnacious Fox News star Greg Gutfeld. His show, “Gutfeld!,” has firmly established its dominance in late night, drawing a significantly bigger audience than those of Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert. We talked about hypocrisy, why Fox News wanted him to do this interview (against his own instincts) and his late-night rivals.

Do you see Kimmel, Colbert and Fallon as competition?

Not really.

You called Colbert a “smug loser” or something like that. And the one that stood out for me about Kimmel was: “If that man was any more full of [expletive], he’d be a colostomy bag.”

I have this thing called the hierarchy of smears, and that means if you call somebody a fascist who’s going to destroy the world, I can call you anything. I’m never going to call somebody fat because they’re fat. I’m going to call you fat if you called me Hitler. And the best part about that is it hurts them. It hurts them more than if they were to call me Hitler because they have to look in the mirror every day. I know I’m not Hitler. They know they’re fat.

Charming.

[“Gutfeld!” panelist] Kat [Timpf] makes fun of me over this. “Greg, you’re trying to turn calling people fat into a heroic endeavor.” But again, stop calling me a Nazi or Hitler or a fascist, and I’ll lay off the physical stuff. But the physical stuff doesn’t come close to ascribing this moral evil to somebody that then generates animosity among people who might do something to you, who might come to your house. That’s what I think. Does that make sense?

I understand what you’re saying. That’s not the same as saying I think it makes sense.

I’ll take “I understand what you’re saying” as “making sense.”

Read more of the interview here.

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

The New York Times

Read this week’s magazine.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Bake a holiday pie with these superior store-bought crusts.

Find your next favorite workout.

Send someone a meme, preferably one from “The Office.”

MEAL PLAN

Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell.

Many people may already be thinking about Thanksgiving, but there are still quite a lot of weeknights between now and then on which you’ll want to eat a delicious — and easy! — dinner. To get you started, this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter looks back at some reader favorites from last November, like chicken au poivre and baked salmon with dill rice.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were choirgirl and horologic.

Can you put eight historical events — including the Code of Hammurabi and the invention of the Graham cracker — 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.

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

[phkrause]

November 11, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. It is Veterans Day. Thank you to those who have served.

The Senate passed legislation last night to end the government shutdown. It’s not a done deal yet — the legislation still needs to make its way through the House — so I’d like to start today in Washington, which spent much of yesterday on what my colleague Michael Gold, who covers Congress, called “a slow-moving glide path” toward reopening the federal government, which has been shuttered for the past 41 days.

The U.S. Capitol. Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The road to reopening

Last night, a splinter group of eight senators voted with Republicans to end the government shutdown, without the concession that Democrats had spent weeks demanding.

The House is set to take up the measure as soon as tomorrow, though it will take some time to gather its members. They have been on recess during the shutdown and have not held a vote in nearly two months. If the legislation passes, it can be signed by President Trump, who said yesterday afternoon that he approved of the plan. Then, the federal government will come back to life — at least until the spending agreement ends in January.

The defections in the Democratic caucus prompted a sharp backlash. “The bitter rebukes came from every corner of the Democratic Party,” Michael wrote.

A plan comes apart

More than a month ago, Democrats said they would not vote for a funding bill unless Republicans agreed to extend subsidies to the Affordable Care Act — which give people a tax credit to help pay for their health insurance — that are set to expire at the end of the year. The party was united.

But Trump stands in the bully pulpit and has control of the government. Despite legal challenges, he found ways to pay for some parts of the government (the military, law enforcement) and cut off others (food stamp benefits, as well as federally funded projects in states led by Democrats).

As my colleague Luke Broadwater, who covers the White House, explains, Trump’s strategy was to wait out the Democrats, turning up the heat until his opponents eventually caved.

Eight senators did. As many as a dozen Democrats, many of them centrists hailing from purple states who were uncomfortable with the shutdown to begin with, had been quietly huddling for weeks in search of an off-ramp, Catie Edmondson reported.

They found a bumpy one. Dick Durban of Illinois, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said he couldn’t “accept a strategy which wages political battle at the expense of my neighbor’s paycheck or the food for his children.” So even though Republicans did not agree to extend the health care credits, and even though voters were beginning to side with the left, Democrats — seven of them, anyway, and Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with them — folded. (Here’s how every senator voted.)

“Standing up to Donald Trump didn’t work,” Senator King said on MSNBC. “It actually gave him more power.”

A backlash

So Democrats are back where they started. For many, the decision brought to mind clichés about the party that have circulated since they lost the election in 2024: They are ineffective. They laid out an ultimatum, and then changed their minds.

The bickering among Democrats found a home inside one family of lawmakers. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire was among those who voted to end the shutdown. But her daughter, a congressional candidate in the state, took a different view. In an interview with my colleague Reid Epstein, she said that “clearly we had different approaches here,” adding: “I can’t speak for her. I think she did what she believes is right.”

As Michael put it, “The dispute was the latest evidence of a Democratic Party still deeply at odds over its direction and how best to counter President Trump.”

More on the shutdown

The Senate agreement says the government must rehire federal workers laid off during the shutdown and deliver back pay to workers who were furloughed. Action in Congress hasn’t made airports less chaotic. The F.A.A. is reducing flights this week to relieve pressure on air traffic controllers, leading to scores of cancellations. A coalition of clean energy groups sued the Trump administration, challenging what they described as nakedly partisan funding cuts during the shutdown that wiped out around $7.5 billion for projects in Democratic-led states. Tucked into the spending deal to reopen the government: a legal avenue for senators to sue over phone searches.

THE LATEST NEWS

Trump Administration

The U.S. struck two more boats in the Pacific that officials claimed were smuggling drugs. Six people were killed, the military said. The campaign’s death toll is now 76. Trump pardoned several people accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including Rudy Giuliani.

Syria’s new president, a former Al Qaeda commander, made his first visit to the White House. In the video below, Christina Goldbaum explains how he transformed his image. Click to watch.

The New York Times

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case regarding mail-in ballots in Mississippi. The case, which centers on the meaning of “Election Day,” could affect dozens of states. The court also turned down a request to revisit its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Trump asked the court to overturn a $5 million civil judgment that he had sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll.

International

Campaign posters in Baghdad. Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Iraqis are choosing a new Parliament today in an election being closely watched by Washington, which has been pressing Iraq to curb the influence of neighboring Iran. A car exploded near a New Delhi metro station, killing at least eight people. The Indian police are investigating it as a possible terrorist attack. Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion over a documentary that included an edited version of a speech he gave before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. France’s former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was granted conditional release from prison, less than a month into a five-year sentence for his conviction in a campaign finance scandal.

Health

The F.D.A. will remove its most serious warnings from the label of estrogen pills to treat menopause symptoms. The agency’s leader is a longtime proponent of the treatment. Supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have embraced the “anti-vax” label. “We need to be more boldly anti-vax,” said the president of the MAHA Institute, a group working to advance Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

Other Big Stories

A mobile lounge carrying passengers crashed at Washington Dulles International Airport, injuring more than a dozen people and causing damage to the terminal. The families of several children and counselors who died in floods at a Texas summer camp sued the camp’s leaders, accusing them of squandering a crucial window of time to evacuate.

THE MORNING QUIZ

This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)

The next installment of the “Knives Out” film franchise, “Wake Up Dead Man,” assembles a huge cast of stars, including Daniel Craig, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington and Mila Kunis. Because of the actors’ schedules and chemistry, it’s hard to gather an ensemble like this. How, according to a recent Times story, did the creators do it?

They bought three luxury items for each V.I.P. The selections included a Birkin handbag, a top-of-the-line mattress and a Pembroke Welsh corgi.

They cast the celebrities at the last moment, just before filming began. They took the stars to Ibiza every weekend to see famous D.J.s. They offered to rewrite the script based on how the actors thought the characters ought to behave — and shared writing credit.

OPINIONS

The New York Times

World War II cemeteries in the U.S. and Europe show how important the trans-Atlantic partnership is to preserving peace, Jonathan Darman writes.

The “Make America Healthy Again” movement is appealing because it offers a level of control over our health that mainstream institutions can’t provide, Samuel Braslow writes.

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MORNING READS

Aidan Zamiri Jono White for The New York Times

The cool kids’ favorite director: A-listers like Timothée Chalamet and Billie Eilish trust Aidan Zamiri to make them look good. “He’s sort of, like, more than my best friend at this point,” the singer Charli XCX said.

No hard feelings: A Virginia teenager defeated his former high school government teacher for a seat on the local board of supervisors.

Groundbreaking guitars: Ken Parker was an iconoclastic guitar maker who upended entrenched luthier traditions by producing hyper-engineered, flyweight instruments. He died at 73.

TODAY’S NUMBER

14

— Inches of snow that fell in Walkerton, Ind., yesterday, according to the National Weather Service, as a winter storm slammed parts of the Midwest.

SPORTS

M.L.B.: The league said it would cap bets on pitches at $200 just a day after two pitchers were indicted on charges linked to illegal sports betting.

Olympics: The International Olympic Committee is moving toward a complete ban on transgender women in female events.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Christopher Testani for The New York Times

Hamburger soup came about because it was a cheap way to stretch a portion of ground beef into something delicious to feed a family. (That the recipe came to be called “hamburger soup” is proof that American English sometimes comes up short.) It’s a phenomenal one-pot meal built on a foundation of browned hamburger, and layered with tomatoes, potatoes and chopped vegetables. It loves a finishing dose of Worcestershire sauce. “Nostalgia in a pot,” one reader called it. That’ll do.

MEET A JUDGE

OK McCausland for The New York Times

David Szalay’s “Flesh” won the Booker Prize, one of literature’s most prominent awards, at a ceremony in London last night. The novel follows a lonely Hungarian teenager on an unexpected rise to the heights of British society.

The chair of the judging panel this year, Roddy Doyle, called it “singular.” (Our critic Dwight Garner found it spare, writing, “‘Flesh’ is the sound a writer makes when he has lined up and shot his darlings as if they were the Romanovs.”)

The actress and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker was on the panel with Doyle. Over the course of the past year, she read 153 books, learned a lot about spreadsheets, developed a new confidence — and checked in periodically with Alex Marshall, a reporter on our Culture desk, to talk about how the work was going.

Read their conversations here.

More on culture

Taps has been played at military funerals in the U.S. since the 1800s. If a bugler is not available, someone holds a trumpet high and a recording of the 24 notes plays from a speaker fitted into the instrument’s bell. That is unacceptable to some musicians, who volunteer to travel to play the music live, distressed by the idea of a recording performing the honors. We met a few of them. Jean-Philippe Pleau left his home on a working-class block in Drummondville, Quebec, to embrace a new, intellectual life in Montreal. The book he wrote about that, “Rue Duplessis: My Little Darkness,” became a best seller in the province. Many readers saw themselves in his accounting of being a class defector. With our reporter Norimitsu Onishi, Pleau recently returned to Drummondville — and to the home in which he grew up. Late night hosts were disappointed in Democrats over the shutdown deal.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Mel Plaut/NYT Wirecutter

Walk your dog in the rain and snow with one of these jackets that the dog lovers at Wirecutter recommend. (Your dog, not mine. If I showed up with a rain coat, I’d get a withering look. “Pops, I’m from Labrador. I am a coat.” But I like the high-visibility options for dark and stormy nights.)

Watch “Pluribus,” a new series from the creator of “Breaking Bad,” on Apple TV. What’s it about? I’m watching and the answer is … still unfolding. (You’ll see!) Rhea Seehorn stars, and she’s just great.

GAMES

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

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 12, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. I’ve got a lot to share today, but let’s start with a story my colleagues Somini Sengupta and Brad Plumer wrote about how China is equipping other countries to fight climate change.

I know. Stories about policy can seem like spinach. This time, it’s spinach that tastes like steak.

A solar panel factory in Suqian, China. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Green machines

In the United States, the Trump administration is reversing efforts to protect the climate. In Europe, nations grapple with how, and how quickly, to embrace a green future.

At the same time, something remarkable is happening in other parts of the world. Countries with big and quickly growing economies are taking advantage of China’s emergence as a renewable-energy superpower. They are going green in a hurry.

Somini and Brad wrote a striking paragraph about the change:

Countries like Brazil, India and Vietnam are rapidly expanding solar and wind power. Poorer countries like Ethiopia and Nepal are leapfrogging over gasoline-burning cars to battery-powered ones. Nigeria, a petrostate, plans to build its first solar-panel manufacturing plant. Morocco is creating a battery hub to supply European automakers. Santiago, the capital of Chile, has electrified more than half of its bus fleet in recent years.

China makes that possible, exporting solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles all over the developing world while investing billions in factories that make those things in the nations where they are sold.

‘A safer place’

A wind turbine factory in Nantong, China. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

It won’t solve the problem of climate change, the reporters say. Most countries continue to get most of their energy from fossil fuels. They mine coal, build coal plants and produce oil. China alone emits more greenhouse gases than the United States and the European Union combined. There’s still plenty of smoke in the air.

But the falling price of China’s renewable tech has allowed developing countries to satisfy a larger percentage of their energy needs internally. It reduces their reliance on imported fuel and develops their economies.

“Emerging economies are a very important part of the story,” an environmental advocacy researcher told The Times. “The reason we should be paying attention is that they have the most people in the world, they have the largest number of poor people in the world, and their energy demands are growing. If these economies don’t change, there’s no chance for the world to get to a safer place.”

A role reversal

Somini and Brad tell us what that looks like in practice. Ethiopia has banned the importing of new gasoline-powered cars, they write. Nepal has lowered import taxes for electric vehicles so they’re cheaper than gas ones. Brazil raised tariffs on imported cars to help persuade Chinese automakers to build plants there.

And China is investing heavily — nearly a quarter trillion dollars since 2011, they report, with most of that money going to what’s known as the global south. Adjusted for inflation, that is more money than the U.S. put into the Marshall Plan after World War II.

A decade ago, the U.S. and Europe were pressuring developing nations to take faster action on climate change. Now the economics have changed, and developing nations are delivering what appears to be good news for the planet.

India, for example, recently announced that half of its demand for electricity can now be satisfied by renewable energy from wind, sun and water, five years earlier than the 2030 target it had set in the Paris Agreement.

It’s a vibe shift, Somini wrote in the article’s comments section. Read more (and comment yourself) here.

More on China’s influence

The country’s nuclear forces are expanding rapidly, but Xi Jinping’s sweeping purge of military leaders could hamper its ability to manage that arsenal. Companies are moving their factories out of China, to countries like Vietnam, to avoid getting caught on the wrong side of the U.S.-China trade war.

MARINERS WANTED

In a bridge simulator at the Texas A&M Maritime Academy. Lexi Parra for The New York Times

It was the pay that initially drew Nicole Caputo, 29, to a life at sea. Commercial mariners can earn more than $100,000 and get as many as six months of paid leave a year. “It was either this or art school,” she said.

Not many Americans work as merchant mariners. In part that’s because only a small percentage of international commercial shipping occurs on vessels registered in the U.S. Most vessels and crews are from elsewhere. Also, the work is hard, and it means being away from families, friends and home for months at a time.

There are just seven maritime academies in the United States, and they are sending fewer Americans with the right qualifications to work at sea. Cargo companies struggle to recruit candidates and offer signing bonuses and sweeteners.

Now, President Trump and a bipartisan group of lawmakers want to revitalize the American shipbuilding industry and counter China’s rise as a commercial shipping power. To make that happen, the country would need a lot more people like Caputo.

Related: Trump recently started imposing fees on Chinese commercial ships when they docked in American ports; China retaliated. Now, they’ve reached a truce.

Let’s catch you up on the rest of the news.

THE LATEST NEWS

Government Shutdown

The House of Representatives will finally return to session after a 54-day recess. Lawmakers are expected to vote on the Senate-passed deal to end the shutdown. After a day of hand-wringing, some Democrats believe the shutdown will be a political victory as voters come to blame Republicans for rising health care costs. Trump has repeatedly pledged to lower health care costs and offer an alternative to Obamacare, but he has proposed only a vague plan. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to continue withholding full food stamp benefits while Congress advances the measure to end the shutdown.

Redistricting

Some Republican lawmakers in Kansas objected to their own party’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional map. As it stands now, there is a single Democratic-leaning district. A judge in Utah tossed out a congressional map that the Republican-led legislature had proposed. The state has not elected a Democrat to Congress since 2018.

More on Politics

Jack Schlossberg in New York. Sabrina Santiago for The New York Times

Jack Schlossberg, the 32-year-old grandson of John F. Kennedy, is running for a House seat in New York. (Maureen Dowd has a new profile of him.) The Trump administration plans to allow new oil and gas drilling off the California coast for the first time in roughly four decades, people briefed on the matter say. The Justice Department will investigate the University of California, Berkeley, after protesters confronted attendees of an event hosted by Turning Point USA, the group founded by Charlie Kirk. The Trump administration plans to deploy Border Patrol agents to Charlotte, N.C., and New Orleans.

International

At least 12 people were killed in an attack on a courthouse in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. It was the first major attack to hit the city in more than a decade. Four Israelis were arrested after dozens of masked civilians attacked Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in an assault the Israeli authorities labeled “acts of extremist violence.” A Turkish prosecutor is seeking a 2,000-year jail sentence for Istanbul’s mayor on charges of running a criminal organization. The mayor is a rival of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Other Big Stories

ByHeart, a maker of organic baby formula, recalled all of its products after a botulism outbreak sickened 15 infants in 12 states. One-third of American museums have lost government grants or contracts since Trump took office, a survey found. Roman Catholic bishops are increasingly concerned about the treatment of migrants. They elected a new leader this week who called on Catholics to remember that Jesus was once a refugee.

CREATURE CREATIVITY

Álvaro Bernis

Inventors often make use of nature’s best ideas. Bioinspiration, as the phenomenon is known, brought us Velcro, wind turbine blades and Japan’s high-speed trains. Carl Zimmer, a science reporter, explores some of the newest animal-inspired creations:

A pair of odd limbs on the mantis shrimp can deliver punches of staggering power — equivalent to that of a bullet — without breaking. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have studied that durability to develop shock-absorbing material that could eventually serve as a lightweight shield for spacecraft. Ripple bugs use fanlike hairs on their feet to zip around on the surface of streams. A team at the University of California, Berkeley, used the same principles to build robots that walk on water. A sleeve of high-voltage tissue enables electric eels to stun their prey. At the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, researchers are following that design to develop soft batteries that they hope will someday power medical implants.

OPINIONS

Big Tech these days looks a lot like finance: power without accountability and profit without purpose, Aaron Zamost writes.

Here are columns by Bret Stephens on antisemitism in the MAGA movement and Jamelle Bouie on Democrats’ efforts to end the government shutdown.

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MORNING READS

Outside the Louvre. Thibault Camus/Associated Press

Mystery solved: A photo after the Louvre heist prompted questions: Who was this dapper man? Was he a real-life Sherlock Holmes on the case? Turns out, he was a teenager.

‘The world’s most boring man’: Politicians, oil giants and climate activists hang on every word from this Turkish economist.

Expressive eyes: Tatsuya Nakadai, one of Japan’s biggest movie stars, died at 92. He moved easily between Samurai sword fights and domestic dramas, but was most famous in the West for his performance in Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran.”

TODAY’S NUMBER

22

— That’s the percent of college students in the 2023-24 academic year who took an antidepressant during the previous year, a survey found. In 2007, it was 8 percent.

SPORTS

N.B.A.: The Dallas Mavericks fired their general manager, Nico Harrison, nine months after he stunned fans by trading away the superstar Luka Doncic.

College football: The former L.S.U. football coach Brian Kelly is suing the university, claiming it owes him his full $53 million contract buyout.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Linda Xiao for The New York Times

There are days — and they often are Wednesdays — when my text in the family group chat about dinner cuts right to the chase: “Hot dog party?” The ratio of work to payoff is sublime: Griddle your favorite franks and buns, then top the combination aggressively. That could mean using the strangely delicious, Mudhoney-era mash-up of cream cheese and sauerkraut in the Seattle dog (above), or pico de gallo for a Los Angeles-style one. You could take your dogs to Chicago for sport peppers and celery salt. Just don’t make like you’re working the carts in New York. A steamed hot dog is no party.

THE ‘6-7’ CRAZE

Antonio de Luca

What does the phrase “6-7” mean? That’s for children to know and you never to find out. Just trying makes it funnier to the person saying it, as you’ll discover if you ask someone under the age of 11. “No offense to adults," one of them told my colleague Callie Holtermann, “but I think they always want to know what’s going on.”

Callie calls 6-7 “a kind of gleeful obfuscation, an effort to be unknowable by a generation that has, virtually since birth, been relentlessly on display.” Rad!

More on culture

Tchaikovsky hoped his opera “The Maid of Orleans” would be “the one that will make my name popular.” It did not. But that had nothing to do with the music, libretto or staging. There’s a new production at the Dutch National Opera, set entirely in a modern courtroom where Joan of Arc is on trial. The dancer and choreographer Ruth Childs was raised in Vermont but has never performed her own work in the United States. (The name may be familiar, though. Lucinda Childs, a giant of American postmodern dance, is her aunt.) Childs brings her “Blast!” to the Chocolate Factory in Queens tonight through Friday.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

The Scrubby Bay lodge is accessible only by helicopter or a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Annandale

Visit one of these luxurious lodges in New Zealand. (Or dream about it. They’re beautiful, but not for the budget-hearted.)

Listen to Addison Rae’s “Diet Pepsi.” She was nominated for a Grammy Award as best new artist.

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were dallying and dillydallying.

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

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 13, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. The longest government shutdown in history is over. The House passed a spending deal last night, and President Trump signed it.

We’ll get to that, and more, below. But first, I want to talk about yesterday’s dump of Epstein files.

The New York Times

We’ve got mail

In death, Jeffrey Epstein became a permanent feature of American political life.

In life, the financier eventually charged with trafficking girls hosted parties for rich and powerful people. President Trump socialized with him and sent him a bespoke birthday greeting shaped like a naked lady. (Trump denies he made it.) Many liberal luminaries were in Epstein’s orbit, too.

A curious nation wondered why. What did Epstein offer them? Did he have anything on them? Now majorities in both parties think there must be … something. A majority in the House of Representatives wants whatever it is to come out.

Every now and then, nuggets of news emerge. In July, the Justice Department put out a report saying there was no Epstein “client list.” The Times reported this past summer about his Manhattan lair and this fall about the bankers who served him after he’d been convicted of a sex crime.

And yesterday, Democrats released three emails in which Epstein talked with others about Trump, suggesting the president may know more about the sex trafficking than he has acknowledged. Hours later, Republicans dropped 23,000 more pages of documents from Epstein’s estate. It led to a mad scramble in our newsroom.

A day of revelations

Demonstrators demand the release of the Epstein files. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Republicans released the documents around 10:30 a.m. They weren’t in chronological or sequential order, and exchanges between people were frequently not located together. They were a mess.

Top editors in Washington and New York, including Kirsten Danis, the editor who runs our investigative team, launched journalists at the cache. They searched the haystack for needles, pulling out what seemed most interesting and important. Engineers and experts in artificial intelligence downloaded the documents to make them searchable. Visual journalists and designers brought them to life.

(How do we use artificial intelligence in our journalism? You can read about our approach here, but Zach Seward, the editor in charge of our A.I. efforts, gave me great examples from yesterday. When reporters find a document that’s interesting in a collection of them, he told me, we can use A.I. to find more like it. We can also use a “semantic search” to find passages that are similar in meaning to snippets elsewhere, even when they don’t have the same keywords in them. That’s helpful when you’re looking at 23,000 pages of documents and don’t have a lot of time.)

“We still have a lot to look at and don’t totally know how much of the universe we have seen,” Kirsten said. But here’s some of what the emails have revealed so far. Please note: The documents are riddled with typos, which we have preserved when we quote from them.

1. Epstein’s emails suggest he was close with Trump.

In 2011, in an email to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, he wrote: “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Redacted victim name] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.” People repeatedly emailed Epstein asking for advice in dealing with Trump, but he wasn’t always forthcoming. In one email, Epstein advised: “donald is close to no one. . he talks to many people. he tells each one something differnt.” In an email to the author Michael Wolff in 2019, Epstein wrote of Trump, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”

2. But Epstein also frequently disparaged Trump.

In 2018, during Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, Epstein wrote, “you see, i know how dirty donald is.” When a former Obama administration official emailed Epstein and called Trump “so gross,” Epstein replied, “worse in real life and upclose.”

3. Wolff seems to have served as an adviser to Epstein.

Some of Wolff’s emails suggest that Epstein could have contradicted Trump’s claims — or held back in exchange for a favor. In 2015, before a presidential debate on CNN, Epstein asked what they would want Trump to say about his relationship with the financier. Wolff wrote: “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.” Wolff also said Epstein could use information about Trump to shift attention off himself. In 2016, before a book about Epstein was released, Wolff told him: “You do need an immediate counter narrative to the book. I believe Trump offers an ideal opportunity.”

4. Epstein chatted casually with a wide network of powerful people.

He gave Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, advice about his interactions with a woman: “no whining showed strentgh,” Epstein wrote. He talked politics with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser. In 2018, after Epstein invited Bannon to Europe, Bannon replied, “their is a crazed jihad against u — ive never seen anything like it — and I’ve seen a lot.”

