Elections

David Leonhardt and his wife, Laura, take on a puzzle by Matthew Stock and Christina Iverson.Jump to: Tricky CluesDeb Amlen is on vacation this week. David Leonhardt, the senior writer who oversees The Morning newsletter, has kindly agreed to step in and talk about today’s puzzle by Matthew Stock and Christina Iverson.FRIDAY PUZZLE — When my colleague Deb Amlen asked me a few weeks ago to spend a day filling in as the Wordplay columnist, I was thrilled. When she told me that I would be writing about a Friday crossword puzzle, I was a little less thrilled and more than a little daunted. Friday, as you all surely know, is one of the week’s most challenging puzzles.I may be a journalist — I’m approaching my 25th anniversary at The New York Times — but I feel more comfortable playing games that are based on numbers and strategy than on language. I was an applied math major in college, and I don’t pretend to be an expert Scrabble player or crossword completer. Fortunately, I am married to somebody who is an expert at language games. My wife, Laura, an obsessive and joyous reader, was happy to help me with the completion of today’s puzzle.Whether you’re more like me or more like Laura, there’s much to savor in today’s puzzle.Tricky Clues1A. We admit it: We couldn’t resist immediately scribbling S-ALSA in response to a “Mexican condiment” of five letters. But that’s why we were using an erasable pen. The error of our ways became clear as soon as we saw that the second letter of the answer needed to be an R, for RIC (2D’s “Singer Ocasek”). With an assist from MINA (the “Kimes” of 4D), I thought back to a delicious meal we ate last month at Tacos El Gordo in Las Vegas. One of the toppings there? CREMA. And, yes, you should endure the lines at Tacos El Gordo if you’re in Las Vegas.11A. “Alternatives to booths, perhaps” may immediately conjure restaurants or, for those of us of a certain age, phones. This uncertainty encouraged us to come up with a longer list of potential booths, and we soon thought of one that was less salient because it rarely appears without its modifier: voting booths. From there, and again with some help from Ric Ocasek and Mina Kimes, we got to MAIL-IN BALLOTS.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

What games do you love? Which ones do you like playing alone, and which do you prefer to play with others? What do you get from gaming?Teachers, we also have a related lesson plan about teaching with seven New York Times games.Online or in real life, alone or with others, on a road trip, in a backyard, around a table, or on a screen: What games do you most enjoy playing? Why?Whether you listed chess, Minecraft, Monopoly, basketball, Call of Duty, Tetris, Dungeons & Dragons, charades, crosswords, tag or Wordle, when, where and with whom are you most likely to play?How does playing games improve your life?In 2020, Sam Von Ehren posed the question, Why do people love games?He wrote:As the Game Maker for The New York Times, I grapple with this question every day. The reductively easy answer is simple: They’re fun! But why are they fun? Do they have to be fun? As we dig deeper and deeper, we find more questions. What even is a game? What is fun? My take on the appeal of games is also simple, if paradoxical. Games are a controlled form of freedom. Our brains grab onto them because they are structures that exist to be avoided.Games occupy a strange place in our cultural consciousness. Nearly everyone has played a game at some point in their lives. Despite that ubiquity, games are rarely discussed with the same reverence as other media like films or books. For most, games are like chocolate: a guilty pleasure consumed secretly. The game designer Sid Meier once remarked that “a game is a series of interesting choices.” Navigating these choices shapes the course of play, revealing who we are and how we think. Playing a game is an act of exposition.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

Jessica Lange stars as a ferocious matriarch alongside Celia Keenan-Bolger and Jim Parsons in Vogel’s latest family drama.In the first scene of “Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions,” Paula Vogel’s antic, mournful new drama, Martha, a character modeled on the playwright, offers a version of Ecclesiastes.“There is a season for packing,” Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger) says as she slits open a cardboard box. “And a season for unpacking.”Vogel, 72, has spent the majority of her career unpacking. Her work is not strictly autobiographical, but as in the plays of Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee or Adrienne Kennedy, she has a canny way of rearranging the emotional furniture of her lived experience into tragicomedy.Here, at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater, that furniture includes a mother, Phyllis (Jessica Lange), and a brother, Carl (Jim Parsons), named for Vogel’s own family. The story begins in 1964 with the family moving into a basement apartment in a Washington, D.C., suburb; Carl is 14, Martha 12. Phyllis is in her mid 30s, barely treading water after a foundered marriage. At times, when she can pry her hands from a gin bottle, she clings to her children as if they are life rafts. Otherwise, she regards them as jetsam. Phyllis, we learn, never wanted to be a mother.On finding herself pregnant: “I thought: Other women aren’t mother material, but they get through it. Just hang on, Phyllis, hang on. But it is never over. It’s a life sentence.” How’s that for a bedtime story?As a single working mother, Phyllis can afford only custodial apartments, and those early evictions come when she complains too loudly about the roaches and maggots. The vermin are brought to life, extravagantly, in Shawn Duan’s projections. And David Zinn’s flexible set nimbly conveys each new abode. The later, more fraught expulsions come when Phyllis rejects first Carl, who comes out as gay in college, and then later Martha, who is also queer.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

