Aurelia Butler

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    End of Trump Cases Leaves Limits on Presidential Criminality Unclear

    Donald J. Trump is set to regain office without clarity on the scope of presidential immunity and with a lingering cloud over whether outside special counsels can investigate high-level wrongdoing.The end of the two federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday left momentous, unsettled questions about constraints on criminal wrongdoing by presidents, from the scope of presidential immunity to whether the Justice Department may continue to appoint outside special counsels to investigate high-level wrongdoing.Both cases against Mr. Trump — for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his later hoarding of classified government documents and obstruction of efforts to retrieve them — were short-circuited by the fact that he won the 2024 election before they could be definitively resolved.Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought both cases against Mr. Trump, asked courts on Monday to shut them down. The prosecutor cited the Justice Department’s longstanding view that the Constitution implicitly grants temporary immunity to sitting presidents, lest any prosecution distract them from their official duties.The result is not just that Mr. Trump appears set to escape any criminal accountability for his actions. (Mr. Smith left the door open to, in theory, refiling the charges after Mr. Trump leaves office, but the statute of limitations is likely to have run by then.) It also means that two open constitutional questions the cases have raised appear likely to go without definitive answers as Mr. Trump takes office.One is the extent of the protection from prosecution offered to former presidents by the Supreme Court’s ruling this summer establishing that they have a type of broad but not fully defined immunity for official acts taken while in office.The other is whether, when a president is suspected of committing crimes, the Justice Department can avoid conflicts of interest by bringing in an outside prosecutor to lead a semi-independent investigation into the matter.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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    Crony Capitalism Is Coming to America

    It’s late 2025, and Donald Trump has done what he said he would do: impose high tariffs — taxes on imports — on goods coming from abroad, with extremely high tariffs on imports from China. These tariffs have had exactly the effect many economists predicted, although Trump insisted otherwise: higher prices for American buyers.Let’s say you have a business that relies on imported parts — maybe from China, maybe from Mexico, maybe from somewhere else. What do you do?Well, U.S. trade law gives the executive branch broad discretion in tariff-setting, including the ability to grant exemptions in special cases. So you apply for one of those exemptions. Will your request be granted?In principle, the answer should depend on whether having to pay those tariffs imposes real hardship and threatens American jobs. In practice, you can safely guess that other criteria will play a role. How much money have you contributed to Republicans? When you hold business retreats, are they at Trump golf courses and resorts?I’m not engaging in idle speculation here. Trump imposed significant tariffs during his first term, and many businesses applied for exemptions. Who got them? A recently published statistical analysis found that companies with Republican ties, as measured by their 2016 campaign contributions, were significantly more likely (and those with Democratic ties less likely) to have their applications approved.But that was only a small-scale rehearsal for what could be coming. While we don’t have specifics yet, the tariff proposals Trump floated during the campaign were far wider in scope and, in the case of China, far higher than anything we saw the first time around; the potential for political favoritism will be an order of magnitude greater.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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    Kohl’s Picks C.E.O. of Michaels to Help It Turn Around

    Ashley Buchanan will be the third chief executive of the department store chain since 2018.Kohl’s has hired Ashley Buchanan, chief executive of the crafts retailer Michaels, to be its next chief executive, the department store chain said on Monday. Mr. Buchanan, who has run Michaels since 2020, will start on Jan. 15.Mr. Buchanan will be the third chief executive at Kohl’s since 2018. Tom Kingsbury has served as interim chief executive since Michelle Gass left in December 2022 to run Levi Strauss & Company. Mr. Kingsbury will retain his seat on the board of directors until he retires in May.Mr. Buchanan, 50, is a familiar name in the retail industry. He joined Michaels at the start of 2020, not long before the Covid pandemic forced millions of Americans to stay at home and led them to pick up a hobby. He helped Michaels increase its digital presence with its online marketplace, improved its merchandising and focused on smaller format stores.Previously, Mr. Buchanan spent 13 years at Walmart, holding several senior roles, including chief merchandising officer and chief operating officer for Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce. He was on Macy’s board of directors from October 2021 until Monday, when he resigned as part of his new role at Kohl’s.“I am thrilled to join Kohl’s, a storied and respected brand in the retail industry,” Mr. Buchanan said in a statement. “We have the privilege of serving millions of families all across the country, and I’m excited to work with the teams to evolve our business — building off the strength of our brand and loyal customer base while also creating a compelling retail experience for the future.”Kohl’s is facing a decline in comparable sales and challenges with profitability as customers pull back on discretionary spending. Its tie-up with the beauty retailer Sephora has helped buoy sales by bringing in younger customers. Still, the retailer has said it expects sales for this year to be down 4 to 6 percent.The retailer is set to announce its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday morning. More

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    Steel Maker ThyssenKrupp to Slash 11,000 Jobs in Germany

