Elections

Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday called for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza, saying that Hamas should agree to the six-week pause currently on the table and that Israel should increase the flow of aid into the besieged enclave amid a humanitarian crisis.Ms. Harris’s remarks, delivered in Selma, Ala., bolstered a recent push by the Biden administration for an agreement and came a day before she was to meet with a top Israeli cabinet official involved in war planning, Benny Gantz. Her tone, sharper and more urgent than President Biden’s in recent days, showed the White House’s building frustration with Israel. Last month the president called Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack “over the top.”Ms. Harris also assailed what she called a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and pressed Israel to allow for the increase of aid into the besieged enclave.Ms. Harris was in Selma on Sunday for the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Her comments on Israel were her most forceful to date on the Middle East conflict, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan health authorities, and put the enclave on the brink of famine.“People in Gaza are starving,” Ms. Harris said. “The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act.”She added: “Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire.” That line drew loud applause from the crowd that had gathered to mark the civil rights event.Ms. Harris reiterated the Biden administration’s support for a six-week cease-fire, which would allow for a pause in fighting and the release of Israeli hostages taken during the attack in Israel. U.S. officials said this weekend that Israel had all but signed on to the deal, but Hamas has yet to agree to it.Ms. Harris restated the United States’ support for Israel’s right to defend itself against the ongoing threat by Hamas, which she said had no regard for innocent life in Israel or in Gaza.She also said that Israel must do more to allow for the flow of aid into Gaza, including opening borders, lifting any unnecessary restrictions on aid deliveries and restoring services to Gaza.“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid,” she said. “No excuses.”The remarks came as Ms. Harris was scheduled to meet with Mr. Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, at the White House on Monday, and as the Biden administration faces immense pressure to limit the carnage in Gaza. More

He voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt in “Return of the Jedi,” as well as Mogwai in both “Gremlins” films.Mark Dodson, who voiced strange puppet creatures in “Star Wars,” including Salacious B. Crumb, the cackling monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt, and “Gremlins” films, died on Saturday. He was 64.His death was confirmed in statements on social media by his agent, Peter DeLorme, and the Evansville Horror Con, the Indiana fan convention where he had been scheduled to appear over the weekend. No cause of death was given.Mr. Dodson’s career began in 1983 on “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” when he voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the court jester of Jabba the Hutt that was known for its maniacal laugh.In a 2020 interview, Mr. Dodson explained how he had gotten the role by accident.He was auditioning for Adm. Ackbar, a leader during the Clone Wars, but was so nervous that he asked for a break to compose himself, and was overheard using a deranged voice that the casting director thought was perfect for Crumb.That led to Mr. Dodson to voice several of the Mogwai in “Gremlins,” the 1984 comedy-horror film about a young man who accidentally unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town on Christmas Eve.“Let’s say I did get Ackbar — I never would’ve gotten the ‘Gremlins,’” he said. “The ‘Gremlins’ came because the ‘Gremlins’ were made by the same guys who made Salacious. That’s why it came up, ‘They look a lot the same. Wouldn’t it be great for the Gremlins to have that same voice! Who is that guy?’”Mr. Dodson continued working in both franchises, voicing characters in the 1985 television movie “Ewoks: The Battle for Endor” and “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” in 1990.He voiced a scavenger in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (2015) and appeared as an uncredited zombie in George Romero’s “Day of the Dead” (1985).Mark Dodson was born on Feb. 1, 1960, in St. Louis, according to IMDb.He also voiced characters in several video games, including “Star Trek Online,” “Ghostrunner,” “Bendy and the Dark Revival,” and “Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga,” once again as Crumb. More

The new offer values the department store chain at $6.6 billion. Macy’s, which just announced a strategy to turn around its business, said it would “carefully review” the proposal.The activist investor group that is seeking to buy Macy’s increased the pressure on the department store chain on Sunday, raising its offer and disclosing additional details about its financing plans.Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management said in a news release that they were now offering $24 per share, valuing the retailer at $6.6 billion. The new offer is up from the $21 a share they last put forward and a 33.3 percent premium to Macy’s closing share price of at $18.01 on Friday.Arkhouse and Brigade named additional investors they had brought on as equity partners, Fortress Investment Group and One Investment Management. Arkhouse and Brigade also said, in an apparent response to Macy’s questions about its financing, that they had “identified large global institutional financing sources” that “represent 100 percent of the capital required to buy the shares in Macy’s we do not already own.”The retailer has been facing pressure from the investor group since December, when the group submitted a bid that would take Macy’s private at a value of $5.8 billion. Arkhouse said that unless the retailer began sharing nonpublic information, it might take its offer to shareholders. The investor has since nominated nine people to Macy’s board.Macy’s on Sunday said it would “carefully review and evaluate” the latest proposal.“The Macy’s Inc. board has a proven track record of evaluating a broad range of options to create shareholder value, is open-minded about the best path to achieve this objective and is committed to continuing to take actions that it believes are in the best interests of the company and all Macy’s Inc. shareholders,” the company said in a statement.The retailer has been trying to stay focused on its own strategy for turning around the business.Last week, Macy’s announced a strategy that would vastly change the makeup of the company. It said it would close 150 of its namesake stores over the course of three years, while also opening more locations of Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, its upscale chains.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