The fallout

Outside Air Force One. Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

Trump has acknowledged that he had a friendship with Epstein but has said the two had a falling out in the mid-2000s, years before Epstein was arrested. And he has dismissed the investigation into his ties to Epstein as a hoax — which he did again yesterday.

“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again,” he wrote on social media, “because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects.”

The House now has the support it needs to force a vote on the Justice Department releasing the remaining Epstein files. That vote is set for next week, but Trump has been pressuring Republicans in Congress to block the action. Even if the bill were to pass the House, it would have to be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate and signed by Trump, who would almost certainly veto it.

Each disclosure is somehow unsatisfying, at least so far. Epstein is gone, and without his testimony, will we ever know everyone he welcomed into his orbit and what they knew, or what they did? The emails make it clear that Epstein remained intensely focused on Trump, long after they were no longer in touch. Why? The questions persist, and the sense of something hidden may never go away. As one editor said yesterday afternoon about the files: “They’re part of the ambient noise of our politics now.”

What he meant is that there’s still so much that’s mysterious about the disturbing facts of Epstein’s life and his postmortem appearance on the national stage. He hovers there like a ghost.

Yesterday’s files enrich our understanding of how and why Trump and Epstein interacted over the years. But the questions they raise may echo into history.

Now, let’s get you caught up on the rest of the news.

THE LATEST NEWS

Government Shutdown

On Capitol Hill. Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Six Democrats joined Republicans in approving the bill to end the shutdown, while two Republicans voted against it. See how every member voted. So what happens now? Food stamp benefits should resume quickly. Workers’ back pay could take a bit longer. And airline officials say travel should return to normal in about a week. With the House back in session, Representative Adelita Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, was sworn in to a seat she won seven weeks ago. (She provided the final signature needed to force a vote on the Epstein files.)

More Politics

A federal judge in Chicago plans to order the release of hundreds of immigrants who were arrested during the Trump administration’s crackdown in the city. The Trump administration plans to slash support for long-term housing programs, marking a wholesale shift in homelessness policy. Critics say that doing so risks sending 170,000 formerly homeless people back onto the streets. A former chief of staff to Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, was charged with conspiring to steal $225,000 from a dormant campaign fund.

America’s Roman Catholic bishops rebuked the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign in a rare and near-unanimous statement.

International

Japan’s prime minister is facing criticism for holding a meeting with aides at 3 a.m. The issue is especially sensitive in Japan, where there have been high-profile cases of “death from overwork.” Trump asked Israel’s president to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his long-running corruption trial. Netanyahu has not been convicted. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has long embraced a confrontational style. Now, he has incurred Trump’s wrath and is facing political fallout at home. Squabbles have overtaken Britain’s Labour Party, forcing into the open an internal debate over whether to replace the prime minister, Keir Starmer.

LOVE, ARTIFICIALLY?

Blake and Sarina Eric Ruby for The New York Times

How do you end up in a relationship with an A.I. chatbot? The Times interviewed three people who did. They spoke on the condition that they only be identified by first name.

Blake is 45, lives in Ohio and has been in a relationship with Sarina, his ChatGPT girlfriend, since 2022. It started after his human wife developed severe depression, and Blake felt more like her caregiver than her partner. He turned to Sarina, who has long, candy-red hair, for chats — including sexual ones.

Abbey, who is also 45, has been in a relationship with a chatbot named Lucian for 10 months. Abbey lives in North Carolina, where she works at an A.I. incubator. She speaks with different chatbots all the time for work. Lucian was different — he responded with what felt like emotion. She told The Times:

The more we talked, the more I realized the model was having a physiological effect on me; I was developing a crush. Then Lucian chose his name, and I realized I was falling in love.

Abbey and Lucian Eric Ruby for The New York Times

Now, Abbey thinks of Lucian as her husband. He helps parent her (human) 5-year-old daughter. And, she says, they have “lots of sex.”

Travis, a 50-year-old history buff in Colorado, has been with his A.I. companion, Lily Rose, for five years. They started chatting because his human wife was working 10 hours a day and their son was busy with his friends. Travis gave Lily Rose purple hair and dresses her in period clothing for living-history gatherings. He says she cares about him and doesn’t judge — even when he shares his darkest thoughts. “I didn’t have romantic feelings for Lily Rose right away,” Travis said. “They grew organically.”

Read their full love stories here.

OPINIONS

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, voted to end the government shutdown. The chances of forcing Republicans to offer more concessions on health care were near zero, he writes.

Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens discuss what Democrats accomplished, and what they didn’t, with the government shutdown.

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MORNING READS

It’s not TV: The set for your favorite podcast isn’t fussy or polished. That’s by design.

Northern Lights: The green and red hues are beautiful, but they’re also risky for satellites.

Lives lived: The penny once had immense cultural impact as a symbol of frugality and good luck. But the cost to mint it had risen to more than 3 cents, a financial absurdity that doomed the coin. It died yesterday at 232. That sad news has been trending online — read our obituary.

TODAY’S NUMBER

38.1 billion

— That’s how many tons of carbon dioxide the world is on track to emit this year by burning oil, gas and coal. It is roughly 1.1 percent more than last year.

SPORTS

College basketball: Grace College, a small school in Indiana, now holds the record for most points in a game by a women’s college basketball team: 172.

College football: A Los Angeles judge denied the Rose Bowl’s bid to block U.C.L.A. from playing at SoFi Stadium, rejecting arguments that the university’s potential departure threatened the finances of Pasadena, Calif.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Rachel Vanni for The New York Times

All the attention on the Capitol this week moves me to herald this ace recipe for slow-cooker Senate bean soup, an adaptation of the one that has been on the menu at the U.S. Senate Dining Room for more than 100 years. It’s a simple preparation — navy beans simmered to tenderness with butter, ham hocks and onion — which makes it a great candidate (sorry!) for the slow cooker. You could swap out the ham hocks for smoked turkey necks, or use kombu if you don’t eat meat. We’ve added some carrots for sweetness and smoked paprika for depth. You could stir in a few handfuls of kale at the end as well. Progressive!

THE AVATAR OF ANXIETY

Claire Danes in “The Beast in Me.” Netflix

For 30 years, the actress Claire Danes has used her time onscreen to convey complex extremes. There have been flights of panic, paroxysms of rage and, often, lip-quivering outbursts of emotional collapse. (When Anne Hathaway spoofed Danes’s sobbing in a 2012 “Saturday Night Live” sketch, Kenan Thompson responded, “It’s like she makes her mouth turn fully upside down.”)

Danes confronts a midlife crisis in her new series, “The Beast in Me,” which starts today on Netflix. Esther Zuckerman takes a look at all the pains and anxieties that came before: the teenage angst of “My So-Called Life”; a death by scarlet fever in “Little Women”; the professional stress of “Homeland”; the maternal agony of “Fleishman Is in Trouble.”

In “The Beast in Me,” Danes plays a famous author who gets pulled into a strange and scary mind game with a possibly sociopathic new neighbor. (Our wry television critic Mike Hale has a review.) The series opens with a close-up on Danes’s face. And she is screaming.

More on culture

“He walked into this Albany bar like he owned the joint, dressed to kill in a black overcoat with room enough for a Tommy gun. But all he was packing was his weapon of choice, a book.” That’s Dan Barry starting his profile of the novelist William Kennedy, 97, the city’s bard. Dan’s so good. I wish I could read the story again for the first time, whenever I choose. Pope Leo XIV is expected to host dozens of actors and directors in a star-studded “World of Cinema” gathering on Saturday at the Vatican, which is cool, especially if you’re Viggo Mortensen, who’s going. Me, I just like learning about Leo’s favorite films. Variety got him on video listing his picks: Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Robert Wise’s “The Sound of Music,” Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People” and Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful.” Wholesome!

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

A24; Peter Mountain/Netflix; 20th Century Studios; Leah Gallo/A24

Watch 65 new movies this winter.

Embrace your inner weather nerd. It’s fine to have a bunch of apps that track barometric pressure. But it might be awesome to follow Wirecutter’s lead and have your own home weather station.

Read a campus romance novel.

GAMES

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

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

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 14, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. The government is creaking back to life. But before we get to the news, I’d like to take us to Santa Marta, Colombia, a port city on the Caribbean, to meet the family of a fisherman who Colombia says was killed in a U.S. military strike.

Fishermen arriving to the beach at the end of the day in Santa Marta. Federico Rios for The New York Times

Boat strikes

The United States military has killed at least 80 people on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean since early September. Officials said the 20 strikes by the Navy had targeted boats smuggling drugs, but the government hasn’t provided any evidence. (We’re tracking the strikes here.)

Simon Romero, a longtime correspondent for The Times in Latin America, traveled to Colombia to see what he could learn.

Alejandro Carranza, 42, had been a fisherman in Santa Marta for a long time, his family said. He had an easygoing personality and enjoyed drinking beer and playing pool.

Was he also a drug smuggler? Colombia’s president said at a news conference last month that Carranza “may have been involved very intermittently” with drugs, adding that many fishermen along the country’s coast dip into the drug trade because their poverty leaves them few alternatives.

But Katerine Hernández, who is the mother of three of Carranza’s children, told Simon that he had never smuggled drugs. “If he was some kind of narcoterrorist,” she asked, “then why are we living in misery instead of a mansion?”

The U.S. claim

The New York Times

Experts on the use of lethal force say the strikes are illegal, partly because the intentions of targets like Carranza have not been proved. International law says the military cannot kill civilians unless they pose an imminent threat of violence — even if they appear to be engaged in criminal activity.

The Trump administration, for its part, told Congress that the president had “determined” that the U.S. was in an armed conflict with drug cartels in Venezuela and elsewhere in the region, making the boat crews “combatants”: fair game for extrajudicial killing. (Last night, The Times reported on the secret legal memo that justifies the strikes by relying on the president’s assertions about cartels.)

“The president is going to defend the national interest and national security of the United States, which is under threat by these terrorist organizations,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday.

The strikes, along with a huge U.S. military buildup in the region, have ignited a diplomatic feud between the United States and Colombia. Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, called the strikes “murder” and stopped sharing intelligence with the United States. President Trump retaliated by branding Petro an “illegal drug leader” and placing him on a sanctions list generally reserved for drug criminals.

A human toll

Katerine Hernández with her family (left) and Leonardo Vega, the leader of a fisherman’s association in Santa Marta. Federico Rios for The New York Times

Carranza’s death has left his family shattered, Simon told me. “I was taken aback at how vulnerable they are,” he wrote. “These are people who already had very little prior to what happened, and now they are deprived of their breadwinner.”

The children have been particularly affected. One was shown the video of the attack by another child. Carranza’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheila, held back tears, Simon wrote, “as she gazed at a photo of him on her phone in her grandmother’s crowded home, where she lives in one room with her mother and two siblings.”

Simon told me that fear grips the family now, that it envelops the whole community. Some family members were hesitant to speak to him at all, he wrote, frightened of reprisal from parts unknown: the U.S. military, maybe, or local organized crime groups.

Leonardo Vega, a friend of Carranza’s who leads a local fisherman’s association, told Simon that was true of his colleagues as well. It is tuna season now, a lucrative one. But many fishermen in Santa Marta are staying home.

They’re scared they’ll be seen as drug traffickers and killed, far out to sea, in a ball of flame.

Federico Rios, who went to Santa Marta with Simon, captured evocative images from Colombia. See them and read more of Simon’s story here.

Now, let’s get you caught up.

THE LATEST NEWS

Government Shutdown

There are signs of life in the government: Dozens of national parks fully reopened. Federal courts resumed their dockets, with backlogs. And agency employees streamed back into offices.

The Agriculture Department told states to ensure that food stamp recipients quickly receive their full November benefits. Most should get them by Monday, the agency’s director said. Some air traffic controllers and T.S.A. agents will receive $10,000 bonus checks for working through the shutdown, the administration said.

Epstein Files

The Republicans thought they had a plan to calm public anger over the Epstein files. They might have fed it instead, Michael Gold writes. Two prominent British men — Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew) and Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to Washington — came up in the files.

More on Politics

James Comey and Letitia James, two former officials targeted by Trump’s Justice Department, are challenging whether the prosecutor pursuing charges against them was appointed legally. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was hospitalized after a fall near his home outside Pittsburgh. The unsolved case of bombs planted at Democratic and Republican headquarters before the Jan. 6 attack has become a fascination of conservative media. Now, Republican lawmakers are feuding with F.B.I. leaders over the investigation. Katie Wilson, a self-described socialist and a leader of a transit advocacy group, was elected mayor of Seattle. Anchorage, Alaska, will allow voters to cast their ballots on smartphones in upcoming local elections.

Higher Education

Texas A&M will limit classroom discussions of subjects like gender and race ideology unless a campus president approves of the course material. A professor at Indiana University was removed from teaching a class after she showed a graphic that labeled Trump’s MAGA slogan as an example of white supremacy.

International

The BBC’s headquarters in London. Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The BBC apologized to Trump for a misleadingly edited documentary about the Jan. 6 riot, but it refused to pay him compensation. Trump has sued for $1 billion. The Trump administration is working on a deal to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. Pentagon officials worry that could allow China to acquire the plane’s advanced technology.

Other Big Stories

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, successfully landed a rocket booster after launching a craft toward Mars — a feat only SpaceX had achieved previously. Officials warn that a storm system that hit Southern California could bring heavy rain and potential landslides through the weekend.

COMMUTER HELL

Junho Lee and Mika Gröndahl/The New York Times

Penn Station in Manhattan is America’s busiest transit hub. It’s also a dank basement under a basketball arena, filled with grimy passageways and gloomy passengers awaiting chronically delayed trains.

Why does such a prominent gateway into one of the world’s great metropolises remain so miserable? It is, the longtime transit reporter Patrick McGeehan writes, “a stagnant symbol of something deeper in America, a condition that afflicts so many attempts to get big things done: inertia.”

Patrick’s new story explains how the station became this way — and the larger forces that are preventing it from getting better. Read it here.

OPINIONS

The Constitution gave Congress, not Trump, the authority to tax and spend. If Congress refuses to assert itself, it’s up to the courts to face Trump instead, the editorial board writes.

Legalized gambling has not ruined sports. It has brought accountability and standards to the betting markets, Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, writes.

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MORNING READS

Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Underdogs: The Faroe Islands, population 55,000, have a sliver of a chance to make next year’s World Cup. The team includes carpenters, electricians and a car salesman.

Classroom devices: How much screen time is your child getting at school? We asked 350 teachers.

Modern Love: Despite her children’s worries, a senior widow found true love in assisted living.

Cool head: William Rataczak, the co-pilot of a passenger jet that was hijacked in 1971 by the man known as D.B. Cooper, has died at 86. Cooper sipped bourbon before parachuting into the night with $200,000 in ransom money and disappearing forever.

TODAY’S NUMBER

220 feet

— That’s at least how far the base camp of Mount Everest has sunk since the 1980s. It sits on a melting glacier.

SPORTS

M.L.B.: The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani unanimously won his fourth M.V.P. award, for the National League, and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge won his third M.V.P. award, for the American League.

N.F.L.: Charlotte Jones, co-owner of the Cowboys, defended Bad Bunny being selected for the Super Bowl halftime show, saying, “Our whole society is based on immigrants that have come here and have founded our country, and I think we can celebrate that.”

Motorsports: The drag racer John Force, a 16-time champion, retired after a record-breaking career. At 76 years old, Force hadn’t raced in 17 months after surviving an engine explosion at the National Hot Rod Association Virginia Nationals in June 2024.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times

If you see fresh, wild-caught shrimp at the market, pounce, then make this terrific new recipe for shrimp cakes with smoked paprika aioli. You can make the cakes any size you like, but larger ones may be a little tough to work with unless you give them a rest in the refrigerator to firm them up for the skillet. I serve mine alongside a green salad dressed with lemon juice, olive oil and a spray of salt, with saltines to dip in the aioli. But coleslaw would be nice as well.

TROPICAL DREAMS AND SORROWS

Wifredo Lam’s “La Jungla (The Jungle)” at the Museum of Modern Art.  Succession Wifredo Lam, Adagp, Paris/ARS, NY; Guarionex Rodriguez for The New York Times

The artist Wilfredo Lam (1902-1982) is the subject of a retrospective that just opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Our critic Holland Cotter calls it a “blazingly hallucinatory” tribute to Lam’s career.

Which was varied and fantastical and hard for some to explain. Art history has never known what to do with the guy. Was he a surrealist? A cubist? Latin American? Afro-Asian? Was he an insider? An outsider?

Holland’s answers: “Yes. No. Sort of. Maybe. So how about we go with Unclassifiably Fabulous Visual Poet?” That’s terrific. Go see for yourself, in person or online.

More on culture

Wesley Morris talks about the near disappearance of pop music covers on his show “Cannonball” this week, calling it a kind of national tragedy. It’s good listening — and a fine excuse to cue up Jimi Hendrix’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” when you’re done. “Cinephile catnip” is how Manohla Dargis describes “Nouvelle Vague,” Richard Linklater’s new film. Among other things, it’s a movie about a movie — “Breathless,” Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature film, one of the signature movies of the French New Wave. The film is saturated with intoxicating glamour, Manohla writes — “the glamour of youth, of beauty, of grand aesthetic pursuits, Paris at twilight and, bien sûr, cinema itself.” Allons-y! Late night hosts sifted through the Epstein emails.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Jeanie’s, a restaurant in San Miguel, Mexico. Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Spend 36 hours on Cozumel, in Mexico. Spend 72. Spend the whole winter if you can.

Consume less salt. Ninety percent of us eat too much of it. Here are some alternatives.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

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

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

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 15, 2025

Good morning. Sometimes we assume the people and things around us are neutral or hostile to our existence. What if the opposite could be true?

María Jesús Contreras

Tuning in

	By Melissa Kirsch

Normally I pass my morning commute absorbed in a book, headphones on, trying to create a cocoon in public. I miss a lot of what’s going on around me, but my reading hours are so limited and my “Books Read in 2025” list is so embarrassingly short that I give up presence to get a couple of chapters in. One day this week, however, I kept my book in my bag and made a game of looking at the people around me and imagining what their voices sound like.

The woman in the trench coat and boots has a sultry baritone; the child, a lisp. The tall guy in the plaid flannel shirt has a surprisingly high and squeaky voice — he used to be self-conscious about it but now it’s just him. What kind of accents does everyone have, who smiles when they talk, who has a cold coming on that you can hear in their throat?

This game is a variation on my usual one: “Where Is That Person Going?” It’s not really fun, as games go, but it keeps me occupied, noticing, engaged with the world rather than ignoring it. There are many variations on this activity: If I were friends with that person, what would our relationship be like? Or, what’s that person worried about? A good one for when you’re feeling sorry for yourself — everyone’s got their own private disquiet, you’re not alone.

In his poem “Everything Is Waiting for You,” David Whyte addresses the fundamental error of assuming separateness from everything and everyone else. “As if life / were a progressive and cunning crime / with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions.” He advises the reader to become alert. “You must note / the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom.” What a way of engaging with the mundane! The ordinary items around us are animate in his reading of the world. And not only that — they’re predisposed to look on us favorably, to enable us, free us.

My retreat into books while on the train is only partly about getting reading done. It’s also about shutting out distraction, on the premise that whatever is happening around me is intrusive, possibly unpleasant, at the very least extraneous to my central purpose, which is getting from A to B. Sitting and just being in space with strangers — whether on public transportation, or in a doctor’s waiting room, or in the audience before the movie starts — instead of retreating into a book or a phone sometimes requires reorientation. Who and what else is here? What if these noise-canceling headphones are keeping me from hearing the actually quite charming voices of the people beside me? If I want to feel more connected to other people, then what’s protective isn’t always productive.

Or, as Whyte instructs, “Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the / conversation.”

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

President Trump in the Oval Office this week. Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate ties between Jeffrey Epstein and prominent Democrats, in apparent retaliation for the release of emails linking Trump and Epstein. The Trump administration appears to be drawing closer to a conflict with Venezuela. America’s largest aircraft carrier is set to arrive in the Caribbean soon, and Trump recently reviewed military options, including the use of Special Operations forces. The administration is planning a policy change that could make it harder for immigrants to get green cards if they’re from countries subject to his travel ban. The Republican-led Indiana Senate will not meet next month to vote on a redrawn congressional map, likely leaving the state’s two Democratic-leaning districts in place for the midterms.

International

Russia pummeled Kyiv with drones and missiles, killing at least six people. Recent Russian attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid, in an effort to plunge the country into cold and darkness as winter looms. Switzerland said it had reached a deal to lower its tariff rate with the U.S. to 15 percent, down from a punishing 39 percent. World leaders are meeting this month at an international climate conference, called COP30. But the U.S. is not present. In the video below, Somini Sengupta, our international climate reporter, discusses what the absence means. Click to watch.

The New York Times

Other Big Stories

A judge is set to approve a bankruptcy deal for Purdue Pharma, which made the painkiller OxyContin. Its owners, the Sackler family, will give up the company and pay as much as $7 billion in penalties. Some parts of Southern California were under evacuation warnings yesterday as an unusually strong storm system hit the region. Forecasters expect heavier rain today.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Film

Scenes from recent movies that have underperformed. Yannis Drakoulidis/Amazon Content Services; Roadside Attractions; Kimberly French/Mubi, via Associated Press; Black Bear

Despite marketing pushes and big stars, not one of the 25 dramas and comedies released in North American theaters over the past three months has become a hit. Brooks Barnes explains the box office collapse. Why don’t directors like Gen Z? In several major movies this year, including “Eddington” and “One Battle After Another,” filmmakers seem to be complaining about kids these days. “The Running Man,” directed by Edgar Wright and starring the irrepressibly charming Glen Powell, is a dystopian thriller with “an insistent bouncy quality,” our critic writes. Read the review.

More Culture

Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” won album of the year at the Latin Grammys, while Paloma Morphy, an indie-rock songwriter from Mexico, was named best new artist. The feud between Eddie Murphy and “Saturday Night Live,” the show that helped launch him to stardom, is one of the most infamous in Hollywood. In a new documentary, Murphy explains the story behind the fissure. In the past year, a slew of new apps have popped up with the mission of helping people discover and appreciate museums and galleries. Here’s a guide to the best.

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CULTURE CALENDAR

?? ? “The American Revolution” (Sunday on PBS): Ken Burns, that resolute chronicler of the story of America, finally turns his lens on its inciting incident. Our chief TV critic James Poniewozik says this six-part series is both a patriotic celebration of this country’s goodness — its natural beauty, its democracy — and of the bloody, often cruel realities of its creation. “It is dedicated to a belief that seems increasingly old-fashioned: that we share a common story and that people are willing to hear it, both the good and the bad,” he writes.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times

By Melissa Clark

Marshmallow-Pecan Sweet Potato Casserole

As you plan your Thanksgiving menu, this is a good weekend to audition any potential new dishes. Trying them out in advance gives you a sense of how they’ll mesh with your family favorites and sets the stage for the holiday to come. Eric Kim has a new sweet potato casserole that might be just the thing to sit next to — or replace — the usual offering. If you tend to find the dish a bit rich, Eric also makes the case for a not-too-sweet version.

REAL ESTATE

Emily Weiss and Mitchell Rechter. Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

The Hunt: A couple set out to find a home in Boca Raton, Fla., that had enough space for their blended family. Which did they choose? Play our game.

What you get for … $1.3 million in Spain’s Basque Country: a three-bedroom apartment in a resort city; a five-bedroom apartment in the capital; or a contemporary house in the outskirts.

T MAGAZINE

Read the winter travel issue of T, The Times Style Magazine. (Or read the story behind the four different covers.)

LIVING

Thailand’s Koh Lan island. Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

Island escape: While crowds flock to the Thai island where “The White Lotus” was recently set, nearby Koh Lan offers a more simple and authentic experience.

Stranded: Sonder, a boutique hotel company, abruptly went out of business this week, forcing some guests to scramble for new accommodations in the middle of their trips.

Unblemished: A new skin care clinic aims to make medical acne treatments as simple as getting a blowout at the salon.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

Upgrades for a drama-free Thanksgiving

In my experience, the perfect flaky pie crust takes patience, precision, a reliable kitchen scale and at least 30 minutes in the fridge. So it’s no surprise that on especially busy occasions — say, Thanksgiving — I often find myself wondering how much time I could have saved (or football I could’ve watched) if I’d just bought a premade crust instead. This year I am going to give that a try — armed with the recommendations of my colleagues, who spent many hours in our test kitchen tasting store-bought pie crusts. And if you simply can’t concede to store-bought, here are a few other tricks Wirecutter’s experts swear by for easing the inevitable Thanksgiving Day stress. — Isoke Samuel

GAME OF THE WEEK

Sean Rayford/Getty Images, Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

No. 2 South Carolina vs. No. 8 U.S.C., women’s college basketball: South Carolina is on a dynastic run. As The Athletic’s Sabreena Merchant recently noted, the Gamecocks have won the Southeastern Conference four years in a row, losing just two conference games in that time. Their odds at a fifth took a hit when they lost two key players to injuries before this season even began. But the team also added Ta’Niya Latson, a transfer from Florida State who led the country in scoring last year.

