Elections

Vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza while circulating a softer hostages-for-cease-fire resolution of its own may have been the best of the bad options available to the Biden administration. President Biden is right to take this step. Given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza, and the prospect of more to come, he can take other measures as well that might lessen Palestinians’ suffering and loss of life.The issue is not whether Israel was justified in going after Hamas after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7. It was, and it has achieved some of its military aims. It has destroyed significant parts of Hamas’s military infrastructure and reduced its fighting force. Hamas reportedly says it has lost about 6,000 of an estimated 25,000 fighters; Israel says it has killed more than 10,000 of them.But this war, on its current course, is leading to the wholesale killing of Palestinians while Hamas gains in international standing and the remaining Israeli hostages remain captive. The United States, as Israel’s most important ally and source of military aid, should take the lead in changing that.The president was right to demonstrate sympathy and support for Israel in the days after the Oct. 7 attack. Since then, his administration has worked tirelessly with Arab allies, first mediating a brief halt in fighting in November and more recently trying to negotiate a longer cease-fire to release the Israeli hostages and to bring humanitarian relief to Gaza.Hamas launched its attack to provoke an Israeli response, knowing that the people of Gaza would be acutely vulnerable. The terrorist group hides its fighters among civilians, and built its infrastructure, including miles of tunnels, underneath homes, schools and hospitals.Since the war began, the two million people who live in Gaza have been pounded by Israeli bombardment. More than 29,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian figures; more than half of Gaza’s homes and buildings have been destroyed, and the United Nations has raised the alarm that, cut off from supplies of food, Gazans are at risk of starvation. The death toll could soon rise sharply if Israel carries out a ground invasion of Rafah, a city in the far south of Gaza, where the military believes 10,000 Hamas fighters remain, and to which a million civilians have fled.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

In Rock Hill, S.C., last weekend, the biggest boom of a reaction came when Nikki Haley told the crowd, “Everybody’s telling me: Why don’t you just get out?” People basically responded with one long “no,” with one woman’s “Don’t give up!” sounding out above it. Ms. Haley responded instantly, “I will never give up,” and a big cheer went up.Ms. Haley’s events last weekend in South Carolina ahead of Saturday’s Republican primary were populated with people in Gamecocks hats and Clemson sweatshirts; older blond women in quilted vests and jackets; dads in preppy eyeglasses with teen daughters; old men in Army vet baseball caps, which took me a minute to clock that they were most likely wearing because Donald Trump had mocked Ms. Haley’s husband. These crowds tend to have — as a percentage, not in real numbers — more women and more couples, especially in their 60s and 70s, than the crowds at Trump events. And the most reliable response from any crowd Ms. Haley speaks to involves just the prospect of her quitting the race.“The truth is like, people feel it. This is a real emotion,” she said in a brief interview on Friday. “It’s a real fear. It’s a real concern that they have with Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”The Trump era has scrambled voting patterns across any number of groups, but there are a few voter demographics that have, arguably, mattered the most in the battleground states: Black voters of all ages; under-30 voters; white voters in rural areas; and suburban voters who often have college degrees and who are Romney-to-Biden voters, or have opted out of voting for president.That last group — a persuasion group — has mattered in the suburbs of Atlanta and Phoenix and in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The Republican Party has had huge problems retaining or winning back those voters throughout the endless Trump era. And those are the voters who seem to like to hear a candidate say, as Ms. Haley did this week, that “we refuse to use the awesome power of big government to punish those we dislike, and we recognize that America has done more good for more people than any country in the world.”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

Aleksei Navalny spent most of his life working toward a free Russia. Since his death, the Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova has been reflecting on her friend’s legacy. In this audio essay, she calls on the West to take seriously the threat that Vladimir Putin poses to global peace.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.)Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by Mladen Antonov/AFP, via Getty ImagesThis episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, X (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

On This Week’s Episode:Your mother and I have something we want to talk with you about.Anna PariniThe New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling and provides news, depth and serendipity. It is available to Times news subscribers on iOS. If you haven’t already, download the app and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Our new audio app is home to “This American Life,” the award-winning program hosted by Ira Glass. New episodes debut in our app a day earlier than in the regular podcast feed, and we also have an archive of the show. The app includes a “Best of ‘This American Life’” section with some of our favorite bite-size clips, so you can enjoy the show even if you don’t have a lot of time. More

The Odysseus spacecraft was drifting horizontally as it set down, and a landing strut may have hit an obstacle on the surface.One day after its historic landing, the first private spacecraft on the moon is in good condition but has toppled over, the company that built it reported on Friday.The spacecraft, named Odysseus, set down in the moon’s south pole region on Thursday evening, the first U.S. vehicle to land softly on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.“The vehicle is stable near or at our intended landing site,” Steve Altemus, the chief executive of Intuitive Machines said during a NASA news conference on Friday. “We do have communications with the lander.”He added, “That’s phenomenal to begin with.”But the landing did not go perfectly. Because the spacecraft fell over, its antennas are not pointed directly at Earth, limiting the amount of information that can go back and forth.Odysseus has not sent back any photographs since landing, although Mr. Altemus did show one that was taken while the spacecraft was descending to the surface. “You see how shadowed and undulating the terrain is,” he said.Engineers at Intuitive Machines are still trying to extract more information from the spacecraft.Mr. Altemus and Tim Crain, the chief technology officer, also described unforeseen glitches that nearly doomed the mission. The landing was salvaged through serendipity and frantic work, they 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