Mr. Shortz, who has been with The Times for three decades and also hosts NPR’s “Sunday Puzzle,” said on Sunday that he had a stroke in February but was recovering.Will Shortz, crossword editor of The New York Times and the host of NPR’s “Sunday Puzzle,” is recovering from a stroke, he said on Sunday.Mr. Shortz, who is 71 and has been with The Times for three decades, shared the health update in a recorded message that aired on Sunday at the end of the puzzle quiz segment during the NPR program “Weekend Edition Sunday.”“Hey guys, this is Will Shortz. Sorry I’ve been out the last few weeks. I had a stroke on February 4, and have been in rehabilitation since then, but I am making progress,” he said in the message. “I’m looking forward to being back with new puzzles soon.”Ayesha Rascoe, the host of “Weekend Edition Sunday,” wished Mr. Shortz a speedy recovery.“We here at ‘Weekend Edition,’ we love Will and I know that everybody at home does too and we are rooting for him and we are so hopeful and know that he will feel better soon,” she said during the segment.Mr. Shortz, who last year celebrated his 30th anniversary as crossword editor at The Times, also founded the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, spent 15 years as the editor of Games magazine, and has appeared weekly as the puzzle master on “Weekend Edition Sunday.”“When I was a kid, I imagined a life where I’d be sitting in an attic somewhere, making my little puzzles for $15 each, somehow surviving,” he said in a 2017 interview with The Times. “I actually wrote a paper in eighth grade about what I wanted to do with my life, and it was to be a professional puzzle maker.”Despite skepticism from his middle school teacher about that dream, Mr. Shortz went on to self-design a degree at Indiana University in enigmatology — the scientific study of puzzles as it is related to semiotics, culture and cognition. He also studied law.In 1993, Mr. Shortz became the Times’s fourth puzzle editor, and, in an interview last year, he recalled telling his hiring editor at the time that he hoped to “maintain the quality and intellectual rigor of the Crossword” while bringing in young contributors, fresh themes and modern vocabulary.The content of the crosswords, he said, should have lasting cultural impact, which he defined as “at least five to 10 years.”Mr. Shortz could not be immediately reached on Sunday for further comment about his recovery, and when he might return to work.Jordan Cohen, a spokesman for The New York Times, said in an email that the newspaper had been in “regular contact” with Mr. Shortz and wished him “the best on his path to what is expected to be a full recovery.” Mr. Cohen added, “We look forward to having him back at work when he is ready.”A spokeswoman from NPR shared Mr. Shortz’s aired statement by email on Sunday, but did not immediately respond to questions about when he might return to work. More

Delivering supplies into Gaza, especially the north, has taken on increased urgency as the United Nations has warned that many Gazans are on the edge of famine.Days after an aid delivery in Gaza turned into a deadly disaster, Israel pushed ahead with another convoy bound for northern Gaza on Sunday, a Palestinian businessman involved in the initiative said, as the United Nations warned that deaths of children and infants are likely to “rapidly increase” if food and medical supplies are not delivered immediately.Izzat Aqel, the businessman, said the renewed aid delivery effort on Sunday came after only one of at least 16 trucks carrying supplies to the north a day earlier made it to Gaza City. The rest, he said, had been surrounded by desperate Gazans and emptied in the Nuseirat neighborhood in central Gaza.COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza, said on X on Sunday that 277 trucks entered Gaza, what the agency said was the highest number of trucks to enter the enclave in a single day since the start of the war. It was unclear how many of those trucks reached northern Gaza.Delivering supplies into Gaza, especially the north, has taken on increased urgency in recent days as the United Nations has warned that many Gazans are on the edge of famine.Israeli officials have worked in recent days with multiple Gazan businessmen to organize private aid convoys. But a convoy that arrived in Gaza City before dawn on Thursday ended in devastation. More than 100 Palestinians were killed after many thousands of people massed around trucks laden with food and supplies, Gazan health officials said.Israeli and Palestinian officials and witnesses offered sharply divergent accounts of the chaos. Witnesses described extensive shooting by Israeli forces, and doctors at Gaza hospitals said most of the casualties were from gunfire. The Israeli military said most of the victims were trampled in a crush of people trying to seize the cargo, although Israeli officials acknowledged that troops had opened fire at members of the crowd who, the army said, had approached “in a manner that endangered them.”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