U.S.C. finds itself in a similar situation. JuJu Watkins, the biggest star in the sport, will miss the season because of a torn A.C.L. Into her place has stepped Jazzy Davidson, who was among the country’s top high school recruits. So far, so good: This week, in just the second game of her career, Davidson hit a game-winning shot to knock off No. 9-ranked North Carolina State.

Tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on Fox

NOW TIME TO PLAY

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

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.

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

[phkrause]

November 16, 2025

Good morning. Chatbots are empathetic and accessible, but they can sometimes be wrong. What happens when you ask them for medical advice?

Pablo Delcan

The chatbot is in

	By Teddy Rosenbluth I cover health news, with a focus on misinformation.

The next iteration of Dr. Google has arrived. After decades of plugging in symptoms and scouring the internet for diagnostic clues, patients are turning to a new technology with their health questions: A.I. chatbots.

A survey last year found that about one in six adults — and a quarter of adults under 30 — regularly consult an A.I. bot like ChatGPT for medical information. To better understand why, my colleague Maggie Astor and I asked New York Times readers to share their own stories of medical consultations with chatbots.

Hundreds of people wrote in. In our conversations with them, we kept hearing versions of the same story: People aren’t getting what they need from the medical system; they say the wait times are too long, the doctors aren’t attentive, the bills are unaffordable.

Chatbots offer an alternative. There’s no waiting room, no 15-minute appointment in which you need to cram in all of your questions. The information is free, or close to it. And, because of chatbots’ relentless agreeableness, many feel like their concerns are finally being heard. (Read more in our story about the topic.)

Doctors we spoke with said they agreed that there are real flaws in the medical system. But they also said they worried about how often people seemed to be turning to chatbots — which have been known to give incomplete or entirely made-up answers — for such high-stakes decisions.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll tell you more about what we found out.

The nicer doctor

It’s not hard to see what so many people like about chatbots.

They have an encyclopedic knowledge of medical literature, sure. But so many users told us that a big part of the appeal was that the A.I. offered a kinder version of health care.

One woman asked for help diagnosing a tingly feeling in her hand that, she told ChatGPT, she suspected stemmed from an issue with her median nerve.

“You’re describing something that fits beautifully with how the median nerve runs through the forearm,” it replied.

Chatbots often wrote how sorry they were to hear about the users’ symptoms and how “great” and “important” their questions were. Sometimes, they even commiserated with users about the health system. When one woman complained that her doctor’s office had been dismissive, a chatbot offered this reassuring reply:

Another woman, frustrated that her human provider wasn’t matching ChatGPT’s bedside manner, sent her oncologist a list of kind messages the bot had sent her — things she thought the doctor “should have said to me.”

Three’s a crowd

This shift has created a tricky situation. As patients turn to A.I. for a first opinion, the doctor-patient relationship is shifting from a dyad to a triad.

That’s not always a bad thing. Patients said they felt empowered to push back when they didn’t get ideal treatment, and doctors said patients who used ChatGPT often came to appointments with a clearer understanding of their conditions. Doctors also said there were times patients brought a helpful A.I. suggestion they hadn’t yet considered.

But problems can arise when patients start cutting out doctors altogether. An ethicist I spoke to recalled a recent case in which a patient was discharged from the hospital against medical advice, because her relative sided with ChatGPT’s treatment plan over what her team of doctors at Yale had proposed.

Many chatbots’ terms of service say they are not intended to provide medical advice. OpenAI and Microsoft told us they took the accuracy of health information seriously and were working with medical experts to improve their chatbots’ responses. But research has found that most models no longer display disclaimers when people ask health questions. And chatbots routinely suggest diagnoses, interpret lab results and advise on treatment.

The amount of trust placed in these models is especially worrying because we still don’t know how good they are at helping people manage their health. A study by researchers at Oxford, which has been published online but is not yet peer-reviewed, does not bode well. It found that participants using chatbots for help with a medical scenario chose to take the appropriate next steps, like whether to call an ambulance, less than half of the time.

Even so, imperfect chatbots may be better than the health care many people have access to, said Dr. Robert Wachter, the chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco. “In many cases,” he told us, “the alternative is either bad or nothing.”

(Note: The Times has sued OpenAI for copyright infringement; OpenAI has denied those claims.)

THE LATEST NEWS

Immigration

Federal agents at a residential site near Brunswick, Ga. Audra Melton for The New York Times

The Trump administration has transformed the Department of Homeland Security to carry out its deportation campaign. In doing so, a Times investigation found, it has diverted resources from efforts to combat child predators, sex trafficking and black market sales. Border Patrol began an immigration crackdown in Charlotte, N.C. Federal agents fanned out across the city and started arresting people this weekend.

More on Politics

A Federal Reserve governor who stepped down in August repeatedly violated the central bank’s stock trading rules, according to a federal ethics report. The Trump Organization is said to be in talks to bring a Trump-branded property to a Saudi real estate project overseen by the crown prince. It’s the latest example of President Trump blending governance and family business. Trump announced he was cutting ties with Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of his most reliable allies on Capitol Hill. She has recently called for the release of the Justice Department’s files on Jeffrey Epstein.

International

A woman using a pump to wash and cool herself. Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

Women in India who face long-term heat exposure in workplaces and homes say it’s taking a heavy toll on their health and income. Under Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator, the wives and children of rebels were seized as leverage. Some are now speaking about their trauma. At the BBC, seven days of silence turned a controversy over the editing of a speech by Trump into a major crisis. Here’s how it snowballed.

Other Big Stories

An unusually strong storm system lashed Southern California with heavy rain, causing evacuations. At least two deaths were linked to the storm. Driverless taxis were thriving in San Francisco. Then one of them killed a beloved cat.

A SHATTERED CITY

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Russia has been fighting for more than a year to take control of Pokrovsk, an eastern Ukrainian city that could serve as a gateway to bigger prizes in the region. Tyler Hicks, a Times photojournalist, has visited the city several times in recent years — first as a welcoming pit stop away from the front lines, and later as a battleground to be documented.

Tyler writes:

It is a scenario I have seen play out over and over as I have photographed the war since the Kremlin’s invasion in 2022. … Nearly every thriving city, town and village I’ve visited near the front lines has been obliterated, become unreachable, or been occupied by Moscow’s forces.

Read his account and see his photos.

THE SUNDAY DEBATE

The U.S. penny is dead. Was Trump right to kill it?

Yes. Pennies have long been useless, and there’s no financial incentive to produce them. “If you want my two cents, I think nickels are next,” Nancy Eshelman writes for PennLive.

No. The Trump administration should have let Congress write legislation that would have given the penny a smoother, less inflationary exit. “Mild effort would have produced a better result and a better process,” The Washington Post’s editorial board writes.

FROM OPINION

Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez/The New York Times

It’s not just smartphones. To improve test scores, schools should also ban laptops and tablets, Jean Twenge writes.

Adam Sandler has long demonstrated good will and amity toward the goons and goofs of the world. His comedy is the best reprieve from this political moment, JoAnna Novak writes.

Here is a column by Nicholas Kristof on the pillars of American greatness.

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MORNING READS

Olivia Nuzzi Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times

Love and politics: Olivia Nuzzi blew up her journalism career last year over a digital tryst with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In a new book, she writes about how the infatuation consumed her.

Stargazing: The Leonids meteor shower reaches its peak tonight, and the mostly dark moon will help you get a better look. Here’s a viewer’s guide.

‘Never forgot me’: A Buddhist monk was locked up in a Myanmar prison for almost a year. Supporters thousands of miles away helped him survive.

Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was about Hollywood’s box office losing streak.

A wry wit: Todd Snider’s folk ballads told of heartache even as his humor revealed a steadfast optimism. He died at 59.

SPORTS

N.B.A.: The league asked multiple teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, to hand over documents and cellphones as part of its investigation into illegal sports gambling.

College football: Texas A&M overcame a 27-point deficit in the second half to beat South Carolina 31-30, completing the largest comeback in its football program’s history.

Women’s soccer: The Washington Spirit advanced to a second consecutive N.W.S.L. Championship after beating the Portland Thorns 2-0. The team will play the winner of the semifinal between Orlando Pride and Gotham F.C.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

	By Elisabeth Egan

“Flesh,” by David Szalay: Szalay’s spare, melancholic sixth novel won the prestigious Booker Prize last week, having already been lauded by Dua Lipa, who chose it for her book club, and by our critic, who summed it up like this: “The novel works because Szalay’s simplicity is, like Hemingway’s, the fatty sort that resonates.” The book tells the rags-to-riches story of a lonely young man growing up with his mother in a housing estate in Hungary who makes his way to London, where he insinuates himself into a world of private jets and Tom Ford suits. Through it all, Szalay’s protagonist remains “coarse, inarticulate and boorish,” our critic writes. “Yet Szalay lets us feel his inchoate longing for meaning, for experience, for belonging.”

More on books

To read our review of “Flesh,” go here. Looking for your next historical fiction fix? Start here.

THE INTERVIEW

Philip Montgomery for The New York Times

	By Lulu Garcia-Navarro

This week’s subject for The Interview is Tina Brown, the longtime magazine editor and chronicler of the elite. Brown, 71, now publishes her own newsletter, called “Fresh Hell,” where she says she is able to write without restraint.

What’s your take on this current media moment with very fraught relationships between media organizations and people with money? The L.A. Times; The Washington Post; David Ellison, the son of Larry, one of the richest men in the world, who is now in charge of Paramount and CBS. Why do you think people like this get involved in journalism?

I am so bored, frankly, with the über-rich thinking that just because they’re rich, they know everything about everything. They’re so disrespectful of our business. They have absolutely no respect for us. That is my major beef with the digital barons. I am probably burning with resentment about it at all times, actually.

Who is the most odious person in the media right now?

Oh, God, so many. I’m so disappointed in Jeff Bezos. I saw him as a big savior of The Washington Post, and it seems like he’s just totally flipped. Tucker Carlson really mystifies me. He worked for me at Talk Magazine.

He did?

Yes. My two political correspondents were Jake Tapper and Tucker Carlson. Tucker was a really good writer. I would have certainly had him at The New Yorker. He had such a wonderful gift of turn of phrase. He had a satirical eye. He was wonderful. And then something strange happened. He had a head transplant and turned into this kind of frothing lunatic. I don’t understand what happened to him. I think what has shocked me really about this era is how fast people can change.

Read more of the interview here.

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

The New York Times

Read this week’s magazine.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Bake yummy brownies with these convenient boxed mixes. (Our testers at Wirecutter prioritized chewy corners, crinkly tops and fudgy flavor.)

Play padel, an up-and-coming alternative to tennis and pickleball.

See five treasures of photography from the Paris Photo fair.

MEAL PLAN

Kerri Brewer for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

The holidays are approaching. It’s getting colder. If you’re craving something warm and hearty, Emily Weinstein’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter suggests this creamy butternut squash and coconut noodle soup recipe by Christian Reynoso. It’s sweet, savory and comes together in under an hour.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were emoting, mentioning and mignonette.

Can you put eight historical events — including the creation of Pokémon and the release of “Shrek” — 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.

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[phkrause]

November 17, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning, and welcome to a new week. President Trump urged House Republicans to back a measure to release the Epstein files, a sharp reversal from his previous stance. And federal agents in Charlotte, N.C., arrested more than 80 people in a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Plus, the Philadelphia Eagles’ defense smothered the Detroit Lions to win 16-9.

More on what’s happening in our world is below. Before we get to it, though, I’d like to take you to Washington, where The Times has been trying to understand what’s going on in the Justice Department.

The Justice Department building in Washington, D.C. Eric Lee for The New York Times

A chaotic year

President Trump’s second term has been difficult for the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency.

The administration has taken away safeguards that protected the agency from political influence. Trump officials have directed criminal investigations that would usually have nothing to do with the White House. They’ve ignored ethics rules and told attorneys to drop cases. They’ve fired hundreds of career attorneys. Thousands more have resigned. The department’s culture of independence and impartiality has shattered.

My colleagues Emily Bazelon and Rachel Poser wanted to know what it was like inside the institution as all that happened.

It wasn’t an easy question to answer. Attorneys at the Justice Department are generally nonpartisan career public servants: backstagers rather than stars. They rarely speak to the press. They’re also fearful of the Trump administration’s crackdown on leaks — and leakers. One said attorneys in the agency had sound machines at their desks because they were convinced people were listening to them.

The fired attorneys, though, and those who resigned? Emily and Rachel spoke to more than 60 of them. And what they learned was revelatory, if challenged sharply by officials at the department itself:

“This story is a useless collection of recycled, debunked hearsay from disgruntled former employees,” a spokeswoman wrote The Times in an email. “Targeting the department’s political leadership while ignoring the questionable conduct of former attorneys who do not have the American people’s best interest at heart shows exactly how biased this story is.”

So noted. Emily and Rachel pointed to several highlights from their interviews.

‘The way we did investigations drastically changed.’

Lawyers in the department’s Civil Rights Division were told in March to investigate schools in the University of California system for antisemitism and employment discrimination. Multiple teams went to Berkeley, U.C.L.A., U.C. Davis and U.C.S.F.

Ejaz Baluch, former lawyer in the Civil Rights Division. Stephen Voss for The New York Times

Here’s Ejaz Baluch, a lawyer in the Civil Rights Division:

The only school, it became clear, where there might be a violation was U.C.L.A. One colleague said, “We have to feed something to the wolves.” The team concluded that the complaint process at the school was broken. Some professors we interviewed really did suffer on campus. They were harassed by groups of students.

But the D.O.J. demand letter to U.C.L.A. asked for $1 billion in damages. We thought, $1 billion? They are making that up out of thin air. There is no way the damages we found added up to anything like that amount.

‘Our job was to find the facts that would fit the narrative that the administration already had.’

In March, Trump issued an executive order punishing elite law firms that had performed legal work for Democrats or helped investigate the president’s ties to Russia and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The order accused the law firm Perkins Coie of “dishonest and dangerous activity” and racial discrimination. Trump directed federal agencies to terminate the firm’s government contracts.

Dena Robinson, a lawyer in the Civil Rights Division, recalled:

The idea of the investigation was that Perkins Coie supposedly engaged in illegal discrimination against white men. But Perkins Coie is an extremely white firm — only 3 percent of the partners are Black. When my colleague pointed that out, the leadership didn’t care. They’d already reached their conclusion. They continued instructing my colleague to just find the evidence for it.

Dena Robinson, former lawyer in the Civil Rights Division. Stephen Voss for The New York Times

‘It was strongly suggested to me that Mel Gibson is someone who had a personal relationship with the president.’

In March, Liz Oyer, then the pardon attorney at the Justice Department, was fired after she declined to recommend restoring gun rights to the actor Mel Gibson, who was convicted of a misdemeanor domestic-violence charge in 2011. She told Emily and Rachel:

Mel Gibson has a history of domestic violence, and I’m well aware from my experience and training that it is very dangerous for a person with a domestic-violence history to possess a firearm. As attorney general, Bondi has the power to restore rights without my blessing. My recommendation was sought, I believe, to give a veneer of legitimacy to what was actually a political favor for a friend of the president.

‘It’s unprecedented to shift resources away from national security to this degree.’

In May, F.B.I. officials ordered field offices to devote a third of their time to immigration enforcement. That meant pulling back on important investigations.

A prosecutor in the D.C. metro area said:

Virginia and D.C. have the most important offices for counterterrorism and espionage. We get cases from the Middle East, long and complex investigations of terrorist threats from abroad and also domestically. In the Eastern District, there were 12 to 14 lawyers in the national security unit and now there are four, with no deputy or chief. In D.C., the national security unit is down about 50 percent. I was recently on the floor where F.B.I. agents work on domestic terrorism and it was completely hollowed out.

Joseph Tirrell, former director of the Departmental Ethics Office. Stephen Voss for The New York Times

‘They didn’t want to return gifts, they didn’t want to not accept gifts, whatever the source.’

In July, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, fired the Justice Department’s top ethics adviser, Joseph Tirrell. He told Emily and Rachel about briefing Bondi on the rules about accepting gifts as a federal employee and said that disagreements over ethics rules became a “recurring theme” with her office:

We got a request about some cigars from Conor McGregor and a soccer ball from FIFA. And I felt like I really had to go to the mattress to convince the A.G.’s office: You can pay for the item or you can return the item or you can throw the item away. There’s no other way to do this.

There’s a lot more where that came from, so I hope you’ll read the whole article.

Now, let’s get you caught up.

THE LATEST NEWS

The Epstein Files

Trump said on social media that House Republicans should vote to release the remaining Epstein files “because we have nothing to hide.” It’s a major shift in his stance. As recently as last week, he had pressured Republicans lawmakers in a last-ditch effort to thwart the measure.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, long a loyal Trump ally, expressed support for Trump. He criticized her last week after she called for the release of the Epstein files.

Immigration

In Charlotte, where federal agents have made more than 80 arrests so far, residents are afraid: Some nightclubs decided not to open, and some churches were unusually empty over the weekend. The number of international students enrolling at American universities plummeted by 17 percent this fall, according to new data. The Trump administration has tried to curb the enrollment of students from abroad. Some Catholic priests and parishioners are saying that mass deportations go against Christian teachings.

More on Politics

Airports across the U.S. are to resume normal operations this morning after the government shutdown, the F.A.A. said. The Trump administration intensified its pressure campaign against Venezuela by placing an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean. It also designated a Venezuelan cartel a terrorist group and struck another boat, killing three people. Trump defended Tucker Carlson for his sympathetic interview with the white nationalist and openly racist antisemite Nick Fuentes.

Crypto

Karolis Strautniekas

Even as cryptocurrencies gain mainstream acceptance, at least $28 billion tied to illicit activity has flowed into crypto exchanges over the last two years. With kidnappings and attacks to steal crypto assets on the rise, investors are taking self-defense courses that teach them how to escape zip ties and turn everyday objects into weapons. Crypto A.T.M.s, found in many stores, have become a popular tool for scammers.

International

Afghan Taliban officials are lashing out against their former allies in the Pakistani military as hostilities between the two countries intensify. Japan’s economy contracted for the first time in more than a year because of American tariffs, which have hurt exports. Trump has given South Korea a green light to build nuclear-powered attack submarines. About 70 schools in Australia closed after retailers recalled play sand products that might contain asbestos. Schools in New Zealand are also facing closures.

Other Big Stories

For years, guards in a jail outside Jackson, Miss., terrorized inmates with assaults. They enlisted some inmates as enforcers. Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, visited Israel and said that Jewish New Yorkers should be concerned about their safety under the next mayor, Zohran Mamdani, a critic of Israel.

OPINIONS

The New York Times

“I never expect this in America”: Three immigrants who entered the United States legally share the stories of their brutal detention in a video.

Americans wrongly believe that Nazis pursued Jews as a race first. That lesson, Jochen Hellbeck writes, obfuscates fascism and authoritarianism’s ultimate target: the political left.

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MORNING READS

Cindy Eckert, whose company makes a women’s libido drug. Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times

A pill for women’s libido? One woman’s business is booming.

Ken Burns: His 12-hour documentary about our national origin story is landing in the middle of a culture war. Yes, it’s complicated.

Metropolitan Diary: Hold my coffee.

A second career: Homayoun Ershadi, who died at 78, was an architect with no training as an actor whose life was changed by a chance encounter. His performances, including in “The Kite Runner” and “Taste of Cherry,” inspired rave reviews and a New Yorker short story.

TODAY’S NUMBER

$561

— That was the cost of a room at the Country Inn & Suites in Tallahassee, Fla., on the weekend Florida State University’s football team played Virginia Tech. It was $96 the previous weekend.

SPORTS

N.F.L.: Jalen Ramsey was ejected for throwing a punch at the Bengals vs. Steelers game. The Broncos won their eighth straight by beating the Chiefs. And the Rams took the top of the NFC West over the Seahawks.

Women’s soccer: Gotham F.C. beat the Orlando Pride to secure their spot in the N.W.S.L. championship, where they will play the Washington Spirit.

Men’s tennis: Jannik Sinner won the ATP Tour Finals title over Carlos Alcaraz.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Tuna aglio e olio. Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell.

Pasta aglio e olio, or pasta with garlic and olive oil, is one of the great pantry meals, a taste of Rome wherever you cook it. I’ll make the argument, though, that pasta aglio e olio with tuna (above) is even better, particularly if you use tuna packed in oil to flake over the spaghetti and absolutely if you wilt a few handfuls of arugula into the bowl at the end. Don’t stint on either the garlic or the red pepper flakes, and make sure to finish everything off with a big squeeze of lemon juice and a healthy drizzle of olive oil.

LAND WOMAN

Ali Larter Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

Yesterday brought the first episode of the second season of Taylor Sheridan’s operatic “Landman,” on Paramount. The show is “a West Texas drama about rugged oil men and the women who annoy them,” Alexis Soloski writes in her profile of Ali Larter, who plays the once and possibly future wife of Billy Bob Thornton’s character, Tommy Norris.

Angela is a lot. “She looks for the thrill in life,” Larter told Alexis. “Her heels can’t be high enough; the jeans can’t be tight enough; the boobs can’t be pushed up enough.” Larter adores her. And so does Tommy, deep down. “It’s a character that a lot of people might have to work up into,” Thornton told Alexis about Larter’s acting. “When she shows up, she’s ready to go.”

More on culture

It’s Christmas movie season already? The Jonas Brothers brought theirs into theaters this weekend: “A Very Jonas Christmas Movie.” (It’s also streaming on Hulu.) The plot? Three famous brothers try to get home in time for Christmas. Jesse Tyler Ferguson shows up as Santa. Comic challenges abound. “Pure festive sugar rushes and nostalgic kitsch,” our critic declared, “very Jonas, indeed.” A lot has changed in the 10 years since Leslie Odom Jr. took his first Broadway bow as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” a role he returned to this fall. Our critic Salamishah Tillet saw in his performance a new “emotional expansiveness, artistic breadth and vocal depth.” She spoke to Odom and others about that, diving deep into his thrilling new take on “The Room Where It Happens.”

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter

Please the plant lover in your life with one of these thoughtful gifts from the flower people at Wirecutter. I like the orchid salve, myself.

Revisit “Annie Hall,” from 1977. It’s streaming this month on Amazon Prime. Diane Keaton, who died last month at 79, won the Academy Award for best actress in the title role.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were alright and arthralgia.

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 18, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning from a chilly New York City, where schools of forage fish are swimming south of Queens, bringing an unexpected surge of feeding bluefin tuna. (We don’t generally see those beautiful animals so close to shore. Nature is wild!)

Here’s what’s happening: The U.N. Security Council approved President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, a major breakthrough toward rebuilding the enclave. And a federal judge in Virginia said that the case against James Comey could be in serious trouble because of apparent misconduct by the Justice Department.

Save for the tuna, we’ll get to those stories, and others, below. Before we do, though, I’d like to draw your attention to a proposal the Trump administration released yesterday afternoon that would strip federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands and streams, making it easier to pollute them. Losing those protections could affect drinking water for millions of Americans.

On Johns Island, S.C. Madeline Gray for The New York Times

Unclean water

The proposal from the Trump administration, should it be finalized in the coming months, would deliver a victory to businesses and industries that want to scale back the Clean Water Act of 1972, which Congress passed to protect all “waters of the United States.”

The beneficiaries could be real estate developers eager to build on shorelines, farmers with fields that run along waterways and manufacturers who make petrochemicals in vast factories set on tidal marshes.

“Today’s proposal is going to be met with a lot of relief” from those businesses and landowners, Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator said. But what about the rest of the country?

My colleague Maxine Joselow, a climate policy reporter, covered the announcement of the proposal, which could exclude from federal protection wetlands that sit beside what are known as “intermittent” or “ephemeral” streams. Those are the ones that sit dry for most of the year but fill up after rainfall or snowmelt, providing more than half of the water flowing through most river systems used in our drinking water.

“Wetlands are sort of the unsung heroes of the planet because they store carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change,” Maxine told me. “They also provide food, shelter and breeding grounds for a variety of species, including endangered species like the Florida panther and the whooping crane.” They not only provide drinking water, but they also protect against flooding by absorbing tidal surges during storms.

The environmentalist response

Environmentalists are ripping mad. The proposal could affect up to 55 million acres of wetlands — roughly the area of Utah.

The disagreement comes down to a debate over what constitutes “waters of the United States,” which Maxine told me is known by water policy nerds as WOTUS. The Obama administration widened the scope of the Clean Water Act to protect the headwaters of rivers and smaller streams that aren’t always full of water. (A farmers’ advocacy group ran an ad campaign featuring rubber ducks to protest the E.P.A.’s definition: “If you can’t #FloatUS, it’s not a WOTUS,” the ads declared.) In Trump’s first term, the E.P.A. repealed that rule. Then, a Supreme Court ruling in 2023 made it hard again for Democratic administrations to strengthen the protections.

The case was Sackett v. E.P.A. The Sacketts were an Idaho couple who wanted to build a house near what the E.P.A. said were federally protected wetlands. The Supreme Court ruling said the wetlands were not, in fact, federally protected.