The Federal Trade Commission is sending payments to customers who had certain Ring home security cameras and accounts during a particular time period, the agency said.The Federal Trade Commission said this week that some people who had bought certain home security cameras made by Ring, which is owned by Amazon, would be eligible for refunds for their purchase. The payments, totaling more than $5.6 million, are part of a settlement between Ring and the F.T.C. over claims that the company failed to protect customer accounts.Here’s what to know.What is the lawsuit about?The F.T.C. sued Ring last May, accusing the company of giving employees and contractors access to customers’ private video footage. The agency said in its complaint that Ring had used the videos to train computer algorithms without first getting customers’ consent. Ring also failed to have proper protections, which made customer accounts, videos and cameras more vulnerable to hacking, the F.T.C. said.The F.T.C. and Ring reached a settlement that month. As part of the agreement, Ring paid a settlement that would be used for customer refunds, deleted all private videos that it shouldn’t have access to, and established a privacy and security program. The F.T.C. is now using the money Ring paid to send 117,044 PayPal payments to affected customers.Ring did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a statement after the settlement, Ring said that it addressed issues about its security and privacy practices “well before” the F.T.C.’s lawsuit, and that the agency “mischaracterizes our security practices and ignores the many protections we have in place for our customers.”How do I find out if I am eligible for the refund?If you had a Ring account and certain types of Ring devices, such as the indoor camera models Stick Up Cam and Indoor Cam, before Feb. 1, 2018, you are eligible for a refund, according to a court order.The defendant — in this case, Ring — is typically required to provide a list of customers, their contact information and how much they paid. The F.T.C. will use the information to send payments.Eligible customers should have already received an email from the F.T.C.How much will I receive?Your payment depends on the type of Ring device you owned and the time you had your account.I got a PayPal payment from the F.T.C. How do I know if it is real?If you are eligible for a refund, you should have received an email from the agency (from the address [email protected]) before Tuesday. Since payments were issued on Tuesday, you should have received another email from PayPal about the refund. You have to redeem the payment by May 22, or it will be returned to the F.T.C.If you would like the F.T.C. to send you a check instead, or have any other questions about the payment, you can speak with the refund administrator, Rust Consulting, by calling 1-833-637-4884. You can also email your request to [email protected]. More

His expertise on the electromechanical Mellotron helped define the band’s progressive sound in the 1960s and ’70s on albums like “Days of Future Passed.”Mike Pinder, the last surviving founding member of the Moody Blues, whose innovative use of the Mellotron — a predecessor of the sampler — helped make the band a pioneer of progressive rock, died on Wednesday at his home in the Sacramento area. He was 82.His son Dan confirmed the death. He said that his father had breathing difficulties and had been in hospice care for a few days.The Moody Blues were formed in 1964, with a lineup of Mr. Pinder on keyboards, Denny Laine on guitar, Graeme Edge on drums, Ray Thomas on flute and Clint Warwick on bass. The group’s “Go Now!,” sung by Mr. Laine, rose to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.The Moody Blues at the house they shared in South London in 1965. From left: Ray Thomas, Denny Laine, Graeme Edge, Clint Warwick and Mr. Pinder.Chris Ware/Keystone Features, via Getty ImagesMr. Laine and Mr. Warwick left after the release of the band’s first album, “The Magnificent Moodies” (1965), and were replaced by Justin Hayward and John Lodge. The change in personnel set the stage for a change in direction: from R&B-tinged rock to the psychedelic, orchestral sound that the Moody Blues vividly showcased on their breakthrough 1967 album, “Days of Future Passed.”Mr. Pinder had worked as a tester in the Mellotron factory in Birmingham, England, before the Moody Blues formed. Playing the company’s Mark II model for the first time was “my first ‘man on the moon’ event,” he told the British music website Brumbeat.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