    The venerable steel producer, which has been struggling against high energy prices at home and growing competition from abroad, is the latest company in Europe to cut its work force.ThyssenKrupp, the largest steel maker in Germany, said Monday that it would eliminate up to 11,000 jobs by 2030, a decision that comes as the country struggled to overcome economic weakness that has hindered growth for nearly two years.The overhaul is aimed at returning ThyssenKrupp to profitability in the face of pressure from Asian competitors and high energy prices. Compounding the challenges, President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on all goods imported to the United States. ThyssenKrupp was among those hurt by the tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on steel and aluminum during his first term in office.ThyssenKrupp said that it would reduce the amount of steel it produced each year down to no more than 10 U.S. tons, from the current level, 12.6 U.S. tons, which would allow it to eliminate 5,000 jobs. Another 6,000 jobs will be cut through the sale of business activities or turning to external providers, the company said without elaborating.“Urgent measures are required to improve ThyssenKrupp Steel’s own productivity and operating efficiency and to achieve a competitive cost level,” the company said in a statement.On Tuesday, ThyssenKrupp reduced the value of its steel division by 1 billion euros, or $1.04 billion, after posting a yearly net loss of €1.4 billion, or $1.2 billion. The company has been struggling for years to decarbonize its steel production, as the price of powering its existing coking plants has soared.Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has not had significant growth in the past two years. On Friday, the economy recorded 0.1 percent growth from July to September, but it was forecast to contract over the entire year. Economists do not expect to see a return to growth in 2025, unless the government can make significant changes quickly.Dozens of companies have announced plans over the past few months to reduce their work forces in Germany. On Friday, the auto supplier Bosch said it would cut 5,500 jobs beginning in 2027. Ford Motor said Wednesday it would eliminate 4,000 jobs in Europe, primarily in Germany.Workers at Volkswagen, Germany’s biggest automaker, are planning to begin staging warning strikes in the coming days, as they fight management plans to reduce their numbers and close up to three of the company’s 10 factories in Germany. In October, Volkswagen reported a 42 percent drop in quarterly profit and warned of an “urgent need” to cut costs amid growing competition from Chinese automakers. More

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    Ex-Dancer Accuses Shen Yun of Forced Labor and Trafficking in Lawsuit

    The former performer, who was recruited to join Shen Yun at age 13, said the prominent dance group coerced children into making money for it.A former dancer for Shen Yun Performing Arts, the prominent music and dance group operated by the Falun Gong religious movement, filed a lawsuit on Monday, accusing its leaders of trafficking vulnerable children to work for little to no pay.The lawsuit, brought in Federal District Court in Manhattan, describes Shen Yun as a “forced labor enterprise” that has exploited underage dancers through threats and public shaming to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.Shen Yun instills obedience in its dancers through a wide range of tactics, the lawsuit alleges, including by confiscating their passports, cutting them off from outside media, denouncing them as Chinese government spies if they questioned the group’s practices and subjecting rule-breakers to public critique sessions.The former dancer who filed the lawsuit, Chang Chun-Ko, said she was recruited from Taiwan to join Shen Yun as a dancer at age 13, in 2009. She performed with the group until she left in 2020, when she was 24.Ms. Chang sued under a federal law that allows victims of forced labor to bring lawsuits against their traffickers.The lawsuit comes three months after The New York Times revealed that Shen Yun’s performers had been working in abusive conditions for years. Ms. Chang, now 28, was among the former performers and instructors quoted in the article.The New York State Department of Labor has opened an inquiry into the company’s labor practices, including its use of child performers, The Times reported last week.The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages. Ms. Chang is the only named plaintiff, but she is seeking to certify the lawsuit as a class action.Shen Yun, which performed more than 800 times on five continents in its most recent tour, puts on a two-hour dance and music show that spreads the message of Falun Gong, a religious movement that is banned in China and has been persecuted by the Chinese government.Representatives of Shen Yun and Falun Gong did not immediately provide a comment on Monday. They have previously denied violating any laws and said labor laws did not apply to their underage performers because they are students who tour with Shen Yun as a learning opportunity, not employees. Every student participates in Shen Yun voluntarily, they have said.“Sure, some people leave because it’s not for them, and that’s perfectly fine,” Shen Yun’s representatives said in a recent statement. “But the vast majority of students will tell you this is their dream come true, and the parents rave about the positive changes in their children.”This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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    U.K. Man Fighting for Ukraine Is Said to Be Captured in Russia