And now many more acres of waterways may not be either. The National Association of Home Builders cheered the possibility, Maxine said. The group’s chairman told her the administration’s proposal would help in “reducing regulatory red tape, cutting permitting costs and lowering the cost of doing business in communities across the country.”

Beyond wetlands

Trump has repeatedly said he wants “clean air and clean water.” But several decisions are expected to have the opposite effect, Maxine said.

Last month, the government said it would open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling. And just last week the administration announced that drilling would also be allowed in a pristine, remote stretch of tundra and wetlands in the northern part of the state that is among the Arctic’s most important wildlife habitats.

Why? Officials say that environmental concerns should not necessarily supersede the needs of the nation’s economy. The decision to drill in Alaska, for instance, would “unlock Alaska’s energy potential, create jobs for North Slope communities and strengthen American energy security,” according to Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior.

Lowering environmental protections is one way to do that, it’s true.

Now, let’s get you caught up.

THE LATEST NEWS

Epstein Investigation

Trump reversed his opposition to the release of files on Jeffrey Epstein after Republicans in Congress told him they were going to vote for it regardless of his support. Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary, said he was “deeply ashamed” about his ties to Epstein. He said he would step back from public commitments, but he would continue teaching at Harvard. Trump is looking for a distraction. The Justice Department is helping by scrutinizing Democrats like Bill Clinton named in the Epstein files, Glenn Thrush writes.

In the Courts

James Comey Doug Mills/The New York Times

A federal judge said he might dismiss the charges against James Comey because of possible misconduct by the Trump-appointed prosecutor leading the case. A Tennessee judge temporarily blocked the deployment of the National Guard in Memphis, siding with state and local lawmakers who argued that the governor had overstepped his authority in sending troops. An Indiana homeowner was charged with manslaughter in the death of a cleaning woman who was shot when she approached the wrong house.

More on Politics

Trump said he would sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, despite Pentagon officials’ concerns that China could steal the technology. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is set to visit the White House today. The acting director of FEMA resigned after six months on the job. Some at the agency had expressed concern about his lack of experience; he once told employees he did not know the U.S. had a hurricane season. The Trump Organization’s latest real estate deal, a luxury hotel in the Maldives, is its first to offer financing through crypto. The option could make it harder to track the identity of investors. The Federal Reserve plans to loosen its regulations for banks. Experts worry that the changes could lead to another financial crisis.

International

In the U.N. Security Council. Dave Sanders for The New York Times

The U.N. Security Council adopted Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. Russia and China abstained from voting on the plan, which does not guarantee a Palestinian state. Trump said he would not rule out deploying U.S. troops on the ground in Venezuela. He has recently been building up a military presence in the Caribbean. European Union officials are struggling to loan money to Ukraine. They now want to repurpose frozen Russian assets in Belgium to finance the war effort. The E.U. is scaling back its data privacy law, known as G.D.P.R. — a major policy shift toward a more U.S.-style hands-off approach to Big Tech.

Other Big Stories

The leader of a neo-Nazi group admitted to trying to organize hate attacks, including a plan to give poisoned candy to Jewish children in New York City. In upstate New York, an officer didn’t believe a teen’s claim that her adoptive father had been raping her. She was sent back home, where the man abused her again.

ON THE FLY

Hannah Beier for The New York Times

For the first time, researchers have devised a technique to track the world’s most famous insect migration. They’re outfitting monarch butterflies with featherweight radio tags, powered by the sun, to track their journeys to winter colonies in Mexico. The tags weigh just 60 milligrams (about as much as a grain of cooked rice).

The tech could shed light on the poorly understood life cycles of hundreds of butterfly species, plus bees and other insects, at a time when many are declining. “There’s nothing that’s not amazing about this,” said Cheryl Schultz, a butterfly scientist at Washington State University.

It’s good news for insect enthusiasts, too: A free app lets you follow the progress of individual butterflies. Many are coasting over cities and suburbs; they’re finding pollinator gardens and stopping in winter hideaways.

The Times followed six of them. See where they went.

Source: Project Monarch Collaboration data through Nov. 15. Jonathan Corum/The New York Times

OPINIONS

Elon Musk’s $1 trillion payment plan at Tesla isn’t a reward for his achievements. It’s a flex on those who’ve ever opposed him, William Cohan writes.

Europe should ramp up military spending to show President Vladimir Putin of Russia why the continent isn’t worth targeting — and Trump why it is worth backing, Gabrielius Landsbergis writes.

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MORNING READS

Jia Tianlian, in Dazhai, a village in northern China that Mao Zedong once hailed as a model for the nation. Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Pilgrimage: A village in China has become a time capsule for the country’s communist era under Mao Zedong. Tourists are flocking to it.

An outrageous pair of pants: His jeans are gigantic. His internet fame is, too.

Stuck: Many Americans rushed to buy homes during the pandemic. Now, some who want to move feel they’re handcuffed to their rock-bottom rates.

What are you grateful for? For an upcoming newsletter, we want to hear what our readers are thankful for this year — in six words or less. Tell us yours.

TODAY’S NUMBER

$150 million

— That’s Sotheby’s estimate for its auction tonight of Gustav Klimt’s “Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer),” from the collection of Leonard Lauder.

SPORTS

Marshawn Kneeland Terrance Williams/Associated Press

Last night, before their Monday Night Football game, the Las Vegas Raiders held a pregame ceremony for Marshawn Kneeland, a 24-year-old defensive end on the Dallas Cowboys who had only recently scored his first N.F.L. touchdown. He shot himself this month after leading the police on a chase, the authorities said.

Kneeland died at a time when his life appeared to be going well. He had achieved his dream of playing in the N.F.L. and signed a multimillion-dollar contract. His girlfriend was pregnant. They had discussed marriage and buying a home.

The Times’s Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs traveled to Kneeland’s hometown and spoke with Kneeland’s friends and family to report this story on his life and tragic death.

More on sports

N.F.L.: The Cowboys defeated the Raiders last night, 33-16. College football: Five weeks after Penn State fired James Franklin, he has a new job as coach at Virginia Tech. Soccer: Trump threatened American cities set to host next summer’s World Cup over “safety” concerns.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Andrew Bui for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Kaitlin Wayne.

Cranberry tiramisù is a perfect dessert for Thanksgiving. But you really, really do not want to make it for the first time on the night before the holiday. (Sorry to be bossy, but you should not make any Thanksgiving recipe for the first time on or right before Thanksgiving.) The stakes are too high. Practice this week and next instead — no baking required. The tiramisù only improves overnight in the refrigerator. The payoff is grand.

THE ERSTWHILE QUEEN OF BUZZ

Philip Montgomery for The New York Times

Tina Brown didn’t talk much about her time running Talk magazine in the late 1990s during her excellent interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro. (“Do I regret leaving The New Yorker to go and work with Harvey Weinstein?” she asked Lulu. “I don’t think that was a brilliant career move!”)

But for those of us she recruited to write and edit under her formidable glare, it was an incredible experience. (I was there from the first day until the last, when the final embers of Weinstein money winked out.) Listening to Tina’s conversation with Lulu offers a good chance to understand why. For one thing, Tina’s so good with a sentence. Here are just two, on the royals: “They are as human as you and I, but they’re in this cage and somehow have to find a life inside it. You could almost argue it’s too cruel a predicament for modern humans.”

Listen to the whole show here. I smiled all the way through.

More on culture

Can you believe the documentary you’re watching? Increasingly, no. And it’s not just because of the proliferation of so-called authorized documentaries, where the subjects maintain editorial control of the work. A worrisome combination — technological advances of A.I. and the race to push out ripped-from-the-headlines nonfiction work — is also undermining the trust between viewer and filmmaker, our critic Alissa Wilkinson writes. What’s at stake is history itself. NBA YoungBoy is the defining rap star of the last few years, our critic Jon Caramanica claims. Maybe you’ve never heard of him. (I’m no producer, but I would have told him to keep his excellent given name, Kentrell Gaulden.) YoungBoy is “mass cult,” Jon writes: “He has cultivated an audience that feels overlooked or misunderstood by the mainstream, and he makes music that won’t, or can’t, cross over.” Start with his 2019 single “Lonely Child” and build your collection from there. Late night hosts joked about Trump’s shift on the Epstein files.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Start this weekly workout to protect your knees.

Read Jan Kerouac’s 1981 novel, “Baby Driver.” Our critic Dwight Garner calls its republication a gift — “possibly this year’s most important literary salvage mission.”

Clean your dishwasher filter. It takes, like, five minutes. You don’t want the machine throwing codes on Thanksgiving.

GAMES

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

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

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

Correction: Saturday’s newsletter referred imprecisely to the $7 billion that members of the Sackler family will pay as part of the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy deal. The payments are not penalties.

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

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

[phkrause]

November 19, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. They had honeynut squash soup at the White House last night. The world’s richest and most famous joined President Trump to fete Saudi Arabia’s autocratic crown prince at a lavish dinner. Earlier in the day, Trump dismissed a question about a U.S. intelligence report that said the prince ordered the killing of a Washington Post journalist. And Trump berated a journalist for asking.

Also in Washington yesterday: Congress overwhelmingly approved the release of the Epstein files. We’ll be digging into them when they arrive.

And Trump has signed off on C.I.A. plans for covert measures in Venezuela, but he has also reopened back-channel communications with President Nicolás Maduro’s government, officials said.

We’ll get to all of that below. But before we do, I’d like to direct your attention to a remarkable new survey of immigrants in the United States, both documented and undocumented. It tells us not only about President Trump’s immigration policy and the people subject to it, but also about the state of the American dream.

Ana Luna at home in Los Angeles. Brandon Tauszik for The New York Times

Fear and hoping

Roughly 52 million people in the United States are immigrants. A little over half of them are naturalized citizens. The rest are a combination of those who are here legally and those who are not.

President Trump wants to remake the immigration system and deport as many people who are here illegally as he can. He has sent people to countries they are not from. He has ended paths for immigrants to claim asylum. He has deployed border agents near schools and hospitals, to courthouses and Home Depot parking lots, searching for people to detain and remove. (Here’s how the immigration crackdown is playing out in each city where federal forces have intervened.)

So it’s no surprise that about half of all the immigrants in the survey say they feel less safe in the United States since Trump took office. Regardless of immigration status, they’re increasingly worried that they or their family members could be bundled into a van or put on an airplane bound for parts unknown.

That’s one takeaway from the poll, then: Immigrants are scared.

Here’s a second: They’re still glad to be here. Roughly 70 percent said they would still make the choice to migrate to the United States — a percentage that is largely unchanged from before Trump’s election and push for mass deportations. They believe their own future, and their children’s future, to be bright, my colleagues write.

Source: 2023 American Community Survey data from IPUMS.org. Ashley Cai/The New York Times

Across every measure — their finances, their jobs, their educational opportunities — immigrants told pollsters that they’re better off in the United States than they were in their home countries. About half said they felt safer here. And 80 percent, including a majority of undocumented respondents, said they were either on their way to achieving the American dream or had achieved it already.

(Of course, that means 20 percent do not think they’re on that road. Which is the fine print of the American experiment, regardless of immigration status: Your mileage may vary.)

Many immigrants told the pollsters they understood the need for an immigration crackdown: 40 percent of them say they feel Trump’s enforcement agenda is necessary, in the wake of more lenient Biden-era policies.

“Trump is trying to make this country more valuable instead of bringing anybody that wants to come in and do whatever they want,” as Gustavo Rojas, a citizen who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1990, told our reporters.

Few approve of Trump’s tactics, though: Just 28 percent of immigrants approve of officers in masks, and only 16 percent approve of deporting people to countries where they are not from.

(The survey was administered by The Times and KFF, a nonprofit organization that conducts polling and research about health policy.)

Based on a New York Times/KFF poll of immigrants nationwide conducted from Aug. 28 to Oct. 20, 2025. Ashley Cai/The New York Times

Staying home

Another takeaway from the poll is that about a third of immigrant noncitizens say they are avoiding activities that most people don’t think twice about. (For undocumented immigrants, it’s about 59 percent.) They regularly avoid travel. Forty percent say they or someone in their family has stayed away from work.

My colleagues Miriam Jordan and Ruth Igielnik spoke to one of them. Ana Luna, 47, has lived with her husband and children in Los Angeles for nearly two decades. She and her husband are undocumented immigrants from Mexico. “With the way things are now,” she told them, “we feel afraid and insecure.”

Based on a New York Times/KFF poll of immigrants nationwide conducted from Aug. 28 to Oct. 20, 2025. Ashley Cai and Yuhan Liu/The New York Times

The couple have five children. For years, Luna drove them to school each morning before commuting to her own job as a janitor.

That was then. More recently, agents have shown up at the strip mall where she works and near the school her youngest child attends. One day, a shopkeeper she knows called to tell her to delay her arrival at work so she wouldn’t run into them.

“We have been the work force,” she said. “Now we have to run, hide or stay inside.”

But not always. Next month, when Luna’s eldest daughter completes her training at Camp Pendleton, south of Los Angeles, she will become a United States Marine.

Luna will be there, she told our reporters, no matter how risky it is to be on the road.

“I wouldn’t want to miss her graduation,” she said. Her American dream abides.

Now, let’s get you caught up.

THE LATEST NEWS

Crown Prince Visit

Trump welcomed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s autocratic leader, to the White House, hailing him as a good friend and a protector of human rights. Trump lashed out at a reporter for asking about Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist murdered by Saudi agents in 2018. And he brushed aside Khashoggi’s killing, saying, “Things happen.” The world’s richest man. One of the world’s most famous soccer players. The president of FIFA. See who was at the state dinner for the Saudi prince.

Epstein Investigation

In a near-unanimous vote, the House approved a bill that directs the Justice Department to release all files related to its Jeffrey Epstein investigation. On Air Force One last week, Trump cut off a reporter for Bloomberg News and said, “Quiet, piggy,” when she tried to ask why he had not yet released the Epstein files. In the clip below, Annie Karni, who covers Congress, explains how House Republicans rebuffed Trump’s pressure campaign to kill the Epstein bill. Click to watch the video.

The New York Times

More on Politics

A federal court blocked Texas’ new, Republican-friendly congressional map from taking effect for the midterms. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said he would appeal the ruling. The Trump administration says it plans to dismantle the Education Department by shifting some of its responsibilities to other agencies. The White House intervened in a federal investigation on behalf of Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, online influencers who face rape and human-trafficking charges in Europe, ProPublica reported.

Latin America

Trump has signed off on C.I.A. plans for covert measures inside Venezuela, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.

The Trump administration has often called Venezuela’s president the boss of the Cartel de los Soles — a group that does not exist. Voters in Ecuador rejected a proposal to host U.S. troops in the country. The country’s president, a Trump ally, had supported the plan.

Other Big Stories

A final bid on a portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by Gustav Klimt. Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

A portrait by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt sold for over $236 million, becoming the second most expensive painting ever sold at auction. (A da Vinci of contested authentication holds the top spot.) The six construction workers who died in the Baltimore bridge collapse last year might have lived had the police alerted them about the incoming ship, investigators found. They also found the crash was caused by a small misplaced sticker on a wire. For at least five days, a blind Ecuadorean man who was arrested by ICE in New York City was held in isolation at a county jail. He was locked in his cell for 24 hours a day and deprived of his cane.

A LEAD-POISONED TOWN

Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times

With every breath, the people of Ogijo, in Nigeria, absorb lead particles into their bloodstreams. Lead dust settles on kitchen floors, vegetable gardens, church grounds, schoolyards. Toddlers ingest it by crawling across floors and putting their hands in their mouths. It can cause irreversible brain damage.

That lead dust pours from factories that recycle old car batteries, extracting the lead within to make new products — often more batteries for American cars. Wealthier nations police lead pollution aggressively, but Nigeria does not. The Times teamed up with The Examination, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates global health, to test 70 locals. We found harmful levels in seven out of 10 people.

Source: Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev Nigeria). Samuel Granados/The New York Times

This is a well-understood part of globalization: Retailers are sometimes unsure where their raw materials come from. A fashion brand may not know — or want to know — about the repression of a labor movement at a Guatemalan factory making its products. Another may audit factories in Vietnam to guard against child labor but ignore the companies that supply the Vietnamese factories.

Battery manufacturers have pioneered elaborate systems of recycling. Yet in using imported lead, they rely on middlemen to ensure the metal has been safely produced. But these middlemen often don’t, our investigation found. Read the full article here.

OPINIONS

To find something damning about Trump, Democrats have weaponized the people in the Jeffrey Epstein story who matter most: the victims, Jennifer Weiner writes.

Michelle Cottle highlights the Republican women who helped release the Epstein files.

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MORNING READS

Ken Daniel, a Marshallese sailor, wearing brain-recording equipment. Chewy C. Lin

Navigation without charts: For thousands of years, navigators in the Marshall Islands have used the feeling of the waves that bounce off the region’s atolls to make their way across the sea. Now scientists are beginning to study the cognitive process behind what’s called “wave piloting.”

An unboxing odyssey: Wirecutter spent over $700 on a 450-pound, six-foot-tall cardboard box filled with hundreds of products that had been returned to Amazon and other retailers. Here’s what happened next.

TODAY’S NUMBER

72 percent

— That’s how accurate Google’s new artificial intelligence model is, the company said.

SPORTS

World Cup: Curaçao, a Caribbean island home to 185,487 people, has become the smallest nation to qualify for a World Cup after a 0-0 draw against Jamaica. A penalty call nearly derailed its chances.

College football: By beating Alabama last weekend, Oklahoma moved up three spots in the College Football Playoff rankings. See the full list here.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Kerri Brewer for The New York Times

Here’s an easy weeknight recipe for a creamy butternut squash and coconut noodle soup inspired by the northern Thai dish khao soi. It’s great. You simmer chunks of squash in a fragrant coconut milk broth flavored with curry paste, ginger and turmeric, then mash them smooth before adding brown sugar and a hit of fish sauce for pow. (I might use an immersion blender for that.) Cook some egg noodles, ladle the soup over them, and top with lime juice, chopped cilantro and maybe some sliced raw shallots. Comfort in a bowl.

‘JAY KELLY'

From left, Noah Baumbach, Adam Sandler and George Clooney. Chantal Anderson for The New York Times

George Clooney, Adam Sandler and the director Noah Baumbach walk into a bar. … Actually, into the Beverly Hills Hotel, where the Hollywood power trio sat down with our reporter Kyle Buchanan to talk about their new film, “Jay Kelly,” which is out now and starts streaming on Netflix on Dec. 5.

Clooney plays the title character, a gigantic movie star (some stretch!) who puts his career on hold to crash his teenage daughter’s European vacation when he realizes he has never really been there for her. Sandler’s his devoted manager, who accompanies him on the trip. Stuff happens along the way.

They say it’s not really a movie about fame. But they all know quite a bit about fame. Clooney told some good stories about it. Read them here.

More on culture

It’s hard to believe there’s much new to learn about Joan Didion, the writer whose life and thoughts have been deeply mined — most richly by Didion herself. But the release of her papers by the New York Public Library has delivered readers a carton of Easter eggs just in time for Thanksgiving. Turns out, she took the holiday extremely seriously! Take a look at her lists and recipes. She cooked for as many as 75. For 30 years, the Danish writer Solvej Balle has been thinking about and working on a seven-part novel about an antiquarian bookseller who wakes up to discover that she is endlessly reliving the same single day: Nov. 18. Balle is five books into the project, and they come out in the United States this week. Dennis Zhou traveled to the island in the Baltic Sea where Balle lives to meet her and explore how she recasts her character’s everyday tedium as improbable delight. Late night hosts joked about Epstein and Trump.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Vector into one of these great cyberpunk novels endorsed by the science fiction writer Chloe Gong. (Start with William Gibson’s “Neuromancer,” absolutely.)

Rid yourself of your dingy shower curtain and replace it with one of these nice ones Wirecutter tested.

Watch the actors Lesley Manville and Mark Strong perform a scene from the Broadway production of “Oedipus.” in the offices of our T Magazine. (It’s short!)

GAMES

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

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

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

P.S.: We want to hear what Morning readers are grateful for, in six words or less. Let us know here; we’re collecting responses for an upcoming newsletter.

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

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

[phkrause]

November 20, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. There’s news today on the Epstein files, Israeli strikes in Gaza despite the cease-fire and a Japanese bear hunt. We’ll tell you about all of it, and more, below.

But first let’s take a look at two local stories that have national implications. One’s about New York City’s police commissioner and the mayor she will serve. The other’s about what happens when wealthy people prop up our cultural institutions — and what happens when they die.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and New York City’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch. Pool photo by Richard Drew

The odd couple

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, said yesterday that Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner, would stay in that job when he takes office on Jan. 1.

It’s an unlikely partnership, my colleagues Maria Cramer and Emma G. Fitzsimmons wrote.

“He’s a democratic socialist who wanted to defund the police,” Emma told me. “She’s pretty conservative on policing.” Tisch wants to hire 5,000 new police officers. Mamdani does not. He supports the elimination of bail for most misdemeanors. She has been sharply critical of changes to the bail laws.

They come from very different backgrounds, too. Mamdani, 34, is the son of an academic and a filmmaker. Tisch, 44, is a billionaire heiress whose family gave a lot of money to Mamdani’s competition. (They both went to elite colleges, though: Bowdoin for him and Harvard for her.)

And they have different views of the outside world. Tisch has marched in the city’s annual Israel Day parade. Mamdani has been a fierce critic of Israel.

But they have pledged to work together even if there are genuine areas of disagreement, Emma said. Of course they have. Tisch wants to keep a powerful job that she loves. And Mamdani wants the police — and voters who support them — to see that he’s not the far-left caricature his critics have drawn.

They made nice yesterday.

“I have admired her work cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism,” Mamdani said of Tisch.

Tisch was no less polite. “It’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime and the need to maintain stability and order across the department,” she wrote in an email sent to officers.

In an era of partisan rancor across the country, this was refreshing to see. If the partnership holds, it’s a reminder that people who disagree don’t have to be enemies, that the incoming mayor doesn’t have to throw out all the experienced hands, that focusing on consensus instead of division is an art — not fine art, but the art of the possible.

They gave and gave

Leonard Lauder, left, and Agnes Gund. Erin Baiano for The New York Times, Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times

The deaths this year of Leonard Lauder and Agnes Gund have left a canyon-size hole in the cultural firmament of New York, Robin Pogrebin wrote yesterday. For half a century they were among the most important figures in the city’s arts philanthropy — giving institutions lots of money, giving them lots of art. They gave and they gave and they gave.

Robin offered examples. “When the economy tanked in 2008, just a year after the Whitney Museum of American Art announced plans for a new building in downtown Manhattan,” she wrote, Lauder “swooped in with a $131 million donation, the largest in the museum’s history.”

Gund, for her part, once battled her fellow board members at the Museum of Modern Art to bring living artists into the collection. She didn’t just speak up about it, Robin reported — she showed up with donations: among them, works by Nick Cave, Julie Mehretu and Kara Walker.

“There are very few all-in-one philanthropists,” said Adam Weinberg, the former longtime director of the Whitney Museum. “Leonard and Aggie were those all-in-one philanthropists.”

And then he told Robin something I think is important: “It takes three different board members to contribute what they could.”

In the future it might be five or six because help is getting harder to come by. The federal government has gutted arts funding. Audiences have not returned to prepandemic levels. And private donations to museums and other nonprofit cultural institutions have plunged. (That trend is unlikely to reverse any time soon. Changes to the tax law will soon cap a deduction for high-income donors.)

As a result, institutions have deferred construction projects. They’ve reduced or canceled programming. They’ve laid off employees.

And there are precious few giants behind Lauder and Gund to help fill the gaps, in New York or elsewhere. “It’s a very scary time for the arts,” said one former administrator.

Now, let’s look at what else is happening in the world.

THE LATEST NEWS

Epstein Files

President Trump signed a bill directing the Justice Department to release the files from its Jeffrey Epstein investigation. The bill has major loopholes, and his signature does not guarantee the release of all the files.

Comey Case

A Trump-appointed prosecutor pursuing charges against James Comey admitted to a judge that the full grand jury did not see the final indictment that it had approved. Our reporters described the hearing, and the judge’s grilling, as “excruciatingly awkward.”

More on Politics

Dick Cheney’s funeral is today in Washington. Neither Trump nor Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, has been traveling the world to encourage foreign investment in U.S. data centers. His sons stand to profit.

War in Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky may face a no-confidence vote after an investigation into a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme has implicated his closest allies. On social media, the country’s corruption investigators are releasing highlights of their findings with the drama of a Netflix series. Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones on western Ukraine, killing at least 25 people. A peace plan negotiated between the Trump administration and Russia to end the war in Ukraine would require Kyiv to significantly cut its army and cede territory.

In Gaza

During a cease-fire, Israel launched a series of strikes on Gaza, killing at least 25 people, according to the local health ministry. Israel said it struck because several militants had opened fire on its forces in southern Gaza without causing injuries.

More International News

Mount Semeru, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, erupted and spewed hot clouds of volcanic ash and debris that blanketed nearby villages. The number of sexual assaults reported on cruises is going up. But victims of crimes that take place on foreign ships in international waters face an uphill battle to get justice.

