Elections

Michael Regan, the E.P.A. administrator, said the Biden administration would meet its climate goals despite tweaking regulations on automobiles and power plantsPresident Biden’s climate ambitions are colliding with political and legal realities, forcing his administration to recalibrate two of its main tools to cut the emissions that are heating the planet.This week the Environmental Protection Agency said it would delay a regulation to require gas-burning power plants to cut their carbon dioxide emissions, likely until after the November election. The agency also is expected to slow the pace at which car makers must comply with a separate regulation designed to sharply limit tailpipe emissions.Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the E.P.A., said on Friday that changes to the two major regulations wouldn’t compromise the administration’s ability to meet its target of cutting United States emissions roughly in half by 2030. That goal is designed to keep America in line with a global pledge of averting the worst consequences of a warming planet.“We are well on our way to meeting the president’s goals,” Mr. Regan said in a telephone interview from Texas. “I am very confident that the choices we are making are smart choices that will continue to rein in climate pollution.”But experts said the Biden administration is making significant concessions in the face of industry opposition and unease in the American public about the pace of the transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy, as well as the threat of legal challenges before conservative courts.“There are two key factors: the Supreme Court, and the election,” said Jody Freeman, the director of the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program and a former Obama White House official. “There are some adjustments needed for both,” she said. “You’ve got make sure these final rules are legally defensible, and you’ve got to make sure you’ve done enough for the stakeholders that you have support for the rules.”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

Two activists poured the powder over the protective case at the National Archives Museum last month to call attention to climate change, prosecutors said.Two climate activists who dumped red powder over the display case that contains the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives Museum last month were charged on Thursday with destruction of government property, prosecutors said.The activists, Donald Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, and Jackson Green, 27, of Utah, poured the powder over the display case in the rotunda of the building on Feb. 14 as part of a “stunt, which was intended to draw attention to climate change,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement on Friday.During the episode, which officials said was captured on video by supporters of Mr. Green, the two men also poured red powder over themselves and then stood before the Constitution as they called for solutions to climate change.The Constitution was not damaged, according to the National Archives Museum, which said that the powder was found to be a combination of pigment and cornstarch.“Fortunately, the four pages of the Constitution on display were not at risk for damage by this incident,” said Stephanie Hornbeck, a national preservation program officer.The rotunda was closed after the episode, which cost more than $50,000 to clean up, prosecutors 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

The president and his team are seeking ways to help Americans afford to rent and buy homes, as high borrowing costs dampen views of the economy.President Biden and his economic team, concerned that elevated mortgage rates and housing costs are hurting Americans and hindering his re-election bid, are searching for new ways to make housing more available and affordable.Mr. Biden’s forthcoming budget request will call on Congress to pass a raft of initiatives to build more affordable housing and help certain Americans afford to purchase a home. The president is also expected to address housing affordability for both homeowners and renters in his State of the Union address next week, according to people familiar with the speech planning.On Thursday, administration officials announced a handful of relatively modest executive actions, including steps to increase the supply of manufactured homes. White House officials said this week that they would announce “additional actions we are taking to lower housing costs.”The increased focus on housing affordability comes as congressional Republicans assail Mr. Biden over high mortgage rates and housing costs, and as allies of the president warn that those costs are hurting working-class voters he needs to win in November.There is little Mr. Biden can do immediately and directly to affect mortgage rates. Those are heavily influenced by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies, and the White House is careful not to appear to be pressuring the central bank to cut rates. Fed officials have signaled that they expect to begin cutting rates this year.New research from economists at Harvard University and the International Monetary Fund — including Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary — suggests high mortgage rates and other borrowing costs are contributing to Americans’ relatively gloomy mood about the economy, despite low unemployment and healthy growth. By weighing on consumer confidence, those costs could be depressing Mr. Biden’s re-election hopes.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

