Sala Wanetick and Emily Biegas make their New York Times debut.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — We have interesting ways of talking about distance in English. A destination might be described as a “stone’s throw away,” two people can stand in mere “spitting distance” from each other and unpleasant things are not to be touched with a “10-foot pole.”Another such phrase lies at the heart of today’s crossword, constructed by Sala Wanetick and Emily Biegas. To what lengths must you go in order to discover it? The answer is just around the corner.Today’s ThemeAt 65-Across, a phrase meaning [Short distance to travel] doubles as a hint to 17-, 27- and 49-Across. That’s a HOP, SKIP AND A JUMP — an impressively long entry for such a short distance. But what’s this hint business about?Let’s cover our theme set. A certain [Song character who comes “down the bunny trail”] is PETER COTTONTAIL (17A). You can describe [Someone who says the same thing again and again, metaphorically] as a BROKEN RECORD (27A). And [One having an ice time at the Olympics?] is a FIGURE SKATER (49A), which I resent myself for chuckling at.You’ve probably solved plenty of crossword puzzles in which the revealer applied to all of the themed entries. There’s a fresh twist here: Each word in the revealer describes only one themed entry, and the phrase moves consecutively through the grid. PETER COTTONTAIL can HOP, a BROKEN RECORD is said to SKIP and a FIGURE SKATER can perform a JUMP.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel failed to win a majority in the past three elections — but still held onto power. The ground has shifted.JERUSALEM — Naftali Bennett, the leader of a hard-right political party, stood before television cameras and pledged never to share power with Yair Lapid, a centrist, and Mansour Abbas, an Islamist. It was March 22, the day before Israel’s fourth election in two years.Yet late Wednesday night, just 72 days later, there was Mr. Bennett, sitting down beside both Mr. Abbas and Mr. Lapid and signing a deal that, pending a confidence vote in Parliament later this month, would see all three unite in the first government since 2009 that won’t be led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Through three consecutive elections between April 2019 and March 2020, Mr. Netanyahu had kept them all at bay. He may have failed to win an overall majority himself, but he clung to power by exacerbating divisions within Israel’s ideologically diffuse opposition, ensuring that they, too, would fail to build a majority coalition.The question of what changed since a fourth inconclusive election in March — and why — has several answers, both systemic and circumstantial.Mr. Lapid’s dexterity in constructing a somewhat gravity defying coalition has certainly been a factor. But Mr. Netanyahu himself played a crucial role, alienating former far-right allies and causing concern with his refusal to step down while facing trial on corruption charges. Yair Lapid, the centrist architect of the deal, in Tel Aviv last month.Oded Balilty/Associated PressThe reasons are also rooted in a combination of personal and political judgments by nationalist power brokers like Mr. Bennett. Even if Mr. Bennett had stuck by Mr. Netanyahu, his support would not have been enough to give Mr. Netanyahu a majority. That meant that Mr. Bennett was left with either joining the opposition or sending Israel to a fifth election in little more than two years — a vote that some analysts predict would deal a serious blow to his party.Hard-right parties have also been tempted by the prospect of senior positions within a new government; Mr. Bennett will be the prime minister, despite leading a party with only seven seats in the 120-seat Parliament.“There is a mix of national duty, and also political and sometimes personal considerations,” said Dani Dayan, a former Israeli ambassador who ran unsuccessfully in the election for New Hope, a hard-right party led by former allies of Mr. Netanyahu, that is part of the new coalition. “You know, politics is not always free of cynical considerations.”But right-wing leaders have also made patriotic arguments for finally replacing Mr. Netanyahu. In the face of sustained intimidation and anger from their base, they have said that they have a responsibility to work with their ideological opposites in order to wrest Israel from a cycle of endless elections and entropy. The country has suffered in a limbo that has left Israelis without a state budget for almost two years, and with several crucial civil service positions unfilled.Sitting in her office in Parliament this week, Idit Silman, a lawmaker from Mr. Bennett’s party, flicked through hundreds of recent text messages from unknown numbers.Some were laced with abusive language. Some warned she was going to hell. All of them demanded that her party abandon the coalition, accusing her of giving up her ideals by allying with leftists, centrists and Islamists to oust Mr. Netanyahu.And it has not just come by phone.When Ms. Silman turned up at her local synagogue recently, she found several professionally designed posters outside, each with her portrait overlaid with the slogan: “Idit Silman stitched together a government with terror supporters.”For days, protesters have also picketed her home, shouted abuse at her children and trailed her by car in a menacing fashion, she said.Right-wing protesters rallying in Tel Aviv on Thursday against the formation of a new government. A sign reads: “Don’t give your hand to a left-wing government.”Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressOn a personal level, it would be easier to pull out of the coalition, Ms. Silman said. But she felt it was patriotic to remain within it.“I’m sure that we are doing something that is very important for our country,” she said.The level of aggression directed at Ms. Silman and her allies on the right highlighted how Mr. Netanyahu has very much not given up hope of remaining in office, and could still ward off this challenge to his leadership.Part of the anger is organic. But part of it has been encouraged by Mr. Netanyahu and members of the Likud party themselves. On Thursday, Likud tweeted the home address of Ayelet Shaked, a leading member of Mr. Bennett’s party, Yamina, and encouraged its supporters to protest outside.Likud members themselves acknowledge that the aim is to persuade enough members of the coalition to abandon it before the confidence vote in Parliament.“Behind the scenes,” said a senior Likud official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, “the Likud party is ramping up the pressure, particularly on the weakest links.”The pressure was already taking hold on Thursday, as an official from the Yamina party said that one of its seven lawmakers, Nir Orbach, had asked for his signature to be removed from the list of those seeking to replace the speaker of Parliament, a Likud member, with a member of the new coalition. That decision could allow the speaker, Yariv Levin, to remain in his position, which will allow Likud to control parliamentary proceedings throughout the crucial next week, and potentially delay the confidence vote on the new government until Monday, June 14.Once the opposition’s full agreements are disclosed publicly, Likud will also create another obstacle by subjecting them to legal scrutiny and potentially to legal challenge, said Miki Zohar, chairman of the Likud parliamentary faction.Yariv Levin, Israel’s parliament speaker, remains in office for now.Pool photo by Alex KolomoiskyFew in the hard-right might have countenanced working with leftist, centrist and Islamist lawmakers without the diplomacy of Mr. Lapid, the linchpin of the coalition negotiations.While Mr. Bennett will be the formal leader of the coalition, it could not have been formed without Mr. Lapid, who has spent months cajoling its various incompatible components toward an 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a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}To secure Mr. Bennett’s involvement, Mr. Lapid even gave him first go at the premiership, even though Mr. Lapid’s party won 10 more seats than Mr. Bennett’s.“Lapid gets the most credit here out of everyone,” said Mitchell Barak, a political analyst and pollster. “He’s really pulling all the strings here, and he’s the one who’s compromised, personally, many times.”But for some, the real architect of Mr. Netanyahu’s potential downfall is Mr. Netanyahu himself.Three of the eight parties in the new coalition are led by hard-right lawmakers who were once key allies of the prime minister. Two of them — Mr. Bennett and Avigdor Liberman — were even chiefs of staff to Mr. Netanyahu.A third, Gideon Saar, is a former senior Likud member who left the party following prolonged disagreements with Mr. Netanyahu last year. Mr. Saar took with him a small but pivotal number of Likud voters — winning just six seats in the recent election, but enough to prevent Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc from winning a majority.Mr. Bennett and Mr. Liberman fell out with Mr. Netanyahu for personal reasons, but Mr. Saar left in protest at the prime minister’s refusal to step down despite standing trial on corruption charges.