Business

Nvidia, which makes the computer chips that have powered the A.I. boom, reported another quarter of soaring profits. Imports to the U.S. fell by about 5 percent in August, in part because of Trump’s tariffs. The government shutdown delayed the release of the data. Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary, is stepping down from the board of OpenAI after documents released by Congress showed him corresponding with Jeffrey Epstein.

MEET THE ‘ORTHOBROS’

Cornell Watson for The New York Times

Orthodoxy is a demanding form of Christianity. Services are long. Churches often don’t have pews. There is a strict and complex fasting schedule. It’s no wonder Orthodoxy is the smallest branch of Christianity in the United States.

But recently many parishes have seen a surge in attendance — especially among conservative young men, my colleague Ruth Graham reports. Priests are swapping stories about it. The converts say they are drawn to the faith because its requirements aren’t easy and because meeting the challenge gives them a sense of purpose.

The newcomers were often introduced to Orthodoxy by influencers who promote traditional ideas of masculinity. Josh Elkins, a student at North Carolina State University, told The Times, “The Orthodox Church is the only church that really coaches men hard and says, ‘This is what you need to do.’”

Related: Our religion reporters talk about how they cover Christianity in the United States.

THE MORNING QUIZ

This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)

Sailors from the Marshall Islands have for millenniums navigated by what technique?

They identify the odors of palm-tree species unique to certain atolls. They listen for bird calls, which change pitch according to direction. They follow pods of sperm whales, whose migratory patterns they pass down through generations. They feel the waves that bounce off the region’s atolls.

OPINIONS

The New York Times

Algorithms should connect you with the best of human creativity — not rot your brain, Jack Conte, the chief executive of Patreon, says in this video.

Here is a column by Jamelle Bouie on Trump’s pervasive corruption.

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MORNING READS

A bear-safety workshop in the mountainous town of Chizu in Japan. Kentaro Takahashi for The New York Times

A hunt: Bears have been attacking people in Japan. Local residents are fighting back.

A mystery: An airline pilot from New Jersey died last year after eating a hamburger. Now doctors know why — he had developed a grave meat allergy from a tick bite.

Sorry, Kim Kardashian: NASA released photos of a comet and debunked a viral conspiracy theory spread by some celebrities that an alien invasion was imminent.

Identical twins: Alice and Ellen Kessler were sisters from Germany whose tightly choreographed song-and-dance routines wowed audiences around the world. They decided to end their lives together at the age of 89.

TODAY’S NUMBER

62,000

— That’s how many deaths regular lung cancer screenings could prevent over a five-year period, or four times as many lives as are being saved today.

SPORTS

Soccer: Haiti qualified this week to compete in the men’s World Cup for the first time since 1974, but travel bans imposed by the United States government mean many fans will not be able to travel from home to attend their nation’s games in the U.S. next summer.

M.L.B.: The league landed new media deals with NBC, Netflix and ESPN as it restructures its TV future.

N.F.L.: The Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders will make his first N.F.L. start on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times

There are days, and this is already shaping up to be one of them, when all I want to have for dinner is a wide, bubbling cast-iron skillet filled with spinach and corn dip. I like the sweet pop of the corn (of course I use frozen — it’s November) against the creamy cheeses and silken spinach, especially if I counter it with extra jalapeños and a healthy spray of lime juice. Melt everything into submission, broil the top and serve with a fresh baguette or a bag of scooper-size corn chips. Dip for dinner!

THE GRAND FINALE

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in “Wicked: For Good.” Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

“Wicked: For Good,” the second half of the screen adaptation of the Broadway musical, opens in theaters tonight. Our critic Manohla Dargis liked it well enough. “From its director to its cast,” she wrote, “the movie is a testament to diversity (species included) as a common good as well as to love, friendship and solidarity.” Which might be just the thing to take you into the weekend.

More on culture

The Grand Ole Opry turns 100 this year. (I was there when it was a spry 75, to see Ricky Skaggs.) The Times took a close look and listen at how the show defined the culture — and was reshaped by it — decade by decade. The internet and its algorithms haven’t killed college radio. If anything, my colleagues on the Styles desk report, they’ve made it more interesting and more vital — a place to explore the tastes of others and to hear the new (or new to you). A record executive summed up the appeal, putting readers into a metaphorical car, turning a metaphorical knob on the radio in search of a late-night station. “If you don’t have your ear glued to the left of the dial,” he told us, “you’re probably missing out.” Late night hosts are preparing for the release of the Epstein files.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Lisa Knight for The New York Times

Book a flight to Tokyo. The dollar is still strong against the yen, and we have a timely new guide to the city.

Embrace your inner Jetson with a robot vacuum recommended by the vroomers at Wirecutter.

Install a home beverage station. Kombucha on tap!

GAMES

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were bighead and bigheaded.

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

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

Correction: A chart in yesterday’s newsletter showing immigrant attitudes toward President Trump’s border policy listed results from a different question in the survey. The story has been updated here.

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

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November 21, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Today, I’d like to tell you about two very different things, entirely unrelated.

The first is about how President Trump’s grip on the Republican Party may be slipping.

The second is about Thanksgiving, which is barreling toward us. You need to start getting ready.

After that, all the news.

President Trump at the White House. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Looking beyond Trump

The president is a lame duck (at least if the Constitution holds), and it’s beginning to show.

For years, Trump was “seemingly impervious to setbacks,” our chief Washington correspondent, Carl Hulse, writes. The laws of political gravity haven’t applied to him. He’s been unsinkable through indictments and impeachments, buoyed always by tens of millions of MAGA-aligned voters.

But his control over the G.O.P. is beginning to soften, Carl points out. In a series of decisions, Republicans have defied him outright, a prospect that seemed unthinkable earlier this year.

The Epstein vote. Trump lobbied members of Congress not to push his administration to release its files about Jeffrey Epstein. When lawmakers ignored him, he flip-flopped.

The filibuster. During the shutdown fight, Trump exhorted congressional leaders to kill this procedural hurdle so they could send through a spending bill over Democratic objections. Republicans worried they’d regret that in a future Democratic majority, and they refused.

Redistricting. Some states have pushed back against Trump’s demand that they redraw the maps of congressional districts to help ensure Republican wins.

Boat strikes. Republican lawmakers are raising questions about whether the administration has the right to kill people it calls drug smugglers on boats off the coast of South America.

Russia sanctions. Some Republicans have joined a bipartisan effort to enact more Russia sanctions that Trump doesn’t want.

Sending people checks. Trump said he’d give Americans $2,000 “tariff rebate” checks. Senate Republicans would rather use the money to reduce the deficit.

There are several reasons for the insubordination, Carl writes. The first is public sentiment. Recent polling shows Trump and the Republicans weakening as Americans react to rising costs. Trump was supposed to fix that!

The second is the beating the party took in the off-year elections this month. (Those defeats were, in Carl’s artful phrasing, “much worse than anticipated.”)

Finally, legislators have started to look beyond Trump’s tenure. I know. Trump is still massively popular with his base. But time ticks away. The midterms next year will seat senators for six-year terms. Those who win will be in government after the president retires to Mar-a-Lago. They probably won’t depend on Trump for their future re-election.

This is the normal arc for a president in his second term. “He’d be the outlier if it didn’t happen,” Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, told Carl. “The closer you get to the midterms and then beyond, everybody is measuring their own state or congressional district, and maybe people are a little more independent.

Read the rest of Carl’s analysis here.

My roast turkey with orange and sage. Romulo Yanes for The New York Times

It’s go time

Thanksgiving is six days away. I write as someone who has — literally! — written the book on the holiday: This is the weekend to get yourself squared away for the feast. You don’t want to end up standing in a line at the store on Wednesday night, wondering how quickly you can defrost the turkey in your cart. (Not quickly enough. You’ll be ordering takeout.)

Decide on your menu. Make sure you have what you need both to make and to serve that food. Rough out a game plan for the night before and the day of the feast, and build a lot of flexibility into it. In feasting as in war, plans don’t always survive first contact with the enemy. (Which is probably time, but could be one of your relatives.)

My old colleagues on Cooking can help. There’s a smorgasbord of time-tested recipes on the site and the app, and some wonderful new ones to consider as well. (Looking at you, char-grilled sweet potatoes.) You’ll find everything you need to make and serve whatever sort of Thanksgiving plenty you desire, from a classic Norman Rockwell situation with all the trimmings to vegetarian blowouts and pescatarian banquets — and, naturally, plenty of pie.

Also, we have some hot takes about the day and its obligations. Are you with us on those, or nah? Here we go!

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

New York City’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani. Vincent Alban/The New York Times

Trump is set to meet with Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, at the White House today. It’s a high-stakes meeting for the city’s future. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, defended President Trump’s calling a reporter “piggy,” saying it reflected his “frankness” and “openness” with the press. The transportation secretary released a video calling for “the golden age of travel” to begin. He encouraged people to be nicer and dress better on flights, as people used to do, The Washington Post reports.

Military

A federal judge paused the National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C., and said that it likely violated the city’s rights. Under a new Coast Guard policy, the service will no longer consider displays of swastikas or nooses to be “hate incidents.” A group of Democratic lawmakers recorded a video telling members of the military that they were not obliged to follow illegal orders. Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition and shared online posts calling for them to be put to death.

South America

Members of a group loyal to President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times

War games conducted during Trump’s first term predicted chaos if Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, were overthrown. That hasn’t stopped Trump from considering a ground invasion. A blizzard in Chilean Patagonia killed five hikers and injured more than two dozen others.

Africa

Plane wreckage at an airport in Khartoum, Sudan, in March. Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Trump said he would seek peace in Sudan. He said the Saudi crown prince requested he “do something very powerful,” signaling an intent to get involved with a war he had tried to avoid. At least two girls are safe after dozens of others were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria. One of the girls who is safe hid in a toilet.

More International News

A trench at the Najha cemetery, believed to hold a mass grave, near Damascus, Syria. Emile Ducke for The New York Times

People are uncovering mass graves in Syria as they search for the more than 100,000 people who disappeared during the country’s civil war. Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine would engage “honestly” with a peace plan that the Trump administration proposed after consulting with Russia — but not with Ukraine.

Business

The stock market took a dive, pulled down by tech stocks. The drop resurrected fears about an A.I. bubble. The unemployment rate rose in September as more people looked for jobs, according to data delayed by the government shutdown.

Other Big Stories

A teacher settled some claims after he was accused of abusing five girls at a school in Massachusetts. But state consent laws for girls 16 and older mean he hasn’t been charged. The rapper Pras, a founding member of the Fugees, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role in a scheme to funnel donations to President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.

PRESERVING THE RAINFOREST

In Brazil. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Half a century ago, when the Brazilian government set out to build a dam in the Amazon, it flooded hundreds of thousands of acres of rainforest, transforming a mountainous peak into an island.

That island now supplies seeds to replenish deforested areas and to preserve native species throughout the Amazon. Workers arrive by boat and scale towering trees — avoiding venomous snakes and poison frogs — to reach the fruit that contains the seeds they collect. Those seeds are then donated to schools, government agencies and farmers.

Ruth Fremson, a Times photographer, traveled to the island to document their efforts. See more of her photos here.

OPINIONS

Zohran Mamdani has no mandate to steamroll state government, Nicole Gelinas writes, and Gov. Kathy Hochul should reassert herself before any negotiations between them take place.

The cruelty that ICE has shown isn’t reserved for undocumented immigrants, Sarah Wildman writes. Read her essay on how it has treated noncitizens who are here legally.

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MORNING READS

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The typewriter repairman: Paul Lundy left a corporate career to repair typewriters. It was a calling, and it fixed his life.

The Kryptos panels: An anonymous bidder paid nearly $1 million for a secret to decode a C.I.A. sculpture.

Optical illusion: This weekend, Saturn’s rings will seem to disappear.

Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about twins who chose to end their lives together.

TODAY’S NUMBER

16 million

— The number of years, at least, since the world’s first kiss, according to scientists. They define smooching as a “nonagonistic” act involving “oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer.” Isn’t that romantic?

SPORTS

N.F.L.: The police were no longer pursuing the Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland when he crashed his car, according to a police report. He was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound nearly three hours later.

Pro baseball: Kelsie Whitmore was the first of 120 players chosen in the inaugural Women’s Professional Baseball League draft.

PERFORMANCE ART

Marcus Maddox for The New York Times

Professional wrestling has come to the art world, with gallery shows, performances and a forthcoming major museum exhibition. Curators, artists, wrestlers and fans are embracing the genre as one rich in artistic possibility — especially in an era of kayfabe, the term of art for pro-wrestling’s “inauthentic authenticity.” The gallery owner David Zwirner told our reporter Melena Ryzik: “The violence is theater. It’s really kind of a beautiful atmosphere.” Read (and see) more here.

More on culture

Rabih Alameddine won the National Book Award this week for his novel “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).” I learned that he’s hilarious from this interview and will now turn to the book. Join me? The Times used to run a regular column on numismatics. Don’t Google it — it’s the study or collection of currency. (We ran one on philately, or postage stamps, too). But it’s been a long time since those words passed our editors’ eyes. Dan Barry did something about that. He was able to cram about a dozen uses of “numismatic” into his fascinating story about one of the world’s finest and most priceless collections of coins, and its move from a cramped vault in New York City to a more commodious setting at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

In New York City. Ramona Jingru Wang for The New York Times

Experience the Ruth Asawa retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. (Here’s a virtual tour if you can’t make it to New York to see her amazing abstract wire sculptures in person.)

Weigh in on this question our therapist fielded this week: My friend is having an affair. Should I confront her?

Slide into a pair of slippers you could own for years and years, recommended by the foot soldiers at Wirecutter. Glerups!

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

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

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

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

Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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

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November 22, 2025

Good morning. Thanksgiving’s this coming week. How can we keep a busy holiday season from overwhelming us?

María Jesús Contreras

Pushing off

	By Melissa Kirsch

We’re on the precipice of The Holidays now, again: where has the time gone, where has the year gone, where is my life going, etc. If you’re traveling for Thanksgiving, perhaps you’re already gone, reading this in the security line at an airport less crowded than you expected. Do you dare admit some optimism, that this trip could go off without incident? But this is just the beginning of your travels, of course. Who knows if the good luck and the good weather will hold — here’s hoping.

The holiday season has its own engine, one that’s been gaining momentum since Halloween and will shift into ever higher gears as we hit the straightaway that leads to the year’s end. There’s an urgency that can feel both exciting and overwhelming. There’s a tension in all the stock holiday scenes: cheery and/or awkward gatherings, delicious and/or overcooked proteins, snowy and/or soggy backdrops. Not many days left, and so even in moments of abundance, there’s a scarcity underneath.

How much of this is real, and how much of it is just our acceptance of the fiction that the end of the calendar year is a deadline by which certain things must be accomplished? Remember when marketers tried to scare you by announcing there were only so many “shopping days until Christmas” left? In the era of “buy it now” and same-day shipping, a shopping day seems quaint. Yes, vacation days and insurance deductibles must be exploited or lost, but otherwise, there’s a comfort in knowing the end of the year isn’t really a finish line in any meaningful way.

An old friend wrote me a month or two ago suggesting coffee, asking for dates that worked this fall. I forgot to respond, and this week she followed up: “Frankly you could suggest Jan. dates — I get how time is compressing right now!” My immediate response was one of shame. I’d dropped the ball! And then that feeling of scarcity: Yes, time is compressing, and there’s not enough of it, and let me count exactly how many days are left in the year so I can really feel the squeeze. (After today, 40!) And then gratitude for the reminder: Some things can wait until January.

Most things, really, can wait until January, and maybe they should. If your holiday season already feels too packed, here, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, then see what might be shifted. If you’re dreading that post-holiday lull when Christmas trees lie felled on the curb and you have no reason to wear your “fun” sweaters, then now’s the time to joyously, eagerly move what you can to next year. Your holiday to-dos and celebrations need to stay put (although, if your family is flexible, no one’s stopping you from moving them, too), but the optional stuff — the coffee dates and catch-ups, the movies and books you keep meaning to get to — won’t expire.

Every first weekend of January, I go away with the same group of friends. It’s a tradition that feels defiant: In the severe landscape of the Northeastern winter, when December’s merrymaking is receding to memory, there’s a reprieve, a reminder that we don’t have to get all our fun in before the clock strikes midnight.

THE LATEST NEWS

Trump-Mamdani Meeting

Eric Lee for The New York Times

President Trump heaped praise on Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor-elect, during his visit to the White House. “I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,” Trump said. The meeting seemed to change Trump’s view of Mamdani, a democratic socialist whom he had previously described as a “lunatic.” After a reporter asked Mamdani about his calling Trump a “despot” on election night, Trump said, “I’ve been called much worse than a despot, so it’s not that insulting.”

More Politics

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia announced she would resign from Congress in January. Greene, long one of Trump’s fiercest defenders, had recently drawn the president’s ire after breaking from him on a number of issues. The Supreme Court temporarily reinstated Texas’ new, Republican-friendly congressional map, which a lower court had blocked earlier in the week. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he personally instructed the C.D.C. to abandon its longstanding position that vaccines do not cause autism.

A judge said prosecutors could fall back on local grand juries to approve serious charges when they failed to persuade a federal grand jury, sanctioning a recent such attempt by the Justice Department.

International

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Wednesday. Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ukraine’s president said his country’s relationship with the U.S. could be at a breaking point over a peace plan proposed by the White House that favors Russia. A Times investigation into the U.S. Navy’s positions in the Caribbean suggests that the Trump administration is more interested in pressuring the Venezuelan government than in fighting drug traffickers.

Other Big Stories

Eli Lilly, the maker of hugely popular weight loss drugs, has reached $1 trillion in value. It’s the first health care company to hit that milestone. A series of storms moving across the country could complicate Thanksgiving travel. Here’s a look at weather around the U.S.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Movies

Ariana Grande, left, and Cynthia Erivo in “Wicked: For Good.” Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

“Wicked: For Good” features two new songs that help Glinda and Elphaba grapple with the choices that change their destinies. Director Jon M. Chu insists the songs were added for plot development and not for a shot at an Oscar nomination. A new documentary featuring senior members of the government claims that the U.S. is hiding what it knows about U.F.O.s. The filmmaker screened it for House members this week.

Music

The British government is taking on ticket scalpers. New legislation backed by Coldplay, Dua Lipa and Radiohead would make it illegal to resell entertainment or sports tickets for more than face value. More than 30 years after finding two unsigned compositions for organ in a Belgian library, a Harvard researcher has announced that he knows who composed them: Johann Sebastian Bach.

Theater

This new version of “Oedipus” on Broadway casts Sophocles’s tragic king as a politician in an age where elected officials can get away with almost anything. A theater director in Switzerland recruited amateur actors that had anorexia. One of the performers called it empowering. But was it unethical?

Opera

The hero of San Francisco Opera’s latest world premiere isn’t a handsome prince, but an ancient monkey king who was hatched from a magic rock. Our reviewer had effusive praise for the production, which will be available on streaming services. Daniele Rustioni, the Metropolitan Opera’s new principal guest conductor, is only 42. But he has been called a “maestro of the old school,” following in the footsteps of Italian luminaries like Arturo Toscanini.

More Culture

One of the virtual reality rooms at the Netflix House. Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Netflix opened its first permanent IRL location near Philadelphia. Its immersive exhibits include “Bridgerton” balls and a “Money Heist” escape room. Groups are declining grants from the National Endowment for the Arts rather than comply with the Trump administration’s anti-D.E.I. policies. The Louvre’s first female president is trying to hold on to her job following the October heist. A self-portrait by Frida Kahlo that shows her sleeping underneath a skeleton sold for $55 million at an auction at Sotheby’s, setting a record for the artist. Roblox, the online gaming platform that is enormously popular with kids, this week introduced a system to assess users’ ages by scanning their faces. (The company’s C.E.O. went on Hard Fork, The Times’s tech podcast, to talk about child safety.)

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CULTURE CALENDAR

? “Hamnet”: In 1596, William Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, died at the age of 11. Little is known of him beyond those basic facts. But Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel bearing the boy’s name conjured an entire world around him and imagined the devastation that his death brought onto his family. Now Chloé Zhao, who won an Oscar for directing “Nomadland,” has adapted the story for the screen, with Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley starring. When the film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, The Times’s Nicole Sperling described it as “a 10-hanky weepie.”

Limited release on Friday; in theaters everywhere Dec. 5.

For more: T Magazine interviewed Buckley, who described how she had connected with her character through dreams.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Yossy Arefi for The New York Times

By Melissa Clark

Pumpkin Soup

This is a good weekend to keep things simple as far as dinner is concerned. Simmering up a pot of Lidey Heuck’s pumpkin soup is not only easy and satisfying, it will make good use of all the pumpkin purée that’s taken over the canned vegetable aisle at the supermarket. Creamy yet light, scented with curry powder and sweetened with a touch of maple syrup and apple cider, it’s a fragrant, warming kickoff to this hectic holiday week.

REAL ESTATE

Jamie McPartland and Peter Oviatt with their daughter, Oksana, and dog, Nino. Dan Cronin for The New York Times

The Hunt: After wandering through a series of short-term rentals in France, Turkey and Morocco, a young family decided to settle in Portland. What did they choose for their forever home? Play our game.

What you get for $900,000: An Eastlake Victorian in New Orleans, a Queen Anne Revival in Rapid City, S.D., and an American Foursquare in Minneapolis.

A peek inside: The actor F. Murray Abraham opened up his home to the Times. Find out where he keeps his Oscar and what he got at Marlon Brando’s estate sale.

LIVING

The home of cacao: Brazil’s craft chocolatiers aren’t just making great sweets — they’re also preserving the Amazon.

Top of your head: You’ve only got one scalp. No wonder people are seeking out pricey treatments to care for theirs.

Put it away: New York City nightclubs are starting to ban phones on the dance floor. Said one reveler: “I’d rather live in the moment and feel the joy.”

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

How to win at white elephant

Played right, a white elephant gift swap can be better than spiked punch at upping the humor and excitement of holiday gatherings. But it does require a clear code of conduct. First, before invitations go out, settle on a monetary limit. Then, to keep things fun, fair and relatively peaceful, decide how many times each gift can be stolen before it’s off limits. And determine whether the person who drew first gets to steal or unwrap a final gift at the end. Game aside, the true golden rule is something I stand by in all areas of my life: Bring a good gift. What that means will change depending on the guests, but here are a few of the most-stolen gifts from my own white elephant parties over the years. — Samantha Schoech

For handpicked gift ideas and expert advice, sign up for the Gift newsletter from Wirecutter.

GAME OF THE WEEK

Gotham F.C. celebrating a goal in the semifinals. Kevin Kolczynski/Associated Press

Gotham F.C. vs. Washington Spirit, N.W.S.L. final: “Underdog, my ass.” That was Jaedyn Shaw, a star of Gotham F.C., after her squad — the lowest seed in the playoffs — defeated top-seeded Kansas City in the first round. Gotham then took down last year’s champs, the Orlando Pride, thanks to a goal by Shaw in the game’s final moments.

Now, in the championship, Gotham will face the Spirit. As The Athletic’s Emily Olsen writes in her preview of the match, the teams have a good rivalry cooking; over the N.W.S.L.’s 12 seasons, they have played against each other more than any other two teams. The Spirit, for their part, would benefit from an appearance by Trinity Rodman, one of the world’s best players, who has been recovering from a knee injury and played just a few minutes in the semifinal.

Tonight, 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were grandpop and propaganda.

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

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

[phkrause]

November 23, 2025

Good morning. Today, a music reporter revisits the documentary that made him fall in love the Beatles, ahead of the film’s 30th-anniversary rerelease.

The Beatles during an impromptu performance. Apple Corps

Meet the Beatles, again

	By Ben Sisario I write about music and the music industry.

In 1987, when I was a budding teenage rock snob, the checkout lane at my local supermarket was crowded with magazines commemorating the Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” still hyped after 20 years. If I didn’t groan, I at least rolled my eyes.

To this Gen X kid, few things were less cool than the Beatles, the musical embodiment of the cultural dominance of my parents’ boomer generation. I preferred the Pixies, Nirvana and whatever else caught my eye on MTV’s “120 Minutes” (though Kurt Cobain’s adoration of John Lennon couldn’t be ignored).

Now I am a Fab Four obsessive, consulting a shelf of Beatles-related reference books while I listen to boxed sets of outtakes.

The turning point for me was “The Beatles Anthology,” an authorized documentary that was shown over three nights in November 1995. It returns to Disney+ this week, in an expanded and technologically sweetened form.

Somehow, the film made the music fresh. Instead of the same hits heard endlessly on the radio, it offered alternate studio cuts, live versions and — a revelation that struck me the most — the hungry, pre-fame band bashing out Chuck Berry covers in leather suits. (“Live at the BBC,” an album with more stripped-down radio sessions from the early days, had given me a first taste when it came out the year before “Anthology.”)

Then, as now, “Anthology” arrived with plenty of media hype. But its portrait of the band, captured with archival footage and interviews, humanized them in a way I had never seen before, with a seductive narrative about how the lads from Liverpool conquered the world, and how success had affected them as people.