Look closely at this tiny, idyllic island: Victorian-era fortifications dot the windswept coastline. A concrete anti-tank wall disrupts a quiet beach. Overgrown greenery covers bunkers and tunnels.This is Alderney, where the 2,100 people who call the island home do not lock their cars. Where the streets are quiet and the pubs (nine of them) are lively, and the roads don’t have traffic lights. And where reminders of World War II hide behind most corners.This fiercely independent island in the English Channel, roughly 10 miles from France, is at the center of a debate about how to remember Nazi atrocities and live mindfully among sites where misdeeds occurred — and how to reckon with the fact that Britain never held anyone responsible for running an SS concentration camp on its soil.Alderney residents today enjoy a deep love for the place, a yearning for a peaceful and quiet lifestyle and the added benefit of low taxes.Cristina Baussan for The New York TimesAlderney, a British Crown Dependency and part of the Channel Islands, has an independent president and a 10-member parliament. (King Charles III is its monarch, but Rishi Sunak not its prime minister.) The Channel Islands were the only British territory occupied by the Germans during World War II, and Alderney was the only one evacuated by the British government. Shortly after, as Germany occupied parts of Northwest Europe in June 1940, German troops moved to the island.The Nazis built four camps on Alderney. Helgoland and Borkum were labor camps run by the Nazis’ civil and military engineering arm. The SS, the organization that was largely in charge of the Nazis’ barbaric extermination campaign, took control of two others, Norderney and Sylt, in 1943.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 manufacturer reintroduced Dark Lilac, a limited-edition ink, to great fanfare. The only problem? The color had changed.Lamy, a German pen manufacturer, made a recent splash when it quietly rereleased Dark Lilac, a much-celebrated color of ink. A lush purple with a golden sheen, Dark Lilac, despite its popularity, had been produced only once before — as a limited edition in 2016.Its reappearance a couple of weeks ago was so unexpected that the fountain pen community, which makes up a small but passionate corner of the office supplies market, was agog.There was just one problem: It was not the same color.“There is drama in the fountain pen community,” Aidan Bernal, a 23-year-old fountain pen enthusiast, said at the start of a recent TikTok in which he did his best to explain the saga — one that has involved conflicting company statements, amateur sleuthing and an elusive shade of purple.“An absolutely beautiful ink,” Mr. Bernal said in a telephone interview.Long overshadowed by its ballpoint, gel and felt-tip rivals, the regal fountain pen, which has an internal reservoir for refillable ink, has enjoyed a modest resurgence in recent years. Brian Goulet of Goulet Pens, an online retailer in Richmond, Va., suggested that its revival had dovetailed with a trend of consumers returning to analog goods like vinyl records, mechanical watches and single-blade safety razors.“The fountain pen really plugs into that,” he said.As a teenager, Mr. Bernal was so enchanted by his grandfather’s fountain pens that he hit the internet to find out more about them. There, he said, he found a vast community of fellow hobbyists. He now has an online audience of more than 550,000 subscribers on YouTube.“I’ve been interested in stationery my whole life,” said Mr. Bernal, who works as an engineer in Seattle. “I always had to be the kid in class with the coolest pencils and erasers.”

@aidan_bernal FOUNTAIN PEN DRAMA!!!! 🚨 Lamy has created some controversy with their “re-release” (OR IS IT?) of their Dark Lilac ink. What do you think?????? #fountainpen #fountainpens #calligraphy #satisfying #stationery #lamy #drama #dramatiktok #fyp #viral ♬ Lofi/NightTempo/10 minutes(1463898) – nightbird_bgm 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 rules require facilities to explicitly address threats such as wildfires or flooding, including those linked to climate change.The Biden administration issued new rules on Friday designed to prevent disasters at almost 12,000 chemical plants and other industrial sites nationwide that handle hazardous materials.The regulations for the first time tell facilities to explicitly address disasters, such as storms or floods, that could trigger an accidental release, including threats linked to climate change. For the first time, chemical sites that have had prior accidents will need to undergo an independent audit. And the rules require chemical plants to share more information with neighbors and emergency responders.“We’re putting in place important safeguards to protect some of our most vulnerable populations,” Janet McCabe, Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told reporters ahead of the announcement.Administration officials called the stronger measures a step forward for safety at a time when hazards like floods and wildfires — made more extreme by global warming — pose a threat to industrial sites across the country. In 2017, severe flooding from Hurricane Harvey knocked out power at a peroxide plant outside Houston, causing chemicals to overheat and explode, triggering local evacuations.Some safety advocates said the rules don’t go far enough. They have long called for rules that would make facilities switch to safer technologies and chemicals to prevent disasters in the first place. The new regulations stop shy of such requirements for most facilities.The lack of tougher requirements was particularly disappointing, the advocates said, because President Biden championed similar measures, as senator, to bolster national security.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