A campaign watchdog group filed a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday accusing Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and related political committees of concealing payments of $7.2 million in legal fees by paying them through an unrelated shell company in violation of campaign finance law.At the center of the complaint, from the Campaign Legal Center, is the company that received the payments, Red Curve. The company is run by Bradley Crate, who is also the treasurer for the Trump campaign and four related political committees listed in the complaint, as well as for 200 other candidates and committees.In its complaint, the Campaign Legal Center said that the Trump political committees had used Red Curve, which did not appear to offer legal services, “as a conduit to conceal payments for legal services.” The group filed its complaint hours after The Daily Beast published an article about the payments to Red Curve.Neither Red Curve nor representatives of the Trump campaign responded to a request for comment.“This apparent payment scheme, however, violates the reporting requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Act,” the complaint said, “which requires that committees provide detailed information about who they are paying for services, and how much they are paying for those services.”The complaint also said that Red Curve advanced payments for the legal costs to the Trump committees as part of the payment scheme, potentially violating a campaign finance law that prevents corporations from giving money to candidates.“What Red Curve was doing was basically making a contribution,” said Saurav Ghosh, the director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center. “If it’s treated as a corporation under federal campaign finance law, then that’s illegal on its face.”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

On social media, Arizona lawmakers are accused of being baby killers, cowards and traitors.State Representative Matt Gress, a Republican in a moderate slice of Phoenix, was in line at his neighborhood coffee shop on Thursday when a customer stopped and thanked him for voting to repeal an 1864 law that bans abortion in Arizona.“I know you’re taking some heat,” he told Mr. Gress.More than some.Shortly after the repeal bill squeaked through the Arizona House on Wednesday with support from every Democrat, as well as Mr. Gress and two other Republicans, anti-abortion activists denounced Mr. Gress on social media as a baby killer, coward and traitor. The Republican House speaker booted Mr. Gress off a spending committee. And some Democrats dismissed his stance as a bid to appease swing voters furious over the ban during an election year.In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gress said that he was trying to chart a middle path through a wrenching debate over abortion that has consumed Arizona politics in the two weeks since the State Supreme Court revived the Civil War-era ban.“There are extremes on both ends here,” he said. “To go from abortion being legal and constitutionally protected to nearly a complete ban overnight is not something that the electorate is going to be OK with.”Mr. Gress, 35, a former teacher and school-board member, worked as a budget director under Arizona’s previous governor, the Republican Doug Ducey. He was first elected in 2022 to represent a swath of Phoenix and Scottsdale that spreads from middle-class neighborhoods through strip malls, desert parks and wealthy gated communities.He speaks with the measured cadences of someone who has appeared on plenty of news programs, and had focused his attention on homelessness and teacher pay before abortion erupted into an all-consuming legislative battle.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

Worried that a censure vote could result in President Nemat Shafik’s removal at a time of crisis, the official university body plans to vote on a watered-down proposal, some members said.Columbia University’s faculty senate, fearing the repercussions of a censure vote against the school’s president, Nemat Shafik, plans instead to vote on a watered-down resolution expressing displeasure with a series of her decisions, including summoning the police last week to arrest protesting students on campus.Senators worried that a censure vote could result in Dr. Shafik’s removal at a time of crisis. And some feared that such a vote would be perceived as yielding to Republican lawmakers who had called for her resignation, according to interviews with several members of the senate who attended a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, some of whom requested anonymity to talk about a private meeting.The senate is scheduled to meet again on Friday to vote on a resolution.Carol Garber, a senate member, was among those who questioned the perception of a censure vote with so much political pressure to remove Dr. Shafik.“It really isn’t a precedent any university wants to set,” said Dr. Garber, a professor of behavioral sciences. “We shouldn’t be bullied by someone in Congress.”The plan to step away from a harshly worded censure resolution followed a presentation by Dr. Shafik at the meeting of the senate, an official university body of more than 100 faculty, students, administrators and staff members. The university did not respond to a request for comment.Emerging from the meeting, Dr. Garber said that some faculty members were “upset and hurt” by Dr. Shafik’s performance during a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, in which she seemed to capitulate to the demands of members of Congress. Dr. Shafik told the House members that the university’s leaders agreed that some protesters had used antisemitic language and that certain contested phrases — like “from the river to the sea” — might warrant discipline.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