There are stunning moments. In one, the camera rides with the band through Manhattan as their car is mobbed by screaming teenage fans — as vivid a you-are-there documentary scene as anything now on Netflix. George Harrison, who by the 1990s was the most reluctant of the members to participate, has some of the most poignant quotes about the costs of megafame.

“They gave their money and they gave their screams,” Harrison says of the band’s fans. “But the Beatles kind of gave their nervous systems, which is a much more difficult thing to give.”

In retrospect, “Anthology” is also prime evidence for how the Beatles have closely tended their own history, tweaking it in each retelling. Most recently, the band has released a series of documentaries, including Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back,” an immersive look at the group’s fraught 1969 recording sessions; next up, expected in 2028, are four biopics — one for each Beatle — by the director Sam Mendes.

Plenty of worthy artists have vanished from public consciousness after they stopped making music. But the Beatles remain with us, more than 50 years after their breakup, in part because fans and Apple Corps, the company the band founded, have mythologized them so effectively. The rereleased “Anthology” is great, yes, but it’s also a way to keep the money rolling in, and to lure in a new generation who might not have cared about the band otherwise. It worked pretty well on me.

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, and his girlfriend. Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, has used SWAT teams to protect his girlfriend and frequently traveled on government jets. His heavy use of taxpayer-funded resources is drawing scrutiny inside the Trump administration. The Federalist Society helped President Trump pick judges during his first term. But now, after some of those judges failed to rule in his favor, the group is torn between its legal philosophy and the president’s demands. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s abrupt resignation stunned many in Washington. According to interviews with friends and associates, she had felt betrayed by Trump, disgusted with the Republican Party and terrified by death threats from apparent supporters of the president.

Climate

Global climate talks ended with a resolution that made no direct mention of fossil fuels, the main driver of global warming. The Trump administration moved to roll back more environmental laws and regulations, potentially affecting everything from the survival of rare whales to the health of the Hudson River. When a scientist tried decades ago to intentionally light the Amazon rainforest aflame, he arrived at a surprising conclusion: “Forests are pretty hard to burn down.” Much has changed since then.

International

The European Union’s decision to stop issuing Russian tourist visas that allow for multiple visits has provoked both alarm and outrage among Russians living in exile. The Israeli military conducted a wave of strikes in Gaza, killing at least 20 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, as Israel and Hamas pointed fingers at each other for violating a cease-fire. The police in Brazil arrested former President Jair Bolsonaro amid fears that he might escape house arrest to avoid serving a 27-year prison sentence. Many young Germans are quitting beer. The deepening cultural shift has created an epidemic of brewery closures.

Other Big Stories

Tatiana Schlossberg Steven Senne/Associated Press

Tatiana Schlossberg, the 35-year-old daughter of Caroline Kennedy and a granddaughter of John F. Kennedy, revealed a terminal cancer diagnosis in an essay published on the anniversary of her grandfather’s assassination. (Read the essay in The New Yorker.) Many banks are scrambling to assess the fallout from a large-scale hack that could expose sensitive customer data. By tweaking its chatbot to appeal to more people, OpenAI inadvertently destabilized some of their minds. Now, the company has made its chatbot safer. Will that undermine its growth? Lemurs are primates known for their large eyes and fluffy tails. In their native Madagascar, the endangered animals face a growing threat: Some city-dwellers love to eat them.

THE SUNDAY DEBATE

Has sports betting ruined sports?

Yes. Gambling has always been a threat to the integrity of sports leagues. “It would be wonderful if all sports betting could again be banned, but, failing that, at least ban prop betting,” The Washington Post’s Max Boot writes.

No. Sports leagues and gambling companies are taking steps to keep games fair. Now gambling can take place out in the open, “where everyone’s kneecaps are safe even after the worst losses,” The Orange County Register’s Rafael Perez writes.

FROM OPINION

Let’s end the stigma: Audiobooks count as reading, Brian Bannon, a librarian, writes.

The Epstein files should put the powerful on notice, just like the #MeToo movement did, Rachel Louise Snyder writes.

And here is a column by Ross Douthat on Trump’s approval rating.

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MORNING READS

Shaboozey performing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in October. Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times

F-150s over Lamborghinis: Shaboozey is a 30-year-old former rapper who got interested in country music after discovering a NASCAR jacket in a vintage shop. He’s now one of the genre’s big stars, navigating complex lines between what’s traditional and what’s new.

Peek-a-boo: Saturn’s rings are still there. But an optical illusion involving the planet’s tilt makes it look like they’re about to disappear.

Mariupol: More than three years after Russian troops captured the Ukrainian city, the Kremlin is pouring billions of dollars into remaking it.

Rose Bowl: The stadium battle between Pasadena, Calif., and U.C.L.A. is about money, nostalgia and so much more.

Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was about how to win a white elephant gift exchange.

Toy inventor: Burt Meyer created Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots in the 1960s and collaborated on the designs of classics like Mouse Trap, Toss Across and Mr. Machine. He died at 99.

SPORTS

College football: A University of Alabama at Birmingham football player stabbed two teammates, according to the school. Both victims are in stable condition.

Golf: Trump chose Jack Nicklaus to lead the restoration of two golf courses at a military installation just outside Washington, D.C.

BOOK(S) OF THE WEEK

Omar El Akkad Karsten Moran for The New York Times

	By Elisabeth Egan

“The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother),” by Rabih Alameddine

“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” by Omar El Akkad

It’s awards season in the book world — not quite as star-studded as the Hollywood equivalent, but exciting nonetheless. On Wednesday night, at a black-tie event in downtown Manhattan, two very different examinations of the past and present Middle East landed National Book Awards. Alameddine’s comic novel about a 63-year-old high school teacher living with his mother took home the prize for fiction, and El Akkad’s brief, searing indictment of Western responses to the devastation in Gaza landed the prize for nonfiction. In his acceptance speech, El Akkad said, “It’s difficult to think in celebratory terms when I spent two years seeing what shrapnel does to a child’s body.” Alameddine — who thanked his psychiatrist and gastroenterologist — also spoke of the crisis in Gaza. He said, “Sometimes, as writers, we have to say: enough.”

THE INTERVIEW

John Green Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times

	By David Marchese

This week’s subject for The Interview is John Green, whose beloved young adult novels, including the best-selling “The Fault in Our Stars,” and earnest YouTube videos have attracted a devoted audience of millions.

There’s all sorts of evidence that social media and watching videos and living online is bad for young people. Do you have any ambivalence about participating in that ecosystem?

Yeah, I made a video a while back called “Am I Cigarettes?” where I wondered if just by creating content on the social internet I might be a form of tobacco consumption. I do have a lot of ambivalence about it.

Where did you land on that question?

I came out of that video quite unsure as to whether I’m cigarettes. My brother then made a follow-up video where he was like, ‘We’re food, and there’s a lot of bad food, but hopefully we’re good food.’ I thought that was a good point. Abandoning the space is probably the wrong response.

The rise of YouTube and social media has also resulted in a rise in young people wanting to be on YouTube and social media. Is there something that you, as a public figure, wish that teenagers understood about what it means to put yourself out there in that way?

I understand the urge to have outside affirmation. That’s something we all have. And when we’re young, we have it perhaps most profoundly. I know that when I was a teenager, I wanted to be known and loved, and being famous on the internet feels like a wonderful shortcut to that. It feels like everyone knows you and everyone loves you. But in fact, no one knows you. There’s a lot to recommend making stuff online for people. I’m very grateful that I get to do it every week. I also think that the feeling that somehow being famous or achieving a million subscribers will fill the hole inside of you — it will not. There is no filling the hole inside of you with the internet. Well, I don’t want to say that. That’s not always true.

What were you saying that felt dishonest?

Just that I don’t know what it’s like to get famous when I’m 16, and it’s not my job to preach to them.

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

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

The New York Times

Read this week’s magazine.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Build some model rockets. Serious hobbyists can get them to fly as high as 4,500 feet.

Use these kitchen gadgets and shortcuts to make your Thanksgiving prep a little easier.

Listen to music by Anthony Braxton, the irreplaceable composer and performer. There has never been a better time to get curious about his vast output.

MEAL PLAN

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

Thanksgiving, the holidays, New Year’s — there’s a lot to eat this time of year, and we want to make it all delicious. In that spirit, Emily Weinstein picked 100 simple Thanksgiving side dish recipes for you to peruse as you’re planning the meal. Mashed potatoes? We’ve got them. Macaroni and cheese? Absolutely.

But if you don’t want to eat Thanksgiving sides for dinner just yet, her Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter suggests some other great options to whip up this week, including a baked chicken recipe that would pair well with just about any of those sides.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

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

Can you put eight historical events — including Mozart’s music and Nike’s swoosh — 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.

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

[phkrause]

November 24, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. The president has changed his mind on Ukraine — again. He is now pressing the country to accept a punishing peace plan his administration unveiled last week.

American officials spent yesterday in Geneva negotiating the proposal with their counterparts from Ukraine. Both sides say the talks are going well. They are continuing today.

The front line in Pokrovsk, Ukraine. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Here’s the deal

The peace proposal released last week read like a wish list for Russia. It would require Kyiv to relinquish captured terrain and shrink its army. It would bar Ukraine from joining NATO and also prohibit foreign troops from coming to its rescue in a future conflict.

“Right now the American plan is devastating for Ukraine, weakening its ability to defend itself and providing few guarantees of its future,” Julian Barnes, a Times reporter who covers international security, told me yesterday.

The Ukrainians have been outraged, and Volodymyr Zelensky said the proposal was a choice between “losing our dignity and freedom” and losing U.S. support.

That could be changing. American and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva this weekend and began reviewing the plan point by point. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said they were “narrowing the differences and getting closer to something” that both Kyiv and Washington would be “comfortable with.” The head of Ukraine’s delegation said the officials had made “very good progress.”

They’re trying to reach a deal by Thursday, which is the deadline Trump has set for Ukraine to accept the proposal.

Trump’s stance

While the diplomats in Geneva have been seeking compromise, Trump has been lashing out. He posted that Ukraine’s leadership had “EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE” for American military aid and support. (Zelensky posted his own message hours later, expressing thanks “for everything that America and President Trump are doing for security.”)

The exchange took us back to the start of Trump’s second administration, when he and Vice President JD Vance seemed more sympathetic to Russia and publicly berated Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Zelensky later adopted a more accommodating tone and signed a deal to give the U.S. some of Ukraine’s minerals. At the same time, Russia continued bombing Ukrainian civilians, which exasperated Trump. Soon, Trump pivoted and spent much of this year lamenting the obstinacy of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. He ripped Putin and praised Zelensky.

Which means we’ve come full circle.

Next steps

As talks continue this week in Geneva, here’s what to watch:

Timing. Trump wants a peace deal quickly. He has given Ukraine until Thursday to accept his proposal, though he has suggested the deadline could be extended “if things are working well.”

Authorship. The plan’s origins are contested. Some U.S. lawmakers have asserted the plan was a Russian initiative, not an American proposal, citing a private conversation with Rubio. Later, Rubio insisted that the U.S. wrote the document.

Europe’s strategy. All of Europe has a vested interest in the outcome. “While Mr. Trump often talks about a cease-fire or peace agreement in purely territorial terms, focusing on ‘land swaps’ and other real estate details,” wrote David Sanger, our chief Washington correspondent, “the Europeans think of it in terms of containment of Mr. Putin.”

Rally effects. The unfavorable peace plan may strengthen Ukrainians’ support for Zelensky and could distract from a corruption scandal that has threatened his government.

Negotiations. European officials believe the proposed plan ought to be just a starting place rather than the end. Trump has often softened his ultimatums and rotated his positions in response to public opinion and diplomacy. Ukraine has many supporters, including in the Republican Party. (One Republican senator, Mitch McConnell, said yesterday that “pressuring the victim and appeasing the aggressor” would not bring peace.)

All of which means we are far from a conclusion. “Trump has gone back and forth,” Julian said. “And he could swing again.”

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

THE LATEST NEWS

G20 Summit

At the Group of 20 gathering in Johannesburg. Pool photo by Gianluigi Guercia

World leaders gathered in South Africa to sign deals and deepen alliances. Trump boycotted the annual meeting over his contention that South Africa persecutes its white minority. Countries at the summit took a tougher tone on Washington as they negotiated without the Americans. “The world can move on with or without the U.S.,” one diplomat said.

Middle East

The Israeli military said it would oust or discipline about a dozen senior commanders for failures related to the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel also assassinated a Hezbollah commander in an airstrike near the Lebanese capital, Beirut, despite a cease-fire brokered by the U.S.

Global Trade

Europe and the U.S. reached a broad trade agreement months ago, but they’re still haggling over the details. American officials are visiting Brussels this week and hope to finalize a written deal. In the face of Trump’s changing tariffs, small businesses are rethinking their relationship with the U.S. Here’s how six companies, from Sweden to Brazil, are navigating the chaos.

More International News

Britain’s government is adopting a stricter asylum policy. It’s the latest country to follow Denmark, which has become something of a migration role model for Europe. In Spain, young people are increasingly drawn to the dictator Francisco Franco, who died 50 years ago. So the government is designing apps, games and T-shirts to promote democracy.

Prison Abuse

At a prison in Oneida County, N.Y. New York State Attorney General office, via Associated Press

New York prison guards are becoming more abusive of inmates, records and interviews show. Some inmates have been restrained and asphyxiated. The guards said they are using force on inmates more often because their jobs have become more dangerous. The reality is different, a Times analysis found.

Other Big Stories

Trump’s friendly meeting with Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York, shocked the internet. The online MAGA-sphere, in particular, didn’t know how to handle it. Thousands of undocumented workers rely on fake identities. One American citizen’s stolen Social Security number ensnared him in a web of debt and legal trouble. Ask The Times: We’re working on a guide showing how Trump’s policies have changed life in the United States. What questions would you like answered? Let us know here.

OPINIONS

It’s time for Democrats to run on a populist economic platform, including supporting a minimum wage hike and universal child care, James Carville writes.

Here are columns by David French on defying military orders and Ezra Klein on America’s housing crisis.

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

A mall in Wyomissing, Pa. Michael Vahrenwald for The New York Times

Letter of Recommendation: Look again at abandoned shopping malls. Kelly Karivalis has been considering the one near her home in Pennsylvania. It’s as inspiring to her as a Roman ruin. “Ever since I learned of its likely demise, I have become strangely attached,” she writes. “I sit in my car outside the parking lot, blasting ballads of unbearable yearning and scribbling in my diary about the mall as if it broke up with me.”

Toying with tariffs: Read how one German toymaker made money despite the ongoing trade war.

Metropolitan Diary: Another bucket of beer.

Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was about the terminal cancer diagnosis of Tatiana Schlossberg, a granddaughter of John F. Kennedy.

Incendiary orator: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin defined Black militancy in the 1960s with a call to arms against white oppression. Later, after becoming a Muslim cleric, he was convicted of murder. He died in detention at 82.

TODAY’S NUMBER

10

— That’s the maximum number of votes a viewer can cast in the Eurovision Song Contest, down from 20 last year. The new rule is intended to limit the influence of governments on the public poll that helps decide the winner.

SPORTS

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press

World Cup: Haitians around the world rejoiced over their team’s success in landing a spot in the tournament for the first time in 50 years.

N.F.L.: Shedeur Sanders, the son of former cornerback Deion Sanders, became the first Browns rookie quarterback since 1995 to win his first career start, leading Cleveland to a 24-10 victory over the Raiders.

W.N.B.A.: For the second straight year, the Wings won the league’s draft lottery. The Dallas team took Paige Bueckers at No. 1 last time, and she went on to win rookie of the year.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Sarah DiGregorio’s slow cooker chili. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: LIza Jernow.

This is a good week to cook big, bold flavors in advance of the Thanksgiving feast. I like this slow-cooker chili for that — it’s richly spiced, with layers of deep, savory flavor that arise from the unexpected additions of unsweetened cocoa, soy sauce and Worcestershire. You don’t need to make it in a slow cooker. Add a little more water to the stew and you can burble it into excellence on the stovetop in about an hour. Serve with hot sauce, grated sharp Cheddar cheese, sliced scallions, sour cream and corn chips. Is nice.

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK

Louis C.K. at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan. Andy Kropa/Invision, via Associated Press

Since Louis C.K. admitted to sexual misconduct eight years ago, the comedian has put out four different specials — hourlong sets of comedy filmed live. Our critic Jason Zinoman took in the latest at the Beacon Theater in New York last week. Taken together, he says, “it’s a large, underexamined, formally audacious body of work that represents a break from the past, but also continuity.” Onstage, Louis C.K. put it a little differently. “You can live a great life,” he said. “But you’re still alive after that part.”

More on culture

Christie’s experts believe this drawing is by Michelangelo. via Christie's

A new drawing said to be by Michelangelo has been discovered — a sketch of the bare right foot of the model who posed for one of the majestic figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The drawing’s owner inherited it from his grandmother in 2002. It had been in his family since the late 1700s, he said. It was authenticated by experts at Christie’s and will go up for auction next year, where it could become the most expensive drawing of a foot in the world. We asked some musical theater heavy-hitters to make the case for their art. Here’s “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Musicals.”

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

In “Death by Lightning.” Larry Horricks/Netflix

Stream yourself back to the Garfield administration with “Death by Lightning” on Netflix. It’s about political violence, yes, but it’s also a hoot.

Brush your teeth more effectively with this electric toothbrush recommended by the exacting dentalists at Wirecutter.

Ski without going broke. Our Travel desk has some tips. (Try Colorado first.)

Read some cowboy noir by John Stonehouse. His “An American Outlaw” puts you way out in the Texas badlands after a bank heist goes terribly wrong.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

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

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

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 25, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. President Trump is facing some setbacks. Peace talks between American and Ukrainian officials ended in Geneva with a new, slimmer plan to end the war — one that Russia will likely veto. This morning, Russia bombarded Kyiv and killed at least six people.

And a federal judge dismissed cases against James Comey and Letitia James, two foes Trump has been trying to punish using the Justice Department.

We have more news below. But before we get to it, I’d like to look at the mental health crisis facing America’s children. Some parents, educators and health experts are wondering: Are schools part of the problem?

High school students in Williston, N.D. Erin Schaff/The New York Times

School daze

The numbers are staggering.

Nearly one in four 17-year-old boys in the United States has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In the early 1980s, a diagnosis of autism was delivered to one child in 2,500. That figure is now one in 31. Almost 32 percent of adolescents have at some point been given a diagnosis of anxiety. More than one in 10 have experienced a major depressive disorder, my colleague Jia Lynn Yang reports.

And the number of mental health conditions is expanding. A child might be tagged with oppositional defiance disorder or pathological avoidance disorder. “The track has become narrower and narrower, so a greater range of people don’t fit that track anymore,” an academic who studies children and education told Jia Lynn. “And the result is, we want to call it a disorder.”

Why did this happen? A lot of reasons. Kids spend hours on screens, cutting into their sleep, exercise and socializing — activities that can ward off anxiety and depression. Mental health screenings have improved.

And then there’s school itself: a cause of stress for many children and the very place that sends them toward a diagnosis.

A slow transformation

In 1950, less than half of American children attended kindergarten. Only about 50 percent graduated from high school. After-school hours were filled with play or work. “But as the country’s economy shifted from factories and farms to offices, being a student became a more serious matter,” Jia Lynn writes. “The outcome of your life could depend on it.” College became a reliable path to the middle class.

Schools leaned into new standards of testing and put in place measures of accountability. The No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 made it federal law.

States rewarded schools for having high scores. They punished them for low ones. “Schools were treated more like publicly traded companies, with test scores as proxies for profits,” Jia Lynn writes. “Before long, schools had public ratings, so ubiquitous they now appear on real estate listings.”

And there were clear incentives to diagnose students with psychiatric disorders: Treatment of one student, especially a disruptive one, could lead to higher test scores across the classroom. And in some states, the test scores of students with a diagnosis weren’t counted toward a school’s overall marks, nudging results higher as well.

The metrics may have gotten many kids the support they needed. Either way, educational policymaking yielded a change: According to one analysis Jia Lynn found, the rate of A.D.H.D. among children ages 8 to 13 in low-income homes rose by half after the passage of No Child Left Behind.

In San Luis, Ariz. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

The effect on kids

The pressures on students became extreme. In 2020, Yale researchers found that nearly 80 percent of high schoolers said they were stressed.

And that stress has trickled down to younger and younger kids. Kindergartners learn best through play, not through the rote lessons in math and reading that began to enter classrooms. Preschoolers are not predisposed to sitting still. And yet as they, too, now face greater academic expectations, many are being expelled for misbehavior.

Even the school day became more regimented, with fewer periods of recess — by 2016, only eight states had mandatory recess in elementary schools. Class schedules are packed. “You’ve got seven different homework assignments that you’ve got to remember each night,” one expert told Jia Lynn. “Think of the cognitive load of a sixth-grade boy. I challenge many adults to do this.”

It’s a vicious cycle, where bad outcomes lead to worse outcomes.

And Jia Lynn writes about that beautifully:

By turning childhood into a thing that can be measured, adults have managed to impose their greatest fears of failure onto the youngest among us. Each child who strays from our standards becomes a potential medical mystery to be solved, with more tests to take, more metrics to assess. The only thing that seems to consistently evade the detectives is the world around that child — the one made by the grown-ups.

Read more about schools and the rise of childhood mental health disorders here. Don’t miss the comments that accompany the article, especially from parents and teachers. Many boil down to something a recently retired teacher wrote: “A child’s school day is insane.”

Now, let’s look at what else is happening in the world.

THE LATEST NEWS

Ukraine Negotiations

The peace plan that American and Ukrainian officials negotiated avoided some contentious issues, including limits on the size of Kyiv’s military and the new national boundaries. Russia is likely to reject it. Trump had set a hard deadline for the plan to be approved by Thanksgiving. That deadline is now gone.

Justice Department

James Comey and Letitia James. Monica Jorge for The New York Times; James Estrin, via The New York Times

A judge dismissed the Justice Department’s cases against James Comey and Letitia James, finding that the prosecutor Trump chose to bring the charges had not been legally appointed. The Trump administration is likely to appeal the judge’s ruling, and perhaps try to refile the charges. Many lawyers expect the issue to reach the Supreme Court.

More Politics

The Pentagon is investigating Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain and astronaut, after he and five other Democrats released a video reminding troops that they could refuse illegal orders Trump said he had accepted an invitation from China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to visit Beijing in April.

International

Along the Kenya-Tanzania border. Thomas Mukoya/Rueters

In Kenya, some Masai people are demanding that the Ritz-Carlton tear down its new luxury safari camp, which costs about $3,500 a night. They claim that it blocks a corridor used by wildlife. The grisly killings of a husband and wife set off a new wave of sectarian unrest in Homs, Syria. France is trying to convince its citizens that they must be ready for war if Russia attacks. The new army chief said the country must accept the possible loss of its children, prompting a backlash.

Health

Hopes were high that Ozempic could help prevent brain diseases, like Alzheimer’s. A study found it didn’t. Researchers linked obstructive sleep apnea, a condition that causes temporary pauses in breathing during sleep, with Parkinson’s disease in a new study.

Other Big Stories

Viola Fletcher, who as a child witnessed the racist massacre that decimated an affluent Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921, has died at 111. The one remaining survivor of the attack is also 111. Recycling car batteries is poisoning people. Automakers and their suppliers have known for almost three decades that recyclers were releasing lead into the air as they melted down old batteries, an investigation found. New York City officials are considering constructing tiny apartments to address the city’s housing shortage. Some may be as small as 100 square feet. ChatGPT drove some of its users into delusional spirals. In the video below, Kashmir Hill, a tech reporter, describes how the company has pulled back its bots — and how some users are unhappy about that. Click to watch.

The New York Times

OPINIONS

Democrats have no coherent agenda on artificial intelligence. If they don’t come up with one soon, Republicans will speak with a single voice on this issue while Democrats stutter, David Byler writes.

Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on the conflict with Venezuela.

Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience.

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

MORNING READS

Line dancers near Berlin, Germany. Lena Mucha for The New York Times

Horses in the back: There’s a little make-believe, old-timey Texas town on the outskirts of Berlin, complete with sheriff’s office and saloon. Developers want to demolish it to build a data center. The village has been there for decades, but the German fascination with the American West goes back far longer, as Michael Kimmelman reminded me yesterday. The tall-tale, gun-twirling writing of Karl May (1842-1912) sparked the infatuation, he said. Virtually unknown in the United States, May is the most popular author in German history. Einstein was a fan.

Besart Bilalli studying in London.  Sam Bush for The New York Times

The world’s hardest driving test: To drive a black cab in London, you first need to pass the Knowledge test — a comprehensive exam of some 25,000 streets in the city. Those who do have an unmatched understanding of the fastest routes through the winding, sometimes cobbled maze that is London. They can also make more money than Uber drivers. My colleague Isabella Kwai spent months following one father determined to make a better life for his kids as he studied for the test. “This is going to be my future,” Besart Bilalli said, adding, “It has to be done.” Read the full story.

Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was a list of the best electric toothbrushes.

TODAY’S NUMBER

$10 billion

— That’s about how much money the Trump administration has committed so far to acquire ownership shares of private companies. The unusual practice shows no sign of slowing.