Lawyers will sum up their arguments on Friday about whether Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, has a conflict of interest and should be disqualified.A judge in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump is scheduled to hear final arguments on Friday on a motion to disqualify the prosecutor who brought the case, Fani T. Willis, on the ground that a romantic relationship she had with a subordinate created a conflict of interest.The presiding judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, is not likely to rule on the matter on Friday. Rather, the hearing, which is scheduled to start at 1 p.m., will allow lawyers from the two sides to sum up their arguments over a salacious subplot to the election case — one that has already caused significant embarrassment and turmoil for Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. Details of her personal life have been spilled out in the Atlanta courthouse where she had hoped to put Mr. Trump and 14 co-defendants on trial as soon as this summer.The stakes are high: If Ms. Willis is disqualified from the case, her entire office would be, too, and the case would probably be turned over to a district attorney from another jurisdiction. The new prosecutor could choose to continue the case as planned, modify the charges or drop them.Disqualification would reduce the chances that a trial would begin before the November presidential election, in which Mr. Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee.The relationship between Ms. Willis and Nathan Wade, an Atlanta-area lawyer she hired in November 2021 to manage the prosecution team, first came to light in January, in a motion filed by a lawyer for one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants.The presiding judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, is not likely to rule on the matter on Friday.Pool photo by Brynn AndersonWe 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

Elvis personified everything American, what my dad wished to embody: charisma, rebellion and sex appeal.This article is also a weekly newsletter. Sign up for Race/Related here.Graceland was one of my father’s first stops in America. He had always been a fanatic, performing his first Elvis impersonation at a talent show in Port Harcourt, Nigeria — a way for expats working on oil refineries to let loose. My mother is his enabler, sewing the sequins onto his blue satin capes, bedazzling the ivory jumpsuit with the deep V-neck. When he rumbles, “Thank you, thank you very much, especially to my Priscilla,” with a wink flung at my mom, she still beams.Growing up in Karachi, my father and his friends would pile into the cinema, erupting in song and dance whenever Elvis graced the screen. My dad always carried a comb in his pocket to perfect his Presley-esque hairstyle: smooth sides, floppy front. Elvis personified everything American, what my dad wished to embody: charisma, rebellion and sex appeal.My father, Airaj Jilani, immigrated to the U.S. in March 1979 and worked for an oil-and-gas company in Texas in the days when South Asian men were not welcome. To this day, he wears cowboy boots and his Southern drawl is deeply ingrained. His identity, unlike mine, has never been a question mark.His Elvis impersonations began in Pakistan with performances for family, which quickly catapulted him into becoming a local rock star. As a kid, I watched him shake his hips in local talent shows with utter wonder. Women chased him off the stage, grabbing his scarves. He embraced every aspect of newfound celebrity. Since then, he has performed at benefits, at office parties, throughout Venezuela, on a boat in Istanbul and in a Beirut night club, where an Instagram account streamed his performance live.When he moved to the U.S., he rejected his ethnicity. After we were born, we were to follow suit. An American flag hung outside our home; he took it down when it rained to protect it. We were forbidden to speak Urdu, but my mother still taught us on the sly. Bollywood movies were smuggled in and watched secretly. When my little sister wore a hijab to ground her in spirituality, it was incomprehensible to my father. Instead of living in the suburbs as my parents had envisioned, I became a pediatrician and aid worker who returned to the very same places that they had risked their lives to leave behind.When I worked as a doctor aboard refugee-rescue boats off the coast of Libya, I recognized the strangers as shadows of my family. As a child, my father had boarded a ship in India and sailed north to a newly created Pakistan. He and his siblings used to play in the ship’s boiler room, hopping between turbines. It was warm but deafeningly loud, which spared him from hearing women crying above. Women wept on the vessel I worked on, too. The kids on our ship scaled ladders as their laughter ricocheted off the surf, and I imagined my father doing the same so many years ago.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