“If you look at Netanyahu’s greatest nemeses in this whole thing, they are people that worked for him,” one former aide said.Alex Wong/Getty Images“If you look at Netanyahu’s greatest nemeses in this whole thing, they are people that worked for him,” said Mr. Barak, himself a former aide to Mr. Netanyahu who parted ways in the 1990s. “It’s not just the public who are tired,” he said. “It’s people that worked for him who are tired.”And it was Mr. Netanyahu who made other political factions feel it was acceptable to work with Arab politicians like Mansour Abbas, the Islamist leader, without whom the coalition could not have been formed.For years, parties run by Palestinian citizens of Israel, and their constituents, were seen as unworthy and untrustworthy partners by the Jewish political establishment.In 2015, Mr. Netanyahu cited the threat of relatively high Arab turnout to scare his base into voting. And in 2020, he goaded a centrist rival, Benny Gantz, into refusing to form a government based on the support of Arab parties, painting them as extremists.But desperate for votes during the election campaign in March, Mr. Netanyahu changed course, vigorously campaigning in Arab towns.That has given hard-right politicians like Mr. Bennett, who never previously considered allying with Arab lawmakers, the political cover to join forces with them, said Ofer Zalzberg, director of the Middle East Program at the Herbert C. Kelman Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group.“A certain taboo is broken” that will have long-term consequences, Mr. Zalzberg said. “It will be very difficult to backpedal from that. And it opens the door for new scenarios of Israeli coalition building in the future.”Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting. More

Alex Eaton-Salners crosses the floor.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Of the many desks that make up The New York Times, Games is one of the few that doesn’t cover politics in any form or fashion. In the ocean of political discourse, we aim to be an atoll of apoliticsm. A flotilla of frivolity. A lighthouse of levity. What was my point again?Ah, yes: Today’s crossword, constructed by Alex Eaton-Salners, represents a minor deviation from our usual escapism. Its theme hinges on [Political configurations] with present-day relevance, and I recognize that it may inspire conversation on the subject. I must ask, however, that you please keep any discussions in the comments to thoughts on the crossword puzzle — for congeniality’s sake, but also because our EMUs (electronic moderation units) tend to gobble up anything that veers off course.Today’s ThemeThe [Political configurations suggested by the answers (and their circled letters) at 17-, 24-, 50- and 61-Across] are TWO-PARTY SYSTEMS. This phrase refers to each of the cited entries, in which two kinds of parties are represented — one is in circled letters, and the other is the entry in full.For example, a [Brand of kitchen storage containers] is TUPPERWARE (17A), which made up the centerpiece of many a midcentury social affair. The circled letters in this entry spell TEA — another kind of party, political or otherwise. Farther down, the HALLOWEEN party at 50A is [When the skeletons in one’s closet might be brought out]. Circled letters give us the HEN party, another name for a bachelorette celebration that’s used primarily in the United Kingdom (I knew this only thanks to a recent marathon of a U.K.-based installment of “Love is Blind,” which I didn’t not spend several days watching last week.)Other entries name political parties outright, like SOCIALIST (24A) and FEDERALIST (61A). These feel less inspired to me than the parties I mentioned above, but with the colorful inclusion of CAST parties and FRAT parties, Mr. Eaton-Salners still has my vote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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Justice Arthur Engoron imposed a narrow gag order on Donald Trump. Right-wing allies are going after the judge on his behalf, through official channels and online.Representative Elise Stefanik, a member of the House Republican leadership and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, filed an ethics complaint Friday attacking the judge presiding over Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial, the latest salvo in a right-wing war against the case.Echoing the courtroom rhetoric of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the letter complains that the Democratic judge, Arthur F. Engoron, has been biased against the former president, who testified this week in New York State Supreme Court. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, has accused Mr. Trump of fraudulent business practices, and in a pretrial ruling Justice Engoron agreed, validating the heart of her case.The letter, to a judicial conduct commission, is unlikely to have any immediate repercussions in the trial, which will determine the consequences Mr. Trump and his company will face as a result of the fraud. But it represents the latest Republican attempt to tar Justice Engoron, and to meddle with Ms. James’s case. The judge has placed narrow gag orders on both the former president and his lawyers, but nothing bars Mr. Trump’s allies from their criticism.They have taken up the effort with gusto.“I filed an official judicial complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron for his inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance in New York’s disgraceful lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement Friday.