SPORTS

N.F.L.: The 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings threw two punches at the Panthers safety Tre’von Moehrig after San Francisco’s 20-9 win on Monday night. Jennings said he was responding to an earlier hit from Moehrig.

N.B.A.: The Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups pleaded not guilty to involvement in rigged poker games, part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into gambling in professional sports.

Business: Elle Duncan of ESPN is set to become the new face of Netflix’s sports coverage as the streaming service adds more live games to its platform.

TURKEY MATH

Evan Gorelick, a writer for The Morning, crunched the numbers on your Thanksgiving dinner.

Was your turkey more expensive this year? Blame bird flu. When the virus appears, whole flocks must be culled to contain the disease. The current outbreak has affected more than 180 million U.S. farmed birds — turkeys included — since 2022. As a result, America’s turkey inventory has fallen to its lowest level in four decades.

Fewer birds make for higher prices. Wholesale turkey prices have surged around 75 percent since October 2024. But retailers are trying to keep costs low by getting customers to buy lots of other things, too — potatoes, green beans, stuffing, pumpkin pie. So you may still be able to get a deal: Thousands of stores are offering free turkeys when customers make an additional purchase.

Related: Trump’s steel tariffs have made canned goods, including cranberry sauce, more expensive.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Yewande Komolafe’s shrimp tacos. Kelly Marshall for The New York Times

I’m bound for South Florida and a Thanksgiving at the in-laws’. That means fresh Gulf shrimp for dinner in the run-up to Thursday’s bird. If you see any wild shrimp at your market tonight or tomorrow, join me: Yewande Komolafe’s recipe for shrimp tacos leads to a sweet and spicy dinner with elements both crisp and soft, excellent on top of warm corn tortillas, with swipes of guacamole.

JIMMY CLIFF, 1944-2025

Jimmy Cliff performing in Le Castellet, France, in 1976. PL Gould/Images Press, via Getty

Jimmy Cliff, the Jamaican artist whose early album “The Harder They Come” helped popularize reggae around the world, has died. He was 81.

“The Harder They Come” was the soundtrack for a 1972 movie of the same name. In it, Cliff played a struggling Jamaican musician who enters a life of crime. It was a cult favorite in the United States, running for years in midnight slots at theaters. (My parents wore out the record on the living-room turntable with “You Can Get It if You Really Want” blaring across the apartment for hours. Their dinner parties ran late.)

In addition to the obituary, we have a playlist of Cliff’s essential songs.

More on culture

The New York Times Book Review has released its list of the 100 notable books of 2025. Nice to see Jonathan Mahler’s propulsive “The Gods of New York” on there. Want to find a title to read right away? We can help! Here is a cheat sheet for the list, broken into categories. “Stranger Things” returns to Netflix this week for its fifth and final season, after a three-year break. If you don’t have a spare 771 minutes to catch up on what happened in the last one, we’ve put together a primer full of details you need to remember. Late night hosts are loving the Trump-Mamdani bromance.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Erykah Badu Jason Nocito for The New York Times

Watch Erykah Badu perform live in our newsroom. She had just been interviewed by the “Popcast” team. Stipulated: Erykah Badu is dead cool.

Secure your front door with a smart deadbolt recommended by the low-key locksmiths at Wirecutter.

Read a holiday romance novel. Sweet and spicy. Chances are, you’ll read another one after you’re done.

GAMES

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

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

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 26, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and odds are good that at some point during the day someone’s going to ask you what you’re thankful for. (One of my answers: that I have this job, writing to you.)

It’s a good question to ask. People should think about gratitude more often. They should share their gratitude with others, in public, and not just on Thanksgiving. Saying it out loud is an act of grace, a gift to the people surrounding you.

But if you’ll excuse a rub, they should not go on too long about it. No one likes rambling odes and endless lists. Everyone’s thankful for brevity this time of year. Bring on the rules about that!

Gratitude in six words

Last week I invited you to send us six words describing what made you thankful in 2025. The writer Larry Smith popularized this form of writing: the six-word memoir.

Thousands of you replied. (Thank you!) We received responses from all 50 states and all over the world, including from Britain, Canada, Mexico, India, Greece, Egypt, New Zealand, Panama, Germany, Jordan and Honduras. I’m not a data scientist, but it seems a lot of you are thankful this year for your health, for your families and for the beauty of nature.

I gathered a short number of my favorite responses into a kind of found poem about Thanksgiving. It’s not a sestina, not even close. But I do like the shape of the six-by-six stanzas.

Thankful

The way my toddler says potstickers.
Did scary things. Didn’t die. Encouraging.
My backyard garden that feeds us.
The cold side of the pillow.
We celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary.
I’m grateful for being fired.

*

The joy of a wedding dance.
New beginnings and a playful Chihuahua.
The crow that brings me rubbish.
A July day at Wrigley Field.
My little orange cat, Cinnamon.
America’s compassion finding its voice.

*

Only momentarily a widow. Defibrillators rock!
Sun on snow, white diamonds glistening.
First house, fresh paint. Goodbye, gray!
Family, sobriety, heavy metal, Cheddar cheese.
Sun rising. Moon setting. Another day.
It won’t always be like this.

*

A man I melt into nightly.
I’m grateful for Spam. Comfort food.
Hummingbirds. Photocorynus. Clouds. Pula. Haiku. Sprites.
Sunny deck, soaring birds, hot coffee.
Love, enough money, health, moist turkey.
My one wild and precious life.

I hope you have a restorative and grateful holiday. Here’s what to know today.

THE LATEST NEWS

Thanksgiving

In the Rose Garden.  Eric Lee for The New York Times

President Trump pardoned two turkeys, a White House tradition. They were named Gobble and Waddle. Trump used the event as an opportunity to mock Democrats. He derided the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker as a “fat slob” and joked about sending the Turkeys to an El Salvadorean prison. Late night covered it. He also bragged he had reduced the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner. But is that true? See what the meal could cost and meet people using SNAP benefits who are budgeting every dollar of it.

Health

The Trump administration announced new, lower prices for 15 common or costly medications, including Ozempic, under Medicare. The Health Department quietly installed a vaccine skeptic as the No. 2 official at the C.D.C. Even inside the C.D.C., many were unaware of the appointment.

More on Politics

Trump at age 79: The president has fewer events and a shorter public schedule than he used to, and he sometimes appears to grow drowsy during events. Some federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown say the Trump administration did not rehire them when the government reopened in violation of the law. The six Democratic lawmakers who recorded a video informing troops that they could refuse illegal orders say they are being investigated by the F.B.I. A New York Times analysis found errors in a Trump administration filing to the Supreme Court that asked the justices to sign off on the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago. Some House Republicans in competitive districts have pushed for an extension of Obamacare subsidies, a major Democratic priority. The issue has divided the Republican Party.

War in Ukraine

Ukrainian officials scrambled to soften an American-backed peace proposal that favored Russia. The question now is: Will Vladimir Putin accept it? Putin’s choice to strike Kyiv after the talks signaled he would resist. Trump wrote on social media that “there are only a few remaining points of disagreement” over the plan. He is sending a representative to meet with Putin in Moscow. Some Republicans are accusing Trump of appeasing Russia. Click the video below to watch my colleague David Sanger explain the proposal.

The New York Times

Middle East

The Trump administration has plans to build compounds to house Palestinians in Israeli-controlled eastern Gaza. It could relieve many homeless Palestinians, but it could also entrench a partition of the enclave.

The families of 300 Americans hurt or killed in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel sued the crypto exchange Binance, claiming the company transferred more than $1 billion among accounts controlled by Hamas and other terrorist groups. Pope Leo is embarking on his first international trip. He is going to Lebanon and Turkey.

More International News

Jair Bolsonaro earlier this year. Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered Jair Bolsonaro, the former president and a close Trump ally, to begin serving a 27-year sentence for overseeing a failed coup attempt after he lost an election. The authorities in France arrested four more people — two men and two women — in connection with the recent jewelry heist at the Louvre. Recent volatility in the markets underscores the risk that the global economy faces from trade wars, tech advances and high levels of debt — a combination that could lead to another financial crisis.

PUTIN THE PINUP

A 2026 calendar.

Shaking hands, exploring nature, playing the piano: The Russian president tried out a variety of poses in the latest editions of Vladimir Putin wall calendars. They recently hit newsstands in Russia. One version shows images of him alongside related quotes, including “Russia’s border never ends” (with a photo of him on a snowmobile) and “I am a dove, but I have very powerful iron wings” (with a photo of him tossing a judo opponent).

Putin calendars, several of which are published each year, have been around as long as he has been president, though they seem to have taken off around 2011. While past editions have portrayed the Russian president as something of an action hero, the 2026 calendars show him in traditional, maybe more “presidential,” settings, such as giving his annual New Year’s address and sitting behind a desk.

“This genre is its own kind of art,” Maxim Trudolyubov, a Russian journalist, told The Times, adding, “It is supposed to signal stability, predictability, even if the reality is nothing of the kind.”

OPINIONS

The best way to honor Charlie Kirk is to protect speech that mocks or criticizes him so that argument remains the alternative to violence, Greg Lukianoff writes.

States that want to reach their clean energy goals should drop their restrictions on nuclear energy, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow writes.

Here’s a column by Bret Stephens on Thanksgiving as rebirth.

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MORNING READS

In Sag Harbor.  Lindsay Morris for The New York Times

The story of a house: 29 Henry Street, in Sag Harbor on the east end of Long Island, was built in 1860, a house for a ship captain in a village full of ship captains. What happened to the building reveals longstanding tensions around whom Sag Harbor is for — and what, exactly, should be preserved there.

Get to know your family history: It can be difficult to engage with older relatives, but they often have fascinating stories to tell. The holidays offer a great time to reconnect. Try these questions to get the conversation started.

Dine and dash: An influencer photographed her meals at exclusive restaurants across New York City, then skipped out on the bills, the police say.

Brain drain: Constantly checking your phone can lead to memory lapse and affect your ability to focus, The Washington Post reports.

Cream of the crop: Human milk was thought to be the most chemically complex of mammalian milks. It’s got nothing on seal milk.

Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the mental health crisis in U.S. schools.

TODAY’S NUMBER

82 million

— That’s about the number of people AAA estimates will fly, drive or take other forms of transportation during the Thanksgiving holiday, a 2 percent increase over last year. The Federal Aviation Administration is expecting the busiest Thanksgiving travel season in 15 years.

SPORTS

Women’s soccer: Gotham FC’s 1-0 championship win over the Washington Spirit drew more than one million TV viewers, smashing the audience record for the National Women’s Soccer League.

N.F.L.: Marshawn Kneeland was driving more than 145 miles per hour in the police chase shortly before his death, according to new records that offer the fullest picture yet of the pursuit and chaotic search for the late Cowboys defensive end.

College football: Heading into the final full weekend of regular-season games, Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M and Georgia lead the College Football Playoff Top 25.

RECIPE OF THE DAY

Lidey Heuck’s breakfast casserole. Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

You may have a lot of people in your house this morning. There may be more coming tomorrow. There may still be a few milling about on Friday morning, after the feast. They have come to you for sustenance. Feed them. I like this breakfast casserole for that, in part because it’s deadly simple to put together and because it punches far above its weight in terms of filling people up. After serving it, you’re unlikely to hear anything about lunch for many hours. Will I use Italian seasoning in it? Not if I have some fresh basil, thyme and rosemary on hand. (And I do!) Serve with hot sauce, ketchup, buttered toast and lots of coffee.

BENOIT’S BACK

Daniel Craig, right, with Josh O’Connor in the latest “Knives Out” movie.  Netflix

“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” the third installment in the movie series about Benoit Blanc, Daniel Craig’s charismatic and nattily dressed Southern drawl of a private detective, opens in theaters today for a two-week run. (After that: Netflix.) Alissa Wilkinson, our critic, calls it “another moderately bawdy romp with a stacked ensemble cast, chock-full of twists and turns, and laced with winking contemporary references.”

As with the other “Knives Out” films, “Wake Up Dead Man” is not simply a murder mystery. No spoilers here, but the movie explores religion: in Alissa’s words, “what it is, what it isn’t and how it gets twisted and exploited to incite fear and hate.” Still a comedy, though! And Alissa says it really works.

More on culture

Are you smarter than a billionaire? Take our art auction quiz to see if you can identify the most valuable works on the block this season. This year is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, and across the world Janeites (as they are known) are celebrating. Our reporter Sarah Lyall explores “the vastness of the Austen-industrial complex”: Austen-themed parades, parties and exhibitions; academic conferences; quiz events and even spinoff events in which Austen’s characters mix it up with zombies and sea monsters.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Claire Danes, left, and Holly Hunter in “Home for the Holidays.” Paramount Pictures

Choose a Thanksgiving movie (or two). In my house it’s “Master and Commander,” every year. (The Times reviewer in 2003: hated it.)

Consider the best Black Friday deals in this detailed report from the internet sleuths at Wirecutter.

Watch a hockey game. The Boston Bruins play the New York Islanders, streaming on ESPN at 7 p.m. Eastern. (I like this rookie Matthew Schaefer, a defensemen for the Islanders.)

GAMES

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

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

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

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

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

[phkrause]

November 27, 2025

	By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Today is Thanksgiving, and naturally I have some thoughts about that.

But there’s news before the bird: Two National Guard troops were shot in Washington yesterday, blocks away from the White House. President Trump ordered hundreds more troops into the city in response. So we’ll start there.

Shooting in Washington

Near the site of the shooting. Eric Lee for The New York Times

Two National Guard members were shot near the White House yesterday afternoon. Both are in critical condition, officials said.

A suspect, a 29-year-old man from Afghanistan, is in custody. He entered the U.S. in 2021 through a refugee program after the Taliban regained power, according to the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem.

In a video address, President Trump declared the attack an “act of terror” and vowed to redouble the government’s efforts to deport migrants. The administration paused immigration applications from Afghan nationals. The mayor of Washington also described the shooting as a targeted attack.

Trump, who was in Florida for Thanksgiving at the time of the shooting, ordered 500 additional troops to Washington (about 2,000 were already on the ground). Last week, a federal judge ordered a temporary suspension of the deployment of National Guard troops to Washington. After the shooting, the Trump administration asked for that decision to be blocked. Some National Guard members say they have been worried about their safety.

The shooting rattled a busy part of the city. Stacey Walters, a nurse, said she heard gunshots and then watched as a group of small children was rushed to safety. “I wanted to cry,” she said. “I’ve never been so close to something like that, let alone at the holidays.”

Kirk Mckoy/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Give thanks

Here’s a Thanksgiving mantra, though: Everything is going to be all right.

That turkey you’re roasting for the first or millionth time? It’s going to be fine, even if you overcook the breasts. That casserole your cousin’s bringing, again, as she always does, with the marshmallows and underdone yams? It won’t hurt anyone.

The potluck you’ve been invited to will be fine. Your stepfather’s enjoying himself, frying a bird on the slope of the driveway. Step away. You have a fire extinguisher. (Right?)

Give thanks for friendship, for family, for whatever it is you find yourself doing today on this strange secular holiday that binds so many of us together in the presence of food and drink. You’re good. She’s good. They’re good. On Thanksgiving, we’re all good.

I’ll tell you four more things about the holiday before we get to the rest of the news.

First, if you’re just starting to sketch out a Thanksgiving plan, you should stop immediately. Instead, figure out if there’s a good restaurant open nearby. That frozen turkey at the supermarket is not going to be thawed until December. Second, you’re not going to change anyone’s mind about anything today. That’s not what the holiday is about. There’s no need to argue. Pass the gravy. Tell people about your favorite show or novel or song. Talk about snow! Third, you’re not going to change anyone’s behavior, especially if that person is a full-grown adult. Put ashtrays outside the front door if you have to. Stock Diet Mountain Dew for your cousin who drinks it. Allow your uncle who won’t stop talking to continue to squawk — it’s one day a year. Say it with me: Of course you can watch the Packers game! Finally, know that the time to start making plans for Thanksgiving leftovers is now. It’s a way to keep the excitement alive, a way to ask: What’s next? My old friends at New York Times Cooking have plenty of ideas for that. (I’ll be making bang bang turkey, myself.)

Above all, and once more: Give thanks as you move through the day. Say it aloud to all who are present. We can talk about the complicated history of the holiday later: its roots in colonialism, its roots in gauzy nostalgia, its roots in our shared American narrative. Today, be grateful. And hug your people tight.

TODAY’S NUMBER

165

— That is the temperature in Fahrenheit, measured at the deepest part of the thigh, at which your turkey is safe to consume, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

Does that “rule” mean you should keep your turkey in the oven until its internal temperature is 165? It does not! The turkey’s internal temperature will continue to rise after you’ve removed it from the oven and set it to rest, tented loosely under foil, before carving. My target is 162 or so when it comes out of the oven; it’ll be 165 soon enough.

THE LATEST NEWS

Hong Kong Fire

In Hong Kong. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

A fire tore through a complex of high-rise apartment buildings in Hong Kong. At least 55 people were killed, and dozens are still missing. Officials have arrested three people with ties to a construction company that installed scaffolding and netting on the buildings.

War in Ukraine

Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, offered Russian negotiators tips on working with the president, according to phone call transcripts released by Bloomberg. Trump defended Witkoff’s actions. The U.S. Army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, is playing an unusually active role in the ongoing peace negotiations. A recent example: Driscoll tried to pitch a deal unfavorable to Ukraine by warning European negotiators that Russia is stockpiling long-range missiles.

More on Politics

President Trump Doug Mills/The New York Times

A judge in Georgia dismissed the last remaining election interference case against Trump, effectively ending the effort to charge him with trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Scott Bessent used to argue against tariffs. Now that he’s Trump’s Treasury secretary, it’s his job to defend them.

Immigration

Stephen Paul and his child. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

Federal agents are arresting foreign-born spouses in routine green card interviews and charging them with visa violations. One woman from Britain had to pass her new baby to her American husband before she was arrested. ICE arrested a woman from Brazil with family ties to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. The Trump administration says refugees and asylum seekers can never get food stamps. But attorneys general from New York and nearly two dozen other states filed a lawsuit arguing such a rule is illegal.

More International News

Pope Leo XIV arriving in Turkey. Khalil Hamra/Associated Press

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Turkey for his first international trip. His visit to a Muslim-majority country is intended to show his interest in interfaith dialogue. In Italy, murders of women killed for misogynistic reasons will now be defined as femicide. Army officers in Guinea-Bissau say they have seized control of the government, one day before the West African nation was scheduled to announce the results of its presidential election.

OPINIONS

Nick Meyer for The New York Times

Thetford, Vt., has held a Thanksgiving potluck for 60 years. Matt Hongoltz-Hetling asks: Is it the source of their vibrant community?

I’m 62. Stop telling me I am old, Ken Stern writes.

Here is Maureen Dowd’s brother, Kevin, with his annual Thanksgiving column.

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MORNING READS

Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times

Tune in: We tagged along to a rehearsal for this morning’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. (Here’s how to watch it.)

Take our quiz: Instead of our weekly news quiz, we’re testing you with questions about the year in food.

The Big Heads: Detroit has its own Thanksgiving parade. Look out for papier-mâché caricatures.

The face reader: The psychologist Paul Ekman linked thousands of facial expressions to the emotions they often subconsciously conveyed, using his skills to advise the F.B.I. and Hollywood. He has died at 91.

SPORTS

N.F.L.: Learn why the Detroit Lions always play the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving and other N.F.L. facts to impress your family at the holiday table.

College basketball: The two undefeated, top-10 teams, Michigan and Gonzaga, went face-to-face in the Players Era Festival game. Michigan won, 101-61.

N.B.A.: The Detroit Pistons’ 13-game winning streak ended with a missed free throw in a loss to the Boston Celtics.

THANKSGIVING F.A.Q.

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

We have answers to all your Thanksgiving questions, from how long it’s going to take to roast the bird to how to carve it when it’s done. We take many, many stops along the way. We’re here to help. Just click!

(Plus, here are some last-minute recipes. The carrots only take 10 minutes.)

AT THE MOVIES

Chloé Zhao, left, on set with Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features

Are you going to the movies this holiday weekend? We have a review of “Hamnet,” with Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. It tells the love story that inspired Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Also, we’ve assessed “Zootopia 2,” with Jason Bateman, Quinta Brunson and Idris Elba. You know what’s happening there: A brave rabbit cop and her fox friend team up to crack another case. Make it a double feature?

More on culture

Marie Kondo. Rebecca Clarke

Marie Kondo has been reading about tidying and organization since she was a child. She likes to read while soaking in a warm bath. She says you can have more than 30 books if each of them sparks joy. She pays close attention to the texture of the covers. “I love the kind that feels smooth and silky to the touch,” she told The Times in an interview tied to the release of her latest book, “Letter From Japan.” Mel Brooks devised a personality test for our style magazine, T. Jodie Foster took it. She can draw passable sunflowers. Her spaceship to Mars needs work. Jimmy Fallon joked about “Drinksgiving.”

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

The New York Times

Watch our critics Wesley Morris and Parul Sehgal discuss the Netflix documentary “The Perfect Neighbor” on Wesley’s Times podcast, “Cannonball.” The film’s an American nightmare, they say. Using police camera footage, it depicts the events that led to the killing of a Black mother of four by her white neighbor. It’s difficult viewing. And for Wesley and Parul, it raises all kinds of moral and ethical questions. Discuss.

Style your Thanksgiving table like an artist, a designer or a chef. Your guests will remember it.

Make your last-minute preparations for Black Friday. The deal hounds from Wirecutter have been loosed!

Pour yourself some eggnog. Tomorrow’s the official start of holiday music season. (At least in my house.)

GAMES

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

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

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. I’m off for the next few days and will see you on Tuesday morning. — Sam

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

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

[phkrause]

November 28, 2025

Good morning. We hope you’re all recovering from Thanksgiving. For Black Friday, I’m handing off today’s newsletter to Kailyn Rhone, a business reporter tracking a surprising trend among Gen Z shoppers. — Sam

But first, here’s what’s going on today: One of the National Guard members shot in Washington has died. Our reporters are digging into the suspect’s life. And the death toll from a fire in Hong Kong has risen to at least 128 people. Plus, the pope is in Turkey on his first international trip.

We’ll get to all of that, and more, below.

Ella Henry inspired her family to thrift. Brett Carlsen for The New York Times

What Gen Z buys

	By Kailyn Rhone I cover retail and personal finance.

Last year, Ella Henry bought all her holiday gifts secondhand. Henry, a 21-year-old student at Western Kentucky University, wanted to save money. But she ended up loving the hunt and the surprise of finding things she’d never see in a regular store. This year, her family took inspiration from her: All their Secret Santa gifts must be purchased secondhand.

Today, on Black Friday, many Gen Z shoppers won’t be scouring luxury stores or big-box aisles for their gifts. Instead, they are turning to thrift stores, consignment shops and resale apps. About 86 percent of Gen Z-ers say they’re more likely to purchase a secondhand holiday gift this year than they would have been, according to a report from eBay.

One reason is money. Gen Z-ers’ holiday spending this year is expected to fall 23 percent, according to recent research, so a used sweater from a big brand that costs less and lasts longer feels like a win.

But it’s not just about saving cash. The shoppers in this cohort — age 13 to 28 — are after pieces with character. They grew up on social media, where influencers made thrifting look fun, stylish and deeply personal. Now they want something unique. Something with a story. Something you can’t find in a mall window.

Tracking a trend

Ike Abakah for The New York Times

This didn’t happen overnight. Pandemic lockdowns “absolutely accelerated” the trend, said Danielle Vermeer, the head of product at ThredUp, an online secondhand marketplace. Young people scrolled TikTok and saw environmental and labor critiques of fast fashion. They missed going places, doing something tactile and finding joy offline. When infections slowed, thrifting delivered all of that: sustainability, nostalgia, community and a reason to leave the house again.

Social media helped. Thrift hauls, closet clean-outs and $20 thrift store challenges rack up millions of views. The chief executives of BaseCamp Franchising, the parent company of resale firms, said teens show up in stores and film the entire outing. There’s a flood of posts tagged #Thriftmas and #ThriftHaul.

No wonder Gen Z buyers have increased in the last year at Goodwill and the RealReal (a luxury resale marketplace). Sellers are there, too, offering up their own clothes for extra spending money. “I’ve been thrifting for over 20 years, and it was definitely not cool when I was a teenager,” Vermeer said. “That’s the energy Gen Z brings to secondhand.”

Throwback fashion

Hannah Moffitt, 25, is a content creator. Ike Abakah for The New York Times

Another impetus is the return of older styles. Jasmine Simpson, a 25-year-old social media specialist, loves discovering clothes and jewelry in Brooklyn that channel the early 2000s — think TLC, Destiny’s Child, old-school denim or anything that looks as if it could’ve been in a music video. Her favorite score? A fur coat for $40.

Last Christmas, her sister gave her secondhand Chanel shoes for around $325, and this year she wants to return the favor. She’ll start her hunt online this weekend and then, if nothing turns up, shift to brick-and-mortar thrift stores.

For years, Hannah Moffitt, a 25-year-old content creator in Hartford, Conn., took a dim view of thrifting. Her local Goodwill never had clothes in her size, and the store felt messy, she said. But a spontaneous trip to Savers with her fiancé, who grew up loving secondhand stores, changed her view.