Evidence showed that the National Rifle Association’s leader lived well on donated money as he fought regulations on firearms.The case brought by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, against the National Rifle Association aimed to show how it used donations from gun owners across the country to pay for luxuries and exotic travel for its executives.Its leader, Wayne LaPierre, was the face of obdurate resistance to regulations on firearms. He argued for untrammeled Second Amendment rights and the self-reliance afforded by firepower. Behind the scenes, however, Mr. LaPierre had a taste for the good life, spending the group’s money on luxuries like Bahamian vacations.But such trips were far from the most lavish or outlandish expenditures. Here are some of the most notable instances of misspending for which he was found liable Friday, according to evidence and testimony.CLOTHES: Between 2004 and 2017, Mr. LaPierre spent nearly $275,000 on suits from a luxury Beverly Hills boutique, Zegna. Mr. LaPierre said he bought them on the recommendation of an N.R.A. contractor who “hated my clothing.” Mr. LaPierre had argued that the suits were just “costumes I wore on TV,” albeit extremely expensive ones.ITALIAN FOOD: Mr. LaPierre testified that he didn’t drink and didn’t smoke, but he certainly knew how to pay a tab: Over 15 days in June 2016, the N.R.A. spent $5,398.18 at Landini Brothers Restaurant, commonly referred to as Landini’s by the defendants, an Italian restaurant in Alexandria, Va. Despite that, Mr. LaPierre seemingly didn’t have a great time. “I hated that cigar bar,” he said.TRAVEL: Mr. LaPierre spent nearly $250,000 on flights around the world, including Italy, Budapest, the Bahamas and the Biggest Little City in World: Reno, Nev. His N.R.A.-paid vacations also sounded lush. He spent $107,620 for a vacation to the Bahamas in 2016, where he stayed on a superyacht that had a personal chef and personal watercraft.GIFTS: Mr. LaPierre was generous, billing the organization for a number of pricey gifts, including a $1,260 handbag and $860 in candlesticks from Bergdorf Goodman. There was also fitness gear, including about $400 in Fitbits for friends and family.INSECT CONTROL: After noticing that his security staff was getting eaten alive, Mr. LaPierre spent $810 on a mosquito control package for his home in 2017. “Security people would be out there all night,” he said. More

The proposal, which calls for indefinite Israeli military control and buffer zones in the territory, rankled Arab nations and was rejected by Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel released on Friday his most detailed proposal yet for a postwar Gaza, pledging to retain indefinite military control over the enclave, while ceding the administration of civilian life to Gazans without links to Hamas.The plan, if realized, would make it almost impossible to establish a Palestinian state including Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, at least in the short term. That would likely accelerate a clash between Israel and a growing number of its foreign partners, including the United States, that are pushing for Palestinian sovereignty after the war ends. The blueprint for Gaza comes after nearly 20 weeks of war in the territory and a death toll approaching 30,000 people, at least half of them women and children, according to Gazan authorities.Mr. Netanyahu’s proposal for postwar Gaza was circulated to cabinet ministers and journalists early on Friday. He has laid out most of the terms of the proposal in previous public statements, but this was the first time they had been collected in a single document. The proposal also calls for the dismantling of UNRWA, the U.N. agency charged with delivering the bulk of the life-sustaining aid to the besieged territory. And it calls for an overhaul of the Gazan education and welfare systems, as well as buffer zones along Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt.The plan was circulated on the same day that American, Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials began negotiations in Paris over the release of hostages and a possible 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 Oklahoma school superintendent, Ryan Walters, said “radical leftists” had created a narrative about the death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict that “hasn’t been true.”In his three years as state superintendent for Oklahoma’s public schools, Ryan Walters, a former high school history teacher, has transformed himself into one of the most strident culture warriors in a state known for sharp-edged conservative politics.Following the death earlier this month of a 16-year-old nonbinary student a day after an altercation in a high school girls’ bathroom, gay and transgender advocates accused Mr. Walters of having fomented an atmosphere of dangerous intolerance within public schools.In his first interview reacting to the death of the student, Nex Benedict, Mr. Walters told The New York Times that the death was a tragedy, but that it did not change his views on how questions of gender should be handled in schools.“There’s not multiple genders. There’s two. That’s how God created us,” Mr. Walters said, saying he did not believe that nonbinary or transgender people exist. He said that Oklahoma schools would not allow students to use preferred names or pronouns that differ from their birth sex.“You always treat individuals with dignity or respect, because they’re made in God’s image,” Mr. Walters said. “But that doesn’t change truth.”Nex BenedictSue Benedict/Sue Benedict, via Associated PressWe 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