Samantha Podos Nowak makes her New York Times debut.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — A long crossword entry is not necessarily a complex one. Some of them may, in fact, come to the average solver quite naturally while shorter answers remain just out of reach. Today’s crossword is just so: Samantha Podos Nowak, in her New York Times debut, has crafted a grid in which the longest answers happen to be some of the easiest to deduce.Christina Iverson, a puzzle editor for The Times, emphasized this fact in describing the strength of Ms. Nowak’s puzzle. “We thought she did a nice job of making the longer answers fun,” Ms. Iverson said, explaining that Ms. Nowak’s theme required a number of shorter answers because of the constraints of the grid.Ms. Iverson also hinted at a feature in today’s puzzle that is a rare occurrence on a Monday: the debut of a three-letter entry — this one regarding a certain cinematic universe. “Superhero fans will be excited,” she said.Don your capes, solvers, and let’s get cracking.Today’s ThemeMs. Nowak has offered us a delicious theme and no shortage of places to discover it. The clues at 35- and 37-Across share the revealer: “some ice cream confections … or a hint to the second, fifth, eleventh and fourteenth rows of this puzzle.”There’s nothing obviously connected about any of the entries in these rows. Looking at the second row — SCUBA, NANAS, YER — for example, it seems as if the revealer must hold the key. (I mean, unless YER NANAS SCUBA, in which case, more power to them.)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

An Alabama judge barred the government from collecting certain company ownership data to help the Treasury Department identify money launderers, and called the effort a case of congressional overreach.In a blow to government efforts to combat money laundering, a federal court has ruled that the Treasury Department cannot require some small businesses to report personal details about their owners.Under a section of a 2020 law that took effect Jan. 1, small businesses must share details about their so-called beneficial owners, individuals who hold financial stakes in a company or have significant power over their business decisions. The law, the Corporate Transparency Act, passed with bipartisan support in Congress and was intended to help the Treasury Department’s financial-crimes division identify money launderers who hide behind shell corporations.But in a ruling issued late Friday, Judge Liles C. Burke of the U.S. District Court in Huntsville, Ala., sided with critics of the law. They argue that asking a company’s owners to present personal data — names, addresses and copies of their identification documents — was a case of congressional overreach, however well intended.“Congress sometimes enacts smart laws that violate the Constitution,” Judge Burke wrote in a 53-page filing. “This case, which concerns the constitutionality of the Corporate Transparency Act, illustrates that principle.”Judge Burke’s ruling prevented the department from enforcing the ownership reporting requirements on the plaintiff in the Alabama case, the National Small Business Association, a nonprofit trade group that represents more than 65,000 member companies.Lawyers who have followed the Alabama case said over the weekend that they expected the government to quickly request that the injunction be paused, either by Judge Burke or the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, or both. The Justice Department will almost certainly appeal the Alabama case to the circuit court, the lawyers said.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

An L.G.B.T.Q. organization had sued after the state’s attorney general asked for documents on children receiving gender-affirming care.A judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Texas attorney general from forcing an L.G.B.T.Q. organization to turn over documents on transgender minors and the gender-affirming care they may be receiving.In Texas, medical care for gender transition is prohibited for minors under a law passed last year. As part of an investigation into violations of the ban, the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton demanded early last month that the nonprofit PFLAG National, which supports families in accessing gender-affirming care for children, provide information on minors in the state who may have received such treatments. But on Friday, Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel of Travis County District Court issued an injunction against Mr. Paxton, just days after PFLAG sued to block the request, saying turning over the documents would cause “irreparable injury, loss or damage” to the group. The judge added that such an ask would infringe on the group’s constitutional rights and that its members would be subject to “gross invasions” of privacy.In a statement, PFLAG’s lawyers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said they were “grateful that the court saw the harm the attorney general’s office’s intrusive demands posed.”Mr. Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday’s order. But he has previously argued that the information from PFLAG is “highly relevant” to his investigation into medical providers who he says are trying to work around the ban on gender-affirming care for minors. “Any organization seeking to violate this law, commit fraud or weaponize science and medicine against children will be held accountable,” he said in a statement. The judge scheduled a hearing for March 25 to give the attorney general a chance to argue against the injunction. 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