Elections

On this day dedicated to love, I’m sharing readers’ poignant reflections about California.Mount Baldy in the distance seen from Los Angeles.Nick Ut/Associated PressHappy Valentine’s Day!On this day dedicated to love, I’m sharing some poignant reflections readers have sent me about California and what they love about their part of the state.I was recently struck by California’s seemingly endless bounty when I stumbled upon the banks of Folsom Lake, where local residents were riding bikes and walking dogs in the crisp morning air.As a reporter, I often hear about Folsom Lake, about 25 miles east of Sacramento, in conversations about drought — it’s one of the state’s biggest reservoirs. But I somehow hadn’t realized there was so much beauty and community to be enjoyed along its shores until I ended up there by accident.I can see that sort of delight in many of the emails readers have sent me about why they love living here. You can send your own California love letter to [email protected] are some, lightly edited:“Up here in Humboldt County, I am lucky enough to live surrounded by redwoods, with beaches less than five minutes away. A bike ride to work allows me to catch the morning sunrise over the ocean, view the river as I cross a bridge above it, followed by pedalling a winding road through cow pastures. I have all this natural beauty, yet still live only 12 minutes away by car from a college town where I am fortunate to work with students who give me hope for our future.” — Jennie Brown, Trinidad“As a native of Los Angeles, I remember back in the 1980s when my boyfriend at the time drove me on the back of his motorcycle one winter. We traveled up to Mount Baldy to see the snow, then we rode all the way to Santa Monica Beach to watch the sunset — all in one day. How many people can say that?” — Pamela Fender, Rohnert ParkWe 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

After supporting an old friend through years of incarceration with letters and shipments of books, a reader wants out, put off by the woman’s lies about her situation.My oldest friend — we met in nursery school and are now in our 60s — is about to be paroled from prison after six years. She pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of her sister and to charges of animal cruelty. (Two dogs were also killed.) When she is released, she will have to move in with her parents, not far from me. She still insists that the reports of the police investigation are “all lies.” But it’s clear to me that much of what was reported was true. While she was incarcerated, I wrote her letters and sent her books because I felt sorry for her situation. But now that she is being paroled, I can’t abide the pressure to accept her lies. Any advice on exiting this relationship without causing pain?FRIENDYou have no obligation to remain friends. One of the consequences of bad behavior is that others may choose to cut ties with us — even our oldest friends. Still, I find it hard to believe that the sympathy that fueled your letters and gifts while your friend was in prison has suddenly vanished now that her parole is imminent.If I am wrong, be straight with her. Tell her you no longer want to be in contact. If you are willing to go a bit farther, though, you may be well positioned to offer a great kindness: Explain that her failure to take responsibility for her actions — claiming the reports were “all lies,” for instance — has made your friendship untenable. Encourage her to be honest with herself and others. She may not change her story, but you will have offered a true path to redemption.Now, this approach may cause her pain — as any ending to your long friendship might. But it would seem more consistent with your loyalty during her incarceration than simply disappearing from her life. Still, it’s your decision. I urge you only to think about it.Miguel PorlanMay I Be Excused? I’m Having Trouble Breathing.On Thanksgiving, my family went to dinner at my sister-in-law’s house. As dinner began, our teenage daughter, who has asthma, became short of breath. I suspected it was triggered by house cats, so I took her outside and stayed with her to make sure she was OK. Eventually, I grabbed our plates from the table so we could eat outdoors. When we rejoined the party, our hostess was livid. So, I explained why we had eaten outdoors. She yelled at me and called me rude. I felt so uncomfortable that we left. She has since said she will never invite us to her home again. Was I rude?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

Worries of higher-for-longer interest rates have grown since Tuesday’s Consumer Price Index report.A hotter-than-expected inflation report has stoked new concerns that a “soft landing” may be out of reach.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images“No landing” Markets are still on edge after Tuesday’s hot inflation report, as Wall Street suddenly and sharply discounted the odds of imminent interest rate cuts.It has also poured cold water on the belief among many investors that the U.S. economy will achieve a “soft landing.”Why so gloomy? The Consumer Price Index report, which came in above economists’ forecasts, is a stark reminder of the challenges that the Fed faces in bringing down inflation to its 2 percent target. Even after excluding volatile energy and food prices, inflation is holding roughly steady and is well above where the central bank feels comfortable.Shelter costs, including rents, also rose above expectations, and “supercore inflation,” a measure the Fed closely follows that includes common “services” expenditures — like haircuts and lawyer fees — rose 4.3 year-on-year, its highest level since May, according to Deutsche Bank data.Markets responded with a jolt. Investors dumped Treasury notes on Tuesday amid concerns that the Fed will keep borrowing costs higher for longer. That pushed the Russell 2000 down nearly 4 percent, its worst slide in 20 months. (That said, S&P 500 futures were rebounding slightly on Wednesday morning as dip-buyers returned, and Britain reported milder-than-expected inflation data that pushed up stocks in London.)The futures market on Wednesday is pricing in three to four interest rate cuts this year, down from the six to seven projected at the start of the year and all but silencing rate-cut bulls. Such predictions “made no sense in our view,” Mohit Kumar, an economist at Jefferies, wrote in a research note.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

Since the Democrats captured the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2022, partisan control has hinged on a succession of special elections. As of this week — following the retirement of a Republican legislator on Friday — the Democrats have a one-seat majority. A special election in the Philadelphia suburbs to fill the seat of a […] More