    Russian state media reported that a British volunteer for the Ukrainian Army was captured amid fighting in the Kursk region.Russian forces in the country’s Kursk region have captured a British man who volunteered for the Ukrainian Army, Russia’s state news agencies reported, in what would likely be the first case of a Westerner detained on Russian soil while fighting for Ukraine.A Russian state news agency identified the detained individual on Monday as James Scott Rhys Anderson. The agency, Tass, reported that he was part of a battalion of up to 500 Ukrainian servicemen sent to the sliver of land in the Kursk region that has been occupied by Ukraine since August. Mr. Anderson said he was deployed there against his will, according to Tass.When asked about Mr. Anderson being captured in Russia, the British Foreign Office said only that it was “supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention.”Before being dispatched to the Kursk region, Mr. Anderson, a former signalman in the British Army, was training Ukrainian soldiers at a military range near the village of Inhulets in central Ukraine, according to Tass.Tass also referred to an unverified video, posted by a pro-Russian military blog on Telegram, a popular messaging app, in which Mr. Anderson, said in the video to be 22, said that he had served in the British Army for four years, starting in 2019, but then “got fired” from his job. He then decided to join the international legion in Ukraine.“That was a stupid idea,” Mr. Anderson said in the video.Yuri Podolyaka, one the most popular pro-Kremlin military bloggers on Telegram, said in a post that Mr. Anderson was captured in the village of Plyokhovo, about a mile north of the border between Russia and Ukraine. Plyokhovo has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting in the area.Over the past few weeks, Russia has been trying to drive Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region. So far, at least a third of the captured territory has been retaken by Russia in bloody assaults against some of the best Ukrainian units.After more than two and a half years of heavy fighting, both Russia and Ukraine are suffering from troop shortages. But with a much smaller population, the difficulty has been more acute for Kyiv.Russian investigators are now likely to charge Mr. Anderson with being a mercenary in a foreign conflict. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.In June 2022, a court in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine sentenced to death two British men who had been fighting for Ukraine. They were released in a prisoner exchange that September.Megan Specia More

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    Dating App Fatigue? In Vermont, Personal Ads Still Thrive.

    Small weekly seeks readers looking for love.Katie Flagg moved to Vermont when she was 18 to attend Middlebury College and fell in love at first sight — with the state. But after she graduated and moved to a farmhouse in the middle of rural Addison County, she had a sudden pang of doubt: Would she live there alone forever?It was 2008. Dating sites were still a bit taboo, and she wasn’t sure how else to meet people in a place where they were not many people around.So she turned to a publication that many Vermonters have long turned to when they were looking for love: Seven Days, an alternative weekly that is one of the last bastions of newspaper personal ads.For decades, the ads have been reliably quirky, surprisingly effective and, well, very Vermont. Nowadays, Seven Days has a thriving online personals section to go with the print version. In a recent entry, one man in his 70s boasted of his several hundred maple sugar taps.Ms. Flagg’s online profile in the Seven Days personals section featured a photo of her in sunglasses and a “faux hawk.” It caught the attention of Colin Davis, whose username on the site was “patternlanguage.”That piqued Ms. Flagg’s interest. “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction,” a 1977 book on design that has a cult following, was one of her favorites. She also spied a Middlebury College landmark in the background of one of his photos.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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    Macy’s Discovers Employee Hid Millions in Delivery Expenses

    The department store chain said it had found the erroneous accounting entries while preparing its results for the third quarter.Macy’s said Monday that an employee had misstated up to $154 million in delivery expenses over the past few years, forcing the retailer to delay a much-anticipated earnings report that Wall Street uses to gauge the strength of holiday shopping.The department store chain rushed to release an abridged set of financial results, which were a mixed bag, with signs of weakness and pockets of strength.Macy’s shares fell by more than 8 percent in premarket trading after the surprise preliminary report. But it quickly pared back some of its losses, as investors tried to make sense of the mixed results along with the company’s reassurance that the employee error did not affect its cash flow management or vendor payments.Macy’s sales in the third quarter fell 2.4 percent — below analysts’ expectations — to $4.74 billion. The company’s overall sales were dragged down by weak sales at Macy’s stores and its digital business.But comparable sales at 50 locations that represent the company’s future — based on geography, staffing and other factors — rose 1.9 percent, the third consecutive quarter of growth. And comparable sales rose at both Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, the company’s luxury brands. Those results are early signs that Macy’s latest strategy of investing in these parts of the business may be working.Macy’s said it had found the accounting error while preparing its results for the quarter, which ended Nov. 2. The results had been set to be released on Tuesday. An investigation was opened and the employee was no longer with the company, Macy’s said. The investigation has not identified involvement by any other employee.In the same time period of the accounting issue in which the employee hid up to $154 million, the retailer said it had incurred about $4.36 billion of delivery expenses. Macy’s declined to comment further.The chain said it would report earnings by Dec. 11.As part of a turnaround plan announced in February, Macy’s said it would close 150 of its stores over the next three years. The company said it had recorded asset gains of $66 million from the sale of closed stores. That was more than the company had expected.Macy’s decision to delay its full-year guidance added to uncertainty about winners and losers in the upcoming holiday shopping season. U.S. consumers are still spending, but executives at some of the biggest retailers, including Target, have recently flagged consumers’ continuing cautious spending patterns, with many shoppers trading down to lower-priced items. The National Retail Federation projected U.S. holiday sales to grow as much as 3.5 percent this year, in line with averages before the pandemic. More