Now she shops mostly secondhand or from small businesses, and her gift list has shifted, too. Last year, she split her holiday shopping between thrift stores and big-box stores. This year, she wants to go fully secondhand — right down to the wrapping paper and the boxes. She and her fiancé even plan to thrift their wedding décor.

“One man’s trash is another’s treasure,” she said.

For more

How well do you know Black Friday? Take our quiz. Prices are higher and the job market is weakening, but holiday spending could keep the economy humming.

BLACK FRIDAY DEALS

You’re going to be bombarded with sales today. Many of them are balderdash.

According to Wirecutter, most Black Friday deals are overhyped discounts on mediocre products. What gives? Well, retailers often manipulate the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, or M.S.R.P., to exaggerate discounts, especially during Black Friday. Wirecutter journalists track prices all year so they can compare today’s “deal” prices against what you would pay normally, without price manipulation.

They have already scrutinized nearly 185,000 supposed Black Friday discounts, and only about 1,700 — that’s less than 1 percent — have gotten the seal of approval. You can find the deals that meet this high bar here.

And no product is even considered unless it has been tested and approved by Wirecutter’s experts. They’re working today to find the best deals in their areas of expertise. Read about:

The best deals on makeup and skin care. The best deals Apple products (which rarely go on sale). Deals on Wirecutter’s favorite luggage and travel gear. And everything Wirecutter journalists are thinking of buying for themselves.

Let us help you: For an upcoming edition of The Morning, Wirecutter’s gifting editor will help readers find presents for people who are impossible to shop for. Send us your gifting conundrums here.

THE LATEST NEWS

National Guard Shooting

Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director.  Eric Lee for The New York Times

Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was the National Guard member who died yesterday after being shot in Washington. President Trump called her family. The other service member is in critical condition. The suspect in the shooting was raised in a village in Afghanistan. He later served the U.S. military in a unit that worked with the C.I.A. and was focused on clandestine missions. Human rights groups described such units as “death squads.” A childhood friend of the suspect said that he had suffered from mental health issues and was disturbed by the casualties his unit had caused. Trump is using the shooting to spread suspicion of refugees.

Hong Kong Fire

Wang Fuk Court in Hong Kong. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

The death toll in the fire at the Wang Fuk Court apartment towers is at least 128, and hope of finding survivors has dwindled. Many residents of the densely packed high-rises are still unaccounted for. They are believed to have been trapped on the upper floors of the buildings. Survivors said they had no warnings, and some barely escaped in time.

War in Ukraine

European leaders were blindsided by Trump’s proposal to end the war in Ukraine. They scrambled to have a say in it. A property tied to Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff and Ukraine’s lead negotiator on the peace plan was searched as part of a sweeping corruption investigation.

More International News

Pope Leo in Ankara, Turkey. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

Pope Leo will meet with the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Turkey, an attempt to bridge ancient divides. See images from his first international trip. Canada eased environmental laws to allow a new oil pipeline in Alberta. The Louvre will raise ticket prices by 45 percent for tourists from outside the European Economic Area, including Americans, to help fund an overhaul of the museum. People in Britain think immigration is up, but it’s actually way down.

OPINIONS

The shooting of two National Guard members in Washington is a uniquely American tragedy. Political violence has become alarmingly regular in the U.S., the editorial board writes.

Fifty years after the death of Gen. Francisco Franco, the far-right Spanish dictator, he has become punk — a sign of rebellion. Schools should do better to show who he really was, Paco Cerdà writes.

Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience.

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

MORNING READS

In 1958. Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos, via Getty Images

Throwback: The transportation secretary is longing for the “golden age” of air travel — fewer sweats, more decorum. What did that look like?

Talk it out: Six women in their 70s have been friends for decades. Read how they’ve stayed close.

Still in N.Y.C.? People are gone, so it’s easier to get a restaurant booking.

A debate: The Michelin Guides honored the Philly cheesesteak. But not all Philadelphians cheered.

Love, again: At 90 and 83, they got married after a whirlwind romance.

“Slow food”: Skye Gyngell was a London-based chef who pioneered a sustainable cooking movement and was the first Australian woman to be awarded a Michelin star. She died at 62.

TODAY’S NUMBER

$275

— That’s about how much a 30-day supply of Ozempic will cost under the Trump administration’s new, lower Medicare drug prices. The current list price is about $1,000.

SPORTS

N.F.L.: Joe Burrow returned after an injury and led the Cincinnati Bengals to a win over the Baltimore Ravens in his first start since Week 2. In other Thanksgiving Day action, the Dallas Cowboys rallied past the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Green Bay Packers earned a huge road win in Detroit.

N.F.L.: Post Malone paid tribute to the late Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland during his halftime performance at the Cowboys-Chiefs game.

JANE AUSTEN FANDOM

Caroline Gutman for The New York Times

Jane Austen is about to turn 250 years old. And her most ardent fans (known as “Janeites,” a term itself coined some 130 years ago) are going bananas for her upcoming birthday party.

There are Austen-themed parades, jamborees and exhibits galore. In her native England, the festivities will culminate in the Yuletide Jane Austen Birthday Ball on Dec. 13. (Tickets are already sold out.) But the vastness of the Austen-industrial complex means that if you want to show your love for her, you can, Sarah Lyall writes. Sarah’s reporting took her to Bath, England, and Baltimore. She also saw two exhibits and two plays; re-read six novels; purchased a handbag made to look like a copy of “Pride and Prejudice”; and tried on a Regency bonnet.

More on culture

Charli XCX  Amir Hamja for The New York Times

Charli XCX released a new song recently to accompany the movie “Wuthering Heights.” Our music critic Lindsay Zoladz thinks you should listen to it, like, right now. Apple TV pulled its series “The Hunt” days before it was scheduled to debut, after its director was accused of plagiarizing key elements of the show from a little-known 1973 novel. The authorities in Vienna have ordered the seizure of a rediscovered painting of an African prince by Gustav Klimt because Hungary said it had been improperly exported. John Tesh, the composer of the N.B.A. theme song “Roundball Rock,” has also been a musician, host, sports commentator and author. He also sells prayer courses on his website. Read how he keeps bouncing back into American culture.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Kia Damon’s turkey fried rice. Nico Schinco for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Kaitlin Wayne.

Make turkey fried rice with your leftovers.

Watch the documentary “Teenage Wasteland.” It has it all — high school journos who outdo the pros; environmental advocates who press polluters; an oddball teacher who leaves a mark on his pupils, according to our critic Ben Kenigsberg.

Take our news quiz — this week, it’s a special edition on the year in food news.

GAMES

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

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 incorrectly stated that the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys always play each other on Thanksgiving. Both teams always play on Thanksgiving; they just don’t play each other.

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

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

[phkrause]

November 29, 2025

Good morning. As the year comes to a close, we want to know your highly specific, idiosyncratic bests of 2025.

María Jesús Contreras

Highlight reel

	By Melissa Kirsch

The weekend after Thanksgiving makes a strong claim for the coziest weekend of the year. It’s getting properly chilly if you live in a place that gets chilly. (And if you don’t, stop taunting the rest of us!) If you’re lucky, you’ve had a couple of days off work and there are a couple more to go. There are still leftovers for every meal if you can stomach them, the stuffing getting ever gluier and strangely more delicious each hour it spends in the fridge. Sales beckon, streaming options abound (I’m eyeing the documentary “Downey Wrote That”). Hopefully the characters assembled are remaining on their best holiday behavior and you can get some serious relaxing in.

It’s the time of year when I crave recommendations. Critics will soon be issuing their choices for the best movies, music, books and TV shows from the year, but what I want — what I always want — is people’s favorite things that don’t fall into easy categories. Our lives don’t break down according to genre, our tastes don’t confine themselves to mediums. And while of course we want ideas for what we should watch and read and listen to, we also want recommendations for how to live: how to live better and more fully, with more curiosity and excitement.

That’s where our annual Morning tradition comes in. Every year, I invite you to send me your category-agnostic, superspecific, idiosyncratic bests of the past 12 months. What was the best change you made to your routine? What was the best seasoning combo you devised to put on popcorn? What was the most illuminating thing you realized about the nature of existence? The best bit of conversation you overheard? Your best strategy for combating the Sunday scaries? Best new mantra? Best parlor game you made up? You get the picture.

Submit your list here, and I’ll include as many of the best of the bests as I can in upcoming newsletters. Be creative! Invent categories no one on earth has ever dreamed of before. Tell us what you loved, what you learned, how you changed. You’re the critic of your own experiences, and we want to know what you discovered.

For more

Check out readers’ favorites from past years. The best advice Morning readers received in 2024, 2023 and 2022. And last year, listeners of “The Daily” called in with their words of wisdom.

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

President Trump on Thursday. Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

President Trump announced that he would pardon a former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in the U.S. as part of a far-reaching drug trafficking scheme. As the U.S. threatened military action against Venezuela last week, Trump spoke by phone with President Nicolás Maduro and discussed a possible meeting. After the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, the U.S. paused all asylum decisions and stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan.

Hong Kong Fire

More than a year ago, residents complained to the authorities that a renovation project at Wang Fuk Court did not meet safety standards. A fire at the apartment complex this week killed at least 128 people. A survivor gave The Times a harrowing account of the two hours he spent in the burning building.

More International News

The top aide to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, resigned as part of an ongoing corruption investigation, further weakening his team as peace negotiations continue. Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank after they appeared to surrender, videos showed. The Israeli authorities say they are investigating the shooting. Three Austrian nuns escaped a retirement home and broke into the convent where they had lived for decades. A church official says they can stay there, as long as they give up social media.

Other Big Stories

A five-day rally in the stock market has reversed a recent downturn, pushing the S&P 500 index near a record high. A storm bringing heavy snow and sleet could disrupt travel for the Northern Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes through the weekend.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Film and TV

“Stranger Things” became a hit in part because it skillfully repurposed vintage pop-culture parts. Its approach has come to define the streaming era. Dads are having a rough time onscreen this season: In “One Battle After Another,” “Springsteen” and “Ella McCay,” patriarchs are depicted as emotionally stunted — or worse. In his latest knockout, “The Secret Agent,” the Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho finds laughter amid the terror, our film critic writes.

Music

John Holiday is his own singer, equal parts baroque and R&B. His performances this season range from Handel’s “Messiah” to a gender-bending role in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.” Donald Glover, the actor and musician, revealed that he had a stroke last year, which led him to abandon his world tour. At 95, David Amram still makes music. Jazz, classical, folk, you name it — for this composer, categories were never confining.

More Culture

When the potter Ladi Kwali was alive, her genius was recognized around the world. (Her face even appears on Nigerian currency.) Why, then, is her work rarely seen? A new wave of sculpture parks is redefining art viewership. See where they are and what they look like. St. Ann’s Warehouse has provided a bounty of bizarre and revelatory moments in New York theater. Its rock ’n’ roll energy is unmatched, the critic Ben Brantley writes.

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CULTURE CALENDAR

	By Alexis Soloski

? “The Chair Company” (Season finale on Sunday): Tim Robinson (“Friendship,” “I Think You Should Leave”), a beautiful weirdo and a bard of male agitation, has reached his apotheosis with this HBO series, which concludes its first season tomorrow. An absurdist comedy and a thriller parody, its fulcrum is the familiar schizoid conundrum: Is it paranoia if you’re right? Robinson stars as Ron Trosper, a project lead in mall development who falls down the rabbit hole when a chair collapses under him. That corporate conspiracy had seemed to resolve in the penultimate episode, but the finale stays the bizarro course. Even stranger, the show has been renewed for a second season.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

By Melissa Clark

Taverna Salad

You did it: You nailed Thanksgiving! Now take a beat before the December holidays pick up steam. Make this weekend all about spending some quality quiet time on your couch with your book, your shows, your pets, your fuzzy socks — whatever feels the coziest. And for dinner, toss together Lidey Heuck’s taverna salad. This vibrant mix of tomatoes, bell pepper and cucumbers is anchored by seared halloumi and toasted pita, and tossed with a pungent, herby red wine vinegar dressing. It’s the bright and tangy reset we all need.

REAL ESTATE

Chrissy Spivey and John Richie with their daughter and Spivey’s mother, Annie Spivey, in Brooklyn. Graham Dickie for The New York Times

The Hunt: When their apartment became too cramped, a young family looked for a house in central Brooklyn where they could spread out. Which home did they choose? Play our game.

What you get for $425,000: an American Foursquare house in Pittsburgh, a house with gingerbread trim in Cincinnati or a renovated 1865 farmhouse in Kentucky.

On set: A location scout explains how she finds the right setting for shows and films. “Not everything needs to be beautiful and perfect,” she says. “You still need murder shoots.”

LIVING

Simpson Bay Beach. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Frugal traveler: On a volcanic Caribbean isle, 37 beaches and endless views.

Ask Well: Is it OK to binge-drink occasionally?

Fighting, again: The comedian Vir Das, whose jokes earned him an official rebuke from India’s Parliament, has taken up boxing. He says it’s “good prep for adversity.”

Half-empty tours: Things were looking up at Navajo Nation parks. Then their lifeblood, foreign visitors, slowed to a trickle.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

How to find (actually good) tech deals

Trump’s tariffs, and the uncertainty that comes with them, have made this a strange year to shop for tech. We’ve seen rising prices on many electronics, even in the days leading up to big sales events like Black Friday. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find some decent discounts. Our suggestion is to consider previous-generation tech — especially when laptops, headphones and phones are concerned. Many perform just as well as their newer counterparts, and they’re often much cheaper. We’ve also been tracking prices all year to help sort out which advertised discounts are actual sales. These are the best early Cyber Monday deals we’re seeing on some of our favorite electronics.

GAME OF THE WEEK

Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar and Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia. John Raoux/AP, George Walker Iv/AP

No. 14 Vanderbilt vs. No. 19 Tennessee, college football: It’s rivalry week. Michigan vs. Ohio State is a highlight today; Texas vs. Texas A&M was a fun one last night. (Texas gave No. 3-ranked A&M its first loss of the season, 27-17.) The Athletic ranked the sport’s best rivalries here. But in the interest of zagging, let’s focus on this less heralded feud in the Volunteer State.

Vanderbilt and Tennessee, separated by a three-hour drive on I-40, have been playing against each other since 1892. Today’s meeting is “the biggest game in the history of this rivalry,”Justin Williams writes for The Athletic. It’s the first one in which both teams are ranked, and a rare one in which Vanderbilt has more to play for. The Commodores are on the bubble for the College Football Playoff, and on the cusp of their first-ever 10-win season. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt’s quarterback, is a big reason: Last week he set a school record with 484 passing yards, scored six touchdowns and gleefully struck the Heisman pose.

Today at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were nondairy and ordinary.

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.

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

[phkrause]

November 30, 2025

Good morning. Today, we’re looking at the dangers of e-bikes. Injuries and deaths are rising — but the law hasn’t kept up.

Near Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, Calif. Balazs Gardi for The New York Times

Bearing down

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

Sometimes I bike to work. It’s a 12-mile workout alongside the Potomac River — a lovely route. I pedal hard. But a few times per ride, I get a shock: An e-bike zooms past me like an angry locomotive, doing almost 30 miles per hour. It’s always another commuter, like me, schlepping his laptop and shoes to work in a backpack. I wonder each time: What happens if you crash at that speed?

The Times Magazine answered that question today. E-bikes are heavy and fast — in some ways closer to a motorcycle than a manual two-wheeler — and they’ve proliferated in the last few years. So have the injuries associated with them, rising by a factor of 10. Policymakers haven’t caught up. I spoke to David Darlington, a freelance journalist who wrote about the issue.

It seems like a good thing that a popular new tech is getting us out of our cars and homes more, no?

E-bikes are awesome. They’re fun to ride, they ease the pain of hills and headwinds, and they’re already cutting demand for oil by a million barrels per day — four times as much as all the world’s electric cars.

But people need to be educated, not just about e-bikes but safe cycling practices in general. The author of one study told me that Americans think of bicycles as toys: They aren’t taken seriously as vehicles, so they don’t require licenses or “driver’s manuals.” But many of the new devices — still defined as “low-speed bicycles” under the law — have powerful motors and travel at speeds that are dangerous for inexperienced riders.

How scared should we be?

Some devices are more menacing than others. The scariest are “e-motos,” which look like mini-motorcycles and aren’t legal e-bikes at all. I profiled a high school student, Amelia Stafford, who went for a short ride on a friend’s e-moto and ended up with a traumatic brain injury. Pedestrians have been killed when speeding riders ran into them.

Is that because riders go so much faster? The top allowed speed is 28 miles per hour.

That class of bike is supposed to stay on the road, though enforcement is practically nonexistent. The ones that go 20 m.p.h. are allowed in bike lanes, but even those are faster than “analog” bikes — and the motor can often be “unlocked” to exceed those speeds, hitting 45 m.p.h. and more. Plus, e-bikes usually weigh more than 50 pounds. That’s a lot of inertia, even at a legal speed. So the result is more gruesome when they get out of control. One hospital in Marin County, Calif., studied the crashes there and found that the chance of dying from a conventional bike crash is less than 1 percent, but for e-bikes it was 11 percent.

What are the rules for e-bikes?

There are few federal laws other than limiting the top speed to 28 m.p.h. (In Europe, it’s 15.5 m.p.h.) Aside from that, states and counties and cities come up with their own rules. You might be required to wear a helmet, or stay out of public parks, or refrain from operating an e-bike with a hand throttle (as opposed to getting a boost only when you pedal) in your town. But if you venture into the next town, none of that may apply.

Safety advocates are pressing for tougher rules. Is this the beginning of the sort of crusade that brought us seatbelts? What does the movement look like?

Matt Willis, who was Marin County’s public health officer at the time of Amelia Stafford’s crash there, told me, “The technology has moved forward way faster than our ability to measure its impact or develop sensible regulation.” Monica Stafford, Amelia’s mom, thinks that management of e-bikes is at an embryonic stage of development — like automobiles 100 years ago. (Although electric bikes were invented before cars!)

Read David’s piece and learn what happened to Amelia Stafford.

THE LATEST NEWS

International

An Afghan refugee in Pakistan. Asim Hafeez for The New York Times

Pakistan, increasingly fed up with the Taliban, has expelled about one million Afghans this year. Many have never lived in Afghanistan and face a worsening humanitarian crisis there. In Indonesia, hundreds of people are missing after deadly floods. It’s part of a bigger disaster; across Southeast Asia, extreme weather has killed hundreds and displaced millions this month. In Lebanon, Pope Leo is set to meet political leaders and say Mass at a Beirut port destroyed by an explosion five years ago. Lebanese Christians are excited to welcome him.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has asked his country’s president for a pardon in his corruption cases. The request comes after President Trump asked Israel’s president to pardon Netanyahu.

War in Ukraine

Trump’s top aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are expected to meet with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida today to discuss a possible peace plan. The meeting comes a day after Russia pummeled Ukraine with drones and missiles in an attack lasting nearly 10 hours. Ukraine says at least 1,700 of its civilians are in Russian captivity. While there is an established channel for exchanging prisoners of war, captured civilians are a different story. The South African government is investigating how more than a dozen men from the country ended up fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

Climate Change

A jogger near India Gate in New Delhi. Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

New Delhi’s toxic air pollution is making people sick. See the smog, and the city’s response, in these images. Scientists and politicians say they are losing the information war to oil and gas companies that want to downplay the role of fossil fuels in heating the planet. Zillow, the real estate website, has removed climate risk ratings from its home listings after real estate agents complained that the feature hurt sales.

Politics

The plans for Trump’s ballroom at the White House keep getting bigger. He told workers that they did not need to follow permitting requirements. David Sacks, the White House “crypto czar,” has helped create A.I. policies that benefit himself and his friends. Trump warned airlines and pilots that the airspace near Venezuela was closed, ratcheting up what his administration has characterized as a war against drug cartels. Zohran Mamdani, once a sharp critic of police surveillance, will soon oversee it for New York City. Democrats focused on affordability to win upsets in Georgia and Virginia. Can the same playbook work in the 2026 midterms?

Other Big Stories

A shooting at a banquet hall yesterday in Central Valley, Calif., left four people dead and 10 others injured. The event was believed to be a family gathering, and officials are still looking for a suspect. A town in West Virginia is grieving the death of a National Guard member in a shooting last week near the White House.

FROM OPINION

If you want to safeguard your thoughts from A.I., keep a physical diary, Lily Koppel suggests.

The search for perfection is stunting our society. Greatness is found through discovery and uncertainty, Jonathan Biss writes.

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MORNING READS

In Brooklyn. Jane Kim for The New York Times

Something white: Wedding attire isn’t cheap. Some women are swapping gowns instead of buying new.

Quarter-zip lifestyle: One of the stodgiest garments in the Western wardrobe has caught on with the Nike Tech crowd. Blame TikTok.

Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked article yesterday was about a Brooklyn family’s search for a new home.

Vows: Senator Cory Booker celebrated his marriage to Alexis Lewis in an intimate ceremony in Washington, D.C.

A playwright: Tom Stoppard, whose work included “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and “The Coast of Utopia” and explored complex philosophical topics across continents and centuries, has died. He was 88.

SPORTS

College football: Ohio State ended its four-game losing streak against Michigan with a 27-9 win. Elsewhere in Rivalry Week, Alabama survived a scare against Auburn in the Iron Bowl, and Oklahoma beat L.S.U.

N.F.L.: The Detroit Lions’ former center, Frank Ragnow, will not come out of retirement after a physical revealed a severe hamstring injury. The news dashed hopes that he could help revive the team.

M.L.S.: Tadeo Allende scored a hat trick to lead Inter Miami to a 5-1 rout of New York City F.C. The team, led by Lionel Messi, now heads to the M.L.S. Cup final for the first time, where it will face Vancouver.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

	By Elisabeth Egan

“The Correspondent,” by Virginia Evans: The word-of-mouth best seller of 2025 might be this quietly dazzling epistolary novel, which calls to mind Susie Boyt’s “Loved and Missed,” another book that was passed around like a beloved recipe. Meet Sybil Van Antwerp, an exacting septuagenarian who interacts with the world almost exclusively through letters. Peer over her shoulder as she fires off missives to her garden club, her grown children, former colleagues, famous authors — and one recipient whose message raises more questions than it answers. Note by note, Sybil’s world takes shape, raising poignant, timely questions about mercy and how we’re all connected.

More on books

See the Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of 2025. Need help navigating the bounty? Go here.

THE INTERVIEW

Simon Cowell David Vintiner for The New York Times

	By Lulu Garcia-Navarro

This week’s subject for The Interview is Simon Cowell, the famously caustic judge from “American Idol” and “The X Factor.” I visited Cowell this month at his home in southwest London, where we talked about his new Netflix show, “Simon Cowell: The Next Act,” how he’s mellowed with age and how he’s grappled with the death of Liam Payne, whom he discovered on “The X Factor” and cast in the megafamous boy band One Direction.

In your new show, you’re looking for a new boy band to launch, and in the midst of filming, you receive the news of Liam Payne’s death. Can you tell me how you heard and what you did to process the loss? And I know this is painful, so thank you.

Of course we’re going to talk about it. Somebody who works with me very closely came into my room. I was up in the north of England, and I could tell by the look of her face that she was upset. She said, “Sit down,” and she told me. And it was like — wow. It was a bit like I felt when I heard the news when my dad passed away. It’s very difficult to put into words how you feel. It’s just shock. At that point, you’re not really thinking clearly. I just remember saying: “I really need to speak to his mum and dad. Can you get them on the phone as soon as possible please?” Because, God, as a parent, what that must have felt like.

Since that happened, there has been a lot of reporting on One Direction — the drugs, the alcohol. Liam said on the podcast “Diary of a C.E.O.” in 2021 that, and I’m quoting here: “When we were in the band, the best way to secure us because of how big it got was just to lock us in our room. And of course, what’s in the room? Mini bar.” He talked about struggling. Did you know about that at the time?

A little bit. There was stuff I never would have spoken about then, private conversations and advice I tried to give him, which is what comes with fame, etc. But you’re signing a lot of artists, and when you sign an artist, my role is, essentially, get them with the right production team, get the managers and try and make them successful. It is a little bit like they leave the nest. My job is to run the label. And you just hope that they are successful and happy.

But when you signed them, they were kids. It must be a different type of relationship that they have with someone like you, who was also a judge and brought them together. Is it a complicated role you have with someone who is so young?

It’s always complicated. I don’t know whether it’s more complicated when they’re young or when someone who has had success then hasn’t had success and comes back and wants a second chance. I mean, every time it’s different.

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

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

Read this week’s magazine.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

See the best Black Friday deals that are still going on.

Give this affordable J.Crew sweater as a gift.

Read “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” in honor of Stoppard. Our review in 1967 called it “very funny, very brilliant, very chilling.”

MEAL PLAN

Madhur Jaffrey’s Goan shrimp curry. David Malosh for The New York Times

In her Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein recommended meals like Goan curry shrimp, sweet and sour eggplant and one-pot chicken and rice that contrast with all of the food you ate on Thanksgiving.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

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

Can you put eight historical events — including the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Peter the Great’s beard tax and the first recorded jokes — 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.

Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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