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Ella Dershowitz declares her feelings in a lighthearted holiday puzzle.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Subtle it’s not, but I still got a chuckle out of Ella Dershowitz’s declaration of L.O.V.E. blaring from today’s Valentine’s Day crossword. I also needed some L.O.V.E. myself, since I spent over 15 minutes struggling in the puzzle’s southeast corner and wondering: Is this the day I finally choo-choo-choose to walk away from a Wednesday?I didn’t walk away, of course. I persevered, filled with certain gray-shaded sentiments represented in today’s theme. Valentine’s Day may be tiresome for single and partnered romantics alike, but Ms. Dershowitz’s crossword is a welcome escape from the demands of the day. Solving it also reminded me that there’s nothing I L.O.V.E. quite so much as a good puzzle.Today’s ThemeIn discovering the layers of today’s theme, I felt like a child plucking petals from a flower: I’ve solved it! I’ve solved it not. I’ve solved it! I’ve solved it not.Gray-shaded letters in the grid clearly spell the word LOVE. But we don’t discover the significance of their fill until 35-Across, where a revealer points out that certain “Valentine’s Day exchanges” double as a descriptor for “what this puzzle’s shaded areas are?”The answer is LOVE LETTERS. At first, this entry may seem too obvious — of course we’ve seen how those LETTERS spell LOVE! But as we fill in the grid, we discover that each letter contains a term for loving affection: The shaded L is filled with ROMANCE, the O with FONDNESS, the V with PASSION and the E with RESPECT.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

Police were investigating what caused the crash at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center.One person died and at least five people were injured, including two children, after a vehicle crashed into a hospital emergency room in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, the authorities said.The vehicle crashed into the St. David’s North Austin Medical Center at 5:38 p.m., the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services said on social media, adding that two children and one adult were taken to the Dell Children’s Medical Center.One child had “potentially serious injuries,” and the adult and the other child had injuries that were not life-threatening, the authorities said.A second adult was taken to the St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center with “potentially serious injuries,” county officials said.The driver of the car died, officials said.Police were investigating the crash, Captain Christa Stedman, a spokeswoman for the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, said at a news conference on Tuesday night.Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services initially reported that as many as 10 people had been injured, but officials said later that five people were injured.Dr. Peter DeYoung, chief medical officer of St. David’s North Austin Medical Center, said at the news conference that another eight patients, who were not injured in the crash, were being taken to other hospitals to help the emergency room regroup. The hospital’s emergency room was prepared to handle walk-in patients, but it was closed to ambulances, Dr. DeYoung said.“We are in the process of sending patients away so we can better manage,” he said.None of the hospital’s operations were disrupted outside of the emergency department, Dr. DeYoung said, adding that the facility was in “good condition” despite damage to the building’s doors and exteriors.Video of the aftermath posted to social media showed a chaotic scene.The vehicle appeared to leave a trail of mangled waiting chairs inside the emergency room before it became pinned in a hall near the reception desk. The room appeared mostly cleared, but officials and hospital staff could be seen pulling what appeared to be one adult out of the wreckage.The car’s tires could be heard screeching and its engine was still heaving as it filled the room with white smoke, its red taillights still visible. More

Worldwide colony collapse is the subject of a bright, strange, upbeat thought experiment about insect hives, and our own.Here’s a pitch you haven’t heard before. It’s 2046. Bees in the wild have succumbed to a planet-wide die-off, taking almonds, avocados and honey down with them. But in a subterranean lab, three women doing “palliative care” with four remaining broods make a hopeful if gruesome discovery.Also, it’s a comedy. Call it “Little Hive of Horrors.”That’s the setup, if nowhere near the payoff, of the “The Apiary,” a bright, strange and mesmerizing marvel by Kate Douglas, making her professional playwriting debut with this Off Off Broadway production. Unlike most such debuts, though, “The Apiary,” which opened on Tuesday at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater, is receiving a nearly perfect, first-class staging under the almost too good direction of Kate Whoriskey.I say “almost too good” because a staging so sensitive yet confident could disguise whatever flaws may lurk in the text. So be it: “The Apiary” flies by with so much good humor and novel eye candy (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bee lab represented onstage before) that you barely register the way the playwright’s thematic focus comes dangerously close to obsession.The insects are everywhere. To begin with, Walt Spangler’s set is dominated by four hive boxes and a gigantic gauze-walled chamber filled with little prop bugs I could swear were swarming. The backdrop features a honeycomb pattern. The floor, the railings and even the paper in the beekeepers’ desktop inboxes are bumblebee yellow.It’s not just the visuals, though. The characters talk bees, live bees, dream bees. Gwen (Taylor Schilling) is perhaps the least emotionally attached: As the lab’s manically insecure manager, she’s freaked out by the decline of the broods under her care less because it might mean ecological collapse than because it might mean funding cutbacks from “upstairs.” Countering her, the relentlessly optimistic Pilar (Carmen M. Herlihy) fully stans the critters: They are “very sensitive and so so smart,” she explains merrily to a newcomer. “They dance! They tell jokes.”We don’t hear those jokes, but between scenes we do see Stephanie Crousillat, in yoga wear and a gas mask — the costumes are by Jennifer Moeller — performing Warren Adams’s creepy bee choreography.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