“Judge Engoron’s actions and rulings in this matter are all part of the public record and speak for themselves,” Al Baker, a spokesman for the New York court system, said in an email. “It is inappropriate to comment further.”Robert H. Tembeckjian, the administrator of the state commission on judicial misconduct, noted in a statement that all matters before the body are confidential unless a judge is found to have committed misconduct and a decision is issued.Mr. Trump, 77, has repeatedly implored his allies to fight on his behalf. And Ms. Stefanik, who has close ties to Mr. Trump’s team, has portrayed herself as one of his chief defenders, thrusting herself into the former president’s controversies dating back to the first impeachment he faced while president.The civil fraud trial, which is separate from the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump, began early last month and is at its halfway point. After the former president and his daughter, Ivanka, testified this week, the attorney general’s office rested its case, which accuses Mr. Trump and his company of filling annual financial statements with fraudulent asset values in order to receive favorable treatment from banks and insurers. The defense case will start on Monday, with Donald Trump Jr. scheduled to return to the stand, and is expected to last into December.Justice Engoron, 74, has not responded to the attacks outside the courtroom, though at one point this week he lost his temper when a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, suggested, as he has throughout the trial, that the judge had been biased.“I object now, and I continue to object, to your constant insinuations that I have some sort of double standard here. That is just not true,” the judge said, adding, “I just make the rulings as I see them. You know, like the umpire says, call them as I see them.”Representative Elise Stefanik of New York has become one of the former president’s paladins, vociferously attacking those he sees as enemies. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesStatements like those are unlikely to satisfy Mr. Trump’s allies, and Ms. Stefanik’s attack is just one of many hurled at the judge this week. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist whom Mr. Trump considered hiring to work on his third presidential campaign and has since praised, has targeted the judge and his family in numerous social media posts. Commentators on Fox News and elsewhere in right-wing media have attacked him for shirtless photos that appeared in an alumni newsletter.Ms. Stefanik and others have also attacked the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who has experience as a trial attorney and whom the judge consults during proceedings when considering rules of evidence and other trial matters.Mr. Trump attacked Ms. Greenfield on the second day of the trial, saying that she was a partisan and was running the case against him. Justice Engoron placed a gag order on the former president barring him from discussing the court staff; Mr. Trump has twice violated that order, incurring $15,000 in fines.After the former president was barred from speaking about Ms. Greenfield, his lawyers took up the cause, continuing to complain about the judge’s practice of consulting her during the trial. Justice Engoron barred the lawyers from commenting on his private communications with Ms. Greenfield. He expressed concern about the safety of his staff and noted that his office had received “hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages.”Republican critics have taken particular issue with donations that Ms. Greenfield, who is also a Democrat, has made over the past several years, accusing her of violating rules governing the conduct of judicial staff members. But Ms. Greenfield has been campaigning for a judgeship and New York’s judicial ethics rules allow candidates to make certain donations, such as purchasing tickets to political functions.Mr. Trump’s congressional allies have taken on a number of the law enforcement officials who have brought cases against the former president. After the former president was criminally indicted in Manhattan in March, Representative Jim Jordan, who has worked closely with Mr. Trump, demanded information about the case from the prosecutor, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. Mr. Jordan also subpoenaed Mark F. Pomerantz, a prosecutor who had worked on the criminal case, compelling Mr. Pomerantz to testify in a closed-door congressional session.Mr. Jordan has also said he would investigate a Georgia prosecutor who also indicted Mr. Trump, accusing him of interfering with the 2020 election results in the state. The prosecutor, Fani Willis, fired back, writing in a letter that Mr. Jordan’s “attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution.” More