Elections

A Chinatown hotel; an adventuress on the make.Books in a San Francisco office building, left by current and previous tenants.Marissa Leshnov for The New York TimesDear readers,This dates me, I guess, but I don’t like to leave the house without a physical book. It makes me very anxious to be stranded without reading material — what if I’m trapped in an elevator, or the bus hits traffic, or my friend is late? And while devices are a good backup, e-books just don’t bring the same sense of security. Even my smallest purses have to be capacious enough to hold a paperback.Because I live in an apartment building with a lively lobby-book trade, when I’m between reads I often leave it to chance (or whichever neighbors are cleaning out their bookshelves) and pick something up on my way out the door. This might mean James Patterson on some days; on others, Kierkegaard. It’s added real depth to my reading life! Here are a couple of recent hits.—Sadie“I Hotel,” by Karen Tei YamashitaFiction, 2010I’d been meaning to read “I Hotel” ever since Paul Yamazaki, the legendary buyer of San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore, recommended it in an interview. So you can imagine my excitement when it appeared on a lobby radiator last January: It was fate — or maybe that nice woman with the sweet terrier mix who lives on 4.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 branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility on Friday for the attack in Moscow that killed at least 60 people and injured about 100 others, and U.S. officials confirmed the claim shortly afterward.The United States collected intelligence in March that Islamic State-Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, the branch of the group based in Afghanistan, had been planning an attack on Moscow, according to officials. ISIS members have been active in Russia, one U.S. official said.After a period of relative quiet, the Islamic State has been trying to increase its external attacks, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. Most of those plots in Europe have been thwarted, prompting assessments that the group had diminished capabilities.“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years,” frequently criticizing President Vladimir V. Putin in its propaganda, said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York. “ISIS-K accuses the Kremlin of having Muslim blood in its hands, referencing Moscow’s interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.”The attack on Friday in Moscow, like a January assault in Iran claimed by the group, could prompt a reassessment of its ability to strike outside its home territory.In addition to publicly warning on March 7 about a possible attack, U.S. officials said they had privately told Russian officials about the intelligence pointing to an impending attack. It is not clear how much information the United States gave Russian officials beyond what was in the public warning.American intelligence agencies have a “duty to warn” potential targets of dangers when they learn of them.The United States had warned Iran of a possible attack ahead of twin bombings in January that killed scores and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general, Qassim Suleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike four years before.Western intelligence agencies had collected intelligence about possible planning by ISIS-K to bomb the service. As in Russia, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for that attack. More

First King Charles and now Catherine, Princess of Wales, are facing grave health concerns, stretching an already slimmed-down monarchy.In a video statement, Catherine, Princess of Wales, said that she had been diagnosed with cancer and started chemotherapy.BBC StudiosCatherine, Princess of Wales, has been diagnosed with cancer and has begun chemotherapy, she announced on Friday, putting a grim coda on months of rumors about her condition and plunging Britain’s royal family into deep uncertainty as two of its most senior figures grapple with grave health concerns.Her diagnosis follows that of King Charles III, who announced his own cancer diagnosis and treatment in early February. Like the king, Catherine, 42, did not specify what type of cancer she had, nor what her prognosis was.Speaking in a prerecorded video released on Friday evening, Catherine said, “It has been an incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family” as she described having major abdominal surgery in January and then learning through subsequent tests that she had a form of cancer.Looking fatigued but determined to express hope about her recovery, Catherine said she and her husband, Prince William, were helping their three children, George, Charlotte, and Louis, cope with having a sick mother.“This of course came as a huge shock,” Catherine said, “and William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family. As you can imagine, this has taken time.”“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment,” said Catherine, who wore a simple striped sweater and sat on a bench, against a backdrop of early spring flowers, in the video, which was recorded by BBC Studios on Wednesday.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

Supporters of the little-known college on Friday celebrated its moment of fame after a shocking first-round win.Before Thursday night, if you were not familiar with Oakland University, you were not alone. Not far from the campus, even locals at a Detroit bar, who were watching the team shock No. 3 seed Kentucky in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament, were asking if “that Oakland was in California” or the Michigan suburb of Rochester. (It’s the latter.)On Friday, after Oakland’s 80-76 upset victory as a No. 14 seed, students and graduates reveled in the university’s moment in the March Madness sun. They include John Hendley, class of 2005, who watched the game from Florida with his wife, Melissa, also a graduate.“If people didn’t know who the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies were before last night, they surely know now,” Mr. Hendley said.For all but perhaps close followers of the university, a brief introduction may be in order: It was created in 1957 through a donation to establish a satellite location for Michigan State University. At first, the campus was known as Michigan State University-Oakland, but in 1970, Oakland became an independent university.In 1997, Oakland University moved its athletic program from N.C.A.A. Division II to Division I. A year later, it changed its mascot from the Pioneers to Golden Grizzlies, according to the university’s website.The campus of Oakland University feels more like a sprawling corporate park, which makes sense. There are a lot of them nearby, like the world headquarters for Stellantis (formerly known as Chrysler) and other automotive suppliers.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 referendum, backed by progressives but criticized by the real estate industry, called for raising transfer taxes on properties that sell for more than $1 million.Chicago voters rejected an increase to the city’s transfer tax on high-value properties in a Tuesday referendum, The Associated Press said, leaving unfulfilled a longtime goal of Mayor Brandon Johnson and progressive Democrats who wanted to use new revenue to address homelessness in the country’s third-largest city.The result came after days of counting ballots, including mail-in votes, that were not able to be reported on Election Day.Real estate groups had warned that the new rates would have been a potentially catastrophic blow to the downtown office market, which was already losing value and struggling with vacancies.The vote came at an uncertain political moment in Chicago, a Democrat-dominated city where homelessness has become more visible since the pandemic and an influx of migrants has strained resources. And the result raised questions about the strength of the city’s progressive movement, led by Mr. Johnson, which has become the dominant force in City Hall over the last decade and which mobilized its army of volunteers to knock on doors in support of the tax change.“Yes, it is a loss for Mayor Johnson and is a loss for the progressive movement,” said Dick W. Simpson, a former Chicago City Council member and an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who campaigned for the tax change.The referendum called for raising transfer taxes on properties that sell for more than $1 million while lowering that rate on properties that sell for less. Supporters described it as a chance to level the playing field and help the city’s most vulnerable residents. Some referred to it as a “mansion tax,” versions of which have been approved by voters in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, N.M.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

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had called for a permanent cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, but had resisted labeling the conflict a genocide.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned on Friday that Israel’s blockade of Gaza had put the territory on the brink of severe famine, saying publicly for the first time that the nation’s wartime actions amounted to an “unfolding genocide.”In a speech on the House floor, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, forcefully called on President Biden to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel unless and until it begins to allow the free flow of humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip.“If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes,” she said. “It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves, while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away.”The comments were a sharp rhetorical escalation by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party’s left wing, and they illustrated the intense pressure buffeting party officials as they grapple with how to respond to Israel’s war tactics and the deepening humanitarian crisis.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, defying party leaders, has been a proponent of a permanent cease-fire since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and has called for putting conditions on American military aid to Israel. But she had resisted describing the ensuing war, which has killed 30,000 Gazans and left the territory in ruins, as a genocide.Israel has firmly denied that the term applies, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez indicated in January that she was waiting for the International Court of Justice to render an opinion on a legal designation. Privately, she has expressed concerns to some allies that the highly contentious term would alienate potential supporters of a cease-fire.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 group that claimed credit for the deadly terrorist attack in Moscow on Friday is the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan called Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.ISIS-K was founded in 2015 by disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban, who then embraced a more violent version of Islam. The group saw its ranks cut roughly in half, to about 1,500 to 2,000 fighters, by 2021 from a combination of American airstrikes and Afghan commando raids that killed many of its leaders.The group got a dramatic second wind soon after the Taliban toppled the Afghan government that year. During the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and as many as 170 civilians.The attack raised ISIS-K’s international profile, positioning it as a major threat to the Taliban’s ability to govern.Since then, the Taliban have been fighting pitched battles against ISIS-K in Afghanistan. So far, the Taliban’s security services have prevented the group from seizing territory or recruiting large numbers of former Taliban fighters bored in peacetime — among the worst-case scenarios laid out after Afghanistan’s Western-backed government collapsed.President Biden and his top commanders have said the United States would carry out “over-the-horizon” strikes from a base in the Persian Gulf against ISIS and Qaeda insurgents who threaten the United States and its interests overseas.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 announcement that Corina Yoris would run came as a surprise to many who had feared that a fractured opposition would benefit President Nicolás Maduro.Venezuela’s embattled opposition announced on Friday that it was naming a new candidate to face off against President Nicolas Maduro this summer, giving renewed hope to the country’s push toward democracy.The country’s highest court in January barred the previous candidate, the former lawmaker María Corina Machado, from running, leading many Venezuelans to question how free and fair the election would be. The decision raised questions over whether Ms. Machado’s party, Come Venezuela, would try to insist on her candidacy or coalesce around another candidate.On Friday. leaders of several opposition parties announced that Corina Yoris, a philosophy professor, would run instead in the elections on July 28, a move that analysts saw as a surprising show of unity.“This is huge,” said Laura Dib, who directs the Venezuela program at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization. “It is truly amazing to see the opposition united around a single strategy and showing that they are not backing off.”In October, Mr. Maduro signed an accord with the country’s opposition and agreed to work toward a free and fair presidential vote. In the agreement, Mr. Maduro said he would hold an election before the end of this year, and, in exchange, the United States lifted some economic sanctions as a sign of good will.But days later, Ms. Machado won more than 90 percent of the vote to choose an opposition candidate, in a primary election run by a commission without the involvement of the government. The decisive results emphasized her popularity and raised the prospect that she could beat Mr. Maduro in a general election.Three months later, the country’s top court, filled with government loyalists, declared Ms. Machado ineligible to run over what the judges claimed were financial irregularities that occurred when she was a national legislator. The government also arrested several members of her campaign. Men on motorbikes have attacked supporters at her events.Ms. Machado made Friday’s announcement in a news conference alongside Ms. Yoris just days before the March 25 deadline to register.“We have found a person of my total trust, honorable, who is going to fulfill this procedure,” Ms. Machado said. “This was a decision that arose from within the discussion of the unitary forces and that gives us all confidence.”Ms. Yoris was a member of the commission that helped organize October’s primary, raising speculation that the government might not allow her to register as a candidate. The government has questioned the opposition primary’s legitimacy and has taken legal aim at its organizers.The fact that the head of another rival opposition party, Omar Barboza, opened the conference was a further show of unity, Ms. Dib said.“We are heading toward a transition path in Venezuela,” Ms. Yoris said. “We are all necessary at this moment.”Julie Turkewitz More